The 12th Day Of Christmas
Sermon Notes
Twelfth Night
I’ve been seeing lots of Christmas trees on the side of the road, and it got me thinking: what now?
What was it all about?
Was Christmas just a break?
Was it a distraction from the rigors of life?
Or does it change things? Is something different now that Christmas has happened?
On the Church calendar…
12 drummers drumming
The day before Epiphany
Christ’s revelation to the Gentiles
Visit of the Magi (or Jesus’ baptism, depending on your tradition)
Regardless, the last day of Christmas
Really, the last day of the New Year celebrations (Advent and Christmas being the first events on the Church calendar).
Begs the question, what now? What does Christmas mean on January 6?
All of the dates and observances on the liturgical calendar are about orientation, orienting ourselves to the story of God and our place in it?
How does Christmas reorient us?
As I was thinking about this question, a passage came to mind that isn’t a Christmas passage but, I think, shows a group of people asking the same questions that we’re asking here tonight.
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.” Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:1-11)
Hope and purpose
Like I said, not a Christmas passage, but we do have a group of people here who are asking a similar question to the one we’re asking: Jesus has come. We have seen Him. What now?
That’s what they must have been asking as they stared up into the sky.
There are two answers in this passage, one from Jesus, one from the angel.
The angel: hope
Asks them why there just standing there looking at the sky. Why? Because Jesus is coming back.
What I think is interesting about this is the angel could have told them. “Wait here. Jesus is coming back in the same why He left.”
That’s how it works in most religions.
Something significant happens in a place, and they set up shop there waiting for it to happen again.
Instead, the angel uses Jesus’ return as motivation, something to get them moving.
The rationale is that the return of Jesus should inspire a different way of living, a different perspective on life.
And, what is that perspective? In a word, hope.
I think what the angel is doing here is the same thing that angels always do: he’s telling them not to be afraid.
He’s saying, “In light of Jesus’ return live lives of hope and courage.”
They asked Jesus about the restoration of the Kingdom, and His answer essentially was, “Not yet.” The angel added to this answer, “But one day.”
One day Jesus is coming back to bring the full weight of the Kingdom of God to bear on reality as we know it.
It will be a day in which all that has been made wrong will be set to right.
This vision of a certain future gives us, as the writer of Hebrews says, an anchor for our souls. In other words, it gives us a different reality in the middle of this reality. Think of that image of an anchor. Where the reality of life had been the storm, wind, waves, chaos, now reality is solid a rock, a rope, secure.
Confidence to endure the brokenness of the world, knowing it will not always be this way.
Paul says it like this in 2 Corinthians 4:
Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
And, it’s not just that having this new perspective allows us to endure reality; it also invites us to transform reality. I think of MLK who had a vision of the future—“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice”—and then chose to live into what he had seen.
Hope does not mean positivity or optimism. It means confidence.
It is possible to be sad and hopeful.
It is possible to suffer and be hopeful.
Jesus (the angel is not the only one with an answer to the question, “What now?”): incarnation
You are witnesses.
Marturion
It’s clear from Acts 1:1 that these early Christians did not take this simply to mean that they were to talk about Jesus (though they certainly did that).
Instead, they took it to mean that they were to incarnate Jesus. Look again at Acts 1:1.
“Everything that Jesus began to do…”
The Book of Acts is everything that He continued to do despite the fact that He was no longer present.
Except, He was present in them.
Jesus incarnates God. We incarnate Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.
One of the most Biblical things ever incarnation. God’s primary voice is people. There’s been a lot of talk about the different ways in which God speaks, but scripturally speaking, it’s not even close. God’s primary voice is people.
That’s ultimately what Christmas is all about. We receive the gift of Jesus’ incarnation so that we can give it to others.
How?
Imitate the lifestyle of Jesus
By the power of the Holy Spirit