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  Sermon of the Week

Look up the passage

  Christmas Eve 2001  
  Christmas Travellers
- by Di Appleby
Luke 2:1-20
Matt 2:1-12
Matt 11:28-30
     
  I suppose most of you have written Christmas cards in the past days or weeks. I especially enjoy writing to people I haven't seen for a while. It's a great opportunity to send greetings and to give them a summary of family highlights for the year and I found myself mentioning the 2 holidays that Chris & I have had.
  We have been to 2 very different places. In the middle of the year we went to Tonga, an island in the Pacific Ocean, with some MLC girls from Year 10, so we hopped on a plane and travelled east away from Melbourne. That was not really a holiday because the sense of responsibility was so great that we never really relaxed, but we saw some great sights and met some wonderful people. Then in the next holidays we travelled to Perth and to do that we climbed aboard another plane and travelled west to enjoy the wineries and the rugged, beautiful scenery of the south-western corner. We're not going anywhere special in the next holidays. We are having a very quiet Christmas at home followed by a trip to Sydney to visit family and then a few days at the CMS summer school in the Blue Mountains. Maybe that sounds exciting to some of you but we have done it so often that it seems a simple thing to us.
  So, as we sit here tonight on Christmas Eve and think again about the events of that first Christmas, we can't help but notice that most of the people involved in that great story were also travellers. They all had to make journeys and they were not very sure about where that journey would take them.
   
  The First Travellers were Mary & Joseph who had to leave Nazareth and make a journey to Bethlehem when Mary was about to have a baby. In Luke 2: 1-7 we read that all people in the entire Roman world had been ordered to return to their place of birth to be registered for tax purposes, and for Mary and Joseph that meant a trip from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea, a journey of about 120 kilometres. People must have been very worried for them. Imagine travelling that distance when you are more than 8 months pregnant! Imagine the warnings everyone would have given them. I'm sure if Mary were around today she would have told her family & friends to 'chill out' or 'don't stress' – that's what my kids tell me when I tell them I'm worried about something they are planning to do. I also remember that just before we went to India with our babies (who were 11, 9 and 6 at the time) their grandparents rang us up to say they would look after them so that Chris & I could go to India by ourselves. They were very worried about us. They felt that we would be in danger. People feel that way about pregnant women and young children.
  Nevertheless, Mary & Joseph did what they had to do, comforted a little by the fact that an angel had appeared to each of them. Perhaps they thought that if God had chosen them to be the earthly parents of His Son, he would look after them wherever they went. They took a risk and God was with them in their choice. Perhaps they were more than a little frightened. The idea of having a baby without the support of family members must have made them anxious. They must have been more than a little concerned as they travelled from one hotel to the next looking for a place to rest, but, while their final destination in that stable was not where they had expected to be, all the important things happened as they were promised. Mary gave birth to a healthy baby boy and Joseph named him Jesus. They shared that wonderful time that so many of us have enjoyed - that time of finally seeing & loving the baby that they had wondered about for so long. Yes, they were glad they had responded to God with a clear 'Let's go'.
   
  The Second Travellers were the shepherds. We read about them in Luke 2: 8-20. Imagine how they felt. They were out in the fields as they had been so many times before. It was a cold night. They might have been sitting around a fire or wrapped up in a warm blanket. They were talking quietly to one another; perhaps some of the shepherds were dozing off. There wasn't too much trouble with wild animals or with sheep rustlers and both sheep and shepherds enjoyed a familiar routine. Suddenly an angel appeared to them and something called the glory of the Lord shone around them. (I guess that was some kind of bright light).
   
  They were scared but the angel told them not to be afraid because he brought them good news – joy to all people. 'To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah'. All they had to do to find him was travel to the manger in Bethlehem. They were told that they would find the child wrapped in bands of cloth.
  Now … they could have said it was only a vision.
  Perhaps it was their imagination.
  People might laugh at them or they might get into trouble if they just left their sheep.
  They might have been too afraid to leave the area they knew so well. They may have asked questions:
  Why would a Saviour be found in a manger? Why would the Lord be wrapped in bits of cloth?
  Surely the Messiah would come to earth in more significant surroundings. If they wanted to find out the answers to all these questions, they would have to start on a journey. God often leaves that first important step to us – he alerts us, he makes us available - but like the shepherds, it's up to us to make the move. So the shepherds said 'Let's go'. And what was at the end of the journey? Joy – they had seen and heard what had been promised and they shared the good news with others.
   
  The Third Travellers were the wise men. We read in Matthew 2: 1-12 that they had seen the star in the East signifying the birth of a King. They could have waited till they heard it on the news or read a paper or found the latest information on the Internet. They could have waited until they received word from the place where the king was born. They could have said 'Is it worth all that trouble?' But they went. They journeyed many kilometres and many hot, dusty days. They came looking for him in the most obvious place, the palace of King Herod. But what did the wise men think when they saw that King Herod was frightened, when they saw him calling together the chief priests and the scribes, asking them where the old books said that the Messiah would be born? Why wasn't a royal baby found in the palace?
   
  Because God's plan was different. What seems foolish to us is God's great plan. So we find when we look at the Bible, that God didn't choose a palace in Jerusalem for His Son to be born. No, the prophets speak of the Messiah coming from Bethlehem, the city made famous by King David. So that's where the wise men went next. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy and after entering the house they gave Jesus gifts: gold, because they knew he was a king; frankincense because they knew he was God and myrrh because they knew that his death would one day be significant.
  The wise men travelled to see God as a baby, a member of a human family. That way Jesus would grow up to experience the pain, weariness and loneliness that we all feel from time to time. There was no room in the inn so Jesus had to be born in a stable. That's how God sees kingship: he wants to meet with people in their place of need.
  The wise men's journey took them from luxury to poverty. They came with a sense of anticipation. They too said 'let's go'. Perhaps they came with some doubt, but God had put His mark on their journey. They followed God's star to joy in a humble home where they presented gifts not just to a king, but also to the one who would shepherd his people, one who would guide them, love them and even die for them.
   
  We are travellers too. Our lives are journeys and as we sit here tonight we cannot be sure about where we will be in 5, 10 or 20 years time. But we can be sure about God and we see him at work in the way Jesus came to earth, in the way that the promises about him were fulfilled. We have just heard in the words of Matthew 11:28-30 that Jesus asks us to travel. You might not have thought of it that way before, but once we have heard about him, that's what he asks us to do. We don't need to take the enormous risks that Mary & Joseph took. We don't need to overcome the fear that the shepherds knew. We may not have to leave the comforts of our home country the way the wise men did. Jesus simply asks us to come to him. When we are weary and carrying life's burdens, he will give us rest. He tells us that he is gentle and humble in heart. He will make some demands of us, because we will have to be willing to learn from him, but we will be rewarded with what we are truly seeking. We will find rest for our souls. Isn't that what people everywhere are seeking after - rest, peace, joy & contentment when we stop to think and wonder what on earth life is all about?
   
  When we come to Jesus we see him as a king, but also as our life's gift. He is the One who guides and protects, who saves and heals. We can agree with the wise men and say 'Let's go'. We need to continue in our life's journey expecting that Jesus will make a difference. Sometimes we become afraid of what God might ask us to do for him but when we learn to trust him we will find along with the wise men that this is what we have been waiting for. And if we have already found Jesus to be the One who fulfils God's plan for humanity, what else can we do but share this gift of life with others so that they may join our journey?
  This Christmas may each one of us come to Jesus and find rest for our souls.

 

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