And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,”  Luke 1:46-47

Dear Faithful Seed Sowers and Christmas Centered Christ followers,
JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON! Don’t ever forget that. No pandemic can shut down the real reason for the Christmas season. All over the world the faithful are preparing their hearts, homes and holidays for the arrival of the KING OF KINGS. I pray you are almost ready!

It is my prayer that during this 2020 “covid” Advent season, you are able to see, feel, taste, sense, and hear the Advent hope, love, joy and peace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Before we begin our journey this week, let me first ask you a question. 

What is your attitude about joy?

This may sound like a silly question — I think all of us would rather be happy than sad.   I believe that we would rather be up than down.  I would go a step further and say most of us prefer to be around others who are joyful, happy, and positive.

Happiness and joy are not the same thing.  Happiness depends on a happening, something from the outside while joy comes from within ourselves.

I love the Old Testament book of Nehemiah.  Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls after 70 years of desolation and destruction. Wow!  We have only had 10 months of isolation and lockdown. Nehemiah wants to encourage the people to continue to keep rebuilding.  They are surrounded by their enemies Sanballat, Tobias, Gresham.  Their walls are broken down.  Their spirits are down and Nehemiah shouts out these wonderful, powerful, life-changing words found in Nehemiah 8:10:

Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10

DO NOT GRIEVE … FOR THE JOY OF THE LORD IS YOUR STRENGTH.

These are words that we can take to heart as we continue to walk through this world-wide pandemic.

The so what comes early this today — So What is your attitude about joy?
Do you take the time to cultivate joy in your life? 
Do you see joy as an important foundation for your life, and if so, where does this joy come from?
Who or what is the source of your JOY?

Joy!  You may be saying, “How can there be joy in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. How can there be joy when I am locked down in my house?  How can there be joy when all I do is spend my time on my computer screen for class or work. Joy, are you kidding me?  You haven’t seen my TO DO list, have you?
I still have a week of school left—bah humbug!”  I bet you know people like old Ebenezer  Scrooge, who lived most of his life with a “bah humbug” attitude.

The trouble with waiting for JOY to happen is that we will always have more work to do.

The good news is that we CAN increase the joy in our lives, regardless of our circumstances, by taking and making the time to celebrate.

Let me repeat that statement!

We can increase our joy by taking and making the time to celebrate!

This is my 22^nd Christmas in ordained pastoral ministry and 40^th Christmas in ministry total (18 years as youth pastor).  It never ceases to amaze me how stressful and depressing the holidays can be for so many people—especially Christians—and all the while we have the answer right in front of us, lying in a manger. The Christ Child:  Immanuel, GOD WITH US. 

Sometimes at Christmas we can find ourselves nursing wounds from the past or wallowing in self-pity over what we do not have and over the bad choices we have made.  We find ourselves remembering harsh words, sad disappointments, and difficult interactions from our past.    We think we will never be free and, like Scrooge, we want to “extinguish” the truth.  “Extinguish the pain” is often our first response to wounds and regrets, but there is a better way.

Jesus was born in a stable — a small, cramped, congested, messy place! A newborn baby was out-of-place among the dusty animals, the musty straw and all the usual smells, sights and sounds found in a stable.  But this mess is our holy message of Christmas!  There is no stable, no place in our world or in our lives or hearts that is too broken, too poor, too remote, too rejected, too outcast or too messy that God cannot be found and formed in us—Immanuel, God with us.

I encourage you to take and read the Gospel stories in Matthew 1 & 2 and Luke 1 & 2.

The Gospel — Good News story in Luke 1:39-56 gives us the right focus for us today.  Here we have Elizabeth, beyond childbearing age but now six-months pregnant with her first child, a son, John. {He will become John the Baptist.}  Elizabeth is visited by her relative, Mary.  Mary was young, poor, female…unmarried, and pregnant.  I love the stories in the Bible.  Not because the people are the cream of the crop, the WHO’S WHO of WHOVILLE; no!  I love the stories because they are people just like you and me.  Both of these woman had pain in their lives:  Elizabeth had suffered for many years—probably 50 years—because she could not bear a child.  Her childlessness was viewed by others as a curse from God.  Elizabeth felt humiliated and hopeless for years—and  what happens? She is old AND pregnant!  Mary decides to go visit Elizabeth after Gabriel has appeared to her and shared the good news that she will bear a son named Jesus.  Mary is the opposite of Elizabeth.  She is not old and pregnant.  Mary is young, unmarried, and pregnant; yet Mary knows that this baby is God’s own son.

As Mary enters Elizabeth’s home, Elizabeth’s baby LEAPS within her and Elizabeth gives a glad cry She exclaims that Mary is blessed above all women!  You know, these two could have had quite a pity party…but they did not.  In verse 46 Mary responds to Elizabeth by saying, “My soul GLORIFIES the Lord.”  Do you know that another word for GLORIFY is MAGNIFY?  Magnify:  to make something greater/to cause to be held in greater esteem or respect/to enlarge in fact or appearance.  What Mary is saying is, “You know, this is not the greatest timing for me, either.  We can focus on the negative or…we can focus on the good.   You know what? We may not understand this but my soul is going to magnify the Lord.”

Elizabeth and Mary chose to cultivate joy.  Instead of magnifying their worries and woes, they chose to magnify the Lord.

Eugene Peterson’s THE MESSAGE states it this way: “I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.” Luke 1:46-47 

Mary knew God as a God of power and as a God who was concerned for her.  Mary knew God as the ONE who cares for the humble and hungry.   Mary knew her Old Testament Scriptures.  There are at least fifteen Old Testament quotes or allusions in her song of praise.  Because Mary and Elizabeth had believed the Word of God, they each experienced the power of God.  The result of their magnifying the Lord is an outpouring of JOY.  What a lesson for each of us!

Each one of us has a choice to make.  We can focus on what we do not have, or we can focus on what we do have.  

SO WHAT?
We are turning the corner to Christmas!  What a story of JOY we have been given in Elizabeth and Mary!  Christ is the holder of our past, present and future.

The message of Christmas is this:  mess or no mess…IMMANUEL—GOD WITH US—is arriving in few days!  Yes, there’s tons yet to do.  Yes, we may not get it all done.  Yes, our painful pasts may be crying out but we have a choice to make:  will we magnify the pain or we will magnify the Lord?

Here’s our series so far:

Week 1:  HOPE:  Hope in harrowing times! We need to remember to no be afraid.  God hears your prayers.
Week 2:  LOVE:  God’s enduring love had a plan from the very beginning of time. God’s enduring love had a plan for Joseph. God’s enduring love has a plan for you. Remember Immanuel — God is with us!
Week 3:  JOY:  We all have a choice to make!  Choose joy and allow the joy of the Lord to be your strength.

Oh, let us MAGNIFY the LORD this week as we PREPARE for CHRISTMAS DAY!  I want us to burst with GOD NEWS and to DANCE the SONG of our SAVIOR GOD!

Let us pray:  God, only You know the depth and width of our yesterdays.  Only you can help us to heal.  These last ten days of Advent help us to prepare our hearts and our homes for the celebration of Your one and only Son’s arrival.  Unchain our hearts and help us to BUILD relationships with love.  This week we ask for JOY!  Help us to magnify the good and to sing, “Joy to the world!  The Lord is come:  let earth receive her King.  Let every heart prepare Him room—and heaven and nature SING!”  We want to be full of the GOD NEWS…so that we dance all week long with JOY!  Amen. 

I have a great story to share with you. After last Sunday’s message, my wife said, “I want God to bring JOY to me this week in a way that makes me dance and sing.” I will make this short. Our daughter is a Special Education teacher and she just recently took on a home teach student with medical issues that keep her homebound. I can’t give you much information but I can tell you this young student is on dialysis and this young student heads up a CHRISTMAS TOY DRIVE for the children on dialysis at Loma Linda hospital. There’s actually ten different SEEDS OF FAITH in this one story but let me just say this: my wife posted a need on her facebook page, 7 people responded. Today that young student delivered a TRUCK LOAD of toys to 3 dialysis clinics!

My wife’s words, “THIS. THIS IS CHRISTMAS!”

We are singing and dancing here on GALA Avenue. That’s my prayer for you: THAT YOU FIND CHRIST IN THIS COVID CHRISTMAS because when we choose to magnify GOD…no one can steal our JOY!

Jesus. Others. You.

Merry Christmas!

See you Sunday!

God loves you and so do i,
Pastor Dave
www.theseedchristianfellowship.com

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