WAIT
ON THE LORD FOR JOY
LUKE
1.39-45
DECEMBER
23 2007
WESLEY
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Douglas
Norris
When Elizabeth heard
Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. The baby, whom we
know as John the Baptizer, leaped for joy. Our theme this Advent
season is “Wait on the Lord.” May you wait on the Lord, trust in
the Lord, relax in the Lord, until you experience joy, until you leap
for joy.
In a barber shop a
junior high teacher was describing the excitement at school when
classes were dismissed for Christmas vacation. He said, “Oh, there
was foot-stomping, wall-pounding and all sorts of rejoicing, all
sorts of joy.” “Real wild, eh?” asked the barber. “Yes,”
replied the teacher, “And that was only in the teachers’ lounge.”
I suspect there are some teachers here this morning who can relate
to that.
Baby John, even in his
mother’s womb, leaped for joy in response to Christmas. The coming
of the Messiah, the birth of the baby Jesus, is a gift of joy, a gift
from God. Uncontainable, irrepressible joy is all around us, waiting
to be experienced. “Joy to the world” we sing. Why is there
joy? Because, “the Lord is come.” How can we not experience joy
when we realize the Lord has come. And, when the Lord comes into
your life, the joy is uncontainable. When heaven is your
destination, when the kingdom of God is your home, joy is
irrepressible.
Joy is a gift, a
Christmas gift from God. Christmas is about giving. God gave us his
Son. God gave us salvation. God gives us joy. Our response? Give
generously. When the wise men arrived at the stable, after their
long trek following the star, Matthew 2.10, “They were overwhelmed
with joy.” Joy at finding the Christ child overwhelmed them.
Their response? They gave expensive gifts of gold and spices. Or,
as one little boy in a Christmas pageant, exclaimed, “They brought
gifts of gold, common sense and fur!” Overwhelmed with joy, the
wise men gave. I don’t think stingy people are joyful. Old
tight-fisted grouchy Scrooge was not a joyful man. Joy is experiened
when we receive God’s gift of salvation, and give generously in
response.
A pastor made an
appeal. A woman member of the church handed him a check for $50 and
asked, “Is my gift satisfactory?” The pastor immediately
replied, “If it represents you.” He was wise, wasn’t he? I’m
afraid I would have answered, “Whatever you think.” The woman
thought about his answer, and took back the check. A few days later,
she returned with a check for $5,000 and again asked, “Is my gift
satisfactory?” Again the pastor answered, “If it represents
you.” After a few moments of hesitation she took back the check.
Later in the week she came again with a check. This time the check
was for $50,000. As she placed it in the pastor’s hand she said,
“After earnest, prayerful thought, I have come to the conclusion
that this gift does represent me, and I am happy to give it.” She
gave until it felt good! She waited on the Lord with intense
personal examination, and gave until she found joy.
2 Corinthians 5.17, “If
anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has
passed away; see, everything has become new!” When you are in
Christ, you are a new person. How can you not be joyful? The old is
gone, the past is over, every day is a new day filled with
opportunities, filled with the transforming grace of God.
There’s an old story
in Mexico about a little girl called Pepita who wanted nothing more
than to give the Christ child a beautiful gift on Christmas Eve.
But, Pepita was very poor. She felt she had nothing to give. Her
cousin, slightly older and wiser, told her that no gift was too
humble. If Pepita gave the gift with love, the Christ child would be
pleased. So Pepita stooped beside the road on the way to church,
gathered a bunch of brightly colored weeds, and placed them on the
altar.
An 11-year-old German
boy whose parents had immigrated to Hollywood heard the story and
discovered that the weed grew well in the southern California
climate. Fourteen years later he was the first person to develop a
variety of the weed that could be grown successfully indoors. Paul
Ecke takes credit for making the poinsettia a symbol of Christmas. A
weed is now a symbol of God’s best.
God can take weeds and
transform them into plants of beauty. God can take people and
transform their lives. Some people, on the one hand, consider
themselves adequate. They have little need for God. They overlook
the weeds in their lives. On the other hand, there are those people
who feel their lives are overgrown with weeds. They feel there is
not much God or anyone can do. They have given up. But, God can
take people who think they are nothing but weeds and transform them
into beautiful flowers. When you look at poinsettias, can you not
help being joyful? When you feel despondent, depressed, sad, and
forlorn, look at poinsettias and remember how God can take weeds and
transform them into beautiful symbols of Christmas, the good news of
how God came to the earth to save you, to transform you from a
spectator to a disciple, to transform you from a weed to a flower.
Not only does God
transform us from weeds to flowers, God transforms our eyesight.
Becoming a new creation includes our eyes. 2 Corinthians 5.16, “From
now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view.”
When we are transformed, we look at others from God’s point of
view, and not a human point of view. We look at people differently.
We look beyond prejudice, preconceptions, judgments, and outward
appearances.
One of my favorite
Christmas stories is told by Nancy Dahlberg. Her family celebrated
Christmas Eve with her husband’s parents in San Francisco, and they
were headed back to Los Angeles on Christmas Day. They stopped for
lunch in King City. The restaurant was nearly empty. She heard
Erik, her one-year-old, squeal with glee, “Hithere!” (Two words
he thought were one)). “Hithere!” He pounded his fat baby hands
on the metal high chair tray. His face was alive with excitement,
eyes wide, gums bared in a toothless grin. He wriggled, chirped,
giggled; and then she saw the source of his merriment.
An old man in a
tattered rag of a coat, obviously bought by someone else eons ago;
dirty, greasy, worn baggy pants, a spindly body, toes that poked out
of old shoes, a shirt that had ring-around-the-collar, and a face
like none other with gums as bare as Erik’s. “Hi there, baby!
Hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster.” The parents exchanged a
look that was a cross between “what do we do?” and “poor guy.”
The meal came and the noise continued. Now the old bum was
shouting from across the room, “Do you know patty cake? Atta boy.
Do ya know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo!” Erik, the
baby, continued to laugh and answer, “Hithere.” Every call was
echoed. No one thought it was cute. The guy was a drunk and a
disturbance. The parents were embarrassed. Even the six-year-old
asked, “Why is that man talking so loud?”
The father hurried to
pay the check, imploring his wife to get Erik and meet him in the
parking lot. She bolted for the door, hoping the man wouldn’t
speak. As she walked past him, she turned her back and Erik, with
his eyes riveted to his new best friend, leaned over his mother’s
arms, and reached out his arms to the man.
As she came eye-to-eye
with the old man, Erik was lunging for him, arms spread wide. The
old man's eyes and his mouth implored, “Would you let me hold your
baby?” There was no need for her to answer. Erick had propelled
himself into the man’s arms. Erik laid his tiny head upon the
man's ragged shoulder. The man’s eyes closed and tears hovered
beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, pain and hard
labor gently, so gently, stroked the baby’s back.
Nancy, the mother,
stood awe-struck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik. Then the
man’s eyes opened and set squarely on the mother’s. He said in a
firm, commanding voice, “You take care of this baby.” Somehow
she managed, “I will.” As he handed Erik back to his mother, the
man said, “God bless you, ma’am. You’ve given me my Christmas
gift.” With Erik back in her arms, she ran for the car. Her
husband wondered why she was crying, holding Erik so tightly, and
saying, “My God, my God, forgive me.”
She learned a great
deal that Christmas. She learned to look beyond outward appearances,
beyond preconceptions, and to look at people from God’s point of
view. And, the old man? His Christmas with a little baby was pure
joy.
Joy to the world, the
Lord is come!
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