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The More Things Change
A sermon by Dr. Jesse
Fletcher
Interim Preacher, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
The First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2007
When
I started with you in September, the advent series of December that would wind
up my stay with you seemed so far in the distance, and it's passed so fast. And
as we lit the first candle today, I realized that I would have the privileges of
seeing all four of them lit, but not the white one. You'll light that one on
Christmas Eve, the Monday night that I hope to get home. And I will have
concluded a very, very special time for me and I want to thank you for it.
Advent is, with its focus on the nativity and leading up to the nativity,
arguably the holiest celebration on the calendar. There are those who would say,
“Well, would not passion week and Easter be even more so?” And they might, if it
weren't for the emotional content of Christmas. It has become, for most of us, a
time where we gather, literally, from all over the world.
There
have been issues about traveling on the day I'm going to be going home, on
Christmas Eve, because people are moving about. In a USA Today weekend headline,
it says "Millions are changing states." Well, we know that and most of them
during the time I'm trying to get here. We have people moving back and forth.
It is
dramatic. And in many cases, it's trying to get home. It's trying to get back to
where they came from. And in the process, they get involved in all of the family
systems that still operate in their lives. They just forgot that they were still
operative. They have gone off and made a life somewhere else. When they come
home, they realize who they are and how they got there. And it can have both
positive and negative kinds of emotions. But it's always positive enough to draw
us back.
I
guess this family focus is one reason the air waves are so full of "It's a
Wonderful Life." Remember that movie, with Jimmy Stewart? You kids don't know
who we're talking about. But Jimmy Stewart was "it" back in my days. Even though
they had a thing about Clarence the angel, which stretched it a bit, the main
thing it was about was family and family coming home.
Well,
one reason that Advent has such power and it's so family focused is it was about
a little family. Joseph and the pregnant Mary and before it was over, the baby
Jesus. And they were traveling. But they were the exception.
Back
in those days, people didn't have to go very far from home. They didn't have to
travel the airways and the bus routes and the interstates like we do now to get
back together. They were still pretty close to where they started.
But
there was a big taxation event going on, energized by Rome to find out where all
of its minions were and to make sure they paid their share of the Roman
expenses. And Joseph had been trapped by this. He had been born in Bethlehem and
he was living in Nazareth. And so he had to make that arduous journey down to
Bethlehem.
He
could be classed as what Jesus would later be called “the least of these.” I'm
sure it was a tough trip for anybody.
Now,
that trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem could be easily encapsulated in the State
of Virginia. It's not that far. In fact, you wouldn't have to get in the western
part of Virginia. You could do it in the Piedmont and Tidewater areas. But in
that journey, there were no highways, there were no automobiles, there were no
buses, there were no trains. There was just your two feet and maybe, if you were
lucky, an animal. But if you're nine months pregnant, I doubt that anything
really made it comfortable.
And
this little family made their way to Bethlehem.
That
they were the least would probably be best told in terms of their circumstances.
They ended up birthing that child in a manger, the only shelter available,
behind an inn.
I'm
not reading the passages of scripture you find in the second chapter of Matthew,
and in the second chapter of Luke, because between them they tell two different
stories of the Christmas event. Matthew with more of a focus on the Jewish
fulfillment of scripture, spends a lot of time talking about the intrigue of
Herod, the star and the arrival of the wise men, and how He might finesse this
arrival of one who could perhaps challenge His kingship.
Luke,
more evidently focusing on Mary and her close people as her source talks more
about the close-in feelings; more about the shepherds who came and more about
the heavenly hosts that lit up the sky with both their sound and their presence
that holy night.
As
Christians, we take these two passages and bring them together. But it is the
Advent story, it's where we begin. It's why it's so powerful in our minds. It's
all caught up in our own experience as well as our hopes and our dreams in
Christ.
I
doubt that it's easy for you to identify with that feat. First of all, it was
off in a far corner even of the Roman Empire. There were none of the
accoutrements that we were used to. The food, no matter how impoverished we were
the rest of the time, we manage to get food around us for Christmas.
Conversation, I imagine they had a lot of conversation, because none of them
were on their cell phones, and that probably relieved that little draw quite a
bit. They didn't have any of the things preoccupying them. They weren't fighting
over the kinds of news issues that we deal with all the time, whether we're
dealing with the economy or with Iraq or with the election or with some kind of
new technology or with the decline of our resources or with our global warming
problems or whatever might overwhelm us. I doubt that they were dealing with
that. They were just dealing with what was at hand.
And
yet life was just as challenging then as it is now.
It
would be hard to tell which is more challenging, because the more things change,
the more they seem to stay the same. For instance, when you look at just the
drama that unfolds there, you've got first of all this little family all but
displaced by this order from Rome. I doubt that Rome even gave a thought to
Joseph's problems when they came up with that order. I doubt that even it
occurred to them that a lot of people would have to go to such arduous efforts
to fulfill that decree. There they were, like a lot of people today, caught up
in things that they don't seem to have much control over, but seem to control
their lives.
And
soon you have Herod plotting to destroy not only the child if he could find Him,
but when he couldn't find Him, all the children that might be that age. We
think, “Good night, what horror, what terror,” until we match our own newspapers
against it and it all but fades to the second page with the kind of things going
on now.
Recently I read of some Marines in Baghdad who decided that the Christmas spirit
was upon them and they would give out some toys to children in a neighborhood.
Some
of the toys they had bought, some of them had been received, people like
ourselves sending them. And so they drove their truck into a neighborhood. They
were excited, they were smiling, they were getting to do something that they
wanted to do. And the children began to gather around and the excitement began
to build.
A
suicide bomber came right into their midst and soon there were dead children and
dead Marines, broken and scattered toys.
And
our world had kind of declared itself again.
The
more things change, the more they stay the same.
And
so when we give a full consideration of Advent, we have to ask ourselves what
difference did the manger make?
Well,
look at all these Christians scattered all over the world. Look at the numbers
of us, look at the churches, look at the press. It's never been about that. It
wasn't about gathering a great host of people who will call themselves followers
of the one born that night. It was about making a difference.
Has
it made a difference?
There
are those who say it hasn't. And they point to the kind of stories I just told.
The people still take advantage of each other, they still exploit one another.
There are still the rich and there are still the poor. There are still the
hungry and the sick and the imprisoned and hospitalized, and those that have
fallen through those cracks it maybe hasn't made a difference.
And
then there are those who point out yes, it has. It has in individual lives.
I
imagine most of you here today are here because at some point in time you felt
connected to God through Jesus Christ. Then you made some kind of a statement,
maybe publicly, including a baptism, maybe a response of walking down the aisle
through an invitation, like our church gives. Maybe through the quietness in
your heart, you couldn't remember when it wasn't there with you.
Now,
has it made a difference in your life?
Well,
it got you here this morning. But that's not the kind of difference that we're
talking about, is it? Has it made a difference in the way you think about
yourself? The choices you make? The way you treat others? And the hopes you
have? That's the kind of difference He was trying to make.
There
are people in our midst, right here this morning, who could stand up and
galvanize every one of us as well as our listening audience with stories of the
difference it has made.
Maybe
some of you saw the movie "Amazing Grace" which was shown recently.
The
story of John Newton and William Wilberforce. These were Englishmen in the 19th
century. Newton started out as a slave trader. He was captured and pressed into
the service and then became a part of the service, became quite a seaman, quite
involved in taking Africans from their native country and bringing them to other
parts of the world, but also to this country, for slavery.
And
that had been Newton's life until he became challenged by the Christian message,
and it made a difference. And he went home, tried to become a clergyman, felt an
even deeper experience and began to find a personal goal to see if he couldn't
rid the world of slavery. You may know him best as the writer of the hymn
“Amazing Grace.”
“I
once was lost but now I'm found.”
Amazing Grace.
He
felt keenly that it had made a difference.
One
of the people he influenced was a young parliamentarian named William
Wilberforce. He was trying to enact laws that would stop what Newton had been a
part of and was now convinced should cease. And the year that Newton died,
Wilberforce was able to get the Slave Trading Act passed in England, which
stopped their participation in this horrific trade. And then in 1833 when
Wilberforce was dying, parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, which was
directly attributed to him and which he would have attributed to Newton and to
the "amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a Wretch like me."
Well,
you may not have that kind of story. But the manger has made a difference in
your life. But it may not be that it has not or that it has. The most important
part may be that it can.
The
Pope came out with an Encyclical this week, talking about hope. And in it he
told some amazing soirees, one about atheism, that he understands where it's
coming from, given the problems of evil and suffering in the world. That was
kind of an amazing concession for someone leading perhaps one of the larger
congregations in the world. Then he talked about that God's real gift, however,
is hope. And the real problem with atheism is its lack of hope.
What
God really gave us in Christ is the power to change, to make a difference by
becoming one of us, by living in our midst, by showing us God's heart, and by
saying “this is the way,” walking in it, and then by making it possible. And in
the Resurrection, the ultimate hope.
One
of the great stories that I've heard in recent years is the story behind the
“Messiah.” And perhaps you've heard this. George Frederich Handel lived in the
early 18th century. In 1741, after some success as a composer, taking another
man's libretto, wrote the “Messiah.” In his early renditions of it, people were
kind of lukewarm. And even the guy that wrote the libretto said, “You need to
work on this a little bit.” So he worked on it. And gradually it became
probably the most popular, inspiring pieces of religious music in the world. And
as people would hear it, they would begin to sense the hope that was involved in
the manger scene.
At
first it was more of an Easter piece. It had three parts, the nativity, the
passion, the Resurrection and then the Hallelujah Chorus followed that. It moved
from just Easter to Easter and Christmas. Increasingly, more of a Christmas or
Advent piece because the nativity is so powerful.
The
hope building into that manger scene is so dramatic, when he comes out to say
the “Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,” you begin to feel it.
“The
kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord!”
And
you want to confess it.
“King
of kings.
Lord of Lords.
And He shall reign forever.
He shall reign forever and ever.
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!”
There
is a story that Handel's servant called for him one day and he got no answer. He
became alarmed, because he had been ill; went to his room and heard him crying.
He opened the door and went in. “Master, what distresses you so?”
And
with tears flooding down his face, Handel held up the wrinkled score that he had
written of the Hallelujah Chorus. And he said “I've seen the face of God. I've
seen the face of God.” And many people listening to it have felt the same thing.
When
we first saw the face of God was in the nativity scene. It was in that place
where we realized God was with us, Emmanuel. And because of it, we have hope.
And our hope is that as we light each of those candles, that hope will grow in
our own heart, will flicker brighter and brighter.
I
hope as you leave this place it will be operative in your heart, in choices you
make, in the way you react, and what you seek. And most of all, for what you
hope.
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