The recording is most of our Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols service. The sermon is a meditation on the difference between how we tend to celebrate Christmas and what we are looking for vs. the Christmas gift. This is done through a staple modern carol “We Need a Little Christmas” which has the correct diagnosis, if some standard prescriptions that are ineffective.
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Biblical Text: Matthew 16:13-20
The Reign of God or the Kingdom is the overriding theme of the gospel and we’ve been thinking out way through it this summer. It starts out being proclaimed. (“Repent! The Reign of God is near!”) Then it is taught. (“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom.” “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”.) Then it is exhibited or demonstrated as Jesus interacts with the crowds, the disciples and the Pharisees and Sadducees. All of which leads up to the final. “Do you understand? Who do you say I am?”
That is a question that we all must answer when the Reign draws near. And there are a variety of answers, but only one correct one. “You are the Christ.” And that correct answer – that confession does a couple of things. It binds us to Christ in the church. And it frees us from our sin. The Keys of the Kingdom, the reality of the Reign. If you confess Christ, you can only truly do so within his body. And within that body, Satan cannot touch the pardon of God.
That – our proper response to the Reign – is what this sermon encourages.
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This morning, about 4 AM, my wife pushes me and says she thinks its time and adds she is having contractions about 4 minutes apart. At 4 AM when I heard that I was thinking more about how to deliver a child than driving to the hospital becuase this thing is coming now. The 4 minutes things soon subsided. She got up and made the proper calls and walked around and what were felt to be contractions subsided or at least slowed way down. (While daddy is running around throwing the necessary stuff in the car only to be told not just yet.) The labor pains are starting, but not 4 mins apart. New life is on its way.
That seems a little like the drawing near of the kingdom to us. We are all pregnant (Romans 8:22-23) and can feel the pangs of our future glory. Sometimes the kingdom is as near as a 4 AM wakeup call with contractions 4 minutes about. And sometimes it says not quite yet. Babies and God both have their own timing. The thing that we do not have to worry about is the end. Babies are born. The Kingdom will be revealed in our flesh just as it is now in Jesus Christ.
With that note, here is the Easter Sermon. It was a glorious day. The congregation even drowned out the trombone. He is Risen!…He is Risen Indeed. Alelluia!
