Merry Christmas it is it is great to be together.
It is great to celebrate this season of Advent with you to
celebrate the birth of Christ. This week.
If we haven't met, my name is Josh.
I have the the joy of serving as pastor here at the garden.
And as Caleb had alluded to, we are, we are now reaching the
end, the final week in this series that we've been in over
the last four weeks titled Waiting and Hope.
We've been exploring through the season of Advent what it looks
like to, to, to hold on, to hope, to wait for something that
we long for, that we want to see but hasn't yet arrived.
And this morning we get to talk about arrival and the joy of
Christmas. I'm excited about that.
And the the main thing I'd like to suggest to you this morning
is, is simply this. Because of Christmas, we don't
have to wait for joy, even when we are still waiting for its
full fulfillment. Now, maybe this sounds obvious
to you. After all, Christmas is a season
that is full of joy. You know the story, right?
There's angels and shepherds on a hilltop.
And the angels have this crazy cantata.
They light up the night with this amazing flash mob of
singing and joy. And they proclaim the
declaration. They, they, they say, I bring
you good, good news that will cause great joy for all people.
So inherent in this this Christmas story is the promise,
is the hope that this moment is going to spark joy.
Are you feeling joyful this morning?
How many of us are got some joy in our heart, some soul, some
things that we're feeling, feeling the warmth, feeling the
joy of Christmas maybe, maybe as you sit here this morning, you
are looking forward to time with close friends or family.
I think half of our congregation is already experiencing close,
not friends, a time with friends and family this morning.
I know a lot of people already out.
Maybe you're looking forward to some like special meals.
You've got some special things that that mom back home makes or
that you like to prepare over the holiday season.
Maybe like my daughter, you are very excited about the presents
that are already under the tree and each day you're like holding
on to them, shaking them, trying to figure out what's going on.
Very excited to open some presents.
I feel like in the season, there's so many things that can
spark, can evoke joy. Even just the fact that like in
December, which it's cold, it's dark all of a sudden and we have
like all of these lights, all of this decor, which kind of pushes
back on some of the difficulty of winter.
There's a lot of things that can evoke joy.
I know, I know that's true for me, feel these things.
But I think if we're honest, there's also some of us who are
having a different experience, or at least I've been alive long
enough, I've been pastor long enough to know that not
everybody receives joy in the same way.
It's not evenly distributed across the board.
Sometimes all of these things feel like these these very, very
amazing dollar store glasses that I got here that light up
with some very, you know, they look like, I mean, they're very
entertaining. They spark some delight.
They spark some joy. They also seem like they are
about to break at any moment, right?
Like if this is just cheap plastic, like it's, it's not
going to last very long. The battery will die, it will
break. We had some of these out for an
event this year. They, we brought 3 strands and
one of them broke immediately. Sometimes I think there's a
question that, that some of these, some of these things that
spark, that evoke joy for us at Christmas can also feel mass
produced, you know, like manufactured somewhere else, a
little, a little bit superficial.
And, and for some of us, we, we face the question of, well, what
about if the, the holiday season actually highlights for me the
loneliness that I experience or the tension that exists in the
relationships I have with my family?
What about when the pressure of Christmas shopping actually
threatens to Max out my credit cards right and I'm in this
comparative dance with a sibling who is buying fancier presents
than my family can afford, And I'm just like, is the gifts
going to be good enough? Am I going to get side eye from
somebody in the family? Maybe that's your experience of
Christmas. What about when the memories of
the past invoke not nostalgia but but pain and sadness because
of broken relationships or the lost of a loved one that we
grieve and the season reminds us of?
Now I've come to believe that this holiday season is is less a
straightforward thing that evokes joy universally and
across the board and more like a magnifying glass.
You know if your life is good, man, you really feel it in this
holiday season. But if there are deep longings,
aches, pains, sometimes that too is only turned up or exacerbated
when we get to the holidays. Of course, This is why in many
Christian traditions, today the the winter solstice, the longest
day of the year, is a time when people celebrate what's known as
as Blue Christmas. Maybe you've heard of this or
experienced it. Blue Christmas is is a time.
It's it's a liturgy that focuses on making room for grief, for
loss, for heartbreak, the fact that even in this time of year
when there is a lot of goodness around, that sometimes we're
carrying heavy things and significant weight.
And I want to suggest to you that that there is good news in
the Christmas story that we look at today, because the kind of
joy that was promised by the angels to the shepherds, the
kind of joy that we see in Scripture is not this, this
superficial plastic threatening to break at any moment veneer.
It's a deep, it's a resilient, it is a grounded joy that can
exist even in suffering. Tim Mackey of the Bible Project
puts it this way. He says joy is not an attitude
God's people adopt because of happy circumstances, but because
of their hope in God's love and promise.
I think that's an important distinction.
You probably know the story of the Grinch.
It is now a favorite in my household.
Ava loves to read the story in this In this story, the Grinch,
who I have to say TBD. We can have this argument later
about what causes the Grinch's distress.
I think high sensitivity could be a part of it.
He's very bothered by the loud, loud, loud, loud, right?
You know, so, but for whatever reason, his heart is too small.
Whatever's going on, the Grinch, you know the Grinch doesn't like
Christmas, right? He's determined to stop it from
coming. And So what happens?
He he goes down into this village of the who's and he he
steals all the trappings of Christmas, the stocking, the
trees, all of the gifts that the roast beast from the fridge.
And yet at the climax of the story, as he impersonates Santa
and and and goes all the way back up the hill with all of the
trappings, he is confronted with a shocking surprise.
Right. You know what happens.
All of his labor fails to stop Christmas from coming as he
tunes his ear to hear that the whose grief and their wails of
distress. Instead, he hears Merriman Joy
singing. The Grinch asks a question.
As he reflects, he says maybe Christmas doesn't come from a
store. Maybe, perhaps Christmas means a
little bit more. I think maybe an odd parallel,
but Luke might agree with the Grinch in this case.
I think that this is what scripture would suggest to us
that the Christmas Joy is not is not depended on our ability to
to have a great budget, not dependent on our ability to
reunite with the people who we wish were there.
It's not dependent on on lights or magic or or fantasy stories
because in if the Christian world, joy is an attitude we
adopt because of our hope in God's love and promise.
This is a picture that Luke paints here in Luke chapter 2 as
he describes this story of Simeon that of course we heard
read for the kids. This happens just after the
shepherd's rush to meet the baby and the Manger.
Mary and Joseph, who are of course practicing Jews, follow
the the the rituals prescribed by the Torah.
They take their newborn son to the temple to be consecrated and
and for the purification rights. And there we see in in verse 22
that they encounter an elder by the name of Simeon.
We don't know a lot about Simeon.
The Scripture doesn't give us a lot of detail and and this is
the only place in Scripture that we think that we encounter him
or find him recorded. But he is a remarkable man.
Verse 25 describes him as both righteous and devout, someone
who is waiting for the consolation of Israel.
Now this word, consolation is not something that I don't use
that word very often. I don't know, maybe you do.
But it's an interesting word it it's a word that suggests
comfort, encouragement, and even the lifting of spirits.
It's referring to the realization of hopes longed for
and waited for. So here Simeon is is waiting for
the consolation of Israel. Of course, we've talked about
this a good deal over the past few weeks, but at the time of
the Christmas story, things were not all great, right?
There were chief priests and scribes who we talked about last
week who were kind of oppressive and legalistic and really only
interested in their own power. We have the Roman authorities
who are exploiting and taking advantage of people.
We have this tyrannical king Herod, right?
Things were not all golden and rosy.
And Simeon here waits for the consolation of Israel.
He's waiting for the spirits to be lifted.
He's waiting for these inequities to be resolved, for
for things to finally be set right.
And there was a prophecy that he had received from the spirit
stating that he would not die until he met Messiah.
And so here we we find that Simeon is led by the Spirit into
the temple where he meets the baby Jesus.
I don't know about you, but one of the things that consistently
sparks joy for me is the the little clips that you see the
reels in which we have reunions happening.
I don't know, it gets me every time.
I'm sure you've seen them usually, like usually it's a
military family, right? And they'll be this, this video.
It's like there's a middle school gym and there's a, a, a
wife with couple of kiddos, like attached to the legs.
And she's sitting there and they're saying something about
how the, you know, the kid, they've received some
recognition or some award from the school.
It's all set up, but they don't know that.
And, and then the, the mic gets passed to the mom and, and they
say, you know, well, you know what, what if anything could
make this day better? Or is there anything that's
missing from this moment? Of course, she says, you know,
well, the only thing missing is just the opportunity for my
husband to be home to experience this moment with us.
And then the camera pans away and there's this guy all decked
out and all of the regalia and fatigues or whatever he's
sneaking around the corner and coming up in the camera shot.
And of course then, you know, you kind of see like as the mom
says this, she starts to be like, is this his setup?
Like, but but you could tell like that the hope is like a
little too fragile, like they're not ready to fully get, get
excited about this moment in case it doesn't materialize.
And then, and then she turns and there's this expression of
wonder and shock and delight as all of a sudden this person that
that is so central to the family experiences this reunion.
And then she's crying, he's crying.
I'm crying. Like we're all, we're all
crying. Like, I, I don't know, it gets
me every time. There's something about this,
this, this unification, this reunion, this moment where hope
is realized that disturbs our soul, right?
I think this is what happens here in this moment,
emotionally. Simeon has been sitting, he's
been waiting for this promise. He's been longing to see God
finally come through this, that the prophecies to be fulfilled.
He waits patiently in Jerusalem and he's got, he's got an
indication that it's going to happen from the Spirit, but
still he waits and waits. He's an elder at this point
until one day the Spirit leads him into the temple.
He turns the corner and there he just knows this is it.
This is what I've been waiting for, the consolation.
Simeon takes baby Jesus in his arms, and we read in verses 28
through 30 that as he took the baby in his arm, he praised God,
saying, Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now
dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your
salvation. Simeon experiences the full
weight, the full depth, the full joy of consolation that which he
has hoped for has arrived. It's beautiful, it's beautiful
and it's also a paradox, right? Because what is also true in
this moment, the thing which Simeon has hoped for is finally
arrived. Messiah is here and also the
corrupt chief priests are still running the temple where he
stands. The the Romans are are still in
charge of Jerusalem. Simeon is not going to live to
see Jesus preach or heal or confront injustice or defeat
death. In fact, Luke seems to suggest
that Simeon is not long for this world.
He'll pass shortly after this and yet in that moment he
experiences consolation. I mentioned earlier that we had
had a, an event this last week in which we used some very
absurd and ridiculous, I'm going to swear these things as many
times as possible, some some accoutrement of, of festivity.
The event on this last Wednesday was a couple of our groups that
are based in Dorchester teamed up under the the fearless
leadership of Richard and we went to a a couple of
facilities. One of those was like a, a
nursing home assisted living facility where a bunch of us
very enthusiastically and only marginally on key sang, sang a
bunch of Christmas carols and it was a blast.
We had a, we had a great time. It was really joyful.
And my daughter Ava also joined us.
Some of you know Ava, some of you witnessed Ava as the the
person leading the dance team up front here during the first
worship set. But Ava did what Ava does when
music is going, she is moving, right?
She is up here dancing and moving around and having a great
time. And you could just see these
these elders, these folks who are, are, are in their last
chapter, right, People who are, if if you saw them on the
street, you'd be like, Oh my, don't fall down, please.
Right. And they're there and they're
just drinking it in. They're just drinking it in with
so much appreciation. We wrapped up and as we're, as
we're going to go, all of all of these old ladies were like, can
I, can I touch the baby? Can I touch the baby?
You know, they, they wanted to like they, they had the like the
claw hand where they, they grab and won't let go.
Some of you have experienced this in church maybe or, or
sometime in your families of origin.
They, we didn't quite get to the, the cheek pinching, but
they, they wanted to make contact, physical contact with
this source of joy. I think we've, we've witnessed
this kind of dynamic sometimes, but it wasn't until this week
where I really paused to consider like, what's going on
in this moment? Like what's what's actually
happening here? Why, why is there this
attachment? I'm not a psychologist, so maybe
I've got this wrong, but you know, I, I, I think that there's
something especially for those who are older of, of the next
generation, right, representing this life, this fatality, this
future, which continues to endure, which continues to
persevere. And they, they want to somehow
like be attached to it, be connected to it.
The appreciation for it grows, is their own life is coming to a
close because this is where this is a demonstrated, physical,
embodied, tangible proof. This is where the future is
going. And this is what's happening
here for Simeon, not in the sense that he's some senile old
guy, but in Jesus, he sees not just not just some future, not
just the fact that there will be a future, but a particular
future, a promised by God future, a future in which all of
these things that are are deeply frustrating, that are deeply
painful will eventually be set right.
And this, friends, is the paradox, the joy which can exist
in the already, even when we haven't yet got there right.
We don't need the full fulfillment of everything that
we're hoping for or longing for when we can look in the present
and we can see evidence that God is already on the move.
The pioneering psychologist CR Snyder spent much of his career
trying to make sense of the dynamic of hope.
He wanted to understand like what hope was all about and,
and, and particularly how it could be such a, such a strong,
such a compelling factor that that would actually give people
incredible resilience and perseverance even under really
dire and awful circumstances. So Snyder did all of this
research, a lot of observations, and at the end he found that
there were some consistent patterns.
Anywhere that you saw hope, there were, there were three
things that were required. First, he observed that hope
requires A meaningful goal, a future that is worth having.
There's something out there in front of us that we're longing
for. Secondly, it requires not just
not just a meaningful future, but but a believable pathway, a
sense that somehow we can get from here to there.
There is a possibility of moving along the trajectory towards
that future. And finally, Snyder suggested
that agency the the fact that not only is there a pathway, but
we have some way to to move along that pathway, to move
towards that which we hope for. When these three dynamics were
present, according to Snyder, you had this, this existential
experienced hope, which was durable, which was real.
It wasn't, It wasn't just pie in the sky optimism, it wasn't
trite sentimentalities. It was a real enduring hope that
could motivate people and galvanized people and and
sustain people even in the most difficult and dire of
circumstances. Now, This is why I bring this
up. I think in Simeon's story, we
see something of what Snyder is saying, but it's a little
different. It has a Christian twist, if you
will, because certainly we have clarity that Simeon had the
future. The longing that he imagined,
the consolation of Israel that he was sitting and hoping for
and dreaming of, there was a pathway to that.
And the agency. These are the places where it
got a little dicier, right? Because for Simeon, it wasn't
necessarily clear how this was going to work out.
Who was going to overthrow the Romans?
Who was going to deal with this corruption out there?
How were these things going to be resolved?
I would suggest to you that although Snyder didn't envision
it this way, that the agency, the pathway that Snyder put in,
the person and the individual that Simeon finds in faith in
God. See, Simeon is able to have the
same kind of enduring hope, even though he doesn't have some
pathway to manufacture it. He doesn't have a way to solve
for it because he knows that God will do it.
That's the pathway. He sees that God is at work and
in the baby Jesus, Simeon has a tangible demonstrated
opportunity to experience, to enter in, to participate with
the future that God is bringing out.
God is bringing about hope and Simeon can experience it.
He can rejoice in it. He can enter into it even in the
not yet. This, friends, is Christian joy.
And throughout the Bible, we see this pattern over and over
again, whether it's the Israelites coming out of the
Reds across the Red Sea, coming out of Egyptian bondage.
They're rejoicing, they're singing, they're delighting,
even as they just got landed in the desert without any food.
Things are not there yet. They haven't arrived, but they
see the hope and the promise because God has moved.
We see the same things in the prophets and in Paul.
Paul writes these letters that are filled with joy, like the
book of Philippians from a prison cell.
His circumstances are not OK, but the joy is enduring.
It's persevering. And friends, I think this is
great news for us at Christmas. There's nothing wrong perhaps
with, you know, the trinkets, the lights, the rich food, the
enacted rituals of belonging and care that we extend to each
other. Maybe these are part of your
life this Christmas. And if so, great, praise God,
enjoy it. But even if they aren't, there's
an opportunity to experience, to access the same kind of joy that
we see in Simeon, the same kind of joy that we see in the
shepherds, the same kind of joy that we see in Paul.
A joy that doesn't depend on a Thanksgiving feast or presence
under the tree, doesn't depend on family all being there, but
is a future which is assured because of the goodness of God
and an awareness of how God is moving here and now to bring
about that future to its end. This, friends, is what I want to
invite you into this Christmas. This, this is a a hope, this is
a longing. This is a joy that is much more
durable and deep than any of the superficial sentimentalities
that are available to us through consumerism or through even
rituals which may be good or may not be.
This is the real joy of Christmas.
It's available to any of us who are able to see, who are able to
locate, who are able by eyes of faith to identify the way God is
moving. So as we move to a close in our
gathering this morning, I want to invite you into an embodied
practice. In the Old Testament, there was
this ritual that we see pop up in several different occasions
where there's there's like a pillar of stones which is
constructed or some stone that is consecrated.
And often these were called an Ebenezer, which is another big
word that I don't use very often.
But but essentially what an Ebenezer was, what these pillars
or monuments were, where they were indications that God has
helped up until now in my life, God has shown up.
God has been present. I've seen and experienced and
tasted his goodness and they set up these memorials.
They set up these reminders because they knew, I don't know
if you are have experienced this in your life.
I know I have that sometimes God moves and then two weeks later
we're all up in the anxiety and the hustle and the challenge and
the the next thing. It's so easy to forget, isn't
it? And so these monuments, these
pillars would be set up not just for the people, but also for
their children, for the next generation to be able to say,
hey, God has been faithful. God has been a help in a time of
trouble. When we needed him, God was
here. He showed up, He came through.
And as we move to a close this morning and and as you move into
the Christmas season, I want to invite you whatever your next
week looks like. Maybe they'll be a tree, maybe
they'll be family, maybe they'll be presents.
Maybe you'll find yourself alone, whatever that looks like.
I want to invite you into a deeper joy that is available
through our modern practices around this holiday.
A joy that is rooted in the faithfulness of God who has
shown up, who is broken into our world in Jesus.
And because of that, we know that the future which He
promises is already on the way. We can trust, we can be
confident that there will be a space when when sickness and
disease will be ended, where isolation and brokenness will be
no more, where relationships will be healed, when the
environment will be fixed, when when those in power will will
govern justly. We know this because of Jesus,
because we already have the first fruits of what God is
doing. So I want to invite you this
morning into those first fruits and into a, a concrete practice
of kind of erecting a bit of an Ebenezer for yourself, a sign to
remind you that God is here, that he is on the move.
So we enter this space. First.
I want to invite you to reflect. We're going to take just a
moment. Chris, if you want to play
something underneath quietly, I want to invite you to consider
the following questions. Where have I seen evidence of
God's faithfulness recently? Where in my life have I seen
evidence of God's faithfulness recently?
If you have a journal or a phone, you can write it down.
Doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be a small sign, a
foretaste, even if it looks humble or small.
Where have you seen evidence of God's faithfulness recently?
Perhaps it looks like a relationship that is healing, a
moment of unexpected peace or joy, finding strength that you
didn't think you had or beauty that took your breath away, help
that arrived just in time. What evidence can you notice
that's real for you in the season?
How has God been faithful? As you identify something, a
moment of goodness or beauty, healing or justice,
transformation of life, I want to invite you to to even give
that moment, give that story some kind of a name, some kind
of a word. What comes to mind for you is
you consider this, this moment of God's faithfulness.