UnWrapped: The Gift of Reconciliation

Dec. 1, 2019                 The Gift of Reconciliation

Scripture:  Luke 1: 5-25

         When I was a child, I had the hardest time falling asleep on Christmas Eve.  I wish I could place the blame on all the good snacks mom made or even the “fresh in my mind” memories of another Silent Night with our candles lifted high in the air.  But I know the truth.  My lack of sleep had everything to do with what I would soon find underneath our Christmas tree. I was like any other kid: writing letters to Santa, making lists for mom and dad, dropping little clues here and there; all in the name of trying to get what I really wanted for Christmas.  And most of the time it worked!  In just a few short weeks, we’ll awaken to another Christmas morning and unwrap all the gifts that have been waiting for us.  But we’ll also wake up understanding that the greatest gift we’ve received isn’t found under the tree; it’s found in a Savior who was sent to bring hope to the world.  Over the next few weeks, we’re going to unwrap the gifts of Christmas, gifts made possible by Jesus. They may not be as shiny as gifts we discover Christmas morning, but they are far more valuable. Today we unwrap the gift of reconciliation. Would you read with me?  

         In the spring of 2009, I was working as an intern with a new church start in the Pittsburgh Mills Mall.  It was exciting and fresh- nothing like my previous church experience. We had some challenging times that year, but I was convinced we had the right team (full of energy and talent) to do something big, and convinced I was right where God wanted me.  And so I sat down and sent a long email to our Bishop spelling out the compelling reasons why I shouldn’t be anywhere but that mall church.  So you can imagine the range of emotions (mostly negative!) I felt when I received a reply from our Bishop stating that he was convinced God wanted to send me elsewhere.  And when our District Superintendent called a few weeks later to tell me I was being sent to three rural churches in the Blairsville area, I felt like crying.  I had never been to Blairsville and had never heard of Black Lick- and I knew the pace of life wasn’t anything like Pittsburgh.  Unsure of what to do next, my new bride and I sat down and simply said, “If this is where God wants us to go, then we’ll go.”  And we’re glad we did, because much to our excitement, we quickly discovered that Jesus was at work in surprising and unexpected ways.

         The longer you follow Jesus, the clearer it becomes that Jesus makes a habit of appearing where you least expect him. That’s what makes the entire Christmas story so intriguing. The long-awaited Savior of the world should’ve been born into royalty, but instead had an unwed carpenter for a dad and a young teenager for a mother. His not-so-grand entrance in a Bethlehem manger, because there was no guest room for him, left a lot to be desired. And his first visitors were a group of shepherds, people so low on the importance scale that they were forced to work the graveyard shift. But yet this is where the Good News of Jesus, the message of hope and salvation, was first unveiled.  To the unsuspecting. To the undeserving. To the unqualified.  And they all had the same question running through their minds, “Why us?” 

          A few years ago, Joanna and I had the opportunity to take our oldest daughter Reagan on a date. This was important for us, because Carmyn was about to make her grand entrance into the world, and we wanted to leave no doubt in Reagan’s mind that we would continue to love her like we had always loved her. And so we took her to see the Peanuts movie, which featured good old Charlie Brown trying to make a great first impression on the new girl in town.  But Charlie Brown was the same old Charlie Brown, and despite his best attempts to catch the girl’s attention, he made a fool of himself instead. And it only added to Charlie’s “woe is me” attitude. When the last day of school arrived, each student’s name was drawn for a summer pen pal project, but when Charlie’s name was read, nobody wanted to be his partner…until the new girl in town raised her hand and says, “I will.”  A stunned Charlie finally mustered up the courage to ask the girl, “Why me?  I’m a failure, I’m a klutz and I mess everything up.”  And the new girl simply shook her head and said, “When I see you Charlie Brown, I don’t see any of that.” 

         The first recipients of the Good News of Jesus had little in the way of accolades and achievements.  Not the type of people you would expect to find in an eternity changing story! Each of the familiar names in the Christmas story- Joseph and Mary, the shepherds, Zechariah and Elizabeth- were not the names of movers and shakers with political pull, social standing or extra capital to throw around.  They were ordinary people.  Simple people.  People with hopes and dreams and fears and failures.  People like you and people like me.  But God chose them anyway to receive the news that would change everything- the news that God so loved the entire world that he sent his one and only Son.   And here’s the really good news: if God’s love was intended for everybody, then God’s love was also intended for you.

         One of the primary objectives of God’s love is to reconcile the world to God’s self. When we talk about reconciliation, we’re talking about the work of restoration, restoring something that once was and making right something that’s gone wrong.  Over time, the relationship God experienced with God’s people became strained because of disobedience and sin and selfishness. And deep in the hearts of all people, and especially those people in the early chapters of Luke, was a longing for a Savior who would once again restore our relationship to God.  It’s the same longing expressed by an old couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth, with whom we have much more in common than we might think. 

         Zechariah and Elizabeth don’t get much publicity when it comes to the Christmas story, but they were very much a part of God breaking into the world through Jesus.  Their longing was not only for a Savior, but also for a child.  Though they had been faithful followers of God and had lived morally upright lives, their dream of having a child together had not come to fruition. Life hadn’t quite worked out they way they planned.  And they wondered if it ever would.  They weren’t getting any younger and probably thought their chance to play a role in God’s larger plan had passed them by.  

         At times I wonder if Zechariah and Elizabeth are the patron saints of all those who silently entertain the self-perceived narrative that God could never use them in significant ways.   And this is more prevalent that we might think.  I wonder if we don’t have some right here who question whether they’re too old or too young, too poor or too broken, carry too much baggage or experience too much fear to ever play a role in what God is doing in the world.  And God’s answer to this perception is “No!”  If the story of Christmas, which includes the testimony of a barren couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth, teaches us anything, it’s that God not only shows up in unexpected places, but that he uses unexpected people. And that can happen at any time, any place and with any person! Before they knew what was happening, this ordinary couple was suddenly knee deep in God’s story.  And they didn’t need to go overseas to participate. God used them right where they were! Frederick Buechner once said that the place God calls you is the place where your deep passion and the world’s deep hunger meet.”  God connected the passionate yearnings of an elderly couple with the deepest longings of Savior-hungry people and initiated his work of reconciliation.  

         The promise of Advent is that God hears our longings, sends Jesus to reconcile us, and then sends us as messengers of that reconciling work. Through Jesus, God wants to meet you in your longing and wants to fill your deepest needs.  I’m not sure what it is you long to receive this Christmas, but what if you allowed God to help you pay attention to your deepest longings instead?  What if we simply acknowledged this Christmas that what we all need more than anything else is to be reconciled to God? 

         That first Christmas, God sent Jesus to most unlikely of places to the most unlikely of couples. In that manger, God proved to the world that he would be Immanuel, “God with us, and that there would be no place that he was unwilling to go.  All in the name of reconciling the world to himself.  And just as those first unsuspecting, undeserving and unqualified people received this good news- Joseph and Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth, and the nightshift shepherds- they also hurried to share this good news with others. The ones to whom Jesus was sent become the ones Jesus now sends to bring others to God.  That’s the deal.  So this year, when you think about your deepest longings and ponder this baby born in a manger, think about reconciliation.  Think about good news, a good news that heals all sorts of relationships. Think of those who God might want to draw in a little closer this year. And then ask the question, “To whom am I being sent?”  Amen.