Your Best Yes Christmas!

Well, it’s finally here -  The most hectic day of the most hectic week, of the most hectic season of the year.  But it’s Christmas, it's all good. It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That's why we want to do everything, and be everywhere, and please everyone.  It's all good. The problem is, it’s almost impossible to fit it all in, especially since we've still got to do everything and deal with everything that we're usually doing and dealing with in our lives.  But it also means that we are blessed in many ways, with many things and many relationships.

Maybe there's no avoiding the busyness when it comes to the Christmas Season, and we just go ahead and concede that point. But we don't have to be anxious, angry, or annoyed about it all. There's a big difference, isn't there, between being busy and being anxious, angry, and annoyed because we're busy?

We really need a strategy for it all. We need a plan for the holidays, for sure.  But really moving forward into the New Year for more sustainable living in 2019, we need a strategy, and we're calling that strategy  Your best "yes." 

We have talked in these recent weeks about discernment,  about judgment, for sure, but not just decision-making, it’s about wisdom, discerning not just the good from the bad,  but the good from the greater good, and the greater good from the greatest good. When life presents more than one good option, it's about reflecting on the best one, the one that represents the best use of our time or our resources, the one that's going to have the greatest impact for the greatest number of people. That's your best "yes." 

Now I want to talk about one particular "yes" that we can make that is not only your best "yes” for the Christmas season,  but your best "yes" ever, the best "yes" of all. And to do it, we're turning to the Gospel. The Gospel of Luke tells the story of Christmas that we know best and love.  Luke is the most poetic, the most descriptive, probably the best storyteller of all four gospel accounts of Christmas, but also the most historically detailed. He goes to great lengths to show that even though he's describing miraculous, fantastical, amazing events, they're not fantasy. They're not fabled or fiction. They're real events that are rooted in history. That's why he begins his story the way he does.
Luke wrote, "In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled." So, according to historic record, the Roman Emperor Augustus called for a census of the entire Roman Empire approximately 2,000 years ago. And the way they did it was that everyone had to register, only at their place of origin, to be counted.

So Luke tells us that Mary and her husband, Joseph, traveled to Bethlehem because that's where Joseph was from. And there  in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to the child, Jesus. But then, Luke takes us to a completely different scene. He says, "So there were shepherds in that region, living in the fields and keeping a night watch over their flock." The shepherds are familiar companions in the Christmas story, but we tend to have this idealized, Hallmark Christmas card view of them.

The actual job of shepherding, however, was about as low as you could go in Jewish society at the time. They were very poor, of course, and subject to harsh living conditions.  The shepherds were definitely societal outcasts, but they were also religious outcasts. Their job rendered them religiously unfit, religiously unclean, according to the Jewish law.  So they were barred from worship at the temple in Jerusalem. 

And it was to those shepherds, of all the people in the whole world that first Christmas night, that the most important announcement ever was given.  Luke writes, "The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were so afraid." The angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people." So the angel tells the shepherds, "No need to fear because I've got some good news." 

That's what the Christmas message is – good news of great joy!

When Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago, all kinds of people including some very unreligious people, some very unholy people, some very un-churched people, flocked to him. They flocked to him and followed him everywhere.  They liked him. Think about that – people who were nothing like him liked him, even loved him. And they didn't like him because he was running around mandating religious rules and laws to make them feel bad about themselves.  They followed Jesus because he offered good news of great joy that, for once, included them. Good news of great joy, not just for some special people, not just for the religious rule-keeping people, not just for the morally righteous, not just for the church people.

Good news of great joy for all people. You know what? Good news of great joy for all people means it's good news for us too.

The angel goes on to tell them exactly what this news is. He says, "For today, in the City of David, a savior has been born for you, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you, you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." So the good news for the shepherds is that they found a savior.  The good news for us is that we've got a savior too.

But what does this mean? We know we need a savior to move us beyond our own poor choices and past regrets, to help us understand that we are not the sum total of those bad choices and we are not defined by our past. We know we need a savior to quiet us, to quiet that voice that says we'll never measure up, that voice that can sometimes be doubt and sometimes despair.  We know we need a savior to rescue us, to rescue us from the times that we fall short of God's best for us, or we don't quite meet our own expectations for ourselves and who we want to be as parents or friends, or students, or employers. We know we need a savior to save us from the fears and frustrations, and the anger, and the anxiety that hound us, from the sadness and sorrow that can haunt any of us.  We know we need a savior. And the message of Christmas is that, whoever you are, wherever you've been, whatever has happened to you, whatever you've done, a savior is exactly what you need, AND exactly what you've got.

But maybe there are times or periods in which you've said "no,"  Times you've said "no" to Christ, to the church, even to God, because the message you heard was, "You're not good enough.  Get your act together and fly right, and then we can talk." Maybe you've said "no" because you thought the whole deal with faith and religion was knowing stuff that you really weren't interested in.  Maybe you've said "no" because you see Christianity as some kind of club for church people, it's a kind of club for the smug, and you're really not interested. Of course, you're perfectly free to say "no."

But why not first make sure you're not saying "no" to a false representation of the Christmas message?  Because the real Christmas message is still the same one.  It's still the original one. It's the message the angels gave the shepherds, "Today, in the City of David, a savior has been born for you, who is Christ the Lord." 

The message is that, first of all, God doesn't want something from you.  God wants something FOR you. Take a look at the end of the story. When the angels went away from them to Heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go then to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us."  The shepherds say "yes" to the message of the angels by leaving their fields and flock and making the trip to Bethlehem.

So they went and found Mary and Joseph and the infant lying in the manger. Then, the shepherds returned, glorifying God.  The shepherds received the good news and allowed it to change their lives.  They received the good news and they acted on it, and that changed things for them.  It led them to worship and service. And most of all, it led them to share the news that they were given. You know, the whole point of this whole Christmas story, we have gathered here to celebrate, is only to help us understand, or to understand once again that God seeks to walk with us on a daily basis, and nothing is beneath his purview. He seeks to walk with us on a daily basis toward better choices and more successful, sustainable living.  Because in every single situation and each and every step of the way, 

God really does have in mind for you your best "yes". God says his best yes to you, right here and right now, by sending his son, small and vulnerable, to walk through life with you.  What do you think about that? What do you feel? Can you say yes to him?

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