Gracious Spirit of God, you gave the Church your words on the first Pentecost, give us your words today that we may tell the story of Emmanuel, God with us, and through your power many may come to believe in Christ our Lord born in the flesh. Amen.
As we now approach Christmas and are in the season of Advent it is a good time for us to focus on sharing the story of Jesus. The Christmas story is widely known in our culture and that gives us both some help and some challenges. Almost everyone thinks they know the Christmas story whether they are Christians or not. That means that is a conversation that can be easy to open but, also, one where it can be hard to be heard clearly. That means we must be clear about what we want to share and be efficient in what we say and do to capture someone’s attention and that means we need to be prepared.
I ask you to stop and think for a moment about why the Christmas story is so important to you as a Christian. Think about what the stories say about Jesus. His humble beginnings, the risks that Mary and Joseph took over against the expectations of their society, the threats against the baby Jesus’ life, the protection provided by Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt. Consider the faithfulness of the Biblical characters in the face judgment. How does this express the best of what we expect parents to be in difficult circumstances? How does it express good parents’ fight to protect a child? Now practice saying what hearing those stories has meant in your life. Write down what it once meant as it was told within your family, as you now teach it to a new generation and as we tell it here at Messiah in our church family. Take ownership of the importance of these stories and their impact on your relationship to Christ. Finally, consider how you would share those personal things with a friend and a stranger.
Being able to share the Gospel begins with considering its impact on our own lives and why it is important to me in real world day to day living. Only when we lay hold to our own faith and the meaning of the story of scripture to our own lives can we hope to communicate to others the value of what we have to share.
As we approach Christmas I challenge you to find people with whom to share the story of Christmas and its impact on your life. Tell them why its important to you and how it helps shape who you are and how you use your life. Tell them about how we share that story at Messiah in the ways in which we decorate and the ways we worship. Tell them about how our proclamation of Jesus in Word and Sacrament helps you in the challenges you face daily.
Lastly, invite them to come join you Sunday mornings during Advent and the Christmas season. Invite them to join us Christmas Eve. Invite them to be part of your experience of Jesus Christ and the story of Christmas as we share it this year.
And when you bring them to church with you be sure to introduce them to me and give me the information I need to follow up and make contact with them so that I can help you tell them the story of Jesus, making disciples, baptizing them and teaching them all that Jesus has commanded. As I said previously, we are partners in this work.
Let us move forward on our Advent journey together learning to tell the story of the infant Christ from our hearts and our lives and sharing what the Gospel and grace of God has done for each personally. Thanks be to God for his grace and love. We are all saints and sinners and it is the story of God's love that makes us whole.
As we now approach Christmas and are in the season of Advent it is a good time for us to focus on sharing the story of Jesus. The Christmas story is widely known in our culture and that gives us both some help and some challenges. Almost everyone thinks they know the Christmas story whether they are Christians or not. That means that is a conversation that can be easy to open but, also, one where it can be hard to be heard clearly. That means we must be clear about what we want to share and be efficient in what we say and do to capture someone’s attention and that means we need to be prepared.
I ask you to stop and think for a moment about why the Christmas story is so important to you as a Christian. Think about what the stories say about Jesus. His humble beginnings, the risks that Mary and Joseph took over against the expectations of their society, the threats against the baby Jesus’ life, the protection provided by Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt. Consider the faithfulness of the Biblical characters in the face judgment. How does this express the best of what we expect parents to be in difficult circumstances? How does it express good parents’ fight to protect a child? Now practice saying what hearing those stories has meant in your life. Write down what it once meant as it was told within your family, as you now teach it to a new generation and as we tell it here at Messiah in our church family. Take ownership of the importance of these stories and their impact on your relationship to Christ. Finally, consider how you would share those personal things with a friend and a stranger.
Being able to share the Gospel begins with considering its impact on our own lives and why it is important to me in real world day to day living. Only when we lay hold to our own faith and the meaning of the story of scripture to our own lives can we hope to communicate to others the value of what we have to share.
As we approach Christmas I challenge you to find people with whom to share the story of Christmas and its impact on your life. Tell them why its important to you and how it helps shape who you are and how you use your life. Tell them about how we share that story at Messiah in the ways in which we decorate and the ways we worship. Tell them about how our proclamation of Jesus in Word and Sacrament helps you in the challenges you face daily.
Lastly, invite them to come join you Sunday mornings during Advent and the Christmas season. Invite them to join us Christmas Eve. Invite them to be part of your experience of Jesus Christ and the story of Christmas as we share it this year.
And when you bring them to church with you be sure to introduce them to me and give me the information I need to follow up and make contact with them so that I can help you tell them the story of Jesus, making disciples, baptizing them and teaching them all that Jesus has commanded. As I said previously, we are partners in this work.
Let us move forward on our Advent journey together learning to tell the story of the infant Christ from our hearts and our lives and sharing what the Gospel and grace of God has done for each personally. Thanks be to God for his grace and love. We are all saints and sinners and it is the story of God's love that makes us whole.
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