Saturday, February 17, 2018

4th Sunday in Advent

+ 4th Sunday in Advent – December 24th, 2017 +
Series B: 2 Samuel 7:1-11; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38
Redeemer Lutheran, HB

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“There’s no place like home” says Dorothy. “I’ll be home for Christmas”, sang Bing Crosby. “Home is where your rump rests”, declares Whinnie the Pooh.

Christmas, perhaps more than any other holy day of the church fills us with this longing for home. For many, home and family gatherings are a joyous glimpse of heaven on earth. Still, for many others, home is a place of trouble, despair, and brokenness.

Whatever each of our homes are like, we long for safe haven from a world gone mad with sin and death. We long for light and life to cast out the cold, dark grip of sin and death upon us. We long for rest from the weariness of that which plagues us in soul, body, and mind.

And into our longing, the Lord speaks a word of comfort to us through his prophet, Nathan:
I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you 
that the Lord will make you a house…I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

The Lord first declared this Good News to King David. The Lord promised David an everlasting throne, an eternal home, and a kingdom without end through his offspring, through a child born for David, for you, and for all.

And yet, God’s promise to David of an eternal home, an everlasting kingdom, and a Savior was not to be found in the halls of David’s palace, nor among the wealth and wisdom of his son, Solomon. But rather in the womb of a humble Virgin from Nazareth in Galilee, named Mary.

Gabriel came to Mary just a Nathan came to David, with God’s promise:
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

In Mary’s womb, God makes his home to dwell with us and be our Savior. Mary’s Son dwells with us in the manger and our humanity, to rescue us and bring us home. David’s son and David’s Lord leads you to a home that is bigger in Him than the whole universe outside of Him.

So, whoever you are, no matter how far you have journeyed in the dark, now through this Child, you are home. Our earthly homes may still be a mess of papers, toys, dishes, and other kinds of messes that are far harder to clean up. But no matter. This holy child dwells with you.

At Christmas, Christ makes his home with us, to live, die, and rise that we might have an eternal home with him.

Jesus makes his home with us to give us a new and everlasting home with Him, in his manger and his cross. Jesus became a member of our family, so we could become members of his. That makes our Lord’s house, the Church, our true home at the holidays.
This is the Good News of great joy that our Sunday School children will now sing and speak of:

From heaven above to earth I come to bear good news to every home…

From our Lord’s house to your house…

A blessed Advent and Christmas to each of you…

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.



No comments:

Post a Comment