Advent Week 4 - December 20, 2020

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Matthew 1: 22-23Sermon Catherine Lyle
(seminary student and candidate for ordained ministry)

Greetings everyone. I am honored to be with you all again as we are so very close to Christmas. Christmas comes whether we are ready or not and that reality will probably always be a fact - even if we are not in a Pandemic. This year many wait on gifts to come in the mail. Many wait on the status of their jobs and livelihood. Many children wait to return to school or have big birthday parties again. Many college students wait to return to campus. We wait for Executive branch changes that will affect our lives and shape our discussions. Many medical personnel is waiting for a time they can leave their place of work to heal and find joy again. And this year many vulnerable people wait on a vaccine that could save their life and help them to safely hug their ones again. We are pretty much sick of waiting. As the counselors, today describe these phenomena as “Covid fatigue” none of us need an expert to describe this mental season. We are tired, we are restless, we have broken hearts, and we are not ready for Christmas. Let us be honest, we may be looking forward to a home decorated with family heirlooms from special memories, we

may have some gifts to give, we may be watching Christmas specials, we may be trying Christmas caroling sing-a-longs found on YouTube, we may be serving others in need and we may have scheduled our family game zoom nights but we are not really ready. Sure, many of us might have taken those amazing steps and spent our extra time in quarantine reaching out to past friends and family with apologies and regret for our selfish behaviors. Yet, I still get this spiritual sense that we are not really ready.

Advent is a time for preparation and each Sunday is a special Sunday focused on preparing our hearts for Jesus. Today in the Advent season we talk about love. Love is a heavy word that our common language tries to bundle and box up so it can be sold to consumers. But the truth is, love is complex. Love is an emotion and action. Love is a state of being that everyone craves. Love cannot be bought or sold. It is given from one heart to the next and we can share in the love within a group. Even today as our pandemic drags on there have been creative and safe ways folks have been dating. Sure, we might have expected this type of “Eros” love to blossom across balconies in Italy and Paris, but we find it happening here in America’s New York City balconies.

Silly romantics at heart remind me of my engagement where I was young and immature. I was only twenty years old when I met my now-husband and I did not have the best childhood to demonstrate a healthy marriage. My last name had already changed four times due to my mother’s marriages and as she called them “fresh starts” with a new name. Still, I was proposed to with the conditions I figured no one in Spokane would be able to present and I loved my boyfriend. So, when he proposed the third time, I said yes. However, I did not choose to take his last name for my own. Not that this was an ethical decision I made nor some progressive movement I followed. I just did not want to change my name again. When folks recommended, I hyphen my name, I revealed another truth. I was afraid we would get divorced and I would have to change my name again. It was the breaking up I feared. It was the loss of another person I loved, that I feared. It was the constant changes and disruptions I feared. Looking back I was not ready for marriage. Yet, life happens whether we are ready or not. And when we chose to walk in the night following a star shining, we, are making choices that will change our lives. Whether this change is a marriage, a child, and even a job. When we chose to come to church this experience changes our hearts and our families. We don’t always “know” what we are getting into, but we do know that what we are doing is for the sake of love.

The shepherds or farmers working the lousy overnight shift in the field who paid taxes so high it became hard to feed their families, did not “really know” who Jesus was. They just saw the Angels and were given an announcement. Angel’s reassured them saying,

Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:1-12)

And in true Luke amplified fashion when delivering the gospel, this is followed up with possibly one of the earliest singing telegrams performed by none other than God’s personal choir of angels. Yeah, this was a big deal, and the shepherds knew that.

The shepherds just didn’t know all the details. Would this Messiah be like Samson and be the warlord they needed to overturn Romain rulers and their corrupt ways? To be honest, that would have been my guess if I was a shepherd. I might have even said too much and insulted Mary by reminding her not to cut his hair. Or perhaps this Messiah would be like Moses and lead them to a safer home and flood a few chariots behind them for good measure? Maybe, if you consider starting a new Christian religion like walking around in a desert while people grow tired of mana. Then, yeah, those shepherds guessed right. Hmmm, I think some young shepherds might have guessed on that exciting walk to meet baby Jesus that this new baby could fly. Oh yeah, before Superman or Captain Marvel we had flying Jesus on our minds. Obviously, since a choir of angels is announcing Jesus, this new baby Jesus would be able to fly. Yes, most definitely Jesus can fly. Later we find more discussions about Jesus walking on water and turning water into wine than Jesus flying. But, I like to think that out there some kids playing with their family nativity set still imagine baby Jesus flying.

The truth is that when Jesus came into the lives of the shepherds, their way of life would change. Some changes would happen quickly, and other changes would happen throughout their lives and generations to come. Some would lose younger siblings to King Herod becoming jealous and ordering the murder of boys two years or younger. Those whose families had their children murdered probably also saw their mothers and fathers sink into a great depression. Then, King Herod would die of some grotesque diseases around the fourth birthday of Jesus. This awkward political transition in history would have resulted in yet another Roman ruler. People would lick their wounds and try to live and see another day. The Israelites would survive. They always do because God is with them. Shortly picking up the pace and bringing light back into their lives would be the one they called John the Baptist and John the Baptist spoke only of the one coming, Jesus. In every baptism, every sermon on sin, and every friendship that grew, it would be because of Jesus and preparing a way for Jesus in the community.

Jesus was unlike most religious leaders who at that time were focused on survival and resentment. Jesus was focused on love. The kind of love that frees you to love everyone from your family to your enemies. The kind of love that changes you. The kind of love that makes people think for themselves and teach it to their grandchildren. The kind of love that makes poets like Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". On a side note, I sort of wonder if in heaven the Apostle Luke bumped into Tennyson and was a little annoyed that he didn’t think of that line first when writing the Gospel of Luke because that is the powerful and life-changing love that Jesus offers us. Jesus loves us enough that we will change and we will lose some of what was. We will shake off our old ways and be formed in new habits and traditions. We will be baptized as children of God into this family and we will be called to communion tables to be renewed in spirit and continue the good work and missions of the church from a place of love and we will ask for forgiveness if we lose our way of love.

The love Jesus asks of us to change our names from Debbie, John, or Catherine to Christian. We wait in love and great excitement not because we know where Jesus will take us but because we know Jesus is with us. We remember those first holy nights and the people who first met choirs of telegram angels. We remember the different love that Jesus brings into our lives. A love that no matter the consumerist attempt cannot be prepackaged, shipped and televised through commercials. No, this love is a love that is in us and does not go away. It is not of this world but is of God. It is not bound to our bodies and us such we belong forever in the love of Christ.

This love was embodied through Christ living among us. We have stories from those who remember Jesus personally and did their very best to spread the good news to every corner and every generation. We are the good news in Christ. God’s plan worked and today we may not be any closer to world peace as we were 2,020 years ago but we are given a savior who loved us and loves those we have hurt. A Savior that knows no bounds and is mightier than any weapon of war. Jesus is our savior and Jesus is in us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus loves you. Jesus loves your neighbors, even the ones with the barking dogs or roosters crowing in the morning that they are not supposed to have in city limits. Yep, Jesus loves them. Jesus loves this garden we call earth and when our work ends here on earth, Jesus will continue to love our generations to come. On this Sunday of Advent, we remember that we are named no greater name than Christian, and we unite in holy anticipation of Christmas Day for our greatest love to be born again in our hearts and minds, Jesus. Jesus is our greatest love.

Amen