In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? Have you already broken your New Year’s resolution?

I typically am not one to make resolutions. However, this year I decided to give it a shot. For a while now I have not been happy with how I’ve been taking care of myself. Not enough exercise, too much junk food…you know the story. So, this year I have made a resolution to do something about it.

I might not have had the courage to address this problem had it not been for someone telling me, “Don’t worry about keeping those New Year’s resolutions. You only have to deal with them halfway through February and then you can give them up for Lent!”

I have heard that one of the keys to achieving a goal is to have a solid understanding of where you are going – a picture in your mind of where you would like to be within a certain time frame. For example, athletes make certain performance goals and work out accordingly. People who work likely have a goal of a certain amount of money or a certain job title. Parents have a picture of what kind of person they would like their child to grow up being and this affects how they interact with the child.

If we do not have goals that we are working toward, there is a huge risk that we are not going anywhere.

I know some of you have already made resolutions, some of you have already broken your resolutions, and some of you don’t want to make resolutions. Regardless of your position, I have a challenge for each one of you – a resolution I want you to make:

I want you to be incredible.

After reading today’s Gospel lesson, to expect anything less of you would be unfaithful and demeaning to you.

Buried there, deep in the verbose verbiage of John’s introduction to the Gospel, lies a powerful phrase that demands our attention and action.

Verse 12 reads, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

As you begin this New Year, Christ is inviting you to know deep in your heart that you can be more than you are today only because of the incredible grace that God has infused with your life.
As you begin this New Year you are invited to know deep in your heart that your life matters.
As children of God, we must expect and demand that we would do incredible things with our lives.

This realization hit me hard yesterday. I got home around 8am, after the middle school and high school overnight lock-in and was eager to go to bed for the first time in 24 hours. I wasn’t asleep long before I woke up and I felt awful…emotionally awful.

In my half-slumbering state I had a thought that terrified me. I honestly don’t remember what the exact thought was. All I know is that I woke up very concerned and slightly scared. Honestly, it was a feeling that reminded me of the time in my life where I felt most distant from God.

Lying there, half awake, I tried to find something to speak peace to my soul. I started thinking about the events of the past week: my vacation with family in Ohio, presiding at a funeral this week, New Year’s Eve, the incredible Ohio State Buckeye victory in the Sugar Bowl, the fun of the lock-in, and also the sermon I had prepared for today. However, nothing was comforting me, not even the words I was prepared to proclaim to you today. I was in a dark place and I couldn’t glean any hope out of my own message. But then I remembered that line from John’s gospel. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

That…that message gave me hope. That gave me even more hope than the fun vacation memories, the Ohio State victory, or being locked in the church with 20 teenagers for 12 hours!

And so I reworked the sermon that failed to fill me with peace, and focused more on the incredible message and responsibility in the words, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

That message means that you and I have the potential to be like Christ. We have a potential within our hearts and souls for peace, a potential for joy, a potential for hope, a potential for love, a potential for forgiveness that is greater than we can possibly imagine.

Try to grasp the significance of that truth. We no longer have to live lives filled with inner conflict, anger, resentment, fear, hatred, guilt or rejection. Sure, those emotions will make their way into our hearts and minds, but by the power of God’s Holy Spirit we can become new people, God’s people, incredible people filled with peace and hope more powerful than the emotions that threaten to destroy ourselves or others.

My deepest desire for all of you today is for you to understand that God exists within you and because of that you are incredible and you can do incredible things on behalf of others.

I want this church to continue to find new ways to be an incredible church – a group of incredible people who are energized by Christ’s presence and being a force for good in the community, nation, and world.

Now, you don’t have to believe me. You can go home and say, “Ah our pastor…so young and naïve. Do you think he really believes we could do something incredible?” You have the right to read this text, to hear the good news, and not let it impact your life at all.

But know this, I will do everything I can to make you believe that you are incredible. That’s what I am called to do. That’s my new year’s resolution.

So, all together, let us embark on another year with raised expectations and the understanding that God has called us to become his children…his incredible children who can bear words and actions of peace, hope, joy, love, and grace to this world.

Luke 2:22-41

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’

And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

The story I want to share with you this morning is one of those things I’ve “filed away” in my list of things I thought – when I read it – might be cool to share in a sermon some time. And today – because of Simeon and Anna – it seems like the time has come.

I heard, a few years ago, about a tribe in Africa that marks the birth of a child, not from the day of they are born, or even from the day of their conception, but from the day that the child becomes a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she’s going to have a child, she does a curious and amazing thing. She goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to be born. And after she’s heard the song of her child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and she teaches the child’s song to him. And then, while actually making love, they sing the child’s song together, as a way of inviting the child to be conceived.

And then, when the mother is pregnant, she teaches the child’s song to her midwives and to the older women in the village, so that when the baby is born, the elders and midwives, gathered around, singing the child’s song to welcome the new baby into the world, as the baby is literally coming into the world.

And then, as the child grows, other villagers are taught that child’s song. And if the child ever gets hurt – falls down, skins a knee, bumps his head, all the things a child does that require soothing and comfort – someone picks him up and sings him his song. And it works the other way, too. When the child does something good, or when the child goes through the rites of puberty, the people of the village sing the child’s song as a way of celebrating and honoring him or her.

And then, if at any time during the child’s life he/she commits a crime or does something wrong in the eyes of the tribe, he/she is called to the center of the village and the people of the community form a circle around them and they sing them their song. The point of it is that the tribe knows the correction for bad behavior isn’t punishment, it is love and a recalling of one’s identity. When you recognize your own song – they might say – you have no desire or need to do wrong, or to do anything that would harm yourself or hurt somebody else. (That’s a whole other sermon, I’m saving for yet another day.)

And this goes on throughout their life, in this tribe. In marriage, the songs of the bride and groom are sung together. And on a person’s death bed, ready to breathe their last, the family and the villagers sing – for the last time – each person’s very own song.

How great would it be to have your very own song? What a mighty gift it would be to be known for… or by… or in connection with a song for all the milestones and stepping stones and rites of passage over the course of your life. How great to be sung into and out of this world to the music of the same holy tune, created from the depths of your mother’s heart of hearts. Can you see why this story stuck with me?

Now, there’s no evidence that Simeon, in this morning’s Gospel story, or Anna, for that matter, were actually singing songs when they met up with Jesus, and Joseph and Mary, in the temple. But since they were “in the temple,” and since both were said to be “praising God,” I couldn’t help but remember this story about the custom in this African tribe.

See, Simeon and Anna, these aged, wise, devout, faith-filled, spirit-led souls had been around for awhile. They had heard of the Messiah’s coming. They had waited for the fulfillment of God’s salvation. They had hoped for and prayed about and expected God to deliver on the promise of it all. And when they saw Jesus, I kinda, sorta think they were seeing the fulfillment of the song they – and their holy tribe of Jews, if you will – had been singing for generations.

Their hopes were realized, their faith was fulfilled, their salvation had come, their fears were relieved. With all of Simeon’s talk about “seeing God’s salvation,” and “a light for revelation to the Gentiles,” and “glory to your people Israel;” and with all of Anna’s talk, to whoever would listen, about Jesus and the redemption of Israel, it seems to me they were continuing to sing the song that Mary had sung when the angel appeared to her, announcing that she was going to have a son, and that she would name him Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins. It it sounds like the same sort of song the angels had sung to the shepherds on the hillside in the days before Christmas, about “Glory to God in the highest” and “Peace to those whom he favors.” In addition to all of that, Joseph and Mary now heard that their baby boy was “destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel,” and so much more.

And that’s kind of the big picture of this as far as I see it, just one Sunday after Christmas. The song of Jesus has always been and will always be, meant to remind us and the world that the light of this gift shows up to shine in the darkness and that the darkness did not, does not, cannot, will not – ever – overcome it.

Simeon and Anna, faithful ones who’d been singing the song for a lifetime, see just how mighty and powerful and full of hope and salvation this baby boy was for them and for the world – in spite of and in the face of all the death and darkness into which he was born. And like nothing less than so many faithful prophets before them, they aren’t shy about letting everyone know what they know.

And that’s our calling, too, in these days after “the Big Day”: to keep singing the song of Jesus and to know it’s a song of light in the darkness; redemption for the sinner; hope for the despairing; love for the neglected; healing for the sick; and new life for the dead and dying.

I got a call yesterday from a friend of mine from High School. His wife, Shay, who’s about my age, has been struggling and suffering with a strange form of cancer for something like 10 years now. I knew things were bad for Shay, early last week, she died the day after Christmas, and I’m going to Atlanta on Tuesday to preside at her funeral.

One of the main reasons I agreed to do this (besides the fact that my wife wouldn’t let me NOT do this), is that in 2005, we baptized Shay’s baby boy, Aidan, right here at Cross of Grace. Like so many of my friends out there in the world, I’m fairly certain they haven’t been to too many church services, nor have they been connected with a faith community in any significant way since that baptism. I don’t say that with judgment, I just know that’s how it is for so many.

So when I go to preside at Aidan’s mother’s funeral – Aidan is 9 years old – I will do my best to sing something of the song we – together, as the body of Christ – started singing for him so many years ago, when we poured water onto his little head, baptized him in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and promised him all sorts of things about forgiveness, love and life everlasting. And I will pray he hears it this time, in a way he couldn’t have heard it before, for himself and on behalf of his mother.

We haven’t welcomed the gift of this Jesus into our midst just so we can keep him to ourselves. We welcome this Jesus into our lives so that we can share his good news –all of his forgiveness, grace, mercy and hope – with a world waiting to receive him, still. We welcome the light of this child into whatever darkness surrounds us so that we can become a light for the nations, hope for the world, and peace for God’s people in whatever way we can manage to sing his song.

Amen. Merry Christmas.

"Be Incredible" – John 1: 1, 10-18

Simeon, Anna, Jesus, and Aidan