Title: The Birth of Hope (Advent Four)

Date: 2007-12-23

Reference: Luke 2: 8-18

Moorhead Kennedy was the United States Foreign Secretary in Iran in 1979, when he became one of the hostages who spent 444 days in captivity. None of us who lived through that hostage crisis will ever forget the unlighted Christmas Tree on the White House Grounds that year. Looking back on his captivity Kennedy wrote: “In the end, we hostages learned how to live on hope. When hope becomes credible, extremists lose their credibility.” Martin Luther said: “Everything that is done in the world is done by the hopeful.

The birth of the Christ Child allows us to keep hope alive over the long haul. Christmas represents a hope, a unique joy felt only at Christmas time because Christ the Savior is born. Christmas is a time of renewed hope. Hope God is still in control of history. Hope that despite our many mistakes God will bring order out of chaos. Christ brought hope and gave us something to live for. If Christ had not come this world would be a hopeless world. If Christ had not come this world would be a lost world.

In Christmas we understand the depth of God’s concern and love for us. We know what God thinks of us. God’s becoming human is the great message of His love for us. Because of this Incarnation, God’s taking on our human flesh in Christ, we are a people of great hope. We know we matter to God. And that God loved us so much He sent His only Son to be our Savior and Lord.

I received a Christmas Greeting from a very close friend in Romania this last week. They are so grateful for the freedom they have to worship God this Christmas.

The Romanians, like all Eastern Europeans, don’t take freedom for granted, because they have only had it a short time, they and can remember the days when they were not free. Before the revolution in Romania, they were ruled by an iron fisted aristocrat who lived in absolute splendor and told the common people to eat cabbage three times a day. Nicolae Chauchescu tore down an entire neighborhood including many historic churches in order to build His palace of the people. But the common people were never allowed to go near it. Chauchescu ordered 365 business suits and 365 expensive pairs of shoes each year. He wore a suit and shoes one day only before they was incinerated. This while many average people didn’t have a warm Winter coat. For 24 years he got richer and richer on the backs of the people.

For all those years the Romanian people heard his speeches and followed his orders and marched to his drumbeat but they knew he was not one of them. He had no idea what the common folks were going through. He lived in a different world, a sheltered world, a shielded world. The Revolution changed all of that. For our sake, Jesus was given no aristocratic advantage. His beginnings were very humble. Jesus was born into a real family, worked hard at a real job, suffered hardship like all of us have. In the end he died a cruel death for a crime he didn’t commit. When the Bible urges us to pour out our hearts to the Savior we can do so with absolute assurance that Jesus understands. He has been where we are. He can identify no matter what we are going through. Each of us matters to him more than we can possibly imagine.

God is nothing at all like the dictator but some days God does seem to be very far away. We wonder where God is at times, what He is up to.

Why He isn’t here when we need Him.

The shepherds we read about in today’s Bible lesson were sitting out on a hillside one chilly evening. Nothing much seemed to change for shepherds. One day seemed pretty much like the next. They worked hard to put bread on the table. Theirs was a thankless job and I’m sure they didn’t feel appreciated. The shepherds felt powerless. Taxes were too high. Hours at work were too long. Pleasures of life were too few. They may have wondered if what they were experiencing was all there is to life. Life had it’s enjoyable moments but deep down there was a real shortage of joy.

There wasn’t much hope for the future.

This description of the shepherds sounds like us. And then, when they were least expecting it, they experienced a night of heavenly hope. These poor and insignificant men had no reason to expect this night would be any different than any other night. Every night they protected their sheep from wolves and sheep. They had followed the same routine for generations. God had other plans the night when hope was born. That night God Himself would come to earth. An angel appeared and shared the Good News with these lowly shepherds. Many believe the sheep huddled in the fields that night were animals that had been raised for Temple Sacrifice. They were meant to atone for sins they had not done. The shepherds were banned from worship in the temple because their occupation made them unclean. Shepherds were not allowed to testify in court because they were considered unreliable. God used them to be the first human witnesses that the prophecy had been fulfilled, hope had been born.

It’s surprising, the Good News was not first given to the High Priest or scholars in the temple or to the proud Pharisees. Maybe that’s because God speaks to those whose hearts are open and who are prepared to listen. Then and now there is no hope aside from our relationship with God.

8oo years before the birth of Christ Isaiah declared: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. And a light shines ver those who live in a land of deep darkness.”

Someone has said: “The peak of night is the beginning of day. The peak of pain is the beginning of light.” The star of Bethlehem is a star in the darkness of night, even today. The birthday of the Lord is the birth day of hope.

The angels announced to a despairing, hopeless, frustrated world the coming of the Prince of Peace. Most of the world missed the announcement because they weren’t listening or they were busy doing other things. Today, during the Christmas Season we are so busy we often don’t have time to consider the Message of the Baby of Bethlehem.

There is a story about the day Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. A man hailed his neighbor and asked.”Any news down at the village?” The neighbor replied.”Well Squire Maclean’s gone up to Washington City to see Madison sworn in.I’m told that Bonaparte fellow has captured much of Spain. Nothing new out here except a new baby down at Tom Lincoln’s house. Nothing ever happens out here.”

At the time, the birth of Abraham Lincoln was not considered important. Too many still don’t view the birth of Jesus as being life changing or important.

Once again this Christmas Season we celebrate hope for the hopeless; pardon for the guilty; forgiveness for all of us. Christmas has always been good news for those who have nothing but bad news.

Jesus came into the world to save all kinds of people.rich and poor educated and illiterate sophisticated or ordinary and everyone in between. Coming to pay homage to Jesus were two groups of people. One group was a band of shepherds, lowly persons at the bottom of the social ladder. They were uneducated and unsophisticated, powerless. The others were Wise Men, intellectuals, wealthy persons from another race and country. They were powerful and respected. The two groups could hardly have been more different. God brought both groups to Bethlehem.some led by an angel others by a miraculous star. By bringing them all, God was saying Jesus was born for each and everyone of us. Every persons stands in need of His forgiveness and new life. Each of us benefits from the birth of Hope in this world.

I John 5:20 says: “Jesus, God’s Son has come to help us understand and find the one true God.” God sent His Son because God wanted us to know what He is really like. The birth of Jesus splits history into AD and BC. Every time we write a check it’s a reference point. We use Jesus Christ as a reference point every single day of our lives. Soon it will be the year 2008. 2000 and eight years from the time God sent His Son to live and die on earth.

If God’s desire had been to communicate with cattle He would have become a cow. God wanted to communicate with human beings and so He became one of us and lived among us. Now we can look at Jesus and say: “That’s exactly what God is like.” By getting to know Jesus we find out God is not some impersonal force in the sky. Jesus came into the world in the same we each of us did.through birth. The Bible says He came to seek and save. The gifts He brings are forgiveness for the past.peace of mind in the present.and a solid future in eternity. These gifts are all wrapped up in the Christ Child who comes to give us hope.