Celebrate

Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent is a time to prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus. This morning's sermon is intended to help you to take advantage of the Advent season. This morning's sermon is intended to help you prepare to celebrate. I've chosen something from Paul's letter to the Ephesians to help guide us in this.

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Ephesians 5.15-16

Paul is exhorting the Ephesians to be careful. He wants them to walk through life wisely. Let me remind you that wisdom is about understanding how life works, understanding God, others and yourself. It's about seeing what's really going on and responding appropriately. This is what lies at the heart of a life lived well.

Paul has a particular concern. He wants those saints to make the best use of time. The word translated as 'time' has a certain undertone to it. He's not talking about time as merely one thing happening after another. He's talking about time in terms of what's going on, time in terms of opportunities being offered. Paul wants them to be careful to choose well as they encounter these various opportunities.

And Paul gives them a reason to be careful here. 'The days are evil.' This is one of the things that connect us with the saints of the first century. They were, and we are, surrounded by evil. And that evil affects us just as it affected them. The antidote for them - as for us - is the same: making wise choices. And the particular concern here has to do with the choices we make in our use of time. You will be able to respond well to the evil around you if you are wise in the use of your time, if take full advantage of the opportunities that it offers.

All of that applies to many aspects of living. Today, I'm going to apply it to Advent. Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, is an opportune time for you, a time that you can take advantage of. Unfortunately, it is also a time that has been contaminated by evil. The culture has hijacked our holiday. The original point of the holiday is largely forgotten and now replaced with something else. How shall we respond wisely to that evil as we consider how to make best use of this opportune time? That's the question I'd like to answer in this sermon.

Let's start with this. Christmas is intended to be a time to remember the coming of the Savior of the world. Of all the great works of God - and there are many - the coming of Jesus is the greatest. So, how shall we remember this? The answer is obvious. We are to celebrate.

The Bible is filled with patterns. And these patterns are intended to teach us. One pattern has to do with celebration. So, Moses leads Israel out of Egypt. By God's power, the Red Sea is parted to let Israel through, but it closes on the Egyptian army, destroying it. God has rescued His people. So, what happens next? Israel celebrates. Exodus 15 starts with this.

Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.

And it goes on, just like that, celebrating God's great work with singing and dancing and rejoicing together. 

Think about Esther. Haman the Agagite wants to destroy the Jews. God turns his scheme against him and rescues Israel from extermination. What happens next?  The Jews are told that, as a reminder, every year there should be

days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

Again, we see that Israel celebrates what God has done.

There are other times of celebration like Passover and other holy days. Time and again, Israel celebrated the great works of God. It was part of who they were.

Now, the pinnacle of all of God's works of rescue, the one that they all point to, is the coming of Jesus. This is the greatest of all God's works. How are we to respond? It's obvious. We are to celebrate. Not because of some cultural habit that we picked up, but because celebrating the great works of God is part of who we are. We celebrate in obedience to the pattern we see in the Scriptures.

It's at this point that we need to ask an important question. How shall we celebrate? Well, consider the biblical celebrations of the past, some of which I've just mentioned. What happened? The best way to say it is that the people threw a party. They had a feast. There was singing and dancing and laughter and happiness. They celebrated. And they celebrated events that were only pale pictures of what Jesus has come to do. So, shouldn't we also throw a party? Shouldn't we celebrate as well?

However, please remember that 'the days are evil'. So, whether you celebrate with a big party or not, what is key is what you are celebrating. We are to celebrate the great work of God and not some cultural counterfeit. We are to celebrate the coming of Jesus. And here, once again, the Psalms are so helpful in understanding what that means.

Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! 

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! 

What is the focus of each of those bits from the Psalms? The mighty works of God. And what is the tone of these Psalms as they call people to celebrate? Excitement. There are exclamation points all over the place. The writers of these Psalms were thoroughly caught up in the thought of celebrating what their God has done. And that gets us to a critical issue. If you're going to really celebrate something, the soul needs to be engaged. You need to be thoroughly caught up with what you are celebrating.

Consider what happens when some football team wins the Super Bowl. Their home city has a parade to celebrate that event. And there will be some people there who are really excited. They are engaged, deeply engaged. I'm talking about the rabid fans. Their team, this group with which they have so intimately identified themselves, has conquered. These fans are excited about this win because they see themselves as being a part of what has happened. 'We have won!' They are deeply engaged, and it shows in their celebration.

We celebrate something more important than football. The conquest that we get excited about deals with something much more profound. So, to celebrate Jesus' coming, to really celebrate it, will also require the soul being engaged. There are two important words from the Psalms that will help you to do exactly that, adjectives that describe God's works: marvelous and wondrous. Two little words that are so important and so neglected. What do those words mean? Why are they even here? ‘Marvelous’ is about something that causes a person to marvel, to be amazed, to be struck with awe. ‘Wondrous’ is similar. It's about something that stops you in your tracks and forces you to wonder about what has happened, to be struck with wonder. If you would celebrate Jesus' coming in a way that is fitting, if you would be engaged on the level of your soul, these two words are critical. Real celebration is the fruit of being amazed, being awe-struck at what has happened. Throwing a party to celebrate only really works if it is the expression of a soul that is stunned in wonder at what God has done in Jesus. To celebrate Jesus' coming in a way that is fitting, your soul needs to be touched by those two little words.

And that gets us back to what I said at the beginning of this sermon.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent is a time to prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus.

You now have a better idea of what it means to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Advent is a time to prepare your soul to do that. It is a time to ponder the wonders of this work of God, to be amazed at what He has done for the sake of sinners. It is a time to marvel at your God so you can celebrate well.

So, how do you prepare? What are some things to do? A big part of it comes back to meditating. Or to translate that church word, you have to do some thinking. And to help, one thing you could do is read some things to provoke thoughts about what it is that God has done. I'm not suggesting that you pick up some Calvin, though reading especially some parts of what he has written could be very helpful. No, instead I'm thinking that you could read the words of a Christmas carol. Don't sing it. Read it. Pause over the words. Let them percolate a bit. Ask questions of what you're reading. Put yourself in the picture that the carol is painting. Use the carol to help you see what God was up to in sending His Son. And then, as you find yourself getting it, as you find your soul being engaged, that's when you might want to sing the carol. Now, remember, I always get the sermon first. So, earlier this week I pulled out a hymnal and read through the first carol it had, 'Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus'. That was really good. I intend to do more of that during the rest of Advent.

You could also read over the stories surrounding Jesus' birth in Matthew or Luke. Familiar but maybe not really. Read Zechariah's hymn of praise or Mary's. Put yourself among those shepherds as angels appeared to them. And what were those Wise Men thinking? What was God doing? And what difference does it make? Prepare to celebrate.

To do this well will take two other ingredients. The first is time. And time is something that you never seem to have enough of at Christmas time. It may be that you'll need to choose between getting all the outward trappings of celebration ready and getting your soul ready. The other ingredient, as always, will be prayer. Nothing works unless God blesses. Ask the Father to bless your efforts to prepare your soul. Ask Him to give you insight into what happened so that you can grow in your wonder at what He has done in sending Jesus.

Last thought. This comes from another Psalm.

One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. 

We are to commend the mighty acts of God to the next generation. The way we celebrate Christmas affects the kids of this church. What will their memories of our celebrations be? The gifts under the tree or the Giver of every good and perfect gift? Will they learn how to celebrate with a soul that is engaged with the coming of Jesus? Oh, that they would say of us that our souls were amazed by the wonders of the great works of God and that it showed in our celebration of the greatest of those mighty acts. Let's make it our goal that they will mature into faithful disciples who know, without a doubt, that Christmas is about Jesus, the One who came to rescue us from ourselves. And may their celebrations clearly reveal that.