We had a wonderful Christmas. I do hope that yours was a joyous and fulfilling as ours. We were deeply touched and appreciative of the gift you all gave us on Christmas Eve. It certainly added to our joy. We had a good time in Colorado visiting with family and skiing. Even though the lift lines were long (39,000) people skiing at Breckenridge that day) we all had a great day and remained remarkably patient and full of Christmas joy.
New Years night when we returned home, the outside lights were cheerily burning and we still felt the afterglow of the Holidays. However, the next day, all vestiges of Christmas decorations were removed. Manger scenes were put away. Angels were relegated to boxes. Lights were wrapped back up and even the Santas took up their winter hibernation in the closet underneath our steps.
It occurred to me that for many, putting away the trappings and decorations of Christmas might be a metaphor for the disappearance of Christmastime's joy. A new month and a new year has begun and with it comes all the bills and pressures which arose because of all the seasons excesses. Bills to pay, Diets to re-establish, routines to return to and the prospects of several more weeks of football playoffs.
Where did the joy, the wonder, the awe and the mystery go? Why does it disappear simply because all the decorations and gifts are put away and the carols are no longer sung?
Leander Keck writes in the book The Church Confident, that, " the problem may be rooted in one or more of these facts:
He goes on to say that joyless Christianity is as clear a sign that something is amiss as is a dirty church.
God wants Christians to be people of great joy because to us is born (Jesus is still born to us) a savior. The mere matter of a few days does not change that. Perhaps the older tradition of celebration and gift giving during the 12 days of Christmas (December 25 - January 6 or Epiphany) is a better model that encourages a prolonged sense of joy, even into the new year.
C.S. Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy, "Joy or happiness is never in our power and pleasure is. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted joy would ever, if it were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasure in the world."
But you see, don't you that we as a people have tried to substitute pleasure for true spiritual joy.
Consider then the reaction of two people who had not celebrated Christ's birth at the time it occurred. They were not witnesses to it until some eight days afterward when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple for dedication and circumcision as prescribed by law.
First there was Simeon. He was a old man who was devout and righteous. That is to say he knew the Scriptures and was looking forward to the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the coming of God's annointed one or the Christ.
Luke tells us he was full of the Holy Spirit and yet in his older years he had nothing for which to live except the fulfillment of these prophecies. He was pretty much just biding his time and waiting to die. All he had in life was to look forward to Israel's consolation.
But one day, led by the Spirit, he went to the temple the same day as Jesus was being presented and when he saw the baby, he needed no explanation or announcement, he knew that this was the Lord's salvation. Taking the baby in his arms he praised God. His drab existence was transformed into a spontaneous joyful expression of adoration and thanksgiving.
Also there that day was the 84 year old prophetess Anna, she had lived as a widow for nearly 65 years of her adult life. She had little in her life as well except daily trips to the temple for prayer and fasting. I don't know if you have ever been to Jerusalem or seen pictures of the wailing wall where devout Jews still today go to pray and fast. It is no mistake that it carries the name wailing wall because the prayers and longings of the people who go there to worship are so deep and heartfelt that sorrowful wailing and tears stand out as people lean against the wall, pound it with their fists and implore God to act.
Anna would have been such a worshiper. The outside observer might have described her as joyless. But when she saw Jesus she was transformed as well and she gave thanks to god because she saw that this child was God's answer to all those who sorrowfully prayed for God's redemption and deliverance.
I couldn't help but notice the transformation from somber introspection and fasting prayer to spontaneous joyful praise.
When they looked toward Jesus, they got a real eyeful. More than they expected or bargained for. Their eyes as well as their hearts and minds were opened when they saw Jesus and all the glory and blessing of heaven
Writing some 65 years later, Paul tells the Ephesian Christians that he is praying for them so that the eyes of their heart would be similarly illuminated. That in the midst of daily drudgery, joyless routine, and discouraging persecution, they would be able to see God's redemptive plan anew in their lives.
There are three primary things that one sees when one gets an eyeful of God's salvation named Jesus.
God has called you to be his own. Nothing can change that or separate you from that. Your hope is not mere wishful thinking but rock solid, foundational reality that can fill you with joy throughout every changing season and every trial of life.
God has promised you an inheritance which you share with all the saints. It is a glorious inheritance that promises you eternal reward and a strong sense of your identity in Christ. It make you know that you belong to him, that he loves you with an everlasting love; that in Christ, you are an heir of all the glory of heaven where Christ is seated.
Finally, God wants you to know the might of his power. Paul says it is incomparable - unlike anything this world might offer. That is your present experience. God can give you his power to cope with any trial, overcome any obstacle, and spiritually defeat the enemy of your soul who would rob you of joy.
1997 promises to be an exciting year. Who knows what plans and surprises God will reveal to you during the coming year. We don't know. Nor do we fully know or understand the plans that God want to accomplish in and through our church during the coming year. But as we go through the year, our Session has recommended that the guiding theme should be "LOOK TO THE LORD; RENEW YOUR HEART."
That theme is also the theme selected by the committee that is planning the LAY WITNESS WEEKEND in March. Designed to be a time of Spiritual Renewal and rededication, these folks have seen that such a weekend can only be effective if people look to the lord and pray that their hearts would be renewed
My prayer for you as we enter this year is that the eyes of your heart would be illumined in order that you may know the hope to which you have been called, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and the incomparably great power of God to meet your every need.
My prayer is that you would be like Anna and Simeon who when they gazed upon the Child, the son of God, their lives were transformed from sorrow and consolation and desperate hope to spontaneous joy and praise that lasted the rest of their days.
My prayer for you is that you come to the table of communion not so much with an attitude of sorrow and reflective introspection but that you come with the awareness that this is the joyful feast of the people of God. For God does not want our lives to be boring and joyless.
This week, I was reading through my mail and there were a number of journals and magazines along with all the mission support letters, administrative type of notes and bills. Among that mail was what has become a favorite piece of reading for me: "PERSPECTIVES; A Journal of Reformed Thought." It is a good mixture of scholarly theological articles and inspirational devotional writings.
One article intrigued me most. Musings from a Benedictine Monastery is the spiritual biography of a man who spent 6 weeks in the Pecos, New Mexico Benedictine monastery. In the article he tells how this experience transformed his spiritual life from one of dry academic study and reflelction to a personal encounter with the living Christ.
It was only after I was half way through the article that the full impact of who had written slammed me into the back of my chair. It was being written by one of the men who had been my Systematic Theology professors in seminary. Most of his lectures were drier than the New Mexico desert in early July. He hardly ever raised his eyes from his syllabus which he read in a droning monotonal voice. Though his thoughts and ideas were profound and brilliant, they were, for the most part lost on any of his students who could often be heard snoring over his sonorous voice.
However, after having spent six weeks of intensive pursuit of God in contemplative prayer, meditation, daily worship and prayer groups he describes the change that took place in his life. Before he tended to view the Christian faith as a set of rational propositions and overloaded his mind with intellectual analysis. Training in classical European theology had led him to be distrustful of personal spiritual experience so that he had relegated any heart engagement with God as being inferior.
By the time he had left, he says the teacher had become the learner and that he discovered that God had work to do in his life. What began with trepidation turned out to be the most transforming experience of my life. He learned that if you want to learn about God, go to a good Baptist or Presbyterian Church. But if you want to know God personally, go to a Catholic monastery.
Somewhere between St. Paul and John Calvin, the spiritual life became comatose for most believers.
Paul would describe the change in his life though as having had the eyes of his heart illumined.
Simeon would say that he has seen with his own eyes the salvation of God.
How about you. Has your spiritual life become comatose? Have you lost the joy of Christmas? Do you think God is boring?
Look to the Lord. Renew your Heart. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.