Sermon Notes — December 22, 2024
December 22, 2024
Advent Week Four: All Together Love
Dr. Craig Goff
Luke 1:34-38
This is the fourth Sunday of Advent. There aren’t any more thanks to Pope Gregory who in the sixth century actually reduced the number of weeks of preparation leading up to Christmas. We now have four weeks of Advent with four special themes to help us try to grasp the depth and mystery and wonder of what it means for God to send Jesus into our world: Peace, Hope, Joy and Love.
On the first Sunday of Advent I mentioned that if we are not real careful, it is easy for us to trivialize the season of Advent and Christmas. I think it is especially easy on this fourth week, the week of Love.
But I want to talk about two people who didn’t trivialize what God sending Jesus into our world is all about. One, we heard about a couple of weeks ago, Mary the mother of Jesus, who gave birth to Jesus and gave us the beautiful song, the Magnificat.
The other is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian during the rise of Nazi, Germany. There is a very popular movie out right now about Bonhoeffer. I encourage you to see it if you’re interested, but I really encourage you to read from his works.
Bonhoeffer was a brilliant, brilliant man. When I was 21, I was working hard to earn an undergraduate degree from Trevecca Nazarene College which I completed when I was 24. When Bonhoeffer was 21, he earned his PhD at Humboldt University in Berlin. His dissertation was Sanctoro Communio, Communion of the Saints, which was a study of the doctrine of church. Around that same time he also began writing his books. He wrote a book about three inches thick called, “The Cost of Discipleship” a book called “Life Together,” and a book simply called “Ethics,” that are still that are still being studied in seminaries and having a huge impact on the church today. He also wrote some pretty bad poetry, you can’t excel at everything, right? (Poetry is pretty subjective anyway)
A lot of people, at least initially in his ministry, thought Bonhoeffer was overreacting to things going on in his country. He organized the Confessing Church movement with Karl Barth and other church leaders. He opened a seminary that was not recognized by the national church of Germany which was becoming controlled by the Nazis. He had one friend, Wilhelm Niesel, who really thought he was getting too worked up about things that were happening. Niesel came to him and said, “Dietrich, you are living your life too extreme. This seminary is just too much. You are being too radical. You need to learn to just go with the flow a little bit.”
Bonhoeffer said, “I want to show you something. I want you to go somewhere with me.” He took him to the top of a hill near the Oder River overlooking an airport. You could see the airport in one direction, you could see the seminary Bonhoeffer had started in the other direction. As they stood there on the hill, they watched Nazi planes taking off and landing. They watched German soldiers lining up to be indoctrinated into the beliefs of the Nazi regime.
Bonhoeffer told his friend what he saw happening and what he believed the Nazis wanted to do, (which it turns out they did want to do). He went on to say, “the church has to be stronger than that.”
The church has to be stronger than Nazis. The church has to be stronger than evil.
Whatever else we might think about Bonhoeffer, and as much as I admire him I don’t agree with everything he said or did, but I definitely don’t think he could be said to over sentimentalize Christmas or the place of the church in the world.
He definitely didn’t limit God’s love to a warm fuzzy feeling in our hearts. For Bonhoeffer God’s love is a force to battle unimaginable evil and cruelty.
We don’t make a lot of it, although maybe we should, but when we join the church we promise to take a stand against evil. Here is what it says in the United Methodist hymnal:
On behalf of the whole church I ask you:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,
Reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?
When we answer in the affirmative, we are asked:
Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression, in whatever forms they present themselves?
I know that may not sound very “Christmassy” or festive, but I do have a question for you.
If the church isn’t stronger than evil, what force will overcome evil?
If the church doesn’t stand up for people who are mistreated, who will?
If the church doesn’t point out what sin does to the human heart and to our world, who will?
If the church trivializes Christmas who will interpret what God sending Jesus into the world is all about?
In our text today, Mary has a pretty good grasp of what it means for Jesus to be born. It isn’t something she trivializes.
She knows it is all about LOVE about the power of love overcoming the love of power. Now, lest I be branded as a complete humbug or scrooge, I want to make it clear that I am not saying Christmas should be without joy. (I was here last week).
I am not saying to not open presents on Christmas morning. I’m not saying not to enjoy a nice meal with your family on Christmas day or to enjoy the time you have with your family.
Do you know what Bonhoeffer did when he had to spend Christmas in a Nazi concentration camp for resisting Hitler?
He comforted himself by remembering times when he had a nice Christmas celebration with his family.
I am not saying not to find joy in Christmas, but I am saying let’s not sell Jesus short this season. Let’s celebrate that the power of love is always greater than the love of power or any other power.
We Christians are to be people committed to justice and to stand against evil, just like Mary and just like Bonhoeffer. It is almost always inconvenient, sometimes it might seem overwhelming or even impossible, but as Mary said, as we heard when our text was read as she took on her role in bringing God’s love to the world. Nothing is impossible with God.
And there is not power on earth greater than the power of love.
Amen.