We are going into the Advent season and from now till
Christmas Day we will be speaking on the topic the
subject of Christmas. The title for this morning is
Are you ready? Are you ready?
Why is it that for many people, the closer they get to
Christmas, the less ready they seem to appear?
You ever noticed that? And it seems as if the day gets
closer and then we have so much still to do in the time.
The clock is ticking and the days are shrinking for fewer and
fewer, and the more tense we become.
Just go to the parking lots in the mall.
Especially two or three days before Christmas.
I've sometimes asked people, Are you ready for Christmas?
And they've asked me, Are you ready for Christmas?
And so on. And this is starting to get to
me a little bit. Not in a bad way, but just it
eats on my mind. It it to choose.
And why are we even asking that? Are we joyfully and expectedly
waiting for Christmas? Or are we rushing frantically
and hurriedly just trying to get ready the last few things?
Is that how we live life? Frantically getting ready?
Never been really ready until it's all over, And then to dump
the whole thing and start over again?
So much of life is spent getting ready.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't get ready when an important
event comes up. We need to get ready.
But do we need to hurry getting ready?
Does it always need to be a mad dash?
Why would we not just live ready?
Think about that for a moment. It would seem to me that would
make sense, right? I think Jesus lived ready.
I think He did. I think He lived ready much more
so than getting ready. Of course He got ready for
certain things. We know that.
But it's a valid question. Are we ready?
I often think of the buzz and so much activity and looks good and
all looks great. I'm not saying we shouldn't
decorate. Decorations look good and all.
I'm not saying it's bad. But I think it's more a matter
of the mind, a matter of the heart than anything else.
Let me put it this way. I think Christmas is more about
being than it is about doing. Yes, we're designed to do.
We're created to do, But first we're created to be.
We're all designed to be a reflection of God's goodness,
his grace and mercy, and whose image bearers Genesis tells us.
Just by being God's children, we already reflect his glory in
some way. But we're so busy with getting
ready, flitting here and there and forget about the being more
than the than the doing. And again, doing is not wrong,
but when doing replaces being, we got some things mixed up.
When doing takes everything over and we forget about being, we
missed the important part. Jesus warned people about being
ready. Yeah, we do something to get
ready, but being ready, numerous stories in the Bible, the
servant who was told to to watch and to be ready.
The young virgins be ready. And they had to do some things
to get ready, of course, but to be ready.
There are things in life that we're not ready for.
Let's just admit it. There are things in life that
when they happen, we're not ready, just not ready.
And this passage that we are going to go into in a few
minutes, his name is Zachariah. He had something happened to him
for which he and his wife were not ready.
Totally not. And it happens to us too
sometimes. Maybe your person who has always
been waiting for something and you expected it and you are
ready for it never happened or you thought you were or
something happened which you totally did not want to happen.
Maybe an accident and an injury that impacts your whole life
from here on in, severe injury or maybe a loved 1 was taken
from you suddenly, unexpectedly through illness or an accident.
You're not ready for that. Maybe it's economic.
You all of a sudden lost your job or place of employment.
Whatever the case may be, your finances went down the drain.
You're not ready for that. Wherever this morning finds you,
in whatever circumstances you're facing today, you have to
consider that even though you might not be able to avoid what
happens, God is still in control.
He's ready. He's always ready.
But God does not tell us ahead of time what's going to come or
what will happen, how it will affect us.
Even sometimes He does. The story today that we're going
to go into, He does tell this guy Zechariah, how that's going
to affect him. He does tell him that, but
mostly we don't get to know. But I do believe this.
I, I do really believe this. God's interruptions in our lives
are acts of grace toward us. I really believe that sincerely.
And even if and when God allows suffering and pain and hardship
into our lives, God sometimes disciplines us, not because He's
want to set us straight, or He has, He has it out for us, but
training us, moving us toward Him, graciously drawing us
through the hardships and the good times too.
He never tries to push us away from Him by what He allows into
our lives. He knows what He's doing when He
allows hardship into our lives. His desire always is for us to
use what He allows to bring us closer to Him.
Think of all the Saints in the Bible, all the men and women in
the Bible who were tested and put under severe stress and
strain, never for the purpose get away from me, but always I
want to mold you, shape you to be ready for me.
As I mentioned, we're in the advanced season today.
Actually, last time it would have started, but we're starting
this morning and we want to look at a character in the Bible
whose life was drastically changed to one small, not small,
but big interruption, something he totally did not expect nor
was ready for. Never in his life would this man
ever have dreamed that what would happen to him did happen.
The story is found in Luke chapter one, verse 5 to 25.
So we'll go through it this morning.
Luke chapter one, verse 25 verse.
We'll read the first 10 verses. For now, take your Bibles and
we'll just read other scriptures, and I want you to
keep your Bibles open to those passages as we dig our way
through it. In Luke chapter one, verse 5, it
starts this way. There was in the days of Herod,
the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the
division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of
Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the
commandments and ordinances of the of the Lord, blameless.
But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and they
were both well advanced in years.
So it was that while he was serving as priest before God in
the order of his division, according to the custom of the
priesthood, his lot to to his lot failed to burn incense when
he went into the temple of the Lord and the whole multitude of
the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.
We'll read further a little bit, but for let's stop here for a
moment. Now there's a backdrop to the
whole story that happens and this is kind of it.
This was a worship servicing session.
I want to shed a bit of light on the background of the story and
highlight a few circumstances of that time.
You see that that time was not easy for the Jews.
They were, they were living in difficult days.
And what we see here at the get go at the start of the story is
Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth.
They were faithful in difficult times.
That's the first thing we see. But as a Jewish nation, they had
it hard. They had to pay taxes to the
Roman government. They didn't have self governance
under Roman rule. But in all of this, there were
God fearing Jews. And Zechariah and Elizabeth were
two of them. And of course there was also
many others. And we see here there was this
whole crowd at the temple. They were outside praying while
Zechariah is inside doing the incense burning.
Zechariah was faithful in hard times.
Sometimes when life is hard a person, we get somewhat used to
it, you know, and kind of we live in the discomfort or the
inconveniences and then later on when it's all over and we are
living better times, we wonder, oh, how would I ever get through
that? Well, God must have helped us.
And that's true. There were God fearing Jews and
Zechariah and Elizabeth were two of those.
The political environment wasn't good either.
I mean, in terms of the local stuff, not just were they under
Rome, but the local king Herod, who was the king, was not a good
king. He was a ruler and evil man at
that. And he tried to please Rome and
then also kind of please the Jews and somehow get keep this
thing together because there's always tension there.
He was an evil man. Historians say that he was a
tyrant. He banished his first wife, sent
her away, married another woman, and then he became suspicion of
a second wife and had her killed.
He executed her with her two sons that he had with her.
Then later on his his oldest son, presumably from his first
wife, had him executed because he didn't trust him either.
He was the same king who tried to kill baby Jesus later on, but
30 some years later, I mean a few years later, not 30 years
later, a few years later, but a year later, he killed all the
baby boys in Bethlehem to make sure he had killed Jesus, which
of course is the story goes, Jesus was rescued when the Angel
told Joseph to flee. So from the time that this this
happened till the time he tried to kill baby Jesus was maybe two
or three years or something like that.
So the Jews had freedom of worship.
The temple services were regularly going on faithfully.
And all of this Zacharias served as a priest, married to his wife
Elizabeth, Old and past child bearing years.
A little bit about a priest. They served in groups and way
back in the days, I think it was King David, they had organized
the priesthood into divisions. There were many Levites and they
served as priests. And so each division got a was
was scheduled to serve at a certain time.
And then a lot was cast which one of those priests would now
do the the work, the sacrificing and incense burning and so on.
And Zechariah's turn was this time he was on temple duty.
Sometimes we become so focused in our hard times, we forget how
God is trying to use us. And it just becomes about
turning the crank and just doing church and living what we know
is right. But there's never any real sense
of purpose or real sense of umph or real sense of passion about
it. And I don't I don't want to say
Zechariah was that, but in his old age, not having children,
him and Elizabeth, we don't even know if they were together at
the temple this time. Maybe she was at home.
We don't even know. The verse 7 is a very hard verse
as they had no child because Elizabeth was barren.
They were both well advanced in years as far as they were
concerned. They had been denied a special
privilege in Jewish culture and Jewish tradition.
A woman who hadn't, couldn't have a baby, was viewed as God
has not favoured her or God has withheld from her what was would
have been a blessing. And it would have been.
Little did they know that life wasn't about to wrap up.
It was about to begin. They're about to get going.
But would they be ready for Zachariah?
He's in the temple, and again, we don't know if Elizabeth was
outside worshiping with the crowd or not.
Maybe she was at home. What we do know is what
happened. Just just picture this for a
second. Imagine this Zacharias in the
temple burning incense, which maybe was his first time in his
life. We don't know because not every
priest even got a chance once in a life according to the records.
But he's here. He's doing his thing, burning
incense. Let's read verse 11 to 17.
Then an Angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the
right side of the altar of incense, and when Zacharias saw
him he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
But the Angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for
your prayers heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a
son, and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and
gladness. And many will rejoice at his
birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall
drink neither wine or strong drink.
He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his
mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel
to the Lord their God. He will also go before him in
the Spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the
just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
He had been faithful in his work.
You ever notice how it's the faithful Saints God picks to
interrupt, to turn to different directions?
That's how it often is. Next Sunday, we will hear about
how God interrupted Mary's life. We'll go into that this morning.
And but this morning we're into how he's interrupting
Zachariah's life. So there's this interruption.
Let's pay attention to what happened here and to the way the
Angel talked to Zachariah. And God does things in the
strangest of ways. Just reading.
One more thing. Was there not a better time to
have a meeting with Zachariah and share the good news with
him? Why in the worst imaginable
places and times of all time when he's on stage preaching A
sermon where he wasn't on stage in the temple, But this was not
a good time. He's busy.
Maybe an informed, more drawn with conversation.
He just dumped it on him, basically.
It's good news, all right, just not good.
Convenient timing. I mean, which old couple in our
world today would want to hear news like that in a, in context
like that? And yes, it was different back
then, but nevertheless, it was a shock to Zachariah.
No doubt his neighborhood friends in his village were
grandfathers. In their time, they would be
connected with their grandchildren.
And what's happening here? Zachariah is away for an old
couple. No children, no grandchildren.
He's a priest. I want to say a few words about
priests. By the way, the priests were
Levites from the tribe of Levi, 12 tribes of Israel.
In the book of the Law, a man from the tribe of Levi was
eligible to serve as a priest at the age of 25 until 50.
Let's read that Numbers chapter 8, verse 23.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses. Now this is going way back in
the Old Testament. This is what pertains to the
Levites from 25 years old. Above 1 and above 1 May enter to
perform service in the work of the Tabernacle of the meeting,
and at the age of 50 years they must cease performing this work
and shall work no more. They may minister with their
brethren in the Tabernacle of Meeting to attend to needs, but
they themselves shall do no work.
Thus you shall do to the divides regarding their duties.
Now I will say I'm glad we don't practice it this way today.
That would put guys like me out of work.
And so now they they, they didn't retire by the way, maybe
it was better than because they pensioned them off.
They could still serve burning incense and stuff.
They could still serve lugging the animals around, killing them
and butchering them. That was not their job anymore.
At age 50, that ended, but they still could serve.
It's very interesting how this all how the system work in the
Old Testament. So here's old retired Zechariah.
He's in the temple burning incense.
Not exactly a hard task. We don't know exactly how old he
was, but old enough that to have a baby was would take a miracle.
So in this lesson, Zacharias's neighbors or grandparents, he's
for the first time you're going to be a new dad.
Imagine that. Any 70 plus year olds who would
love to just be a brand new dad. I can't imagine.
But again, we must remember in those days, raising children was
viewed different than in our day.
And how did Zacharias react? Well, let's pause again, Verse
12. When Zacharias saw him, he was
troubled, fearful upon. Well, yeah, His reaction is
fear. We can imagine where his mind
was. He's an old man doing his duty,
burning incense, an Angel standing there.
This is not expected. And this interruption was not
for nothing. It happened for a specific
purpose. He had been and was a faithful
man. He gets interrupted.
This interruption comes with a calling.
He's going to be a dad. Angel says don't be afraid.
Your prayers heard. Your wife, Elizabeth will bear
you a son. You should call his name John.
You'll have joy and gladness. Many will rejoice at his birth.
I think he's probably just just, this is too much to take in.
But it's happening. And it's like, what prayer?
Well, the one you prayed 45 years ago and your first years
of marriage. I wonder if he was still praying
that prayer. Had he given up by now?
We're not told. It's always a good thing to get
an answer for prayer, right? Provided the timing is right,
Right. He had prayed.
It just never happened until now, way past their
expectations. Now it's going to happen.
The Angel gives this man a lot of detail.
I'm not saying it's I'm jealous, but hey, what parent wouldn't
like to know the fortunes and blessings their child would
bring to the world? And God gives this man a
boatload of information about this boy they're going to have.
When we have children as parents, we don't have anything.
We don't know what they're going to be.
We don't even know what to name them.
We got a name in everything. He got them almost like a manual
with him. What he doesn't mention is how
John was called John the Baptist.
What doesn't mention is how he's going to end.
We know how he ends. Life ends.
Not not good, but by no, no doubt by that time, Zacharias
and Elizabeth are long gone. And so when John dies in prison,
that's a whole nother story for another time.
The Angel picked out the name tells him what the work will be
he'll be doing. He'll filled with Holy Spirit.
I won't spend time on that this morning due to time constraints,
but it's a good story. But one thing that sticks out
there is going to be joy and gladness.
It's beautiful. And he's going to be a leader
and he's going to do this in the power and spirit of Elijah.
Now, Elijah was a hero. If somebody would say, well,
your son will be in the steps of so and so, some ancient, famous,
well known, highly respected hero, wow.
That would be shoulder tapping, shoulder padding experience.
As I was thinking about the story, the thought crossed my
mind. I wonder how is the incest
burning happening while all this is going on?
Was he even paying attention? But either way, it didn't really
matter. God had interrupted the whole
proceeding. See, in our lives we may never
be given news like Zechariah received, and in a way that he
received it. But it doesn't mean that God
does not want to use us for his Kingdom.
He still want to use us. He still wants to.
He still called us to embrace the challenges we face from our
vantage point that anything with God is possible.
There are times in life we pray and pray and pray.
Nothing happens. It seems as nothing happens and
yet God is at work, may be different than we expected, and
it may happen in a way that humanly speaking, we say it
doesn't make sense, this shouldn't be this way, and it's
a God thing. Sometimes God specialises in
answering prayers in ways that, humanly speaking, are
impossible. So we have to give the credit to
him. The problem is not God when it
comes to answering our prayers. The problem is our lack of
commitment or our lack of surrender or lack of trust or
lack of faith. And how does how does that right
respond? Oh yes, finally, finally.
No, it's not what he does, not what he does.
Let's read verse 18 to 20. And Zechariah said to the Angel,
How shall I know this? I'm an old man, my wife has well
advanced in years. The Angel answered and said to
him, I'm Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was
sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings.
But behold, you'll be mute and not able to speak until the day
these things take place, because you did not believe my words,
which will be fulfilled in their own time.
If you pay attention to people and listen how they respond in a
conversation, it's interesting when listening, how do people
respond? The Bible says out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
And Zacharias at this point spoke out of the abundance of
his heart as well, and he sees an obstacle.
He sees an obstacle. Now this was never God's plan
for him. I don't believe that he's going
to bless him with a baby boy, give him the name, gives him the
job description, gives him what, By the way, also what he
shouldn't eat, not wine, drink wine or strong drinks, gets all
mapped out. And this obstacle is not of God.
It's something Zachariah does, and he's not ready.
How often is that not the case? You know, we can't get something
through our minds because humanly speaking, there's a
barrier. And the barrier is ours, not
God's. When the Angel first met
Zachariah, Zechariah surprised and fearful now with the news
from the Angel that they would have a baby, Zechariah does some
thinking and he doesn't believe. And I, I want to say let's not
be too hard on Zechariah because I think I would have done the
same thing if I was in his shoes.
And so he wants to help the Angel out a little bit.
He wants to give him some, some, some information that the Angel
may have forgotten. He says I'm old, so is my wife.
The Angel says, Oh yeah, I forgot about that, didn't I?
It's not what happens. It's not what happens.
God does not read reminding in our relationship with Him where
there's obstacles. The obstacles are ours, not his.
Many times in Scripture we read prayers where the person says
Lord remember, look and remember, and God does not mind
us praying that. But from what perspective?
In this case, Zachariah wants the facts.
I don't know how this is going to work.
Explanations. Imagine you being a parent, your
little 3 year old wanting you to give them a detailed fact by
fact, detailed explanation of everything you're doing.
You'll say just trust me because they're too small, too young,
too inexperienced to know. Sometimes we do that to God a
little bit and then we need to ask who do we think we are?
Zacharias says. How will I know this since see,
I'm an old man, my wife is old too.
What does Zacharias get? He gets disciplined in a very
interesting way. I find this humorous, actually.
There, in the middle of his temple service, burning incense,
Zach gets his voice turned off. Not just the volume turned down,
it's off. No connection.
No more talking, no more speaking until this would happen
as the Angel had prophesied for a priest in that day, for a
pastor in our day, not being able to talk is a huge deal.
The one thing that's very important for a priest, there's
others, but the one thing that's very important is being able to
talk. He just lost that ability would
last nine months. Well, the people are outside
waiting while all this is going on inside.
And we do not know how long this all lasts, but long enough
beyond the normal time. It says they marvelled that he's
lingering so long in the temple. They're thinking, what's he
doing in there? What's taking so long?
Let's read on verse 21. And the people waited for
Zacharias and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple.
But when he came out, he could not speak to them.
And they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for
he beckoned to them and remained speechless.
The worship service that had begun and who knows when, turned
out completely different than any normal worship service had
been up to that time. Zachariah had not known when he
walked into the temple he would come out zip a speech impediment
that would now last for the next nine months or longer.
I don't know about Zachariah, but it seems to me he might have
thought, and I think I might have thought, well, this miracle
better work because I'm done for her.
I can't talk anymore. He comes out of the temple, He's
different. He doesn't say a word.
He can't. He's trying.
Mouth is going. And then he starts using sign
language and they figure, hey, what's with him?
He's must have seen a vision or something.
And he had much more than a vision.
He'd been interrupted as never before and would never be again.
This news was a lot to take in. But the fact that he had not
believed that that this would happen 'cause God to shut him
up. I'm thankful today that God does
not shut us up. Every time we don't believe,
think about how silent it would be if every time our faith
failed and we and God would say, OK, you know what, until this
happens, you're going to be quiet.
He would shut us up so many times, at least me, I'm glad he
doesn't do that. But this is how Zachariah had to
learn a lesson. If our level of faith was the
benchmark of how God would allow us to walk and talk, many of us
would spend most of our lives silent and we would be doing
sign language or now we have texting.
Zachariah filled his days of service in the temple.
Then he left for home. Verse 23.
So it was as soon as the days of his service were completed that
he departed to his own house. Now after those days, his wife
Elizabeth conceived and she hid herself five months saying, thus
the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked on me to
take away my reproach among people.
There you have it. That's how it was viewed as not
being able to have a baby reproach, I think.
Zachariah hurried home from that event from the temple services
and used the notepad to scribble things because he couldn't talk.
Well, the unexpected blessing came.
What Elizabeth had wanted for years, hope for, prayed for, and
wanted now happened. She was expecting a child.
It was special in that it was a miracle.
But I want to say this morning, isn't all of life a miracle?
Too often we just take it for granted.
The fact that we're alive, that we breathe, that we're human
beings, conscious and conscious aware, and those things have,
have, can reason and think that's a miracle.
We take it for granted. There's so much stuff we don't
even know. We know actually very little,
almost nothing in comparison to what there is to know.
In this case, God worked a miracle in the life of this
couple. Then we I won't go into it this
morning for the sake of time, but we find later in the chapter
how the baby was born, the neighbors rejoiced and they
hadn't circumcised and so on and and people wanted to know what's
his name going to be? And Elizabeth says he'll be
John. The people are surprised and and
then John Zachariah emotions for a tablet and they give him a
table. He scribbles his name is John.
And at that point in time he can talk again.
And then in the last part of Luke chapter one, we have the
prophecy, how he glorifies God and what God has done for him.
God had interrupted this couple's life by answering a
long delayed prayer request. And what he had for them was far
better or far more significant than if they had been an
ordinary couple. They had joy.
God had given them a calling, even though Zechariah had a
struggle as God was gracious to him, is faithful to him.
Too often, you see, when we read stories like these, we love
these stories and think they're good stories.
And they are. But I want us to go further this
morning. How does this story today
connect tomorrow to December 8th to next week?
What difference does it make for us?
No, we're not Zachariah nor Elizabeth.
We're not the couple. But I dare say that God is just
as interested in US, just as keenly focused on us, as He was
on that couple. Whether we're individuals or
married or single, old or young, makes no difference.
The question we have to ask, are we ready?
So how can you be ready for Christmas?
And not just Christmas, but just be ready.
The answer is surprisingly simple.
I'm not saying easy. I'm not saying convenient, but
simple. We can live ready.
There's a story that's been told and published and written in
various forms and, and many of you've read it over the years
and numerous times I'm sure I've read it.
It's an old story written, I think way back in Russia many
years, kind of a parable. But the old cobbler, and I want
to use that story this morning to illustrate a point.
The story is told of a certain town that lived in old cobbler
Shoemaker in a tiny one bedroom apartment with one window which
looked at him toward the street. And he'd been a good man all his
life, but in his old age he'd fallen into despair because his
wife and his children had died and he was alone and was a
Shoemaker by trade and kept making shoes.
One day an old man from a monastery stopped by and visited
him and told him he needs to stop grieving and to live for
God, telling him to read the gospels until he taught him to
learn how. And the cobbler bought a New
Testament and began to read it every evening.
The more he read, the clearer he understood that God required
this of him and his heart grew lighter.
One night as he was reading late, he read the story of where
Jesus invited to the Pharisees house and with a meet for a
meal. And a woman comes in and she's a
interesting woman, at least say the least.
She comes to Jesus kneels down and is weeping and washing Jesus
feet with his her tears and and not pouring ointment over them,
kissing them, drying them with her hair and so on.
This fairies things. Who is he?
He would know that this is a not a good woman.
And then Jesus to the Pharisee, Hey, I came to your house.
You didn't kiss me, you didn't wash my feet, you didn't anoint
my head and and so on the Cobblers reading that story and
he says I think I'm that man. I'm more concerned about my
convenience and comfort than about my guests.
And if the Lord came to me, what, what would I have done?
He's thinking this and suddenly the cobbler hears a voice and
says Call, we'll call him Martin, says Martin, look into
the street tomorrow if I'm coming to visit you.
The the version I read called this guy Martin.
So old. Martin roused himself from the
chair and rubbed his eyes and couldn't tell where they heard
these words. Or was he dreaming or something?
But his heart was filled with joy.
The next morning he rose early and lit his stove and prepared
some food and put water in the kettle, put on his apron, sat by
the window to work, and kept watching the street, looking
more and more. He soon saw a shabby old looking
soldier pass by, and he was busy clearing the snow from the
sidewalk, and poor fellow Martin thinks he must be half frozen.
He opens the door and called. Hey, come on, man, warm yourself
and drink some. Drink something hot.
The man gratefully accepts and Martin gives him some food and
to eat and tea to drink and, and tells me about the gospel and
the sword of thanks him and leaves again and he's gone and
and Martin turns to his window and keeps working away and
watching anxious, thinking the Lord is coming.
He still hasn't come. I only saw this old soldier have
done nothing but give him something to eat and to drink.
An hour later sees a young woman passing by.
She's pretty, dressed in thin summer clothes and carrying a
little baby wrapped in rags, and she paused wearily under the
shelter of his doorway and opens the door.
Come in, poor thing, he says, warm yourself while you rest.
She comes in, explains she's going to the hospital, she's ill
and has has no one to take care of her for her baby.
And so he gives her some milk and bread and notice the baby
has no warm clothes, takes care of her and young mother's eyes
filled with tears. May God reward you, kind man,
she says, and she leaves again. She leaves and off she goes and
the cobbler takes his place at the window again and it's the
afternoon. He's growing weary and he sees
him old woman selling apples from a basket.
And a small boy darts from around the corner, quickly
snatches an apple from her basket, and she grabs him by the
arm and holds fast to him. And he's crying and trying to
pull away. And he rushes out the door and
separates the two and asks the woman to forgive the boy.
And she says he ought to be whipped and he ought to be
taught a lesson. He says, but God's custom is to
forgive. We ought to forgive her, else we
may not be forgiven. If he's whipped, he'll turn out
worse. If he's forgiven, he'll remember
that the woman let the boy go and the cobbler gave her some
money and for the stolen app. When the boy begins to weep in
shame, and he takes the boy inside and takes care of him and
then he sends him home and night falls and the cobbler sits down
and feels disappointed and he doesn't come.
He says, I did hope, but have not have not seen him.
Suddenly he feels a presence in the room in a voice whispers in
here, hey Martin, Martin did you not know me?
From the corner of the old soldier steps forward and smiles
and then got and then he's gone. The voice whispers again,
Martin, Martin did you not know me?
The woman and the baby appeared and she smiled.
The baby laughs and they too disappear and the voice whispers
1/3 time Martin did you not know me?
The apple woman and the boys stand before him.
They smile and the two vanish. And his heart's filled with
glorious light, and he hears the voice repeating the gospels he
had read the night before. And and he says, I was hungry,
and you gave me. Something to eat.
I was thirsty, gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger. He took me in.
He understood. His guest had come and he
remembered the words of Jesus. As much as you've done it to the
least of these, you've done it to me.
Of course, it's just a parable, just illustration, but has a
point. The point and the question is,
Are you ready? We're in the advanced season
with all the opportunities around us that we need to
demonstrate the love of Christ. There's plenty of needs around
us everywhere. Can we honestly say we're ready?
You see, we're only ready when we left out the calling.
Are you ready? I read a quote many years ago.
It goes like this. We love Jesus only as much as
the one we love the least. And that's how ready we only
are. So let's do more than just busy
running and hustling about, madly rushing about getting
ready. Let's live ready.
Let's be ready. Let's live ready.
Jesus may come to us this holiday season in ways we had
never imagined. Let's pray, Lord, we know that's
only because of you that we are here and that we have you where
we pray that we will be people who will embrace and take up the
opportunities you bring us. Some of the opportunities will
look like interruptions and inconvenience and hardships,
even may be difficult, but they will be good.
Help us to be generous in every way this holiday season.
Help us to be generous with ourselves, not just with our
money, not just with our clothing or houses.
Help us to be generous with all those things, but most
importantly with ourselves. May we be reminded each time an
opportunity comes our way that by serving our neighbor, we are
serving you. Thank you Jesus.