“Christmas for Christ”

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“Christmas for Christ”
Psalm 131, 1 Cor 6:19-20, John 1:19-28
December 11, 2005
The Rev. Kong Namkung

Last Sunday afternoon I went to Shopping Mall with our youth group with their leaders. I have not seen so many people for a while. People were everywhere. After Thanksgiving and before Christmas are the busiest time of the year for most people. Everyone is shopping for the honor of “giving the best present,” and spending lots of money during this season.

· During the season, children have “gimme, gimme” syndrome. “Mommy, gimme the coolest clothes. Gimme me the hottest toys, gimme the best PS2.” Or “I wanna” syndrome. I wanna have a cellular phone, my own TV.”

A small boy was writing a letter to God about the Christmas presents he badly wanted. "I’ve been good for six months now," he wrote. But after a moment’s reflection he crossed out "six months" and wrote "three". After a pause that was crossed out and he put "two weeks". There was another pause and that was crossed out too. He got up from the table and went over to the little crib scene that had the figures of Mary and Joseph. He picked up the figure of Mary and went back to his writing and started again: "Dear God, if ever you want to see your mother again…!"

During this season children have “gimme” or “I wanna” syndrome, which is contaminated by consumerism and materialism. What about adults?

· During this season of the year adults have credit-card fever and shopping fatigue. Mommies spend tremendous time for their children’s Christmas shopping and when they come back from the shopping, they want to order something for dinner rather than cooking, and the end of January when they receive their credit card reports, they have some fever by looking at how much they spend for the season.

· Consumerism prevails over other “isms.” terrorism, heroism, Sexism, ageism, racism, nationalism, pragmatism, and so on are very popular for the rest days of the year. However, consumerism defeats all other “isms” during the season of Christmas. John Papworth, an Anglican priest, said, “Consumerism is the greatest and most virulent social disease in human history.” It infects all ages and crosses all racial, economic and social divisions.

What do we Christians do during the season of Christmas? Should we, the light of the world, be different from other people in the world as we celebrate Christmas? If the people in the world concerns about the gifts and pleasing people only, then what is our major concerns? We Christians put first Christ during Christmas. Without Jesus Christmas is meaningless. It is like a pair of glasses without lens, it is like a car without motor, it is like a house without beds, and it is like a church without the Holy Spirit. How can we have counter- attacking to the world, consumerism and materialism?

It comes with the simple heart, which is similar to sincerity. God wants us to be sincere to God and to what Christmas about. In order to be sincere we seek to live simple life.

Our Old Testament lesson, “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up … I do not occupy myself with things.” (Ps 131:1) It is the time to lay down camcorders, TV changer, cellular phone, and so on. It is time do declare that in your life consumerism is dead. For a long time, Christians have used Christmas as an excuse to increase the collections of things. Think about how many things you have not used since you got them. The more you have things, the more your life will be complicated and your spirit cannot focus on God and cannot focus on what Christmas really about.

The early church Christians’ lived simple life. Acts 2: 46-47, “as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the good will of al the people.” Their whole life was simple because they focused on God and praising God rather than seeking material things. The result was to “add to their number those who were being saved.” Simple life brings us to be genuine what we are doing.

A guy bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas. His wife was very proud of her ring. And she talked the next door’s wife. A friend of his, who lived the next door, said, "I thought she wanted one of those sporty 4-Wheel drive vehicles." "She did," he replied. "But where am I gonna find a fake Jeep?"...

This Christmas, I encourage you to seriously commit yourselves to downsize your involvements purchasing goods and gifts. Try to live simple so that you may put more time in praying and praising God for the closer relationship with Jesus Christ.

Around Christmas we love to sing, “Little Jesus Boy.” As long as Jesus stays, “little Jesus boy,” we are safe. Just do not let Jesus grow up. Think about twenty and thirty years ago when you remember the first Christmas in your life. At that time you celebrate the little Jesus boy. Time had passed, but you have been mature and your waist side is bigger than twenty or thirty years ago, but you still celebrate the birth of little baby Jesus? We do not want the baby grow.

In Matthew 2 The King Herod killed every child under two to prevent Jesus from growing up and to drive Jesus out of the culture of his day. If Jesus grows up in and roams through the culture, Jesus transforms the culture. Herod’s act to keep Jesus from growing up was a violent, abusive, aggressive, and killing act. We, too, do the same things to keep Jesus keep from reaching maturity in our culture, even in our churches. We desperately want to keep Jesus small.

It is time to magnify the Lord, to let the greatness of incarnated love shake us up and stir our souls. When we magnify the Christ child, we will no longer coo and cluck over a baby Jesus.

We focus on the enormity of God’s gift to us and what that gift means in our lives. Our knees will tremble at the thought of the tremendous love and sacrifice that lie wrapped in that manger bed.

Hannah and Mary saw the great things that God would do in their children’s life. Hannah’s son, Samuel, became one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament, and Mary’s son, Jesus, became the Savior of the world. My beloved, brothers and sisters, it is good to see the baby Jesus, but it is the best to see the Savior in the baby. Let this baby grow in you, with you, and among you until you have a full character of Jesus Christ in you.

What do your Christmas traditions, activities, and attitude really glorify? What is your favorite Christmas song? “Jingle Bell” or “O Holy Night?” Our taste in Christmas music reveals what we most honor and glorify, and what we truly worship and proclaim during the Advent season.

a. Inferior role “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal, I baptize you with water, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. I am the voice of one crying out ” will you be a voice for God crying in the wilderness of our day?

b. Testifying role “he was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.” (John 1:8)

Jesus in four gospels glorifies God his Father, especially in the gospel of John. For example, John 12:28, “Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again."

When he was gone, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. [32] If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. [5] And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Our New Testament lesson, Paul’s letter to Corinth, “For you were bought with a price, therefore, glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:20) There is one verse in the Bible that has been inscribed in my heart is 1 Cor. 10:31, “Whether you ear, or drink, or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.”

If we do not live simple life, if we do not magnify Jesus, if we do not glorify God this year, when will it be, do you think it will be the next year? If it is not today, where will it be? Do you think you will the voice of the wilderness of this world tomorrow? If it is not when you are attending at Cornerstone UMC, where will you be?

In conclusion, I want to share with a story. Wally was a 7th grade student who was bigger than any of the other students in his Sunday school class. His mother had been an alcoholic when he was born, and as a result, Wally just did not have all the mental capabilities that the rest of his classmates had. But somehow he managed to get by.

Christmas time came and his class decided to put on a Christmas pageant. Since he was the biggest, Wally was selected to be the innkeeper. After all, the innkeeper is kind of a villain in the Christmas drama. So they coached Wally to be just as mean as he possibly could be.

Well, the night came for the Christmas play. And in it, Mary & Joseph came to Bethlehem, went to the Inn & knocked on its door. Wally opened the door & said, "What do you want?" just as mean & gruff as he could possibly be.

Joseph said, "We need a room. We need a place to stay tonight." "Well, you’ll have to stay someplace else," said Wally, "because there’s no room here. There’s no room in the Inn."

Joseph said, "But my wife’s expecting a baby just any time now. Isn’t there someplace where we can stay, where we are protected from the cold & where she can deliver her child?" "No," said Wally, "There’s no room here."

Then suddenly there was a silence on the stage. It was one of those embarrassing moments when you know that someone has forgotten the lines. From behind the curtains you could hear the prompter saying, "Be gone. Be gone." Wally was supposed to speak, but for some reason he had choked up & forgotten to say "Be gone."

Finally, after he had been coached for several long seconds, Wally managed to say, "Be gone." Mary & Joseph sadly turned to leave. But just as they did, Wally said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You can have my room."

The director of the play was ready to pull out her hair because she knew that the whole Christmas pageant had been ruined. But had it? Maybe Wally, better than anybody else, communicated the real spirit of Christmas. "You can have my room." The spirit of giving up my room for Jesus is to live simple, to magnify, and to glorify Jesus Christ. Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen

Psalms 131

131:1 A song of ascents. Of David.

My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore. NIV

19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. NIV

John 1:19-28

19 Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ."

21 They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"

He said, "I am not."

"Are you the Prophet?"

He answered, "No."

22 Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'"

24 Now some Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"

26 "I baptize with water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."

28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. NIV

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“Christmas for Christ” Psalm 131, 1 Cor 6:19-20, John 1:19-28 December 11, 2005 The Rev. Kong Namkung

“Christmas for Christ”
Psalm 131, 1 Cor 6:19-20, John 1:19-28
December 11, 2005
The Rev. Kong Namkung