Worthy of Our Calling

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on January 7, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Ephesians 4:1-16.

            We talk sometimes about how we should live our lives the way the Lord told us to.  Not because we’re trying to earn our way into heaven, but because God deserves that from us.  As I was reading the Bible this week, I realized that the Apostle Paul had said that much better and much shorter than I do.  He said, “live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

            That’s an awesome phrase:  “a life worthy of the calling you have received”.  You know, pastors love to talk about how they’re called to be pastors.  In fact, one of the things you have to do to become a pastor is to write your “call statement”, a statement of when and how you felt God calling you to be a pastor.  Actually, you have to write it, and discuss it, several times, for several different groups of people.  You write it so many times that, after a while, you start to wonder if it’s even real.  It starts to feel like someone else’s call statement, rather than your own, just because you’ve had to go over it so many times.

            But the truth is that calling is not just for pastors.  Each one of us is called by God to do something.  Probably a variety of things, as we go through our lives.

            Sometimes we get a little scared of that idea.  We think, what if God calls me to do something I cannot do, or something I don’t like doing?  But it’s not likely that God would do that, because God knows us better than we know ourselves.  God was not going to call me to be a professional basketball player, because God knows I have no talent for that.  God was not going to call me to be an airline pilot, because God knows I don’t like to fly.  God was not going to call me to go and be a missionary in Africa, because God knows I would be no good at that.  

Now, God may sometimes call us to stretch ourselves a little bit, to take some risks and try different things.  But if God is calling us to do something, God will provide us with the means and the ability to actually do it.  God would not call us to do something we simply are not capable of doing.

But God will sometimes call us to do things we don’t realize we’re capable of doing.  Because the only way we can really find out whether we can do something is to try it.  I did not know if I could be a pastor until I became one.  They teach you some things in seminary, and they’re good things to know, but the fact is that the only way to learn how to be a pastor is to be one.  To jump in, make some mistakes, hopefully learn from them, and hopefully make fewer mistakes, or at least different mistakes, as time goes on.

But the point is that each of us is called to do something.  That’s true for all of us, no matter who we are and no matter what age we are.  Everyone, from kids in school to people in the nursing home to everyone in-between, is called to do something.  What it is may change over the course of our lives, but everyone is called to do something.  If God did not have a purpose for us to be on earth, we would not be.  As long as we’re here, there is a reason for us to be here.

And when you think about it, that’s a pretty awesome thing.  To think that God, the almighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-everything God, would call on us–puny, weak, little old us–to do things for Him.  

Because, when you think about it, there is nothing we can do for God that God could not do without us.  In fact, God could probably do things easier without us.  God allows us to “help”, but the truth is that you and I are probably no help at all for God.  Most of the time, we probably just get in the way and make things harder and more complicated than they need to be.

When we think of it that way, we realize what an honor it is that God would call us to do anything.  It is a privilege to be allowed to serve God in some way.  We really should be kind of  humbled to realize that God, as powerful and awesome as God is, would love us enough to let us serve Him, and in fact would love us enough to call us to serve Him.

But while a calling is an honor, and a privilege, it is also a responsibility.  Obviously, we have a responsibility to do what God has called us to do, and to do it to the best of our ability.  But we also have a responsibility to, as Paul says, live a life that is worthy of the calling we have received.

How do we do that?  Paul tells us that, too.  He says, “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

That sounds good, of course.  We probably agree with it.  But agreeing with it is one thing.  Doing it is something else.

The world is in a lot of conflict right now.  Our country is in a lot of conflict right now.  In fact, sometimes it seems like everywhere we look, we see conflict.

And when there is conflict, you have people who are one side and people who are on the other side.  And that’s not inherently wrong–it’s okay to have opinions.  But when we’re dealing with conflict–when we’re dealing with people who disagree with us, sometimes quite loudly and strongly–it can be very hard to do Paul tells us to do.  It can be hard to be humble, and gentle, and patient.  It can be hard to bear with others in love.  It can be very hard to keep any unity of Spirit through the bond of peace, especially when it seems like the people on the other side have no interest in having unity or peace with you.  Our instinct, when we’re challenged, is to fight back.  Our instinct is to give as good as we get.  Our instinct is to treat others, not as we would like them to treat us, but as they actually do treat us.

Paul understands that, but he does not give us an excuse for it.  What he says, basically, is that that’s what children do.  Kids are ruled by their emotions, “tossed by the waves, blown here and there by every wind.”  

Paul tells us that, if we want to live lives worthy of our calling, we need to grow up.  And how do we do that?  By speaking the truth in love.  If we do that, not only do we grow up, we become like Christ.  Paul says, “speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

Speaking the truth in love.  That has two components to it, you know.  The first is to speak the truth.  Paul does not say that we should compromise in order to get along with people.  We are to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, but not at the price of truth.  And when we speak about truth, in this context, we’re talking about God’s truth.  The truth that Jesus Christ is the Savior.  The truth that Jesus is the divine Son of God.  The truth that Jesus is the only way to heaven, that we cannot come to God except through Him.  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  We cannot compromise the truth of Jesus Christ.  If we are to live lives worthy of our calling, we must speak that truth.

But how we speak that truth is what makes the difference.  If we follow our basic human instincts, if we fight back when we’re challenged, if we give as good as we get and treat people the way they’ve treated us, rather than the way we’d like them to treat us, we’re probably not going to be patient, or gentle, or humble.  And we’re probably not likely to speak the truth in love, the way Paul told us to.

So, if we’re going to do this, we need to overcome our basic human instincts.  We need to not respond like children, ruled by our emotions.  We need to respond as the mature body of Christ.  Speak the truth, yes–again, we do no one any favors when we compromise the truth.  But speak the truth in love.

How do we do that?  I think we need to focus on it.  We need to put some thought and effort into it.  And we need to do that ahead of time.  If we wait until we’re in a conflict situation, it’ll probably be too late.  The only way we can overcome our basic human instincts is to prepare and get ready ahead of time.

And for me, that means calling on God’s help.  If you can do this without God’s help, more power to you, but I know I cannot.  My emotions will get in my way.  I need God to help me focus on this.  I need God to take control.  I need God to show me how I can respond patiently, and gently, and humbly.  Again, still speaking the truth.  But speaking it in a patient, gentle, humble way that shows the maturity of someone who is at least trying to be worthy of  the calling God has given them.

God has given each of us a calling.  And God wants us to live lives worthy of the calling God has given us.  So let’s focus on that.  Let’s ask God to help us be humble, and gentle, and patient.  Let’s ask God to help us speak the truth in love.  Then we can, as Paul says, “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

 

Confirmation Class

The Sunday night message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on December 31, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Luke 2:21-38.

            Well, it’s New Year’s Eve.  Tomorrow is New Year’s Day.  People are celebrating the coming of the new year, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

But then, it will be January second.  And it will be just another day.  Everyone will go back to work.  On Wednesday the kids will be back in school.  The Christmas holiday season is over.

And too often, that’s how we look at it from a faith standpoint.  We drop Christmas as soon as it’s over.  We leave the baby Jesus in the manger and go on to something else.

But of course, Joseph and Mary could not just go to something else.  They had to deal with the reality of raising this baby, this divine Son of God that they had responsibility for.  That’s quite the responsibility.  So, obviously, they wanted to do it right.  So they presented Jesus at the temple.

 First, of course, Jesus was circumcised when he was eight days old.  That was in accordance with the law.  Then, we’re told of Jesus being presented at the temple of the Lord.  This happened, according to Luke, “when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses”, which would have been forty days after Jesus was born.  That means that at some point in those forty days, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus made the trip from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.  

That was not a long trip--it was about six miles.  But, of course, Mary and Joseph would’ve had to walk it, carrying Jesus, so it’s not like it was really easy.  You and I would probably be really upset if we had to walk six miles carrying a baby.  But back then, it was just the way things were.  People were used to walking everywhere they needed to go.  It was probably no big deal to them.

So Mary and Joseph walk the six miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and then walk some more until they get to the temple.  They buy the required sacrifice.  And while they’re there, they meet two people.

The first was a man named Simeon.  Simeon lived in Jerusalem, and he had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he saw the Savior.  This day, this day when Mary and Joseph are presenting Jesus at the temple, the Holy Spirit told him to go to the temple courts.  We don’t know if the Spirit told him why, but he went there.  And he saw Jesus.  And as soon as he saw Jesus, Simeon knew that this was, in fact, the Savior he had been kept alive to see.

And as you read what Simeon said, you get the impression that Simeon understood, far better than most people at that time, just who the Savior was going to be.  Most people at that time thought the Savior would be a great king, someone who would return Israel to power as a great nation.  But look at how Simeon describes Jesus:  “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”  And then he tells Mary:  “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.  And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

Simeon understood that Jesus was not going to be a political leader.  He was going to bring salvation to both the Gentiles and the Jews, but that salvation would be spiritual salvation, not a political salvation.  And he would cause “the thoughts of many hearts” to be revealed, both for better and for worse.  Simeon understood exactly what kind of Savior Jesus was going to be.

And then we meet Anna.  Anna was a prophet.  She was eighty-four years old.  We’re told she had lived with her husband for seven years after their marriage and had been a widow ever since.  Assuming she was married young, as was often the case at that time, Anna may have been a widow for sixty years or more.  I know there are people in our parish who’ve lost spouses, but think of that.  To be a widow or a widower for sixty years.  That’s a long time to be alone.

We’re told that she never left the temple, but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.  We don’t know how long she’d been doing that.  It was not necessarily for the whole sixty or so years she’d been a widow, or even for most of those years.  But it seems like it must have been a while.  And just as Simeon finishes talking, Anna comes up, gives thanks to God, and starts telling everyone about this child who’s going to be the Savior.

So what’s the point?  As we’ve asked before, why is this story in the Bible?  Is it just an interesting story, a little piece of the life of Jesus, or is there more to it?  What are we supposed to learn from this?

Well, I’m sure there’s more than one thing we can learn from it.  There almost always is, when we read the Bible.  But here’s the one I want to focus on today.

Have you ever had a time when you felt like God was giving you a message?  Or, have you ever felt like the Holy Spirit was leading you to do something, or to say something, or to go somewhere?  Or maybe you did not recognize it as the Holy Spirit, but you just felt like there was something inside you telling you that you needed to talk to some specific person, or go to some specific place, or do some specific thing.  You did not know why, but you just had this strong feeling that this was what you were supposed to do.  

Have you ever had that?  I think probably most of us have, at one time or another.  And probably most of us have followed that prompting, at least some of the time.

But here’s the thing.  Sometimes, we get that message, or we follow that prompting--we do what we’re led to do, we go where we’re led to go, we say what we’re led to say--and it seems like nothing happens.  And some time goes on, and nothing continues to happen.  And we start to wonder.  Did God really give me a message?  Was the Holy Spirit really leading me to do that, or say that, or go there?  Or was it something I made up, something I imagined, something that came out of my own head or from someone else and I just fooled myself into thinking it was from God?

When that happens, we need some confirmation.  We need to get some kind of a signal, some kind of sign.  We need something to encourage us to stay the course, something to let us know that yes, we really did get that message from God.  We really were led by the Holy Spirit.  God really did speak to us, and God really is going to be faithful and keep the words God said.

God does not always give us that confirmation, and God does not promise that God will give it to us.  Sometimes we’re asked to have faith and to trust and to keep believing.  But sometimes, God will give us that confirmation.  God will give us that encouragement.  God will give us a signal, a sign, that we really did get that message from God that we thought we did.

That’s what happened here.  Look at Mary and Joseph.  The angel Gabriel had told them that their child was the divine Son of God.  They’d listened, and they’d believed.  They’d gone everywhere they were supposed to go, they’d done everything they were supposed to do.  But still, they had to wonder.  You know, it had been several months, at least, since they’d heard from Gabriel about who this baby was going to be.  They had to be thinking, you know, our baby looks like any other baby.  He acts like any other baby.  Is he really going to be that special?  Are we really going to be raising the Savior of the world?  

And then, when they take Jesus to the temple, here come Simeon and Anna.  And they say, yes.  Yes, your child is going to be that special.  You really are going to be raising the Savior of the world.  All that stuff that Gabriel said is really true.  You really have received a message from God, and God will be faithful to God’s word.  That had to be a huge relief to them.  It had to feel so wonderful, to have someone come along and confirm that they really had received a message from God, that things were going the way they were supposed to go, and that they really could trust God’s promises.

You and I have been given messages from God, too.  There are places we're supposed to go, words we’re supposed to say, things we’re supposed to do.  That’s true for us as individuals, and that’s true for us as a church.

And a lot of us have been doing them.  Some of us have been doing them for a long time.  And sometimes, we don’t seem to see any results.  We wish a Simeon, or an Anna, would come and confirm God’s message for us.  We wish they’d come and tell us that we really have received a message from God, that we really are doing what we’re supposed to do, that we really are going the way God wants us to go.  We wish they’d say things are going the way they’re supposed to go, that we really can trust God’s promises.

Well, we may not actually get Simeon and Anna.  But I think there are signs all around us, if we look for them.  I can’t speak to each person’s individual calling, but look at our parish.  We have our kids programs going in both Onida and Gettysburg.  In fact, the Faith Builders program has grown a little.  We don’t have as many people worshiping in person as we’d like, but we’re reaching people on the livestream.  We’re expanding our ministry, reaching people in other towns, reaching people who would never come here in person. We have a few more people who are coming to church regularly–not a lot, but a few.  There are signs of good things going on in this parish, if we just look for them.

Does that mean everything’s perfect?  Of course not.  Far from it.  We have challenges, of course.  But you know what?  We’ll always have challenges.  Every church has challenges.  Mary and Joseph had a lot of challenges, too.  God never promised us everything would be smooth and easy.  

But if we keep doing what we’re supposed to do, if we keep going where God wants us to go, things will go the way they’re supposed to go.  God will confirm God’s message to us in any number of ways.  God really is speaking to us.  And God’s word is always true.

 

Following God

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on December 31, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 2:1-15.

            Well, Christmas Day has come and gone.  The presents have all been handed out and unwrapped.  Some families ware still having get-togethers this weekend.  Some are even having a late “Christmas” because of last week’s weather.   And of course this is New Year’s Eve, and we still have New Year’s Day to celebrate.  But still, the Big Day is over.  In a couple of days, we’ll settle back into our normal routines again.

            I would think that, after that first Christmas night, there’s nothing Mary and Joseph would’ve liked more than to settle back into their normal routine.  But they could not.  For one thing, they had a new baby to deal with.  Now, I’ve never had children, but I’m pretty sure that when your child is a few days old you don’t just settle back into your normal routine.  In fact, that normal routine is probably never coming back again, right?  You find a new routine, a new normal, but I’m pretty sure that a baby changes just about everything in your life.

            And then, there’s the fact that they were not home.  They were still in Bethlehem.  We don’t know how long they were there.  They were still there when the wise men came to see them, obviously.  Some people think they might have been there as long as two years.  

            Now, they obviously did not stay out in the stable that long.  At some point, Joseph and Mary did find a place to live.  In fact, we’re told that the wise men came to “the house” to see the baby.  Whether they built a house, bought a house, rented a house, were living in someone else’s house, we don’t know.  But at least they did have a house to live in.  Still, it was not home.  I would think the one thing they probably wanted most, after all this time, was just to go home and start living their lives together.

            But of course, that’s not what happened, is it?  One night, when Joseph is asleep, an angel appears.  We don’t know if it’s the same angel who told Joseph that Mary was going to have a child.  But an angel came and told Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and go to Egypt, because if they stayed where they were, Herod would have Jesus killed.

            Now, as I’ve said before, we’re never told what Joseph’s thoughts or feelings are when he’s told to do something.  We’re just told that he did what the angel said.  I mean, when an angel comes and tells you that your child will die unless you leave and go to Egypt, you’re going to go to Egypt.  Any parent would do that for any of their children, never mind that this is Jesus we’re talking about.  When Joseph heard this, he did not hesitate.  He woke up Mary and they took Jesus and headed for Egypt that same night.

            But even though Joseph did not hesitate, I have to think he was not particularly thrilled with any of this.  Neither was Mary, for that matter.  “Egypt?  We have to go to Egypt?  We don’t want to go to Egypt.  We just want to go home.  We want to get back to our family, to our friends.  We want to get back to our old lives.  What are we going to do in Egypt?  We don’t know anybody in Egypt.  We don’t even speak the language.  Why Egypt?  Why can we not go back to Nazareth?  Or how about Jerusalem?  In fact, why can God not protect us somehow so that we don’t have to go anywhere?  I mean, He is the all-powerful God, right?  And besides, the angel said our child is God’s Divine Son.  Surely God would not let his Divine Son die.”

            Now, I want to make clear that this is all speculation.  The Bible does not tell us what was going through Joseph or Mary’s minds when all this was happening.  It just tells us that they went to Egypt.  But it seems logical, don’t you think?  Even though they obeyed God, I would think they still had to wonder sometimes just what God was doing and what God was getting them into.

            We’ve talked before about this idea that following God should somehow give us an easy life, and how the Bible makes clear over and over again that an idea like that is simply not true.  It seems to me this is Exhibit A.  Joseph and Mary followed God.  They did everything that was asked of them.  There were a lot of times when they did not understand it.  There were a lot of times when it did not make sense to them.  But they still did it.  And it certainly did not get them an easy life.  In fact, in the months and years immediately after Jesus’ birth, following God seemed to get Joseph and Mary nothing but trouble.

            Most of us would say that we follow God.  Not perfectly, of course.  There are times we go our own way, do our own thing.  We all have those times when we decide we know better, when we decide we have to do it our way rather than doing things God’s way.  But for the most part, we do try to do the things God wants us to do.  We do try to live our lives the way God wants us to live them.  

            How’s that worked out for you?  Has it given you an easy life?  Probably not.  That’s not to say everyone here is miserable.  Most of us would probably say that our lives are more or less okay.  But I don’t know that any of us are on easy street.  Our lives may be more or less okay, but we still have plenty of problems.  And of course, there are some people in our congregations whose problems are pretty serious.

            And in fact, sometimes, following God seems to make things worse.  Because the thing about following God, about truly following God, is that sometimes God leads us to places we don’t want to go.  Sometimes God leads us to do things we don’t want to do.  Sometimes God leads us to deal with things we don’t want to deal with.

            And sometimes we think, “I don’t want to go there.  I don’t want to do that.  I don’t want to have to deal with those people.  I just want to be home.  I just want to be with my family and with my friends.  I just want to live my life.  Why can God not just let me stay where I am?  I mean, he’s the all-powerful God, right?  Well, then, whatever it is that needs to be done, God can surely do it without me.  Why do I have to do this?”

            You know, we talk all the time about how we need to trust God.  And of course, we do.  But too often, we end the sentence there.  What we don’t ask is, “Trust God to do what?”  What is it that we really need to trust God to do?

            Trust God to take care of us?  Well, that’s what we’d like, of course.  But as we’ve already said, following God does not guarantee us an easy life.  God will take care of us in the sense that, if we accept Jesus as the Savior, we’ll have salvation and eternal life.  And it’s impossible to overstate how important that is.  But that does not mean that God will take care of us while we’re on earth.  God might, but God might not.  Following God might mean that our lives on earth are a constant struggle.  Following God might mean, as it did sometimes for Joseph and Mary, that our earthly lives are nothing but trouble.

            Trust God to make things work out all right?  I think we can trust God to do that.  But here’s the thing:  God’s definition of things working out all right might not be the same as our definition of things working out all right.  And the time at which God makes things work out all right may not be the time we want them to work out all right.  After all, as we’ve said before, God sees hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of years into the future, if the world is going to last that long.  God is making things work out all right, but that does not mean that things will be all right in our lifetimes.  It might not happen until a long time in the future.

            Trust God to do what’s right?  Now we’re getting there.  God will always do what’s right.  And if we follow God, we will do what’s right, too.  

            That’s what Joseph and Mary did.  They may not have understood why they had to go to Egypt.  They might not have known what they were going to do there or how they were going to survive there.  They just knew that going to Egypt was what God wanted them to do.  And they trusted that, if it was what God wanted them to do, then it must be right, even if they did not understand it.

            That’s the kind of faith Joseph and Mary had all their lives.  It’s what led them to agree to be Jesus’ earthly parents.  It’s what led them to go to Bethlehem.  It’s what led them to go to Egypt.  It’s what led them to, eventually, go back to Nazareth after Herod died.  There were plenty of times that Joseph and Mary did not understand what was going on.  They did not understand why God was asking them to do these things.  But they knew God wanted them to do it, so they did it.  And they trusted that it must be right, because it was what God wanted them to do.

            That’s the kind of trust you and I need to have.  Trust that if God wants us to do something, it must be the right thing to do.  Trust that if God wants us to go somewhere, it must be the right place to go.  Trust that whatever God wants us to deal with, it must be what we’re supposed to deal with.  And continue trusting that way, even when we don’t understand, even when it seems like things are not working out right, even when it seems like our trust is getting us nothing but trouble.

            It’s not easy to have that kind of trust.  It was not easy for Joseph and Mary, either.  But they did it.  And if they can do it, you and I can do it, too.  God will always do what’s right.  If we follow God, we’ll always do what’s right, too.

 

God Will See You Through

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on December 24, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Luke 2:1-7.

            What we read this morning was the part of the story of the first Christmas Eve.  At the time, of course, no one knew it was Christmas Eve.  Nobody knew it was anything.  It was just another day, a day just like any other day, as far as anyone knew.

            Now for Mary and Joseph, of course, it was not just another day.  It was the day their baby, their first child, was going to be born.  And you know, it’s interesting, considering how big Christmas is for us today, that the Bible really does not make a big deal out of it.  The gospels of Mark and John don’t even deal with it.  We don’t get any of Jesus’ birth story there.  As we talked last week, Matthew just deals with it very briefly, about eight verses.  Luke is the only one of the gospel writers that goes into any detail at all about that first Christmas.  And when you really look at this story, you realize that there are a lot of things about it that we don’t know.  There are also some things we think we know that the Bible does not actually say.

            We know that Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem shortly before Jesus was born.  That was a trip of about seventy or eighty miles.  It’s estimated that it would’ve taken them at least four days, on foot, to make that trip.  Of course, Mary was not far from giving birth, so she may have needed to rest more frequently, which would’ve made the trip longer.  We always illustrate their trip with Mary riding a donkey, but the Bible does not mention a donkey.  For all we know, Mary and Joseph may have both walked all the way, carrying whatever provisions they could.

            The Bible does not say anything about whether they were traveling with anyone or if they were on their own.  It makes sense that there might have been some others there.  The road from Nazareth to Bethlehem was a dangerous one, with both wild animals and human criminals lying in wait for travelers.  There’d be safety in numbers.  Besides, Mary and Joseph cannot have been the only ones who had to travel to Bethlehem, the city of David, for the census.  It seems like there would have to have been some others.  If so, they probably would’ve traveled together.

            We always imagine Jesus’ birth as having come the first night after Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem.  And that may be how it worked out, but the Bible does not say so.  Luke simply says, “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born.”  They may have already been in Bethlehem for a while, we don’t know.  We don’t know that Jesus was born at night, either.  We know the angel appeared the shepherds at night, but that does not necessarily mean the baby was born then.  

            The chances are that Joseph and Mary were not the only ones who could not find a room, either.  Bethlehem was a small town.  And of course, back then there was no such thing as a hotel the way we think of them now.  There were people who had a few rooms they would rent out.  There probably were not a whole lot of rooms available under the best circumstances, and of course there was no way for people to call ahead and make a reservation.  I would imagine there were lots of other people who took whatever shelter they could find.  Some probably could not find any, and simply had to camp out in the open.  Joseph and Mary may have been among the lucky ones, really.  At least they had shelter.

            So why am I going through all this?  Well, a couple of reasons.  One of them is to just make the point that when we read the Bible, we need to be a little bit careful.  There are a lot of times when we assume things that the Bible does not actually say.  Sometimes our assumptions may be justified, but sometimes they’re not.  And when they’re not, when we start thinking that the Bible says things it does not actually say, we can run into trouble.  And I’ve been guilty of that, too, sometimes.  I’m trying to get better about it, but it’s something most of us do sometimes.  And it’s a trap, because it can lead us to think we’re following God’s word when we’re not.

            But the other point is one we’ve made before.  When we read these stories in the Bible, we need to not get bogged down in all the little details.  Instead, we need to always keep a few questions in mind.  Why is this story in the Bible?  What am I supposed to learn from it?  What does this story teach me about God and about faith in Jesus Christ?

            So, what do you think the answers are?  Because this story could easily have been left out of the Bible.  As I said, Mark and John do leave it out.  Matthew deals with it very briefly.  So why is the story of Jesus’ birth in the Bible?  What are we supposed to learn from it?  What does this story teach us about God and about faith in Jesus Christ?

            I’m sure I don’t have the whole answer.  But here’s what I think is at least part of the answer.

            Jesus truly was born as a human being.  He was not an angel.  He was not a supernatural being.  Yes, He had some special powers as the divine Son of God, but he was also fully human.  And He was not born to wealthy people living in a palace.  He was not born to people who were important or well-known or special.  He was born to ordinary people, who lived ordinary lives.  And in fact, He was born in conditions that were not very pleasant at all.

            Why is that important?  Because all this tells us one thing about Jesus Christ:  He understands.  He knows what it’s like to leave as a human being.  He knows what it’s like to live an ordinary human life.  He knows what it’s like to have to work hard.  He knows what it’s like to have to struggle.  He knows what it’s like to be a kid.  He knows what it’s like to be an adolescent.  He knows what it’s like to be an adult.  Jesus knows what all of that is like, because he experienced it himself.  Jesus understands the things we go through as human beings.

            And because Jesus was human, Jesus also understands our emotions.  He understands our feelings.  He knows what it’s like to be angry or frustrated.  He knows what it’s like to be depressed.  He knows what it’s like to feel alone.  He also knows what it’s like to be happy.  He knows what it’s like to feel love.  He knows what it’s like to be happy or sad, to laugh or to cry.  Jesus knows all those things, because He went through them all himself.  Jesus understands everything we feel as human beings.

            And because Jesus understands that, we know that God understands it, too.  Because Jesus is God--God the Son.  Anything Jesus knows, God knows.  Anything Jesus understands, God understands.  So whatever you’re going through, know that God understands it.

            But why is that important?  I mean, it’s nice, I guess.  It’s nice to know that God understands what we’re going through.  But how does that help?  How does God’s understanding change anything?  After all, we still have to go through what we’re going through.  What difference does God understanding it make?

            Well, in a sense, we all have to answer that question for ourselves.  Because what our answer is depends on how we see God and on how much faith we have in God.  If we think God really does not care about us much, if we think God just sits in heaven observing things and not doing anything about them, if we think God is not involved in our day-to-day lives, then it probably makes no difference at all.  We’ll still think we have to get through whatever we’re going through on our own.

            But if we believe that God does care about us, if we believe that God loves us, and if we believe that God does get involved in our day-to-day lives, then it makes all the difference in the world.  It does not mean that God will magically take us out of our situation and solve all our problems.  But it does mean that, whatever we’re going through, we can count on God to help us get through it.  God will help us get through and God will see us through to the other side.  It’s like what it says in the Twenty-third Psalm.  “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”  God does not promise to keep us out of the dark valleys.  God just promises to be with us when we’re in those dark valleys and help us get through them into the light.

            We think, now, that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are supposed to be days of joy.  But they were not completely days of joy for Joseph and Mary.  Yes, I’m sure they were happy that their son was born and that he was okay, but the circumstances of Jesus’ birth were not exactly what first-time parents would have in mind.

            Joseph and Mary went through some tough times.  What we read today was only part of it.  But through all their tough times, they knew that God was with them.  They knew God would help them get through their tough times, and that God would ultimately bring them into the light.  And God will do that for you and me, too.

            I hope this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are days of joy for you.  But if they’re not, know that God understands.  Know that God will be there for you.  And know that, whatever you may be going through, God will see you through it.

 

Connections

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on December 17, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Luke 2:1-21.

            What we read for today in Luke is what we think of when we think about the Christmas story.  It’s the bit Linus reads in the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  It’s Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus in the stable with the shepherds around.  This is what we want to hear on the Sunday before Christmas.  After all, who does not love hearing a story about a baby?

         And it is an amazing story, really.  The divine Son of God, taking human form, coming to earth to live among us.  Living as a human being, feeling all the things we feel, enjoying all the things we enjoy, suffering through all the things we suffer through.  Limited by all the limitations we have.

         You know, at Christmas, we talk all the time about Mary and the faith she had and all the suffering she endured.  And that’s appropriate, because she did have tremendous faith and she did have to endure a lot of suffering.  And we talk about Joseph, and the faith he had, and all the things he had to do, taking care of his family and so forth.  And that’s appropriate too, because Joseph did have tremendous faith and he did have to do a lot of things to take care of his family.

         But we don’t usually talk about the sacrifice Jesus made and the suffering he endured.  I mean, we talk about that during Lent.  We talk about how Jesus was arrested and beaten and tortured and ultimately killed on a cross.  But we don’t talk about the sacrifice Jesus made just by coming to earth in the first place.  In fact, we usually don’t think about Jesus’ birth that way at all.

         But we should.  After all, we’re told that Jesus, the divine Son of God, was with God the Father from the beginning.  Remember what we read in John:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Jesus, the Word, was with God the Father from the very beginning.  And Jesus had been with God all through everything that had happened since, everything that had happened up until this point in history.

       And now, Jesus was separated from God, just like we are.  I mean, yes, Jesus had divine powers, power that you and I do not have.  But I have to think he could not possibly feel the sort of connection to God the Father that he had in heaven.  He had that same separation from God that we have.  He could pray, of course, just like we all can, and he could go meditate and try to feel close to God, just as we all can.  And there were times, such as at the transfiguration, when he was briefly given some of that connection back.  But for the most part, when he was on earth, it looks like Jesus was separated from God just like you and I are.

         I wonder when Jesus really felt that.  I assume he knew it was going to happen, but when did he really start to feel it?  Did he not feel it until he was an adult, and fully realized who he was?  Did he feel it already when he was young, during that episode when he was twelve and went off by himself, away from his parents, to go and visit with the rabbis?  Or did he already feel it in this scene, as a baby, when he was lying in the manger with Joseph and Mary beside him?

         Whenever it was, it had to be really hard for him.  He knew it was going to happen, or at least I would think he did.  I’d think Jesus would have to have known, when he agreed to come to earth and live among us, that he would not have that same connection to God the Father that he had while he was in heaven.  But did he really understand what that was going to feel like?  Did he know how hard it was going to be to lose that connection with God, even if it was only going to be for those years on earth?

         It had to be a hard thing for Jesus.  It was a tremendous sacrifice Jesus made.  He voluntarily gave up that connection he had with God.  And he did it for us.  Jesus gave us an amazing gift when he did that.

         You know, when you think about it, Jesus really gave up his life twice for us.  We know about how Jesus gave up his earthly life for us when he died on the cross.  But Jesus also gave up his heavenly life for us when he was born to Joseph and Mary in the stable.

         Jesus gave up his earthly life on the cross to save us from the consequences of our sins.  He took the punishment that should have gone to us, so that if we simply believe in him, we will go to heaven.  And that’s an incredibly awesome thing.

         But Jesus gave up his heavenly life to do something just as important.  Jesus gave up his heavenly life to come here to earth and live among us.  Jesus gave up his heavenly life so we could know God better and understand God better.  Jesus gave up his heavenly life so that we could see who God is and how God wants us to live.

         In other words, Jesus gave up his connection to God the Father so that you and I could have a connection to God.  Before Jesus came, people did not know God, not in the way you and I can.  They did not have a personal relationship with God.  Oh, maybe a few of them did, the great prophets like Moses and Joshua and people like that, but not everyday people.  Not people like you and me.  There was no thought that common people could just talk to God.  Why would God listen to you?  Why would God listen to me?  If you wanted to talk to God about something, you went and talked to the priest.  You asked him to pray for you, and they you waited and eventually asked the priest for God’s answer.  The priest might be able to talk to God, especially if he was a high priest, but you and me?  No way.

          And Jesus changed all that.  Jesus came and showed us, individuals, common people like you and me.  He showed us how to talk to God.  He showed us how to listen to God.  He showed us that we did not need to go through a high priest to talk to God, we could do it ourselves.  Everyone—you, me, and everyone else you can think of, from the highest of the high to the lowers of the low—can have a personal relationship, a personal connection, to God.  Jesus gave up his connection to God so that you and I could have a connection with God.

         Did Mary and Joseph understand that, do you suppose?  Probably not.  Not totally, anyway.  They probably understood some.  They knew this was a special child.  The angel had told them that he was the divine Son of God who would save people from their sins.  But did they really appreciate how that was going to work or exactly what it meant?  We don’t understand it that well now.  Could they really have understood it then?

          But you know who maybe did understand it?  The shepherds.  You know, as you look at this story, the shepherds really don’t seem to have that much of anything to do with it.  They did not know Joseph or Mary.  They were nobody important or special.  They were just ordinary people, people like you and me.  They were just getting by in life, doing their jobs, doing what they had to do.  In George Carlin’s phrase, they were doing just enough work to not get fired and getting paid just enough not to quit.

          And then, all of a sudden, an angel appears to them.  And then a whole company of angels.  And they tell these shepherds about this incredible thing that’s happened.  And they tell them to go see the baby.

And they do.  And they know.  They don’t know everything.  They probably don’t understand what Jesus had to give up in order to be born as a human being.  But they know something is different.  They know they have a connection to God they’ve never had before.  And they know that, somehow, this baby caused that.  They know that somehow, in some way, the birth of this baby means that they are connected to God in a way they never were before.

And they know that they’re never going to lose that connection.  They know that connection they have to God will always be there.  And so they go away, happier than they’ve ever been in their lives, so happy that they cannot help but tell everyone they meet about this incredible thing that’s happened, this incredible thing that they’ve not only seen but that they’ve felt in their hearts.

We have that same connection to God that the shepherds had.  We have it through Jesus Christ.  And that connection will always be there for us, too.  We can give it up.  We can let it go.  But God will never take it away.  Any time we choose to turn back to God, that connection to God will always be there for us.

Jesus gave up his life in heaven to give us life on earth.  And Jesus gave up his life on earth to give us life in heaven.  It’s an incredible gift.  It’s the gift of Christmas.

 

Faith Over Feelings

The Sunday morning sermon in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on December 17, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 1:18-25.

            If you were in church last week, you may have noticed that our Bible reading was the same one that we read last week, the story of Jesus’ birth in the gospel of Matthew.  This won’t be the same sermon you heard last week.  There’s another aspect of this passage I want to talk about.

            Matthew starts his gospel by tracing Jesus’ earthly lineage back from Abraham through David and then on up to Joseph, who Jesus’ earthly father.  It was important for Matthew to do that because the prophecy had been that the Messiah, the Savior, would be of the line of King David.  After he does that, Matthew goes on to tell us Jesus’ birth story.

            But this is not the birth story we hear the most.  This is not the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and the trip to Bethlehem and “No room at the inn” and the stable and all that.  Matthew’s tells the story very quickly and efficiently.  Mary and Joseph are going to be married, but are not married yet.  Mary is pregnant.  Joseph knows the child cannot be his, but he does not want to publicly disgrace Mary, so he plans to end things quietly.  Then an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to go ahead with the marriage because the child is from the Holy Spirit and will save the people from their sins.  Joseph wakes up and does what the angel told him to do.

            And that’s it.  It’s no wonder this is not the version of the Christmas story we usually hear.  There’s no drama in it.  There’s no emotion.  There’s no Hallmark Channel warmth or tears or anything.  It’s just the facts.  It’s not easy to make the Christmas story boring, but Matthew just about manages it.  Why would Matthew choose to tell the story this way?

            I think part of the reason has to do with the way people looked at faith back then.  We’ve talked about this before, but in Old Testament Jewish society, emotions were not the main focus of faith.  Instead, the emphasis was on obedience.  It was on doing your duty to God.  You did what God wanted you to do because it was God who wanted you to do it.  God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise.  You are not.  So, if God said to do something, you were supposed to do it.  Period.

            And that seems to be the perspective Mary and Joseph had on this whole thing.  When Mary found out what was going to happen, she says “Let it be to me according to your word.”  When Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant, Joseph’s first thought was to do what he thought God would want him to do.  And when he found out the truth, he again tried to handle the situation the way God wanted him to, doing what the angel said.  The reason we’re not told what Joseph thought, or how he felt, is mentioned because to Matthew, none of that was important.  What was important, in the case of both Mary and Joseph, is that they obeyed God.  Mary and Joseph did their duty to God.

As I said, that’s kind of an Old Testament idea.  It kind of fell out of fashion later on.  It certainly has fallen out of fashion now.  Our life today is all about feelings.  It’s all about emotions.  Doing something we don’t want to do, because it’s our duty to do it, is not something we talk about very much.  We’re told we should follow our hearts.  We should do what makes us happy, not do things just because it’s our duty to do them.

            And don’t get me wrong, feelings and emotions are important.  When we talk about God’s love for us, that’s a feeling.  That’s an emotion.  And when we talk about loving God and loving others, we’re talking about feelings and emotions, too.  And I’m not suggesting that we should do things that will make us unhappy all our lives.

            But the thing is that our hearts are not always reliable guides.  Have you noticed that?  Have you ever followed your heart and discovered it led you down a path that was not all that great?  I suspect some of us have.  In fact, sometimes following our heart can take us to a place that it’s not good for us to go at all.  Sometimes, following our heart and doing what we thought would make us happy gets us into all kinds of trouble.  I think a lot of us, if we’re honest about it, can think of times when that’s happened.

            Being happy is important, no question about it.  But being happy is not the ultimate goal in life, at least not for a Christian.  For a Christian, the ultimate goal in life is to do God’s will.  The ultimate goal in life is to trust God and be faithful to God.  Now, I believe that doing God’s will and trusting God and being faithful to God will make us happy.  But even if sometimes it does not, it’s still what, as Christians, we’re supposed to do.

            Did agreeing to give birth to the Savior of the world make Mary happy?  Did she follow her heart when she did that?  We don’t know.  She knows it’s an honor.  She knows it’s a blessing, in a way.  But did it make her happy?  We’d like to think so, but we’re really not told.  Did having to go to Bethlehem when she was ninth months pregnant make Mary happy?  Was she following her heart when she did that?  I doubt it.  Did having to give birth in a barn make Mary happy?  Was she following her heart then?  Probably not.

And how about Joseph?  Did taking Mary as his wife in this situation make Joseph happy?  Did he follow his heart when he did that?  We don’t know.  We’d like to think so, of course, and we can make an argument that it did, but we really don’t know.  We’re not told how Joseph felt.  Later on, we’re told that Joseph had to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt for a while to get away from King Herod’s army.  Did that make Joseph happy?  Did Joseph follow his heart when he did that?  Probably not.  And of course, here was Joseph, trying to take care of a wife and raise a son that was not actually his.  Did that make him happy?  Was he following his heart then?  Again, we’d like to think so, but we really don’t know.  

That’s the thing.  We’re not told anything, anywhere in the Bible, about how Mary and Joseph felt about any of this.  All we’re told is that they did God’s will.  All we’re told is that they had faith and were obedient to God.

            And maybe that’s enough, you know?  Maybe that’s enough.  I’m not saying that we should shut our brains off and just follow things blindly.  God gave us brains and God expects us to use them.  I’m not saying we should ignore our feelings, either—our feelings came from God, too.  And it’s certainly all right to want to be happy—I don’t know anyone who does not want to be happy.

            But in the end, there are always going to be things we don’t understand, no matter how hard we try.  And there are always going to be times when our feelings are confused or lead us in the wrong direction.  And there are times when the things that make us happy in the short term will wind up being the exact wrong thing for us to do in the long term.

            And so, maybe just doing God’s will, just having faith and trusting God and being obedient to God, is enough.  Doing the will of God will never lead us in the wrong direction.  Trusting God will keep us headed in the right direction even when we don’t understand.  Being faithful to God may or may not make us happy in the short term, but being faithful to God will always be the right thing for us to do in the long term.

            I’m sure Mary and Joseph did not understand what was going on here, not really.  I would think their feelings must have been very confused.  And I would think that this whole situation did not make them all that happy.  It certainly was not the way they’d planned for their married life to start out.  But none of that mattered.  They put all of that aside.  They knew what God wanted them to do.  And they did it, no matter what their feelings or emotions might have been.  We don’t know whether Mary and Joseph followed their heart.  What we know that they did their duty.  Mary and Joseph did their duty to God.

            And it was enough.  It was enough for Matthew, when he wrote his gospel.  And it was enough for God.

            And it’s enough for us, too.  Trusting God, being obedient to God, being faithful to God, and doing our duty to God are enough for us.  We may or may not be following our hearts when we do that.  But we will be following God’s heart.  And God’s heart is always reliable.

 

The Warning of Herod

The Sunday night message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on December 10, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 2:1-23.

            You know, when you come to tell the Christmas story, you have a lot of characters to deal with.  You have Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist.  You obviously have Mary and Joseph.  You have the angel Gabriel.  Later you have the shepherds and the wise men.  The thing about a good story, though, is that it always has to have a villain, and that’s true of the Christmas story, too.  Tonight, we’re going to talk about the villain, King Herod.

            Herod is not someone we want to talk about in the Christmas story.  In the traditional Sunday school Christmas pageants, he’s often left out entirely.  He’s certainly not part of anybody’s nativity scene.  None of the advent or Christmas lectionary readings talk about Herod.  The only time he gets in at all is on Epiphany Sunday, and then the focus is usually on the wise men, not on Herod.  At Christmas, we want to talk about the good stuff, about the angels and shepherds and the baby in the manger.  That’s understandable, but as we’ve said before, everything in the Bible is there for some reason.  So let’s look at Herod and think about why this is part of the Christmas story.

            Now, Herod was a king in some ways, and in other ways he was not.  This area, Judea, was still under the control of the Roman Empire, and so Herod could only be king as long as the emperor said so.  Still, as long as the empire could collect taxes from Judea and as long as Judea was not causing problems for the emperor, the emperor really did not care very much what Herod did.  So, in a lot of ways, Herod was pretty much in control there.  In that sense, he really was pretty much the king.

            At the time Jesus was born, Herod was about seventy years old.  Given how long people lived at that time, he was considered a pretty old man.  He’d been in power for over thirty years.  A lot of people in Judea could not remember a time when Herod had not been the king.  Herod himself probably had a hard time thinking of himself as anything but the king.  He was used to being king, he liked being king, and he was going to stay king any way he could.  Plus, Herod had three sons whom he hoped would take over after he died.

            Another fact we need to remember when we look at this story is that the political history of Judea was not all that stable at the time.  The Romans had only ruled Judea for about sixty years.  The people of Israel did not like the fact that they were ruled by Rome.  They wanted independence, and every once in a while there’d be a rebellion against the empire.  These were all things that Herod knew very well.

            Then, too, the position of king was not always the safest one to hold.  There were always people out to take over, and the way they’d usually try to do that was by killing the king.  When you were king, you always had to watch your back.  You had to be careful who you trusted, and you had to always be on the lookout for people plotting against you.

            When we think about all that, Herod’s actions in the Christmas story become more understandable.  Not okay, not excusable, but understandable.  You’ve got a king who has been king so long that he cannot envision himself not being king.  You’ve got a king who knows there are very few people he can trust.  You’ve got a king who knows there are always people trying to get him out of the way and take away his throne and his power.

            So, imagine you’re King Herod.  You’re sitting there, minding your own business one day, and these “wise men”, these astrologers, come by.  They tell you they’ve seen a sign, a star in the sky.  They tell you that sign means there’s someone who’s been born to be king, and he’s some place nearby, and they want to come and worship him.  

Now, people back then tended to buy into signs and stars and such, so this would not have seemed like a particularly strange story.  If you were King Herod, you’d tend to believe it.  So, how would you react?  What would you do?

            Our scripture says that Herod was frightened.  I’m thinking he was near panic.  Everything he’d worked for all his life was being threatened.  He does what to him seemed like the logical thing.  He calls together his advisers and finds out where, in prophecy, this king is to be born.  Then, he sends the wise men to that town, Bethlehem, tells them to go look for the new king there, and to let him know exactly where this king is when they find him.

            As you know, the wise men found Jesus, but did not report back to Herod.  Herod eventually found out about that and got even more panicky.  So he had all the male children in Bethlehem two years old or under killed.  

            What an awful thing.  Think about that.  Every boy two years old and younger was killed.  For no reason whatsoever, other than Herod’s fear that he might no longer be king.

            With all this, we come back to the question:  why is this part of the Christmas story?  Why did God bring about the Christmas story in this way?  

You know, Herod died not too long after the events described in the Bible took place.  If the wise men had not gone to see him when they did, he might never have known about Jesus at all.  The children in Bethlehem would not have been killed and Joseph would not have had to take Mary and Jesus and run to Egypt.  Things would have been a lot easier for everybody.

            The Bible tells us this was to fulfill Old Testament prophecies, but that’s really not an answer.  Could God not have fulfilled these prophecies some other way?  In fact, God could have not had these prophecies be made at all.  If these prophecies came from God, then all these things have to have been part of God’s plan from the beginning.  We assume that God never does things without a reason.  I said at the beginning that every good story needs a villain, and that’s true, but God surely had more of a reason than just giving us a good story.  What would the reason be for this?

            Well, any time we start to think about God’s reasons for doing things, we’re speculating.  None of us can ever fully understand the mind of God.  As I thought about it, though, I think I may know at least part of the answer.

            All the other main characters in the Christmas story are examples of people with great faith.  Mary, Joseph, Zechariah, Elizabeth, the shepherds, the wise men, all of them.  They all were told by God what to do, and they did it, even though they did not fully understand why.  They are wonderful examples for us.  They appeal to the good in all of us.  They give us role models.  We should all aspire to have as much faith as those people did.

            We aspire to that faith, but that does not mean we have it, or even that we can relate to it.  Herod, though, is something else.  Herod appeals to the dark side of our nature, and believe me, we all have that dark side.  We all want what we want and we all want to keep it once we get it.  We all want to keep control of our lives and keep control of the things around us.  When someone comes along and threatens all that, when someone comes along and upsets the apple cart, threatens what we have and our control of it, we don’t like that very much.  We tend to resist it.  And our response often is to do everything we can to keep things the way they are, to keep things the way we like them, and to fight against anyone or anything that changes that.

I think part of the reason Herod is in this story is to be a warning for each of us.  I ask you sometimes, when we read passages in the Bible, to try to put yourself into the story.  In the Christmas story, that means to think about what it would be like to be Mary or Joseph.  That’s a good thing to try to do, but it’s not really possible.  None of us can really imagine what it would be like to be involved in the virgin birth of the Son of God.  That’s something that’s so beyond our experience that we really cannot understand it.

I think it’s a lot easier to imagine ourselves as Herod.  I think it’s a lot easier for us to imagine having a fairly comfortable way of life, and then have that way of life be threatened.  I think it’s a lot easier for us to imagine having worked all our lives for something, and then hearing about someone who was going to take it all away.  I think it’s a lot easier for us to imagine how we’d react if we were Herod than it is for us to imagine how we’d react if we were Mary or Joseph.

I think Herod is there as a warning for us.  Herod is there to remind us that what’s important in life is not to accumulate power for ourselves.  What’s important in life is not to accumulate wealth.  What’s important in life is not to get our way.  What’s important in life is not to have things go the way we want them to go.  When we get that wrong, we can find ourselves fighting against things that are good.  We can find ourselves fighting against what’s right.  We can even find ourselves fighting against God.

In about two weeks, it will be Christmas.  We’ll celebrate the birth of Jesus.  We’ll talk about Mary and Joseph, and the shepherds, and the wise men.  That’s fine.  But we need to talk about Herod, too.  Herod may be the villain, but there’s a little bit of Herod in each one of us, including me.  Let’s pray that God forgive us for that, and help us overcome it.  Let’s pray for God to help each one of us be someone who worships the Savior, rather than someone who fights him.