Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

Among the many messages of Christmas is a message of hope. The prophet Micah, who lived long before Jesus was born, wrote his prophecy during a time of national catastrophe, when most of his fellow Jews could see not even a glimmer of hope. The northern kingdom, Israel, had been annihilated by the savage armies of Assyria, and the southern kingdom, Judah, all that remained of God's people, had been made a vassal state. In the midst of this tragedy, Micah wrote his message of hope.

It was the Jews' lowest moment, except for one: when, a hundred and fifty years later, Judah fell -- to Babylon this time, the new world power - and Judah's citizens were carried off in exile, spelling what appeared to be the absolute end of Jewry. All that had gone before: God's calling Abraham, God's giving Abraham a family and promising him land, the Jews wandering as nomads in the land of Canaan, emigration to Egypt, slavery, Moses, Pharaoh, escape and deliverance through the waters of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, the conquest of the promised land, Saul, David, Solomon - all that, fifteen hundred years of a people's history, wiped out. Because no one would be left to remember these things, or to care about them. At least that's how it seemed.

Micah begins by talking about Bethlehem. Bethlehem, in those days, was a one-horse town. (Still isn't much. They were fighting there again this week. Had to call off Christmas in the very place Jesus was born!) Bethlehem was insignificant among the cities of Judah, but every Jew, hearing Micah's words, would have remembered instinctively that Bethlehem was David's town. That out of this unlikely place had come Israel's greatest king. So, to speak of Bethlehem was to speak of hope. To speak of a new shepherd king, who once again would feed his flock "in the strength of the Lord" (as David had), was to prophesy a glorious day in a terrible time, was to find hope.

Centuries later, Christians saw in Micah's words a prophecy of the coming of Jesus, who had been born in Bethlehem, was said to be of the lineage of David, and who had called himself "the good shepherd." So Micah's hope was justified, the Christians said, although in a way the ancient prophet could never have imagined.

Listen to our first scripture lesson this morning, which was read for us so well by ----------------. It's the story of Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant (and whose conception was also peculiar, to say the least!), and when Mary says "Hi" her cousin's baby leaps in the womb, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, and begins to bow and scrape and proclaim Mary (fifteen or sixteen years old) "blessed among women"…"the mother of my Lord." And (we didn't read this this morning) but Mary responds, "My soul doth magnify the Lord…he hath regarded the lowly estate of his handmaiden…he hath scattered the proud…He hath brought down the powerful…the hungry he hath fed, and the rich he hath sent empty away. He has kept his promise to our father, Abraham." An amazing story of hope. Even a poor girl, living in a place like Nazareth, can be blessed by God, and can become a blessing. Even in ordinary times, when life drones on, even in the worst of times when there seems to be no reason to hope, God is at work. There is always hope because there is always God.

Religious people take a panoramic view of history, refusing to get stuck in the moment. God works in mysterious ways, they say, and he's never in a hurry. They also understand that history is made in the details. As history majors in college we used to recite the little ditty: "For lack of the nail, the shoe was lost. For lack of the shoe, the horse was lost. For lack of the horse the rider was lost. For lack of the rider, the battle was lost." You can read of history's grand events in text books, but real history is made not on the public stage but behind the scenes, in the little things. Where God is at work. In the year 1809 a visitor from the backwoods of Kentucky came to the new capital city of Washington, D.C. He visited President Monroe, and said to him, "I wish I lived in a place like this - excitement everywhere, new buildings being built, affairs of state being discussed. Nothing important ever happens where I come from. You know what was the most important thing that happened in our little town last week? Tom Lincoln's wife had a baby."

You never know where or when God is at work. That is why we disagree with so much modern thinking, which seems to suggest that human life is determined, either by our genes or by our upbringing, and we are condemned simply to live out our roles, with no God and no free will. This is the modern form of slavery, and those who accept it deserve to be slaves. Faithful people, on the other hand, believe in unlimited possibilities. What appears to be fixed is not. A young virgin can become pregnant, angels can speak to shepherds, a star can guide Wise Men, a young baby, born so poor, can live and die and rise again, and carry the hopes of all mankind. "All things are possible to those who love the Lord," we say. And we mean it.

Paul said that hope "abideth" - lives forever, and that, with faith and love, hope is one of life's essentials. I know this: hope is a precious commodity. Life without hope is dismal. Hopelessness is a dungeon. To use modern language, hopelessness is the essence of depression: nothing's going to change. I'm stuck, where I'm stuck, where I'm stuck. The more we believe that, the truer it becomes. We make it true. But the Bible says, and evidence bears it out, that in Christ Jesus we are not stuck, but, in fact, we are made new. We are constantly refreshed. We are created all over again. That is an important message of Christmas.

It was in the bleak mid-winter that Jesus came, earth like iron, water like a stone. I have known seasons like that. I bet you have, too. I have said, in hopeless despair, "Winter is here to stay. There will never be another spring, no flowers, no green leaves. Not this year. My sadness is too great." And God has broken through. Deliverance comes unexpectedly, like a rose blooming in winter, at midnight, "a floweret bright (a pretty little bud), amid the cold of winter, when half-spent was the night." A glimmer of hope, a miracle, in the dark and the cold. Mary was a vessel for God's possibilities, for things that had not been dreamed of in a thousand years:

To show God's love aright,
She bore to us a savior,
When half-spent was the night.

Nothing is more hopeful than the birth of a baby. All things are possible for a baby. He comes into the world carrying no baggage: no fear, no anger, no prejudice, no heritage of foolish mistakes and lost opportunities. No one has told him what he can't do. We can look at a baby and hope for anything. He is a clean slate. Maybe that's why we love babies so much. They are what we would like to be: unbound by the past and open to the future. Well, guess what? That's right where we are, today, in Christ Jesus. Today, and every day, I am a new creation in him. That is a greater miracle than making lame people walk and blind people see. People can change. The world can change. That is a message of great hope, and one of the central meanings of Christmas.