Good News? Great Joy

On Wednesday, December 17, FCC-Midwest City hosted it's annual "Service of Remembrance" for those in our community who's spirits perhaps aren't the brightest this Christmas time.  I was blessed to have the opportunity to bring the message.  I thought I'd share it with the world....

Good News? Great Joy?

Luke 2: 1-11

December 17, 2014

It would have been a lonely night.  Of course, every night is lonely for a shepherd….why would that night have been any different? It would have been cold, too.  Nights get cold on the desert. It would have been dark. 

Lonely.  Cold.  Dark.  Not exactly the scene we think of when we imagine Christmas, is it? Certainly this is a different image than the one that was painted last Sunday night by our children. We’d like to imagine a different picture at Christmastime.  We like to picture Christmas as a time of lights, action, and festive moods.  We hear songs on the radio about friends and family coming from near and far, gathering together to pass pumpkin pie and coffee while singing songs around the old piano.  This is what Christmas should be, right? If we don’t at least attempt to create this picture, if we’re not continuously basking in “the most wonderful time of the year,” we risk being labeled a “Scrooge.”  And who wants to be a Scrooge?

There’s just one small snag, however.  As I read the story of Christmas, more specifically, Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, I don’t find a big, festive party.  Now, don’t mis-understand what I’m saying, I’m all for partying it up at Christmastime…I mean, I’m the guy who has had Christmas music on in the office since before Thanksgiving.  There is certainly nothing wrong (and there are so many things right) about hanging the lights on the house, passing around the eggnog, and braving the lines at the malls….all I’m suggesting is that there perhaps is another layer to the Christmas story….one that goes beyond the lights, glitz, and glamour of the festive season, and dives into the heart of the everyday reality of life. 

And this is good news for us, because what brings us here to worship here tonight is the realization and understanding that in some way the reality of life has crept in and made a home in the midst of the festive wonder of Christmas.  This can be scary, unsettling experience and realization.  We can wake up one day and realize that like Charlie Brown in “Charlie Brown’s Christmas,” we notice that everyone else is having fun; we recognize that we are supposed to join in those festivities…but for some reason, we just cannot.  This tension can create a lonely feeling that we cannot explain, but from which we cannot shake free.

Thankfully, the Church is now doing a far better job recognizing and acknowledging this reality.  Many different congregations are holding a time of worship like this.  This time gets called by many different names.  Some places call it, “The Longest Night,” others call it “Blue Christmas,” we call it the “Service of Remembrance,” but no matter by what name these sacred moments of worship are called, we know that at the heart of it all, this is a time where we can come and join with friends and family who are kindred spirits and companions on this journey, and we can look around this beautiful sanctuary and give thanks that we are NOT alone. 

We are not alone because of the companions we have beside us tonight, we are not alone because we worship and serve a God who promises to never leave us by ourselves, and we are not alone because as we enter the Christmas story in a new way, we recognize that the stories of those whom the Gospel authors tell us mirror our own stories in so many sacred ways. 

Take, for instance, the Shepherds.  While they are characters that get included in every single rendition of the Christmas story, we don’t often give the shepherds a whole lot of consideration.  But tonight, perhaps we can make a connection between us and them.  Perhaps we can picture them sitting there in the cold, lonely, darkness and we can insert ourselves into their place and them into ours.  Perhaps we think about our own experiences with the darkness…own own moving through our daily routines…just trying to get through the day in one piece.  Perhaps we, like the shepherds, don’t feel like we get a whole lot of consideration….perhaps we, like they, don’t feel like we’re fully understood. 

I mean, it’s hard to understand a shepherd….one who spends his days and night shouldering someone else’s burdens.  It’s hard to connect with one who spends all of their time away from any family or friends, and outside of the hustle and bustle of the city.  And it can be hard sometimes for our friends, neighbors, and family to fully understand us, as people whose festive lights perhaps aren’t exactly shining the brightest.  It’s hard to fully understand and empathize with one who has recently lost a parent or spouse…it’s hard to understand one whose children have recently moved to a new state and who is grieving that newfound separation….it’s hard to understand one who has family members deployed overseas and the worry and stress that causes for the one who stays behind….it’s hard to understand one who struggles with depression, and anxiety, and who can’t fully explain why they feel and think the things they do. It’s hard to understand one who has recently experienced job loss, yet still feels the pressure to create a “good” Christmas for their family.  This can create a new difficult reality, one that we can share with the shepherds, because at the end of the day, I think all that any of us want is to be understood.

The Good News, though, is that our God is a God who understands.  Just as God understood the shepherds, God understands you and me.  We remember that it is to the shepherds that the Angel first broke into that lonely darkness with the news that Emmanuel had been born.  It was the shepherds who heard, “Good News of Great Joy” that they would never again be made to feel alone, because God was with them, and from that moment forward, they would have a companion for their life’s journey. 

And in the same way, we, tonight, hear “Good News of Great Joy” that God is present with us…even in the midst of our uncertainties, our insecurities, our loneliness…God is there….and God is seeking to break into our loneliness and confusion with a proclamation that Emmanuel is with us. And so as we move ever closer to the stable of Bethlehem, let us do so with confidence trusting that no matter the condition of our own spirits, the Spirit of the Living God rests upon us and that Love dwells among us. 

Amen