You can watch and listen to the sermon at the following link, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVCSrRzbH5o
Christmas is not over. More than just than just a day wherein we gift gifts to one another, more than just a day that we think, or maybe even say, “Happy Birthday Jesus”, Christmas is a season. Many people like to focus on the fact that the Bible doesn’t tell us when Jesus was born, neither does it tell us to celebrate when He was born. Or does it? The Catholic community marks out “Epiphany” (Jan. 6th) as the time when the three wise men visited Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in Bethlehem. What do those wise men do when they encountered the baby Jesus Christ? They have gifts. They celebrated. They pondered the importance of the time. Also I ask you to consider, when Jesus was brought to the Temple for dedication and others happened upon Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus, what did those who witnessed Christ do? Scripture tells us they were “moved by the Spirit”, praised God, and began prophesying.
For many Christians, Christmas begins on December 25th and continues for 12 days. The “12 Days of Christmas”, more than just a song, actually was a subversive method of encouraging one another in the faith and highlighting Scriptural truths.
We don’t see so much of this anymore. Christians being creative and subverting the worldly focus.
We live in a time when everything is seemingly being dumbed-down, shortened, cared for less, and and many settle for the mundane, rather than being co-creators with God, taking the things of this world and allowing them to be “more than” what they seem. If you just continue on with your normal routine (rather than considering challenging and change), continue with what you got (rather than striving for more), and continue viewing things as you have (rather than expanding your ideas), you will find yourself wandering into dissatisfaction. So many are stuck there.
I hope you might consider this charge this morning. Join me in allowing life to be more than what it seems. Join me in being a co-creator with God.
Bringing our minds back to an extended Christmas, I’d like to share some rather poetic words from a man named Howard Thurman.
He wrote, “When the song os the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among others, to make music in the heart”.
Amen.
I’d like to carry such an amen forward by having each of us consider the following “Christmas Creed”, which was shared on social media last year by Biblical scholar Pete Ennis.
CREED FOR CHRISTMAS
I believe in Jesus Christ and in the power of the gospel, begun in Bethlehem.
I believe in the one whose spirit glorified a small village, of whose coming shepherds saw the sign, and for whom there was no room at the inn.
I believe in the one whose life changed the course of history, over whom the rulers of the earth had no power, and who was not understood by the proud.
I believe in the one to whom the oppressed, the discouraged, the afflicted, the sick, the blind, the injured gave welcome, and accepted as Lord and Savior.
I believe in the one who-with love–changed the hearts of the proud and with his life showed that it is better to serve than to be served, and that the greatest joy is giving your life for others.
I believe in peace, which is not the absence of war, but justice among all people and nations and love among all.
I believe in reconciliation, forgiveness, and the transforming power of the gospel.
I believe that Christmas is strength founded in compassion and power founded in hope, and that this world can change if with humility and faith we kneel before the manger.
I believe that I must be the first one to do so.
Amen.
And now today, we consider New Year’s.
The magazines Christianity Today and Forbes give us some historic highlights regarding New Year’s.
“At first, the Romans celebrated the beginning of the new year on March 1, not January 1. Julius Caesar instituted New Year’s Day on January 1 to honor Janus, the two-faced god who looks backwards into the old year and forwards into the new.”
The Romans called January 1st the Kalends of January. The Kalends is what gives us the modern word “calendar.” The Kalendae Ianuariae was a time of particular hope and anticipation for the coming year. It was filled with celebrations and religious rites that focused on the health of individual Romans and of the state. Romans literally got off on the right foot by leading with their right leg as they entered temples, houses and other doorways on this and many other days.
Between 387 and 398, a Christian preacher, John Chrystostrom, gave sermons condemning the New Year’s celebrations that gripped the empire every year. He said things like, We are fighting a war, not against the Amalekites, not against other foreign attackers, but against the demons who parade through the marketplace…The devilish all-night celebrations that are held today, the jests and songs of blame and censure, the nocturnal dancing and this entire ridiculous comedy.”
Well into the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE, Christian preachers and teachers railed against the evils of the Kalends of January festivities.A bishop near the Black Sea censured his congregants for not attending church on January 1 and in North Africa, Augustine of Hippo also spoke out against the Kalends and begged the people not to attend the festivities. In 541/542 CE, the emperor Justinian put a further nail in the coffin of the Kalendae Januariae by abolishing the consulship altogether. Church councils also continued to condemn the celebrations with a finite ban in the 7th century CE.
Now to be clear, the customs of the day were far more sinister than the celebrations we see for New Year’s in the West today. Though drunken revelry does indeed continue. Much of the tradition and customs of Rome wrapped together culture and religion, false religion at that. With wisdom we can move away from such pagan practices and ways of celebrating the New Year, all the while using the the time to mark reflection on the past, and to inspire hope for the future. In that regard, New Year’s Day and calendars generally can serve to structure our lives and–in part–to shape our resolve for the events we will encounter.
“…January 1 remains a popular global holiday for celebrating the new year. (It has Christian origins, too, since the Gregorian calendar was introduced by introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582). Many churches especially those in Wesleyan traditions, hold watchnight services on New Year’s Eve. Other Christians join in the traditional effort to make and keep New Year’s resolutions.”
So again, I’d like to charge us to utilize this day. Review your gains and pains of the last year. Work up some vision or resolutions for the new year. As the saying goes, “Once you know better, do better”. Or to cite the Old Testament prophet. Haggai, “Consider your ways”. Or even the New Testament Apostle Paul, “Examine yourself”.
You see, I share this following quote by John Piper constantly because I truly believe it to be true. “God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in Him”.
Your patterns and practices have a whole lot to do with your satisfaction. Have you went the way of the world and simple accepted things as they are? Have you become so ‘set in your ways’ as to not do new things, consider new ways, ponder new ideas? Repent. Today is the perfect day to do so. I love the quote from Benjamin Franklin that is often shared around this time of year, “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
About 6 years ago we were in the same predicament. New Year’s Eve was a Sunday. I preached to us then to “Live Worthy Lives” and sure enough I hope to challenge you in the same this morning. We find such worthy lives by examining and challenging ourselves.
Regarding vision, if you can’t must up vision for yourself, join yourself to others who have vision. Here at BPBC our annual vision for 2023 was to live – Happy. Healthy. Helpful. How did you fair? Good news. The year is no over. And surely we should carry such realities into the new year, as well.
Happy – Healthy – Helpful.
Regarding resolutions, if you cannot muster up some personal resolve, consider asking yourself what your Bible reading plan is. Consider finding challenges and charts to stir you a bit.
I found one online called, “This Year I want To Be More Like Jesus” and it listed the following items to achieve that:
1.) Flip religious tables of oppression.
2.) Take more naps on boats.
3.) Extend every wine party.
4.) Be radically kind and radically inclusive
5.) Challenge selfish living.
6.) Choose unpopular friends.
7.) Tell stories that make people think.
Those 7 ideas sound like fun and could change everything about your experience of life and the experience of lives you are called to affect.
Also consider the following questions;
1. What’s one thing you can do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What’s an impossible prayer you can pray?
3. What’s the most important thing you could do to improve your family life?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year?
5. What’s the single biggest time-waster in your life, and how can you redeem the time?
6.) What’s the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year
8. What’s the most important way, by God’s grace, you will try to make this year different from last?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing can you plan to do this year that will matter most in ten years? In eternity?
(No worries, this sermon will be posted online for further review).
In conclusion this morning, I’d like to bring your minds back to a quote I shared not only last week during our Worship Service, but I also shared in my nana’s eulogy I recently gave, a quote that has continued and will continue to stir me in the Spirit.
“Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word.” – Madame Guyon
We have work to do. What is your activity? Is it you intentionally placing yourself in a position to be impressed by or to to impress others with the glory of God? Are your patterns and practices placing you there? New Year’s is a great time time for each of us to “repent”. Place your patterns and practices on the altar. Allow God to inspire and impress you and thus make His impression on you. An impress that will be seen through your patterns and practices.
I’ll close with this poignant quote from A.W. Tozer,
“If we are good students in the school of life, there is much that the years have to teach us. But the Christian is more than a student, more than a philosopher. He is a believer, and the object of his faith makes the difference, the mighty difference.
Of all persons the Christian should be best prepared for whatever the New Year brings. He has dealt with life at its source. In Christ he has disposed of a thousand enemies that other men must face alone and unprepared. He can face his tomorrow cheerful and unafraid because yesterday he turned his feet into the ways of peace and today he lives in God. The man who has made God his dwelling place will always have a safe habitation.” – A. W. Tozer