Advent Services (Just in Time! S.) - Softcover

Rogne, David G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0687465818 ISBN 13: 9780687465811

Publisher: Abingdon Press, 2007

Synopsis

Provides ready-to-use worship and preaching resources for themes related to Advent and Christmas. Ready-to-use worship and preaching resources for the four Sundays in Advent including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Includes biblically-based sermon briefs, suggested Scriptures, hymns, prayers, and litanies for lighting the Advent Wreath. To help pastors minister more effectively during this important church season. Contents include: Introduction: The Ways We Know Jesus First Sunday in Advent: Emmanuel Second Sunday in Advent: Son of Man Third Sunday in Advent: Example Fourth Sunday in Advent: Lord Christmas Eve: Son of God Christmas Day: Word of God

About this title

About the Author

Dr. David G. Rogne is a retired pastor, currently living in South Carolina.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Advent Services

Just in Time

By David G. Rogne

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2007 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-687-46581-1

Contents

Introduction, 
First Sunday of Advent Ways We Know Him: Emmanuel, 
Second Sunday of Advent Ways We Know Him: Son of Man, 
Third Sunday of Advent Ways We Know Him: Example, 
Fourth Sunday of Advent Ways We Know Him: Lord, 
Christmas Eve Ways We Know Him: Son of God, 
Christmas Day Ways We Know Him: Word of God, 
Scripture Index, 

CHAPTER 1

First Sunday of Advent

Ways We Know Him: Emmanuel

Scripture: Isaiah 7:14

Sermon

Seven hundred years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah was trying to convince his king to trust in God rather than in foreign alliances. When the king remained unconvinced, the prophet told him that, as a sign of God's trustworthiness, a child would be born to an undesignated young woman. Before the child became old enough to distinguish between right and wrong, the nations that the king now feared would be destroyed. The child's name would reflect Isaiah's message; he would be called Emmanuel, which means "God is with us." Undoubtedly, such a child was born. Whether he had any significance for the king, we do not know. But even if he did, it was not enduring.

Seven centuries later, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. When his disciple, Matthew, sought to record the significance of Jesus' coming, he turned back to the words of Isaiah and suggested that these words were more adequately fulfilled by Jesus than by anyone in the days of the prophet. From that time to this, Emmanuel, "God is with us," has stood for what Christians have felt happened at that first Christmas; that somehow, in Jesus, God was incarnated among us, took on human flesh and blood. But what does it mean to us? Perhaps the very title, Emmanuel, can shed some light.

Emmanuel—God Is with Us

For one thing, to call Jesus Emmanuel is to say something about God: that God is with us, not against us. This is consistent with what the Bible has always taught about God. We read that somewhere back in the dawn of time, God created human beings in order to have fellowship with them. Because of human pride and self-sufficiency, the relationship was strained and human beings wandered away from the relationship for which they were made. God has made numerous attempts to call God's children back to their destiny, but they keep losing the way. The stars, the mountains, the trees all testify to God's greatness, but humans have bowed before these things and worshiped them instead of the Creator. God sent Moses with laws that were intended to show that life is ethical, but instead of learning how to live as children of God, people have made a fetish out of the law, attempting to keep the letter, but missing the spirit. God sent prophets to guide people back to God. They taught that God did not desire ritual or ceremony, but justice, mercy, humility, and sincerity. Many of the prophets were killed for their efforts.

Still, God was determined not to give up. In the person of Jesus, God attempted to make it plain to us that God is among us, not as accuser, not as judge, not as punisher, but as love. God became involved with people in such a way that they couldn't miss the fact that he cared. Jesus didn't just preach about leprosy; he touched the leper in love. He didn't just give a lecture on hunger; he fed those whose stomachs were empty. He didn't merely talk about lingering loneliness; he went to people's homes and sat down for supper and an evening chat.

Charles Wesley, in his struggle to find salvation, envisioned himself as Jacob, wrestling with some unknown and malignant spirit in the desert. Then, Wesley discovered that the one he had been wrestling with was none other than God. In his great hymn "Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown" originally entitled, "Wrestling Jacob," Wesley wrote:

'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me, I hear thy whisper in my heart. The morning breaks, the shadows flee, pure Universal Love thou art. To me, to all, my mercy's move; thy nature, and thy name is Love.

That love still liberates us today. Toyohiko Kagawa, that great Japanese Christian, has said what a great discovery it was for him. In Meditations (New York: Harper and Row, 1950) he writes that he grew up as a frightened child in Japan because he was told that there were evil spirits everywhere, and that they would damn him for the slightest misdeed. He felt that there was nowhere in the universe where he could find love and affection. When he was introduced to the Christian faith he was overwhelmed and relieved to be told that the essence of the universe is love and that God is a loving father. For him, the good news of Jesus was the assurance that at the center of the universe is a loving creator. For him, that was the power of Christianity.

In Christ, God pierces our defenses, and says, "Emmanuel—God is with us."

Emmanuel—God Is with Us

To call Jesus Emmanuel not only says something about God, but about Jesus. When we say that God is with us, we are being reminded that Jesus is contemporary. Of course, Jesus was an historical human being. He had a normal body like ours, familiar with weariness, hunger, thirst, pleasure, suffering, and death. His emotional life was a normal human life like our own. He was at times astonished, compassionate, indignant, rejoicing, and sorrowful. His mental life was normal and human like our own. He learned from observation, he learned to read and write, "Jesus grew in wisdom and stature," says Luke (2:52 NIV). There was humanness in his spiritual life. He prayed, not as though he were God, but as though he were human, sometimes triumphantly, sometimes seeking strength. The reason for listing these indications of Jesus' humanity is simply to remind us that, whatever else he was, Jesus was human. Sometimes, in our efforts to keep Jesus unique, we are tempted to accentuate his divinity, and in so doing, lose sight of his humanity.

However, to affirm that Jesus was an historical person does not necessarily ensure a vital Christian faith. The Jesus of history lived a long time ago, and for many, that relegates him to the past, along with King Arthur and other noble persons of antiquity. Many people will observe Christmas this year, but the coming of Jesus will have no personal significance for them.

For Christ to matter, there must be something contemporary about him, and there is. In his life on earth Jesus said, "Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me" (John 12:44). "I am the gate," he said (John 10:9), but we don't stop at the gate: we go through it to what it leads to. "I am the way," he said (John 14:6), but we don't end with the way; we go along it to what it arrives at. So Jesus saw his own significance, not simply in the life he lived two thousand years ago, but in terms of the everlasting presence of God he came to proclaim.

That presence is with us today. Our problem is that we often miss it. A young father's conversation with his four-year-old daughter illustrates the point.

"Daddy," she said, "God is everywhere, isn't he?"

"Yes," he responded, "God is everywhere."

"Is God a spirit?"

"Yes, God is a spirit."

"We can't see spirits, can we?"

"No, we can't."

"Well, what I don't understand is, if God is everywhere and we can't see God; how come we aren't bumping into him all the time?" (story attributed to Richard K. Wallarab, 1988).

The tragedy is that we are constantly bumping into God, but we don't realize it. In the neighbor in need, in the lost, in the lonely and broken, God reaches out to us, but in our self-concern we don't respond to God's touch.

For many, that presence has become more visible in Jesus. After a lifetime of struggle, controversies, and family problems, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, lay on his deathbed, contemplating the continuing presence and love of God as he had experienced it in Christ. As he lay dying, he said: "The best of all is, God is with us" (quoted in Jerry L. Mercer, Follow the Star: A Study Book [Nashville: Graded Press, 1983], 34).

And it isn't just people of the past who have discovered that. In a book entitled Zapped by Jesus, Jeannette Struchen quotes a young person:

"The new way of livin' is with you, Jesus. You're what's happening. For the first time in my life I'm ten feet tall, you know. I'm not a phony, Jesus, I'm alive and lusty because you're alive and lusty and expect me to be too ... You've given me guts to face myself and dared me to stop coppin' out and thinkin' I had answers. Man, you're the answer. The only answer. Hallelujah, Jesus! What a surprise you turned out to be."

Emmanuel—not "God was with us," but "God is with us."

Emmanuel—God Is With Us

To call Jesus Emmanuel is to say something not only about God and about Jesus, but about us, for it means that God is with us. "Jesus is what God means by humanity; Jesus is what humanity means by God" (attributed to F. W. Boreham). The architect finds expression in granite; the artist finds expression in paint; the author seeks expression in print; but God chose to find expression in a human being.

I do not know how God filled Jesus of Nazareth, but a colleague has given me a meaningful analogy. He was sitting at his desk trying to come up with something that would help people to understand the incarnation. His leather gloves, which he had thrown on his desk, caught his attention. They were limp and lifeless. He reached over, picked one up, and slipped his hand into it. The glove filled out. He flexed his hand and the glove moved. It was filled with life. His mind began to dance with the thought of God coming to earth to slip into the glove of a human life. God was at work in Jesus as a hand in a glove, so that by looking at the actions of Jesus, we may get an idea of the actions of God.

But there is more to it. Gloves come in pairs. We are the other glove. God seeks to dwell in us also. If we wonder how God-filled people are supposed to act, we have been given Jesus as an example. Martin Luther called us "little Christs" (as quoted by John and Barbara Brokhoff in Faith Alive! [Lima, Ohio: C.S.S., 1978], 77).

When Mahatma Gandhi, who had once been turned away from a Christian church because of the color of his skin, was asked how Christians could best carry out their work in India, he suggested that Christians begin by living more like Christ. He urged Christians to put their emphasis on love, for love is the soul of Christianity. If Christians would do that, he said, they would succeed.

In order to make that love concrete, God came among us, filled the humanity of Jesus, and enlisted us in his cause. "You're Christ to me," cried a dying soldier to Florence Nightingale in the Crimea as she went around the yard at night, carrying her lamp. "You're Christ to me"; then he fell back and died (as quoted by James S. Stewart in River of Life [Nashville: Parthenon Press, 1972], 91). People in whom God dwells are to act like Jesus.

God Is with Us

I close with this. It was Christmas Eve. A man was sitting in his easy chair enjoying a warm fire. His wife had asked him to go with her to the Christmas Eve service in the village church. "No," he replied. "It would be hypocritical of me to go when I don't believe in that stuff." So his wife went without him. As he sat reflecting, the wind began to pick up velocity and snow began to swirl. Suddenly, he was startled by several thumps against the living room window. He jumped up and looked out into the storm. On the ground in front of the window he saw three little birds, lying dazed. He then saw many birds perched on the bushes, shivering in the winter storm. Thinking about their plight, he put on his coat and boots and went outside to see if he could help. He decided to open the barn door, so that the birds could roost in its shelter for the night. But the birds wouldn't trust him. When he went toward them, they hopped away. Again and again he tried to catch them, but they hopped out of reach. "If only I could catch them," he thought, "I could put them in the warm barn where they could stay for the night." But all his attempts were futile. He dashed back into the house and got a few pieces of bread, hoping to make a path of crumbs, which might lead the birds to the barn. But the birds would have nothing to do with his effort to save them. He felt helpless to convey his concern for them. "If only I could become one of them," he thought in his desperation, "then I could show them the way." At that moment, the church bells rang wildly from the village church. It was midnight. The bells were announcing that it was Christmas Day, the celebration of Emmanuel—God is with us. Suddenly, everything the man had heard about Christmas fell into place. Out of compassion for a confused and erring race, God had found a way to contact humans: by becoming one of them.

Emmanuel—God is with us. God has been with us all along. In so many ways, God has tried to tell us. In Jesus, God has come to show us. Through us, God seeks to show the world.

Old Testament Lesson

Isaiah 7:10-14

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test. Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

New Testament Lesson

Matthew 1:18-23

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."

Suggested Hymns

• "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"

• "People, Look East"

• "Hail to the Lord's Anointed"

Pastoral Prayer

God our Creator,

We gather in the name of our Lord Jesus to learn more about him and to re-examine our lives in the light of his. May we be open to challenge, ready to confess our shortcomings, trusting in your mercy and forgiveness, and finding new life in a relationship with you that is renewed every day.

Some of us have come with worries or anxious cares, and the burden is more than we can carry. Help us to put our trust in you. Some of us have come attempting to deal with major decisions. Help us to make our decisions and then to be at peace about the choices we have made. Some of us are concerned about health—our own or that of another. We pray that health and wholeness will be our experience. Some of us are involved in a spiritual search—we are trying to discover the meaning of our lives—we are trying to become people of faith. May we find integration and satisfaction, a sense of peace and fulfillment as we learn to live life your way.

In this season of preparation, may we rediscover the promise that you are with us, and may your presence be very real. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Litany for Lighting the First Advent Candle

Christians around the world begin this day to celebrate the ways in which the coming of Christ affects our lives.

We join with them in lighting the Advent candles, as we remind ourselves of the ways Christ has become known to us.

We gather to celebrate the coming of Emmanuel.

The coming of Emmanuel was anticipated from ancient times.

Our hope springs anew from an ancient vision.

Rejoice! God is with us!

As we light the first Advent candle let it remind us that God is always present to comfort and sustain.

May God's presence, manifested in Jesus, be seen in us as well.

The First Advent Candle Is Lit.

Let us join our voices in singing "Emmanuel, Emmanuel."

CHAPTER 2

Second Sunday of Advent

Ways We Know Him: Son of Man

Scripture: Matthew 16:13-28

Sermon

Quite often in the Restoration plays of the seventeenth century, an author would give characters names to represent the parts they played: John Friendly, a neighbor; Dr. Serringe, a surgeon; Mrs. Callicoe, seamstress; Waitwell, a servant. This immediately conjured up identifiable images in the minds of the hearers so that the author could proceed with the play, and not have to develop every part.

Some people, even today, choose titles that conjure up certain images. One dentist in California actually changed his name to "Painless Parker," and to good advantage. In his prime, Hailie Salasie, Emperor of Ethiopia, called himself "the Lion of the Tribe of Judah" which, we must admit, gives the image of strength. Muhamed Ali, not known for his humility, called himself simply, "The Greatest."

In his day, Jesus wanted to communicate all he could about himself and his mission in as short a time as possible, so he chose for himself the title "Son of Man." What does his choice tell us?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Advent Services by David G. Rogne. Copyright © 2007 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0687465818
• ISBN 13: 9780687465811
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 86