dec 19 - Love All scripture - Luke 23333
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Advent conspiracy, the series
Move toward Christ, Spend less, give more, love all
Some have found this annoying- how can this be?
Do not upset my paradigm
Jesus upsets our paradigm – do we want a jesus that doesn’t?
Last years sermon series – this years
Are you uncomfortable? I am
Maybe for the first time in my life we are telling the truth about Christmas
There is a shadow world and the real world
Plato’s cave
The matrix Neo and Morpheus
The matrix picture
Choosing to be sucked in or choosing to live in the real world with all of it s pain
Strange Christmas this year for me. Fewer boxes, less wrapping, less scurrying around. All intentional.
Result = less worry, less tension, more time to think about what it really means. It isn't just that spending less allows me to give to the poor or to the water project at church, pulling back has allowed my brain the time and space to think about the story. Somehow in choosing to use our resources differently, our brains and souls have been touched.
I find myself thinking daily, not of the shopping list, but of the baby in the manger. No one has really been motivated to do much decorating this year at our house. Very few of the decorations have left the bins. For the first time ever, there are no Christmas lights on the house. Now I don't recommend this for everyone, but in some interesting ways, our home is lit up in ways that it has never been lit up before.
As we have endeavored to push out the commercial, we have made room for the eternal. I am thinking more about Jesus, and that can only be good.
The encounter with the baby should change us
The shepherds – the encounter changes them
The story ends differently than it begins. Anytime god is present the story ends differently
The shepherds
Glorifying and praising god
Telling the story
They probably go the same places, but they are talking about different things
The Christmas mouth
Everytime your mouth opens you are either glorifying god or not
And everytime you don’t, you are wasting an opportunity to love all
We celebrate Christmas everytime we show gods llove
By speaking kindly of those whom we would otherwise not
By learning to speak kindly 364 day s of the year about those we otherwise would not
loving all
Do we think of Christmas a a come and sit and bask
We should, but there is also a going out
Love all
You and me, sitting around the tree
Who is Christmas for
Illustration - Turning in and turning out
It is for the political opposition – Obama - Bush
It is for the three kings, it is for herod
It is for your friend who gives you gifts
It is for the person who has nothing
The memories that I would not trade for anything
Are not kids opening presents
But they are of taking kids to restart
Going to the san jose rescue mission as a kid
Its not about the stuff
Narrator: So he paused - and the Grinch put a hand to his ear. And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low... then it started to grow.
Narrator: But this... this sound wasn't sad. Why... this sound sounded glad. Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, was singing, without any presents at all! He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming, it came! Somehow or other, it came just the same.
Grinch: It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!
Narrator: He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more!
Narrator: And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. And then - the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two!
Narrator: He brought everything back, all the food for the feast. And he, he himself, the Grinch - carved the roast beast
Final scene: "Christmas day is here at last, as long as we have hands to clasp. Christmas day will always be, just as long as we have we. Welcome Christmas, while we stand, heart to heart and hand in hand."
How would we feel about the story of the Grinch if the presents never came back?
Everything you own owns a little bit of you
Get the stuff out of the way so that you can see the story
when we get the stuff out of the way, we can truly worship
we can truly love
we are upset that Merry Christmas is being removed.
Happy holidays is here in it s place
Email that reminds us that if we are holding up Christmas the word is going to get out
conclusion
A soldier goes to a hostile environment to protect you. The soldier’s father who was so overjoyed that his son was home for Christmas, out of harms way
We have to celebrate that
But we must also remember that our father did the opposite, on Christmas, he send his son to suffer and die in a hostile environment. All this for you.
And so we kneel at the manger and find him
But we also turn out and carry the message
Go tell it on the mountain, that jesus Christ is born
Prayer
Walk to the manger
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