Speaker 1: Apparently, 1 fifth of people, say that the Christmas holiday period is a key trigger of loneliness for them. It's a it's a difficult time. Part of that is we kinda build Christmas up as the the time when all of a sudden, all the family issues just vanish away, and all of a sudden, everybody's happy and joyous. And and and somehow, all that we long for comes true at Christmas. And don't know if you've noticed this, but, never actually quite works.
My mom and dad had a difficult time with me growing up, because I I know I I would hope because I I think I realized I carried a fair bit of self doubt stuff, and I kind of hoped Christmas would be the answer to that. I remember I wanted to play cricket for Australia, and I knew if I just got the right cricket bat, then then all my self angst and things would disappear, but it never quite worked. And and I'd often I would often end Christmas in tears because, I didn't get the cricket bat I wanted or the yacht I wanted or the you know, I'd set the the bar pretty low. One of the one one of the challenges is, that because of well, actually, this quote from, someone who's done some research on it says, there are so many expectations about having the perfect Christmas. It's a time that can bring greater financial pressures and place strain on relationships, and reality can never match the expectation.
And, an author by the name of John Bloom said this is and I I found this helpful. And, look, I honestly, I had to take a a gradual journey to realize that the the truth of Christmas isn't found in the cricket bats or the wrapping paper or the meals. John Bloom said, looking for joy in the Christmas trappings and traditions is like opening a beautifully wrapped package with a tag that reads joy inside only to find the box empty. That's because our Christmas traditions don't so much house joy as much as they point to joy. If we want our joy voids filled, we've got to look less at Christmas and more through Christmas to where indestructible, unspeakable, true joy really is.
We all I I love that one of the candles is the candle of joy. We are all desperate to live a life of joy. Joy matters. But loading the Christmas season up with the expectation that somehow it's going to bring all the joy you want, all the peace you want, all the hope you want, It it never works. What does work, though, is looking through Christmas to the to the truth behind Christmas, the truth that was written 700 years earlier.
Isaiah 713 said, hear now, you house of David. Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my god also? God's saying, guys, I am I'm I'm fed up with you guys. You're just you're not getting it.
Therefore, I'm gonna do Christmas, he says. The lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel. That verse is directly quoted in Matthew chapter 1 where it says, all this, in talking about Christmas, took place to fulfill what the the Lord had said through the prophet. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us.
It's one of the few times in the Bible when you actually get a bit of a commentary in the bible, on the bible, where for those who are not, Hebrew speakers or Greek speakers, the they they they wanted to make sure Matthew wanted to make sure we understood the significance of the word Emmanuel, God with us. That's how the book of Matthew starts. Does anyone remember how the book of Matthew finishes? There's a he finishes it actually finishes in Matthew 28 with Jesus saying, look. All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me.
Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And do you know what the last line is? And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. Matthew starts with a promise and finishes with the answer. God with us.
I had a conversation yesterday with, someone pretty close to me about, Christians. And they were saying, that it's hard to trust Christians because they've been on a journey and have been hurt by Christians. And, essentially, I've been processing it, and I and as I was preparing myself for this Christmas and thinking about where do we find hope and how does it work, I I I think there's a a danger in grouping all Christians together. There's a danger in grouping all Christians together, because for a start, we're all pretty different. But, also, there are different kinds of Christians coming from different points of view.
And, a man by the name of Sky Jathani, in his book, with he wrote a book called with, and he identified 5 basic beliefs that Christians have about god. And all of those 5 different beliefs he's saying that, basically, all people who would call themselves Christians come from one of these five things. You can't come from more than one of them. You can't it's like a choose your own adventure. And he said, all of us come from one of these 5 perspectives.
He said, one is where you see God as somehow over you, and and the focus of this kind of faith or religion is called is doing life under god, where it's all about obeying the right rules and ticking the right boxes to be a good little boy or girl. And he calls that life under god, where you're trying to trying to please the daddy in the sky who's gonna tick you off at the in the right ways. And and if you do that right, then somehow you'll get flavor and blessing, by doing life under god. You see, that's one one approach to Christianity you can take. He talks about being life over god, where he says, it's like you you try and work god out.
It's mastery of life through human understanding and and application of principles. It's the enlightenment. It is saying, you know, this is where God fits in the evolution of human dynamics and how how the brain works and all that kind of thing, and and you put yourself over god. And, if there are some useful principles to draw from it, then that's great. Otherwise, you create your own principles.
So that's life over god. There's life under god, life over god. There's another kind of, approach, which he says is life from God, which is where God is your fairy godmother, where you the only the only way to get what you want is to pray to god to give you the, you know, the the toys you want, the friends you want, the house you want. And it's a it's it's a that approach is life from god. I want God to give me what I want to make my ego comfortable.
There there there's this other, the 4th one is one that I think I I when I'm not doing well, I fall into a bit, where it's kind of life for god, where it's where you're doing great things for god and advancing his kingdom. You you kinda say, isn't god lucky to have me on his team? Where where you where you are trying to save the world through your own effort. So there's life under God, life over God, life from God, and life for God. But the promise wasn't that it'd be God over us, under us, even for us, or or that we get life from him.
The the promise was that we'd do life with him. And that's quite a different thing. The the whole story of the of of Jesus' life is this promise that because of what happens through Christmas and then through Easter, you no longer have to do life on your own. We get to do life with God, and that's a whole different thing. When you're doing life with God, you don't have to pretend to be perfect.
You don't have to pretend to save the world. You don't have to think that you need things in order to be okay. You just get to be in the moment with god. It does require learning to see the world in a different kind of way. So I don't know if you noticed, but life life is difficult.
Life is actually difficult. People are messy and painful, and you are messy and painful. And so doing life with God, any of these other ways, you have to kind of pretend that's not true. But Jesus comes and says, no. I I wanna step into your actual life with you.
Your real, ordinary, day to day, walking around, often mundane life. I want to do that with you knowing that you don't have it together, knowing that you're not perfect. The baby wasn't born into a palace. He was born into a stable full of muck and feces and smell and damp. He was born into a very real and messy world.
And to do life with god is to learn to see things from a different point of view. I came across this poem, from the the Puritan era in in the Christian journey. It's a this is a a modernized version of it, so it's not in old English. So you can you hopefully you'll be able to understand it. But I think what it captured for me is the the upside down nature of faith.
Nobody expected a baby to come and die on and eventually die on a cross. Nobody they they expected the messiah to come and take the mess away, not to step into the mess and and do the mess with his people and show them a different way of seeing the mess. For all of us, even today, no matter what your highest hopes are for Christmas or your worst fears are for Christmas, Christmas was never the point. Jesus is the point. And be learning to be honest with Jesus is the point of Christmas.
I that's why I love this poem. You're around about now actually, about 5 minutes ago, it popped up on our Facebook page if you wanna look at it yourself. But this is called the valley of vision, from the valley of vision, a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions. And, I'll I'll read it slowly and just see if you can hear these words because for me, it captures the upside down nature of Christmas and why our faith isn't about doing it for God, under God, over God. It's doing it with God.
And it's doing it in a way that sometimes takes a level of honesty in seeing things as they actually are, that means you're living in a paradox. Because the story of Christmas is a paradoxical story. Here it is. Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, thou hast brought me to the valley of vision where I I live in the depths, but I see you in the heights, hemmed in by mountains of sin, I behold your glory. Let me learn by paradox that the way down is actually the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit.
That the repenting soul is the victorious soul. That to have nothing is to possess all. That to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Lord, in the daytime, stars can be seen from the deepest wells. And the deeper the well, the brighter the stars shine.
Let me find thy light in my darkness. Thy life in my death, thy joy in my sorrow, thy grace in my sin, thy riches in my poverty, and thy glory in my valley. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for Christmas. It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to do life for you or over you or under you or to see you as some kind of fairy godmother.
But, Jesus, thank you that you come and wanna do life with us, but that necessarily means we need to learn to see life differently. We need to learn to be honest about who we actually are because you want to relate to us as we actually are. We need to be honest about both, the joys and the sorrows with you. Help us not keep anything shielded because you came into the world, and we celebrate the moment, Jesus, Jesus, that you came as a baby into our pain, into our chaos, into our darkness. And thank you that because we can light the Christ candle, we can also receive your hope, peace, joy, and love.
Help us look for those things in you and not in other places. Please, Jesus, save us from all our other strategies to find life in mud pools of our own making. We need you. Thank you for Christmas. Amen.