December 25 Christmas Day

Lesson: Isaiah 9.2-7

Sermon Title: Body Chains, Leg Irons and Handcuffs

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. A man is climbing a mountain, at the top of which he hopes to find God.

By ascending the heights, the seeker expects to leave all the cares and miseries of life behind in the valley.

But while he climbs, God is coming down the mountain into the toil and grief.

In the mists of the mountain God and the man pass one another.

When the man reaches the mountaintop, he will find nothing.

God is not there.

What then will he do?

He knows the climbing was a mistake, but in agony of that recognition, will he fall down and despair?

Or will he turn to retrace his path through the mists and into the valley to where God has gone seeking him?

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MAIN BODY:

  1. Christmas is not about us seeking God, but about God seeking us.

    1. The Christmas story is not one that we would anticipate meets our expectations.

    2. Pastor Jim Schwartz of Christ, Lutheran in Sedona, Arizona.

      1. He tells the story of the 2004 live nativity scene in their service Christmas Eve--mother, child, the whole thing.

      2. Well, the child had a bowel movement--a serious one. Soiled the clothes of the child, as well as those of the mother.

      3. And the odor soon wafted through the entire sanctuary--while Madonna and Child-with-Poopy-Pants sat stoically throughout.

      4. Realizing that the congregation was aware of what was going on, Pastor Schwartz reminded the people:

"Now we have a little idea of what Incarnational theology is all about." It's not clean, it's not pretty, it's not fragrant, and there's no halos around the holy family. There's an odor not an aura, and God becoming a human was a messy, smelly business!"

  1. But it is business with a purpose.

    1. Perhaps in no other way is the business exemplified that in the story of the Tablecloth.

    2. This is a true story by Pastor Rob Reid (1).

The brand new pastor and his wife were newly assigned to their first ministry, which was to reopen a church in urban Brooklyn. Arriving in early October, and excited about their opportunities. When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve.

They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc. and on Dec. 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished. On Dec 19 a terrible tempest, a driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days.

On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 6 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home.

On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crochet table cloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church.

By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus was 45 minutes later.

She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area.

Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?"

The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria.

The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. She was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again.

The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home, that was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.

What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving.

The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike?

He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a concentration camp. He never saw his wife or his home again for all the 35 years in between.

The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

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  1. These good people known the meaning of the messiness of life and the chains that bind the human heart and mind.

Mary Wore Three Links of Chain (Traditional Spiritual)

Mary wore three links of chain,
 Mary wore three links of chain,
 Mary wore three links of chain,
 Every link bearing Jesus' name,
 All my sins been taken away, taken away. Ah!

    1. Body Chains

      1. Burdens that are carried

      2. The couple carried the burden of not knowing that had happened to the other.

    2. Leg Irons

In one Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Calvin is talking to Susie (remember, his arch-enemy) about a test they had just taken. Calvin asked her: "What grade did you get?"

Susie says, "I got an A."

Calvin replies, "Really? Boy, I'd hate to be you. I got a C."

Curious, Susie asks, "Why on earth would you rather get a C than an A?!"

To which Calvin smugly replies "I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep everyone's expectations."

      1. They did not reduce their expectations, but their expectations had an impact on them.

      2. Their unfilled expectations restricted movement of mind and body

      3. They remembered, but their remembering did not, could not put the pieces of life back together again.

    1. Handcuffs

      1. Constraints that hamper the ability to develop life.

        1. They did not remarry.

        2. They moved on with life, but it was not the same.

      2. They knew well the constraints of life.

      3. What would you do if you could not use your hands?

    2. They needed help.

    3. Lots of people need help.

According to a report from the Associated Press, June 2, 2005: They were being smuggled into the United States.

That was the plan. All told 88 South Americans, 43 Peruvians and 45 Ecuadoreans.

But when their vessel began to take on water, their smugglers abandoned them and they were adrift on the ocean for three days.

They noticed the long lines of a fishing boat. So one of the women had an idea. Why not put a message in a bottle and tie it to one of the lines? They did, and it wasn't long before the crew of the Rey de Reyes, seeing the bottle, opened it and found a piece of paper on which were scrawled the words, "Help, please, help us."

Authorities were notified and the migrants were towed to safety.

  1. Don't you suppose that if strangers heed the cry of people in need, that God, hearing us plead, "Help, please, help me" might just come to our rescue?

  1. Isn't this the help that Isaiah prophesied would be coming?

  1. Isn't that's what happened there at Bethlehem?

  1. The pastor in the story of the quilt exemplified the meaning of Christmas with "Christmas Spoken Here."

    1. In the book Christmas Spoken Here (Broadman Press), John Killinger wrote:

"One day I was staring through the window of a beautiful little Christmas shop. It was packed with Christmas items, even though Christmas was still six months away. There were exquisite crèche from Italy, Germany, and Norway. There were fuzzy-faced elves and jolly old Santa Clauses, sleighs and reindeer of every size and description, bells and trees, and music boxes. There were nutcrackers and candles and electric lights, angels and wise men and little drummer boys, stars and snowmen and gingerbread cutouts. The little shop was fairly bursting with Christmas, and a loudspeaker broadcast a medley of Yuletide tunes. It was infectious, even in the summertime. And down in the corner of the front door, where no one could miss it, was the neatest touch of all. It was a small sign that said, 'Christmas Spoken Here.'

    1. "'Christmas Spoken Here.' is there a better slogan for the church, at this season or any time of year, than that one.

      1. What could say better why we are here?

      2. God has entered human history to change its course forever.

      3. He has come as a Word, as something said, articulated, put in a message:

        1. 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us' (John 1:14).

        2. We remember the event each year in song and pageant and decoration. 'Christmas spoken here.'

      4. It has to be spoken here, for it is the basis of all we do.

    2. "Christmas Spoken Here."

      1. It is an appropriate motto for us.

      2. The church ought always to speak Christmas.

      3. We ought always to be reminded of the Word God has spoken: the intelligible, important, and loving Word of his concern for us.

      4. And Christmas is the best time of all the year for remembering it.

      5. 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.'

        1. That is Christmas, and Christmas is spoken here.

        2. It will always be spoken here.

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CONCLUSION

  1. The story of the Table Cloth well illustrates the work of the Messiah.

2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness--
on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
4 For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.

    1. Gideon routed the Midianites with a small force of three hundred men.

      1. Jesus has broken the body chains.

      2. Jesus has removed the leg irons.

      3. Jesus has unlocked the handcuffs.

    2. Jesus has set us free.

  1. This is the message of Christmas.

    1. Rejoice in it!

    2. Revel in it!

    3. Experience the results of it.

Amen!

1. It was sent in to a web site the name of which I have forgotten so a thank you to Janice A. Crowe for sending it in.

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