+ 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.
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.
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