A Messy Christmas

Christmas Eve 2014

Luke 2:1-20

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church!  May the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior, be with you on this fine evening.

My wife and I received an unusual package in the mail the other day.  We got out the knife, opened up the box, which was stuffed full of ...Diapers!  It was full of diapers.  

For those of you who don’t know, my wife and I are expecting our first child in April, and so up to this point, we’ve been getting all of the fun baby stuff in the mail.  We have our crib.  There are little onesies and stuffed animals that keep showing up at our door.  It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to be a parent.  

But diapers?  Am I ready for that? The other day, I had this realization that I have never changed a diaper in my life! Whenever a baby needs to be changed, I do what every rational guy does when - I run to the basement.

Of course I tell this to parents and they all just laugh at me. One guy on the council had changed so many diapers in his life that he was showing off how to do it with his eyes closed...literally.  I told this to another friend from church who told me, “You know, the first time I changed a diaper I threw up on my shoes!” Yeah. Real helpful guys! Thanks for the moral support!

I’m quickly learning that there’s a romantic, made for TV, side of being a parent that’s all high-fives and hugs, bike rides and baseball games. But getting that box of diapers woke me up to the day-to-day reality of being a parent.  It was my first glimpse of the messy side of parenthood.

As much as I would like to take the good parts and leave out the bad ones, the truth is, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t be a parent without changing a butt-load of diapers (pun intended). That would be like saying that you want to experience the thrill of skydiving without the fear of falling. It’s a part of the package, and perhaps we shouldn’t want it any other way.

Every year, I get a similar feeling about the story of Jesus’ birth.  We have such a romantic view of Christmas, that we often miss the bigger picture of what it means for the Son of God to be born in a stable.  

Often, the images we see of the nativity show all of the good, and none of the bad. They’ll paint a romantic scene of a still, peaceful night, with two calm and serene looking parents, surrounded by soft, cuddly looking animals, gentle shepherds, and a host of angels.

The birth of Jesus is often described as a “humble” birth, which strikes me as being a gross understatement. I think a more accurate way to describe his birth would be “messy.”

Mary and Joseph are essentially in a barn. And do you know what goes on inside of a barn?  Everything!  It’s messy in there.  It’s a stable for dirty farm animals, not a hospital! There’s no crib for the baby when it’s born.  It’s just a feeding trough for the animals - a manger.  There’s no soft mattress to lie down on, it’s a bed of itchy hay.  And these shepherds that came to be the first witnesses to the birth of the Savior of the World - they are the poorest folks from the very bottom of society.

It’s as if God chose to dive into this world he loved, but couldn’t truly do so without falling into the messiness of life.

This is how the Messiah comes into the world.  Strange isn’t it? But I can’t help but think that there something beautiful going on here - there’s a harmony between the holiness of God and the messy reality of the world.  It’s a message that God is about to do something new - something completely unexpected.  Instead of destroying the world like in the story of Noah and the flood, this time God is going to enter into it - change it from the inside out.

The story of Jesus birth declares that it’s in the messiness of life that we encounter the holiness of God.  It’s absurdly counter-intuitive.  It’s the moment where you get a box of diapers in the mail and realize that this incredible thing that’s happening is going to be intertwined with everything else life has to offer.

It seems that whenever life gets messy, God is in the midst of it. When the world wouldn’t go near the lepers, Jesus was healing them with his touch.  When people walked around the blind beggars, Jesus walked up to them.  Jesus doesn’t even run from the ugliness of the cross.  This God doesn’t avoid the messiness of life - cancer, poverty, war, hunger, death - this God is in the middle of it all.

I’m getting ahead of the story.  Here, in front of us today is the Messiah - a mere baby - lying in a feeding trough for animals.  He’s in a dirty stable, with filthy animals, surrounded by two exhausted parents. And the only people who know about it are the shepherds working the night shift.

Still, I have to believe that this is the most beautiful scene you could imagine. It’s the most precious gift you could receive. And I don’t believe God wanted it any other way.

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church

and Thanks be to God.  Amen.

You Can Be A Dinosaur

Sermon, Luke 1:26-38

You Can be a Dinosaur

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our Father, the Holy Spirit that connects us, and our Lord Jesus Christ, AMEN.

Do you remember when you were little and anything was possible?  When you were in preschool, or elementary school, grownups would come up to you and they would ask you the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The beauty of being a little kid is that when you are that age, you really can do anything.  If you said you wanted to be an astronaut, adults would look at you and enthusiastically say “Ooh, that’s nice dear.”

But if I told my wife today I wanted to be an astronaut, she would say the same thing - except sarcastically - “Oh yeah, that’s nice dear.”  When you are little the whole world is in front of you - nothing is impossible.

When people asked me as a young child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell them that I wanted to be a “Policeman ... and a Donut Maker.”  BOTH.  Because...you know, it’s the perfect combination.

Kids don’t really know any boundaries yet, so when they imagine their future, they think they can be anything.  On Bethany Lutheran’s Facebook page a while back, we shared with you a video from a Christian comedian named “Michael Jr.”  On the video, Michael Jr. is talking about his four year old son, who came up to him one day and said, “Dad, I want to be a doctor.”

Of course, that’s what every parent wants to hear, so Michael Jr. gives a fist pump and says “Yes!  Yes!” And then the son looks up at his dad again and says, “Or a dinosaur.” Or a dinosaur! I love it! He either wants to be a doctor or a dinosaur and the kid doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

You see what I mean don’t you?  To a young child, anything is possible.  Anything!  You can be a donut maker and a policeman.  You can be a doctor.  You can be a DINOSAUR!

But then you start to grow up and begin to discover your limitations.  At some point, we all come up against the harsh realities of our world that tell us what we can’t do.  You’re not smart enough, the world tells you. You’re not charismatic enough.  You’re not strong enough. You’re not educated enough.  You’re not funny enough. You’re not pretty enough. You’re not talented enough. You’re not brave enough.  The older you get, the more walls you discover.  Reality sets in as we learn the boundaries of our world.  

But then we arrive at our gospel story today.  Mary, a virgin, is visited by the angel Gabriel.  And Gabriel says to her, “Mary, you’re going to bear a son.”  Mary was young, but she was old enough to know that wasn’t possible..

So Mary asks the angel, “How can this be?”  And the Angel Gabriel tells her, that God was going to create a baby in her womb, and that she should name this baby Jesus.  Then Gabriel gets to the heart of Mary’s question and says this:

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Nothing will be impossible.  Anything can happen.  With God, the whole world is in front of you - just like when you were a kid.

Believing is the hard part for us adults, because even if we wanted to, I’m not sure we could just turn off the so-called rational parts of our brain.  No matter how hard you try, there is always going to be a part of you that will ask the question “Really?  Was Jesus really born to a virgin?  Did he really walk on water? Did Moses really part the Red Sea?”

You could run yourself ragged asking these questions.  We are pretty much all aware of the boundaries of science.  Water doesn’t turn into wine.  Virgins don’t get pregnant.  People can’t walk on water.

And yet, this story asks us to reorient our entire frame of mind.  The angel Gabriel says to Mary “Nothing will be impossible with God.”  Nothing!  

I can’t stress how important that is, because if it’s true that all things are possible through God - if it’s true that Jesus could have been born to a virgin and Moses could have parted the Red Sea, and the dead could stand up and walk - if it’s true that these things are possible with God, then who knows what other possibilities are out there that we haven’t dared to imagine since we were kids!

In a world where all things are possible through God, then maybe you can be a dinosaur!  Maybe the Cubs have a chance at winning the World Series (next year). 

We could get more serious about it too. Maybe with God, there’s a chance for peace in the Middle East. Maybe with God, there is a chance you to reconcile with your loved ones. Maybe with God, the hopeless alcoholic has a chance of getting sober. Maybe with God, those Pakistani school children will be reunited one day with their parents. Maybe...there is no limit to God’s possibilities.

There’s one more possibility I want to mention. Maybe those barriers that tell you aren’t good enough have never been true with God. Maybe you already are enough to God. Maybe it’s possible that you don’t have to become something else. (That’s grace) Maybe God’s love for you is already so great that he would send his son into the world - born of a virgin in the messiness of a barn.  

I’m not asking that you uncritically believe everything you’re told - even if it comes from the Bible or the pastor - or that you should abandon all reason and thought.  God gave us brains for a reason people!  Please use them.

What I am asking you to do this Christmas season, is to allow yourself to believe in the God in whom all things are possible.   It doesn’t mean that everything you want to happen will, and it doesn’t mean that everything that should happen does.  

But it does mean that you can hope for all good things in this God.  It does mean you can pray for all good things to God and to ask for all good things from him. In your life with God, it means that all things are possible  - all those things that you were too afraid to believe could be possible ... are.

One more thing:  I want you to find a scrap of paper - maybe tear off the bottom of the Tall insert, or the back of a receipt, and write the words “You can be a dinosaur” - not because that’s something that literally could happen, but as a reminder that with God, we can hope and pray for all good things.

Then fold it up and put in your pocket or your wallet or your purse and the next time you take it out, remember that with God, nothing will be impossible.

Thanks be to God,

Amen

Wednesday Words December 17th, 2014

Christ is the Key to Unlocking Our Hearts

On the fourth Sunday in Advent the church turns to Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, as an example of humility and obedience.

Mary is obviously stunned by the message of the angel that she has been the favored and chosen one who will bear a son and will call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

Mary is most likely young and if discovered to be pregnant out of wedlock could be subjected to an honor killing, like the ones that we have heard about in the news recently. In fact she questions the angel, “How can this be, because I have no husband?”

She is assured that the Holy Spirit will provide the answer and Joseph will step in and take Mary under his wing to protect her and give her aid and comfort.

Our focus on Mary always leads us to Mary’s song, the Magnificat. In this song Mary sings God’s praises and describes herself as a lowly servant. She describes God as turning the tables on the world and in this miracle of the Word made flesh brings all people, especially the hungry and poor what they need, while those who see themselves self-sufficient find themselves empty.

This week we are called to follow Mary’s example of humility and obedience, we are called upon to give thanks and to serve the one who is born in a manger in Bethlehem and who goes to a cross in Jerusalem.

Pr. Len

Wednesday Words, December 10th 2014

Pastor Len Hoffmann

Thought for the Day

“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed.” Psalm 126:3

This Sunday at Bethany:

In the past this Third Sunday in Advent was titled “Gaudate Sunday” or “Rejoice Sunday.”  It is the theme of the lessons for this week. Yet, we know that there are many who find it difficult to rejoice this time of year because of injustices and loss.

In the past weeks we have seen many U.S, citizens lifting up their voices in protest over the uneven application of the law, particularly as they are enforced by some members of law enforcement in some of our communities in the U.S. Some of those who are using this protest as an opportunity for violence and destruction are to be renounced and prosecuted. Yet, those who are legally expressing their first amendment rights speak out on behalf of those who feel that justice in this country has failed them and are seeking a long term solution to this age old problem of inequality.

Also, this week, we have as a nation confessed that it was outof fear we that took unjust and unwarranted measures as we tortured those suspected of having information that may have been useful to us in fighting terrorism. We violated our values, but we were willing to let the world know that justice also requires mercy.

Obviously, these are not stories about which we rejoice, just as there is little rejoicing among those who have lost loved ones, those who have lost employment, those who have experienced broken relationships, and those who have experienced a variety of other kinds of losses.

In the midst of all of this bad news there is the good news of Jesus advent among us. The Lord has done great things for us and so, we are glad indeed.

One of my favorite quotes has been attributed to a number of people, but the one I have is attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, and it goes like this,"Joy is not the absence of suffering, but the presence of God." Yes, there is joy in the midst of suffering and loss because the Lord has done great things for us. We take comfort in the peace, love and joy that comes to us in Jesus now and each day, even in the midst of sorrow and loss. So, we rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.

Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

Pr. Len