The Dark Days of Christmas: Lonely
The Dark Days of Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 31:22
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· 130 viewsWe are starting a new series, The Dark Days of Christmas. For most, Christmas is an exciting time with family and friends. However, some find Christmas a lonely time of year, and we are going to see that this isn't a new feeling.
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Intro
Before I dive into our new series, I want to address a mistake I made last week. Last week we were talking about communion and it’s significance in Christian life. I said it was one of the sacraments that we as a Pentecostal Church held.
Friday we were going through the membership class, and as part of it we went over the Statement of Fundamental and Essential Truths as put out by the PAOC and make a slightly embarassing discovery.
We don’t use the word sacrament, we say ordinance, and according to our statement of truths, marriage is not listed as an ordinance. Not to take away from its significance, and not to take away from its importance. But in the PAOC, our two ordinances are communion and any guesses?
Baptism, and for us, baptism by immersion. Anyways, I mispoke, and I had to make it right.
With that, let’s dive into our news series. Christmas time is here, and some of us have no doubt bought advent calendars. In churches that follow some kind of liturgy, this would be the first Sunday of Advent and it would be marked by lighting an advent candle at the start of service. My girls have an advent calendar that has a piece of chocolate for each day between dec 1 to Christmas. You can imagine how hard it is for them to not tie into that every day.
There are lots of traditions to kick start our excitement for Christmas. The lights start going up, the trees start getting decorated. For everyone watching online, why don’t you share a Christmas tradition you had growing up.
Advent calendars and egg nog are the signs that Christmas is here in the Redstone house.
But Christmas is not an exciting time for everyone. In fact, Christmas can be a real struggle for some. There are raw emotions brough on by memories or situations that people find themselves in. It is only complicated by the fact that Christmas is supposed to be the happiest time of year, but I don’t feel happy.
So, we are doing a series called, The Dark Days of Christmas, and we are going to work through some of the common hardships that some people deal with every single Christmas. We are still going to walk through the story of Christmas, we are going to see all the common stories, but maybe see it from an angle that we haven’t seen before.
My hope is to encourage those who are struggling through Christmas, and maybe equip the rest of us to help out.
So with that, let’s dive into the Christmas story, starting in Luke 1
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.
And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”
But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.
And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.
For nothing will be impossible with God.”
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
so the stage is set. The angel Gabriel tells Mary she is going to be the virgin that was prophesied in the Old Testament. Needless to say that Mary is probably a little overwhelmed by the news. She is betrothed to Joseph. Betrothed carried the same weight as being married. The only difference is that Mary and Joseph are not living together and have not come to together physically. They are married in every other sense of the permanence of the relationship. To end the relationship was only through divorce.
Just a note. This idea of the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary, and the power overshadowing her. These words are very carefully chosen. Remember Luke is writing to a Greek audience, and it was not unusual in Greek mythology for the gods to come down to earth and sleep with humans. In fact, a whole mythos of demi gods spawns from the idea of gods having offspring with humans.
This is not God coming and having relationship with Mary. This is simply the power of God performing a miracle within her, the same way someone is healed. There is nothing sexual about what Luke is recording here.
so a miracle has happened within Mary, and Luke proceeds with the story as though all is good. BUT, all is not good. Matthew records an important detail about this story.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
Matthew says that Mary was found to be with child. This means that she is probably in her second trimester and starting to show the miracle that is developing within her. The problem is, as I said earlier, she has not moved in with Joseph and they have not come together physically as man and wife.
Mary is thought to have been permiscuous. We don’t know any other details, whether the community found out or what else happened. All we know is that things got a point where Joseph noticed something that shouldn’t be there.
Imagine how alone Mary feels in this moment. She knows that what is happening within her is a miracle straight from God, but how do you explain that to someone? How does she explain this to Joseph in a way that he would believe her? It is safe to assume that she didn’t tell him about the encounter with angel. God has set Mary on an unbelievably amazing path and she can’t share it with anyone. And now, the one person she is going to spend the rest of her life with has now distanced himself and seeking a way to end the relationship.
This is something else to understand about what Joseph is going through. It says he is a righteous man, so for the sake of his conscience, he couldn’t continue the relationship. On top of that, Mary’s promiscuity would have been grounds for stoning, or at the very least public shaming.
So there were two ways for divorce to happen. He could do it publicly and Mary would suffer the consequences, or he could do it quietly with a couple witnesses, keep Mary from shame and stay true to his conscience.
So Mary is no doubt feeling isolated, and faced with the reality of being very alone very quickly.
This is the struggle of Christmas. The world tells us that Christmas is all about family, but what happens when you don’t have any family to gather with?
The idea of loneliness is only amplified by the current restrictions on group sizes and potential self isolation. The lockdown on our longterm care facilities makes life very quiet and very lonely for the people who need family interaction the most. The suicide rate has exploded because of the isolation people are experiencing.
I remember my grandma having a tough time with Christmas because she lost her husband in December, and it was years where she felt alone because the one person she loved most wasn’t there. We can be surrounded by people and still feel very alone.
For some, like Mary, it is the conviction of their faith, the thing that God has called them too, that has caused the greatest isolation to happen. People don’t understand or don’t accept the high calling, and so they distance themselves.
When Genesis says it is not good for man to be alone, it is true.
The important thing for us to remember is that there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. Being alone just means there’s no one around. Being lonely is when no one around and there is a desire to be connected with people.
There is time when we need to be alone to refocus and sort through our thoughts and emotions. There is never a good time to be lonely.
So what do we do when we are in that space of feeling lonely? How do we remedy that emotion, especially in this time of year?
God in his holy dwelling is a father of the fatherless and a champion of widows.
God provides homes for those who are deserted. He leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a scorched land.
Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If you are feeling lonely, I want to remind you that you are never alone. There is no where you can go that God cannot find you and he is not there with you. And it’s not just that God is with you, but he wants to connect with you. He wants to connect with you through his word, through worship, through prayer. He wants to hear your struggles. He wants to strengthen you. God wants to connect with you on a level you can’t connect with any other human being. And the best part is that you can’t do anything that would make you less desirable for God to connect with you.
Sometimes our actions or words create space between the people we are associated with or love, but that’s never the case with God.
not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
The other thing I want to say, especially if you are watching this morning online, is that you are welcome here. Church is the one place you shouldn’t feel lonely, and if you are, I’m sorry. We have the privilege of getting together as this amazing family of believers and praying together and worshiping together. The cool part is that even with the lock down, this is a public place that you can gather and share life together. If you need a place to meet, let me know, I’ll let you in. I’ll let you come and talk and connect. You’ll have to bring your own coffee because I can’t serve it to you. If you brought me one too, that wouldn’t go unnoticed. But come.
Get plugged into a small group. One thing that I’ve heard lots from our small group is the ability to be vulnerable and open. We need that and we have created the safest place for you to open up and get prayed for.
The doors are open and you don’t have to feel lonely anymore. Not only does God love you immensely, we as his people love you too, and we want to walk with you through anything that you are facing.
Let brotherly love continue.
Don’t neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.
Remember those in prison, as though you were in prison with them, and the mistreated, as though you yourselves were suffering bodily.
The flip side in all of this. All of us need to be willing to show hospitality at the drop of a hat. We don’t know what people are going through. We don’t know what the home life of the person you pulled out in front of you is like. We don’t know what the co-worker or boss who just chewed you out is going through behind the scenes. We don’t know. But we can still hold the door for mom who’s got way too many bags at the grocery store. We can pray for the difficult boss and maybe even go above and beyond for them to alleviate some stress on their end.
Like the author of Hebrews says, there have been those who have shown hospitality to angels and not known it.
This week, I encourage you to reach out to someone you haven’t talked to in a while. See how they’re doing. And if you’re really feeling adventurous, pray about who God would have you reach out to. Because God knows who needs an encouraging word today, and he knows that you are the best person for the job. Don’t question it, just go for it, and see what happens. Especially in the current circumstances, that encouraging word could be the difference between life and death.
Let’s pray