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I.
Advent Conspiracy: Love All
Set Up
A.
Good afternoon and welcome to Christ Church for our special Christmas Eve
service. My name is … I am one of the pastors here. On behalf of lots of people I want to
extend a warm welcome to you. What follows is a service filled with lots of Christmas
music, Christmas readings, children and candles. We are doing what we often do to help
us remember an event that changed everything – the birth of the Son of God.
B.
Christmas can be a time of fun and family, a time of high highs, especially for
children. It can also be a time of pretty low lows. All kinds of things can make this a
particularly difficult time of year. If that’s the case for you, we’re sorry and we are glad
you are here. And if we can help, please let us know. One of the ways you could do that
is to fill out the card that is in the pew rack in front of you.
C.
Let me also say that, if you are new – or if you seldom attend but would like to
know more about what is going on – we’d love for you to fill out the card as well. You
can drop that in the basket as it comes around in a bit later in the service.
D.
II.
Merry Christmas.
Introduction
A.
We are down to the final moments. Let me put it this way, boys and girls, in just
over 12 hours you can wake your parents and officially launch Christmas. I’m glad to
give you my permission to do that because: 1) I already checked. I don’t have any “some
assembly required projects” on tap this year that will keep me up until 3 AM. And
because our boys are older and I know there is no chance they’ll wake us up at 4 AM.
B.
I’m joking. Christmas doesn’t start until 7 AM
III.
For those of you who might not know, this fall we joined The Advent Conspiracy – a
movement, embraced by thousands of churches, to reposition Christmas.
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
A.
It’s based on a few big ideas, namely, that the celebration has veered a bit off
course. That for many it’s been reduced to a big shopping spree, an over-the-top retail
circus. Epiphany gave way to Advent gave way to Christmas gave way to Happy
Holidays gave way to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. A few weeks ago it occurred to
me that “I’m not just trying to keep Christ in Christmas, I’m trying to keep Christmas in
Christmas.” I think the holiday is bigger than we are making it. And that, while it
doesn’t need a complete overhaul, a course correction is called for. And this was the
thinking behind those who launched the Advent Conspiracy. And the four big ideas that
shape the Conspiracy are found in the banners behind me: Worship Fully, Spend Less,
Give More and Love All.
B.
Over the last few weeks we’ve taken the first three topics and in the process
we’ve been rethinking the whole party.
C.
One of the things we did was trace the evolution of Christmas, noting that:
1.
For the first 300 years after Christ’s death there was no Christmas.
a)
His followers met together every week to worship him. To study
what he taught, to sing and pray to him. To be baptized in his name. To
recreate the Last Supper where they ate his body and drank his blood.
They focused on him in all kinds of ways, but they didn’t celebrate his
birthday.
2.
That didn’t happen until the early fourth century when Constantine threw
a party.
a)
Constantine was a Roman General who came to faith around the
time he became Emperor. For a whole host of reasons he wanted a party to
celebrate Christ and replace the many festivals that were happening
around the time of the Winter Solstice with one big one that would help
unify his kingdom. And for a variety of reasons – shocking reasons in one
sense – a party honoring a Jewish peasant born in the backwaters of the
Empire became the main event. And as the number of people who pledged
their life to Christ grew and as the movement spread around the world the
party got bigger and bigger.
3.
And though it looked – and looks – differently in different parts of the
world, there is all kind of symbolism that is woven into the celebration of Christ.
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
D.
But, much of that is now lost! One of the points I’ve been making in this series is
that Christmas is not simply becoming too much about presents, but that too little about
everything else is being understood. Fewer and fewer people understand why we do so
many of the things we do around Christmas.
1.
Why candy canes?
2.
Why lights?
3.
Why Santa and mistletoe?
4.
Why is there a tree in your living room?
E.
You say, “Because it’s Christmas” or “because this is what we always do.” Well,
that’s not really the right answer.
F.
There is Christian symbolism behind a lot of this – interesting historical reasons
behind much of this.
1.
Take the tree: The Romans used to decorate their homes with evergreen
branches around the New Year and even plant small evergreens in their homes
during winter. Christians were initially pretty hostile to this practice because of
some of the Roman religious beliefs behind it, but during the Middle Ages some
missionaries in what is now Germany argued that it’s not just people who can be
converted, symbols can as well, and they “re-purposed” the trees, using them in
Advent plays to represent the Garden of Eden. The story about Christmas starts all
the way back in the first pages of the Bible, and so as that story was being acted
out, the trees were used to represent paradise. In fact, they were called Paradise
Trees. Not everyone thought this was a good idea and at some point the trees were
banished from the play. In protest people moved them into their own homes. By
the time of the Renaissance, Paradise Trees were quite popular and were being
decorated with cookies that looked like communion wafers and with candles to
remind people that Jesus claimed to be the Light of the World. (About two
months ago we adopted two feral kittens – two very wild kittens. They have made
decorating the tree a real challenge. (Picture) because they just climb up it and
knock off the ornaments, most of which break or which they then shred. The other
day we came home and there were 25 ornaments on the floor). They do not seem
to respect the symbolism. They see it as a big toy and scratching post. You should
understand, you moved the tree into the living room because about a thousand
years ago in Germany it was used to represent paradise that was lost when sin
entered the world. It sets up the need for someone to come down and fix us and
the world.
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
2.
Holly, which is known for red berries and the glossy, sharp green leaves.
People decorate their home with holly because, holly is associated with Christmas
because…:
a)
The leaves – which stay green year round – remind us that we can
live forever. We can have eternal life if we place our faith in Christ.
b)
The red berries point to His blood, which He gave up for us – he
died in our place to pay the debt we owe because of our sin.
c)
And the sharp leaves remind us of the crown of thorns that was
jammed on his head when he was crucified.
3.
Gifts? Gifts point back both to the gifts the wise men gave Jesus when he
was born: gold, frankincense and myrrh. These were gifts commonly given to a
king and each had special spiritual significance. Gold was associated with royalty,
frankincense was associated with deity and myrrh was an embalming oil used
when someone died, because Jesus was born to die. That was his mission. Gifts
are also linked to Christmas in that Jesus himself is seen as a gift. “For God so
loved the world that He gave His only Son.”
4.
Fruitcake? The truth is, I have no idea. Maybe we can put an end to the
whole tradition. I was going to say that there is only one of these and it keeps
being re-gifted. But there are more. I read up on Fruitcake and learned a lot about
them – Harper’s Index says they have the density of Mahogany. Others say they
make great paperweights.
5.
Mistletoe is a unique kind of plant. It’s called an aerial parasite – it does
not have roots of its own, it lives off of the tree it attaches itself to. The idea that
you should kiss those who walk under it goes back to some Viking legends.
Christians adopted it at Christmas to make the statement that we are dependent
beings. We rely on God. We cannot exist on our own, just like the mistletoe.
6.
Bells? We’ve got jingle bells and sleigh bells. Why are bells associated
with Christmas? (Do you get the feeling that if I had given you a quiz on these
things you wouldn’t be doing very well right now?) Bells made a distinct
statement about Christ’s role as the one who represents us before God the Father.
You see, bells were part of a Jewish High Priests robe. In Exodus 28:31 we read:
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
a)
“You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. It shall have an
opening for the head in the middle of it, with a woven binding around the
opening, like the opening in a garment, so that it may not tear. On its hem
you shall make pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet yarns, around
its hem, with bells of gold between them, a golden bell and a pomegranate,
a golden bell and a pomegranate, around the hem of the robe.” –
PICTURE
b)
As you may know, the High Priest was the only one who could
enter the Holy of Holies, the particular part of the Temple where God’s
presence resided in a unique way. (God is everywhere. He was not only
present there, but it was the particular spot designed for him to manifest
his presence. And the High Priest would go in once a year to make a
sacrifice for the people. No one could go in with him. No one could go in
after him if he died, so they tied a rope around his leg to drag him out if he
stopped moving. And one of the ways they could tell is if the bells stopped
ringing.
c)
Christmas bells were not initially set up simply to add to the joy of
Christmas, they were to remind us that Jesus is our High Priest. He lives
forever making intercession on our behalf.
7.
The Candy Cane is shaped like a shepherd’s crook – reminding us that
Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The red stripe symbolizes his blood. There are
actually three stripes – for Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
8.
Santa is an offshoot of Saint Nicholas, the fourth century bishop of Myra,
a town in modern Turkey. You have to work hard to separate the folklore from the
fact, but historians now contend that he was a real person – a social activist,
politician, judge and wealthy benefactor known for providing for the poor. One of
the most famous stories is that He threw bags of money in the windows of a home
where the family was too poor to provide a dowry for the three daughters. The
idea that Santa knows if you’ve been bad or good goes back to Nicholas’s habit of
asking children their Bible lessons and rewarding those who knew them. His red
priest robes led to the Santa’s suit.
G.
I could go on. Suffice it to say, the symbolism only has power if it’s understood.
And not much of it is. The meaning is lost and in some cases some of things we now do
seem a million miles away from the simple, humble, sacrificial nature of Christ’s birth
and message.
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
H.
And the holiday creates all kinds of stress and fuels a lot of greed and in some
cases sorrow – as ? mentioned at the onset, Christmas can be a time of high highs but also
low lows.
I.
It seems like what Christmas has become is a bit off course.
IV.
So, a group of pastors launched the Advent Conspiracy to reposition the celebration.
They said:
A.
Let’s tone down the retail frenzy and amp up reflection and service for others.
Let’s suggest less debt and more memories. Let’s suggest that greed take a backseat to
sacrifice.
B.
The goal was not – is not – to make Christmas smaller, but to make it bigger,
better, richer, more significant. And to remind people that, at least for the last 1,700
years, the celebration has been about the birth of Christ.
C.
In light of all that, four themes emerged: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More
and Love All. .
D.
Worship Fully is about marveling over God – his goodness and grace.
1.
It’s not a call to worship. We are never told to worship, we are told to
worship God. Everyone worships. We can’t help ourselves.
2.
Those who stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon do not have to be told to
be moved by what they see. It takes their breath away. They are overwhelmed by
its majesty and grandeur. They can’t help but talk about it. They want to take
pictures to tell others how amazing it is.
3.
Those who see an unbelievable athletic feat don’t have to be told to stand
up and cheer. They can’t help it. They talk about it. They write about it. They post
videos on U-Tube. They worship.
4.
Those who hold a newborn baby know that they have something amazing
in their hands – precious, wonderful, awe-inspiring. They marvel and worship.
5.
The Bible doesn’t tell us to worship, it says “don’t worship anything or
anyone more than you worship Him.” Exodus 20 reads:
a)
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before
me.
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
6.
God. He has to be first.
7.
The first call with the Advent Conspiracy is to get this right. To focus on
Christ. To remember what is being proclaimed:
a)
That God the Son, who had existed from before time began as God
in heaven set that aside for you!
b)
In the most radical downsizing possible – in an act of abject
humiliation – He set aside some aspect of his glory in order to become one
of us.
c)
The ancient hymn, which Paul records in his letter to the
Philippians, says:
(1)
d)
In the greatest act of humiliation ever known, he added humanity
to deity. While remaining fully God he became fully Man, and entered his
creation in the backwaters of a tiny planet in an average solar system.
e)
He did this in order to die in our place. In yours and mine. He was
born to die. Christmas is not the high-water mark of the story, just the
introduction of the main character.
8.
Many are confused about the most central claims of Jesus. To them
Christianity is moralism.
9.
a)
It’s the suggestion that we try harder to be good.
b)
And Jesus is understood to be a great teacher and moral reformer.
That is a fatally flawed understanding of the core message.
10.
Jesus was a great teacher. I think we can make a pretty compelling case
that Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived. And also that He is the greatest
moral reformer of all time. But those are not the main claims. The claim is that the
child that Mary bore was God himself. And that we shouldn’t simply consider
what he taught, and follow His lead to be better people, we should worship Him.
He is God.
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
11.
This is not a small claim. At various times it could get you killed. But it is
a central claim. Christianity pivots around Christ – who He is and what He did. It
is true or false based on Him. He claimed to be God. Either he was or he wasn’t.
And He claims to have died in our place so we could be forgiven – either He did
or didn’t. Christians are those who believe He did and worship Him.
12.
E.
Worship fully – it starts here.
Second: Spend Less
1.
Those who join the conspiracy are encouraged to spend less. To think
more presence than presents. PRESENCE > PRESENTS
2.
To give of yourself.
3.
To not let the price-tag define the value of the gift.
4.
And to downsize what we buy for those who don’t have any real needs –
not to stop, but to modify a bit – so we have money to give meaningful gifts to
those with real needs.
F.
The third banner is: Give More
1.
It starts with giving more of ourselves – our time and our talents, to create
memories, make things, spend time with people – and it includes redirecting some
of the money that we save towards those with real needs.
2.
We focused on a few projects this December. We joined with a number of
other churches in Lake County to assemble 31,000 shoe boxes full of toys and
clothes and food for kids in ???
3.
We worked with Angel Tree to make sure that children in Lake County
who had a parent in prison had Christmas – and all of those kids were taken.
4.
And then we directed funds towards Kuve, a village in Ghana we’ve been
sending teams to. The goal is to help them build a school, fill it with desks, dig a
well and buy a number of bikes for pastors.
V.
All of that brings us to our last challenge: Love All
A.
To share God’s love with others
B.
To follow Christ’s lead in putting the needs of others ahead of our own.
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013
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Advent Conspiracy: Love All
C.
Today we often confuse love with a variety of other things: passion and
sentimentality.
D.
We have an object elicited understanding of love. We love things that are lovable.
The love of God is not like that. It is subject generated. God doesn’t love us because we
are lovable – beautiful and perfect. God loves us because God is love. And he loves us in
spite of who we are not because of it.
E.
And we are called to love others with that same kind of love. To care for others.
To serve others. To put the needs of others ahead of ourselves. Not so we earn God’s
love, so we are good and get to go to heaven when we die – but because when we decide
to follow Christ we are loved with that unconditional love of God. And when we get that
it changes everything.
VI.
Men and women, just like there is a lot more going on with these symbols than you think,
there is a lot more going on in this book than you may realize.
A.
But unlike some of this (candy cane), this matters.
B.
I want to invite you back to either one of two things. Starting in January we will
begin a new series called Amazed. It’s part of a study of the life of Christ and in it we see
what he did to prove that He wasn’t simply a great man or moral leader – a Nelson
Mandella. He was God.
C.
And starting in January as well I’ll be hosting a series of 8 dinner discussions
about Christ. It’s a great chance for you to ask your questions and raise your objections.
D.
The claim around which all of this pivots is not simply that Jesus was born to
Mary and Joseph, but that God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish, but have ever lasting life.
VII.
Communion or Candle Lighting
Mike Woodruff * Christ Church * © 2013