Whenever my family down in West Virginia would gather together for Christmas, it would only take a few minutes for the conversation to fly back in time to the many Christmases we shared together. Someone would invariably bring up all the gag gifts that had been bought for my Dad. After that had been milked, someone would invariably bring up some of the indescribable food my Mom has cooked: Christmas kraut, pudding pie, and the year she made enough cookies to feed the Third Infantry.
Then someone would invariably bring up my brother-in-law, Paul, who approached Christmas like a big kid, who went around for weeks with this gleam in his eye, and who was always around the tree passing out presents. He died over 25 years ago and I think about him each and every day. After all this time, I miss him like crazy at the passing of another year.
And then someone invariably would bring up the fact that next year they were not going to spend near as much money on presents as they did this year. And then there always seems to be a spirit of stillness, sadness and mystery as they looked around the room. No one would say it, but we all wondered if this would be our last Christmas together.
And then we looked around the room at the teenagers who just only yesterday were babies and toddlers, who only yesterday were getting GI Joes and Transformers and doll clothes, who now get such mundane things as sweaters and billfolds. It probably wouldn't be too many Christmases hence when the sound of baby rattlers and little dresses would be opened around that same tree. It was a family tradition where the spirit of Christmas past, the spirit of Christmas present, and the spirit of Christmas yet-to-come all converged on one place and you wanted to rise on the crutch of your faith and say, "God bless us, everyone." Why? Because God is with us.
The spirit of Christmas past. Families gather. Fear is in the air. Why? In this evening's passage we read of something that tempers the optimism of Advent: wars and rumors of wars. In Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, we have a good and godly king who searches the heart of God. To the north we have an evil king who has made an alliance with the Assyrians, present-day Iraq, the bad guys of their day. The northern kingdom bad guy had sieged Jerusalem before, but couldn't break through Judah's defenses. Now he is about to make this political and military collaboration and no entity will be able to withstand their firepower. Ahaz, the king of the south wearing the white hat, hears the news and is gripped by fear.
Fear is a testy old sage. It can turn some of us into basket cases, rolled up into a cocoon and stashed away paralyzed into a corner. But for others, fear is an elixir, something that brings out greatness in us that has been planted there by God.
So Ahaz is all by himself, deep in thought and prayer, in the conduits inspecting Jerusalem's water supply by the Fuller's Field when Isaiah the prophet walks out to meet him. The prophet has a message for the king.
"Take care, and be calm, have no fear and do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs of smoldering firebrands, on account of their anger." They are only men, but God is the Lord of nations and He has a plan and a purpose.
There is a caveat to all this: trust. Trust in the power of this God. It is greater than all the firepower these two clowns can pull together. Trust in the promise of this God. It is greater than the trust you put in human beings.
Really, doesn't everyone at some point in your life let you down? Don't even your friends and your family members and your leaders disappoint you? Well, whose word are you going to trust? Trust is the condition in the promise made by God. And so, "If you do not believe, you shall surely not be able to last."
And since Ahaz is a human being in a particularly trying time in his life, the Lord promises him something: a sign. "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. God with us. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken."
Have you ever seen one of your presents under the tree? Have you ever picked it up, felt its shape and weight? And then you think, "Voila! It's what I've been wanting for ages. It's the gift I've been asking for ever since I was a little kid." When Christmas morning arrives, you zero in on that package, put it in your lap, rip the paper off, open the box and see that. . . it's not at all what you thought it was. You're disappointed. Why would somebody get me a crummy gift like this?
That's the way Ahaz feels. A child? Who needs another child? I need an army right now! But sometimes, big things come in small packages. You see, the victory of the bad guys of the north would not come through military might. The military planners could never come up with enough defense capabilities to beat back the bad guys. No, this victory would come only through the Lord. And to back up this promise, a woman would conceive a child and before the boy was old enough to be weaned, the threat of the bad guys would be over. If Ahaz will only trust that promise and trust that sign, if he will believe, he will surely be established.
What happened? The bad guys never prevailed. Why? Israel had been gifted with a promise: Immanuel: God with us. The spirit of Christmas past is always based in the faithfulness of God. But what about Israel's present? Move forward a few hundred years. Israel again is at an impasse. There is darkness all over the land. The Lord has not spoken, not said anything for 200 years. The Roman armies have occupied the country. Instead of a good king sitting on the throne you only have this guy Herod, who is nothing but a stooge of the Romans, who has murdered several members of his own family to get and preserve his perch. Things are about as bleak as they can be. Israel is wondering, "What's next? What bad thing is going to happen to us now? What army is going to come in here and tangle with the Romans while we get caught in the crossfire?"
A few hundred years earlier, the messenger came to the king with a sign about a virgin. Now, the messenger comes to the virgin with a sign about a king. "Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee. Don't be afraid, for you've found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will have no end."
"Me, bear a child?" Mary asks. It's not what the country really needs right now, is it? Don't we need an army to drive the Romans out? Don't we need an honest king to sit on the throne? Don't we need jobs and food and clothing for the starving and poorly clothed masses? What good's another kid going to do?
What many in Israel failed to realize was that this child, this Immanuel, this God with us, this baby would lead an army of angels that would drive out the army of the devil. What many in Israel failed to realize is that the prophecy of a King sitting on the throne of David would be totally fulfilled in this little child.
What many in Israel failed to realize is that there is a famine worse than not receiving bread: it is when the Word of God is shut off and in His silence God waits for the turning tide. This little babe will bring food for the hungry.
And what is required of Mary this Christmas past? Believe. Trust. The Romans will not be driven out and Herod will not be dethroned and the poor will always have their hand out as long as we leave it up to the government or the army to do anything. But what good is another kid going to do us?
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this." (Isaiah 9:6-7) Why can Mary and why can Israel and why can we have hope in this Christmas present? Because "The Lord is with thee."
The spirit of Christmas present: "Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal, and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. . . The door of Scrooge's counting house was open, that he might keep his eyes upon the clerk, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very small that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room." Ahaz the king received a visit from the prophet.
Mary the Virgin received a visit from the Angel.
And Scrooge the miser received a visit from his dead partner, Jacob Marley. He knew that Scrooge had lost all hope of ever becoming a human being. And so he tells Scrooge, "I am here tonight to warn you; that you yet have a chance and hope of escaping my fate, a chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer. You will be haunted by three Spirits. Without their visits you cannot hope to shun the path I tread."
Scrooge is shown his past. There is some pain there. But there is a great deal of pleasure and hope there. There are his old friends and the parties and the dancing. There is old Fezziwig, his first boss, alive as can be. And then there is the sight of Belle, his first and only love. Scrooge sees what could have been his: children, lots of children, laughing, playing, running about. He sees the face of his one true love and the life he could have had.
But somewhere back there Scrooge had decided to put his trust in mammon. Belle sat beside him. "It matters little," she said softly, "To you very little. Another idol has displaced me; and it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."
Later that night Scrooge is visited again: by the spirit of Christmas present, who shows him the homes of his nephew, who chooses to bless his Uncle Scrooge in an act of grace, and the home of Bob Crachit. "They were not a handsome family, they were not well dressed, their shoes where far from being waterproof, their clothes were scanty, and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time."
Then, the awful spirit of Christmas yet to come visits Scrooge. He is bony and cold and silent. Eventually Scrooge and the spirit arrive. "A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses, overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying, fat with depleted appetite. A worthy place!" Scrooge says to the spirit, "Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me. 'Spirit,' he cried, tight clutching at its robe, 'hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this course. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?'"
Ahaz the king learned that in a time of what looks like impending defeat, he could count on the sign of the birth of a child. Immanuel: God with us.
Mary the virgin learned that in a time of what looks like perpetual darkness, that she and her nation and the world could count on the sign of the birth of a child. Jesus: For he will save His people.
Scrooge, the fictional miser who is more real to me than a million Congressmen, learned that in a time of what appears to be an eternal life of darkness, he too could look upon the birth of a child. And why can families who gather around that Christmas tree year after year, remembering the pain and pleasures of years past have hope for Christmases yet to come? Says Scrooge, "Good Spirit, I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live the Past, Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."
And so as you gather, remember that in this one evening the spirit of Christmas past, present and future gather together. We can't change the past. We don't know everything about the future. But this we have, on this we can count: Immanuel: God with us. So let us raise up on the crutch of faith and say, "God bless Us, Every One!"
© Rev. Duane Brown, 2003
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