Greetings in the name of our Lord who will come again! Happy official winter. It has felt like winter here for a long time now, but I am glad today is the shortest day of the year so they will start getting longer again. I am battling against a sinus infection/head cold. I am not really sure what it is but I just have a constant head ache and pressure in my head. I have been taking sinus medicine and that helps with the head ache. I am still full of grossness and woke up this morning coughing something fierce. I don't know if all the time I have been spending out in the cold is helping, but I get so sick of being in the house. Yesterday I scooped all of my own driveway and sidewalks and then all of the church's too. We only got a thick dusting, so it wasn't hard to move. Then I went hunting last night, but the deer could hear me walking through the snow from a mile away so I didn't get any. This morning the guy I hunt with and I went and just drove around. We saw so many deer but it's not rifle season. Even if it had been rifle season they were all out of range or on property that we do not have permission, so shooting one with the bow was certainly out of the question. We did push a creek bottom with rifles for coyotes, but didn't scare up anything. The only thing this sickness is really affecting though is my motivation. I have three sermons in the next week and I only have one and a half done. I plan to finish the second one yet tonight and hopefully the third one tomorrow. I have had plenty of time, but just cannot stay focused. I am sure they will all get done and the one that I wanted to be really good is done. I think it is pretty good, but need to go over it again before I am actually accepting it as done.
Pastor and I did the preaching schedule for January through July and I preach 18 times if I counted right. I preach every Wednesday for Lent and then my last three weeks here I preach all in a row. I told pastor that way everyone is sick of me and ready to boot me out the door. It is scary to think that the end of vicarage is already written down on my calendar. There is a small part of me that is ready to be back at the seminary with my classmates again, but the much larger other portion is going to be very upset when vicarage is over.
This week is going to be extremely busy with Christmas, but I will try to post both my Christmas Eve and Christmas day sermons before the New Year. If I don't post on here before Wednesday, Merry Christmas to each and every one of you. God is far too good to us. Praise be to Him for all He does for us and how much He dearly loves us! Here is my sermon from this last Wednesday evening. It is based on the hymn "Go Tell it on the Mountain".
“Go tell it on the mountain” is a beautiful Christmas hymn. It’s upbeat and cheery, it is easy to remember the refrain that is sung three times, and it always get me excited to hear the good news that “the humble Christ was born, and brought us God’s salvation that blessed Christmas morn.” The song’s verses are based on part of the Christmas story directly told in Luke’s Gospel. In Luke 2 we hear the full story: “And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” This account told by Luke is the exact story in a little fuller detail of the story we hear in “Go tell it on the mountain.” The shepherds see a great light, are filled with fear, but then hear the good news that the savior is born.
Then of course the refrain of the song points us to what the shepherds did after they heard the great news. Luke tells us they went down and found the baby, placed in a manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths, and knew he was the savior, who is Christ the Lord. Then in verse 20, we see that “the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” They heard the good news, saw for themselves that it was true, and went praising and glorifying God.
This last Sunday afternoon we heard the children of the congregation tell us the Good News, Great Joy! Through singing songs, sharing their lines from the story, and the little kids acting out parts of the story with their action poems, the children praised and glorified God by telling the Good News that the Savior is born. They like the shepherds told the good news to share the great joy.
However, the part most people don’t think about is how the rest of the people responded to the shepherd’s story. These men who spend weeks at a time on in the field with their sheep, and probably smelt as bad as the sheep they watched over, where not the highest class in society. These men dedicated their lives to protecting these animals that were too stupid to fend for themselves but were not highly honored among the rest of the people in town. Now imagine, these stinky, dirty men who have not only been in the fields with their sheep for who knows how long but have also traveled to Bethlehem and back, come walking into town talking about seeing a great light from the heavens, hearing a message from an angel, and finding a baby who was born in a barn and placed in a manger who is the savior, Christ the Lord! Maybe some of the people believed them, but some of the people probably looked at them wondering what new plant they had been eating out in the fields that gave them these visions. This would have been almost as believable as the hillbilly who comes in from hunting saying he spotted bigfoot or saw a UFO fly across the sky. Rumors probably spread like wild fire. People saying things like, “Those dirty, stinky sheep herders spend too much time out in the field with their beasts if they think they actually saw a light from heaven and heard angel,” or “Yeah an angel has such an important message to tell that the savior is born, I bet it would go to the shepherds before anyone else.” Luke even tells us that “all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.” These shepherds risked being the laughing stock of the town by waltzing in and telling such an extravagant story, and yet they didn’t care. They went glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard. They were so overjoyed they risked looking like fools to share the good news and great joy that they had been told. They didn’t care about what anyone else was going to think about them, they just wanted to share the good news.
Now maybe the children on Sunday were not quite as overjoyed as the shepherds, being more or less involuntarily here instead of inspired to go out on their own, but nonetheless, they told the same good news and great joy. How often when we hear the Christmas story of our savior being born are we so overjoyed that we go and share the message with others? Or are we not quite as fearless as the shepherds to not care what others will think about us? Our self conscious tells us that if we told that person the “good news” of Jesus, they will think we are one of those crazy Christians who are overzealous! They will think I am a religious nut if I just out of the blue tell them that Christmas is about the birth of Christ! What happens if they ask me a question I can’t answer? I don’t want to look like I don’t know my own faith. Or what if they had a bad experience in the church once and me telling them about Jesus brings us those bad memories, I don’t want to hurt this person. I’m sure there are a million other reasons that go through our heads when we try to work up the courage to tell someone else the “good news” of Christmas, but we do let what others might think about us affect how we share the good news. We sing this song, about the shepherds climbing mountains and hills to share the good news, and yet we are guilty of failing to even tell our neighbor or co-worker standing right next to us the same message.
Christ is born, and this is certainly good news! It is good news because it means that even at times when we fail to go out into the world telling everyone the Gospel message, the humble Christ who was born still brings us God’s salvation through that Christmas morn! Christ was born in a humble barn, with his visitors being stinky dirty shepherds. He lived a humble life of eating with tax collectors and prostitutes. Then He would die a humiliating death on the cross to forgive His people of all of their sins. Even their sins of omission, of not telling others the good news they have through Him. These sins of letting our self conscious talk us out of proclaiming the beautiful Gospel message are forgiven just as is every other sin because of our savior. Our Savior, who was born, died, and rose again is our savior from all of our sins. His salvation is for all people, that’s the Good News and the Great Joy the angel shared with the shepherds that first Christmas and the children shared with us this last Sunday. We truly are forgiven of all sins, and this forgiveness gives us a clean start each day to try to live a more sanctified life. It gives us a fresh start each day to go out like the shepherds and tell the good news of the great joy we know is true!
God sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, and He uses unlikely people to proclaim that message. The stinky shepherds tending to their flock were not the most likely candidates to be the first ones to hear the good news from the angel, but they were the ones God sent His angel to. God worked through these unlikely men to share the message that His son was born, and He works through us today. He works through Pastor and I, certainly not saints or perfect men by any means, and yet through the power of His Spirit we can proclaim the Gospel message to you every week from this very pulpit. He works through each and every one of you giving you the faith to come here and hear His Word and His good news. Then He works through you giving you the opportunities and strength to share that good news with others. You may feel as unworthy or as unlikely a candidate to carry this message out into the world as those shepherds, but the Good News is that God still works through you. You have been enlightened through the faith to believe this Good News and Great Joy, and through the Spirit you have been empowered to share that good news with others. However, if you drop the ball and realize you missed an opportunity, do not fear or fret, know that you are forgiven in Christ and will have more opportunities for God to work through you just as He did through the shepherds. This is the fresh start we have each day in forgiveness to try harder each day to not worry about what others will think, to not drop the ball, but confidently and joyfully share the good news that the savior we have is born and he is for all people.
So when you hear this beautiful Christmas song, be reminded that of the good news that your Savior is born! Then be reminded that God has chosen you to work through to GO and TELL this Good News and Great Joy that Our Savior, Christ the Lord is Born. He has come and won your salvation forgiving you of all your sins, and He will come again to once and for all announce you as blameless and guiltless of all sins. This is the Great Joy of the Good News that “the humble Christ was born, and brought us God’s salvation that blessed Christmas morn.”
In the name of our Savior who is born, Christ the Lord, Jesus. Amen.
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