Zephaniah 3:14-20
Phillipians 4:4-9
Luke 3:7-18
Psalm 85
It was the last thing I expected to see when I turned the corner off of Foundry circle into the parking lot at work last Wednesday. . Four fire engines parked with lights flashing away. My heart dropped as I looked for smoke and flames. Did we have a runout on the melting furnace, is anyone hurt? All the horrible possibilities ran through my mind as I walked up to the building. Wait a minute, no fire hoses coming from the trucks, I didn’t smell smoke, I didn’t see anything obviously wrong. What’s up? As I got close to the building, I noticed that is was dark inside.
As I walked through the doors, I noticed a waterfall coming out of the ceiling. People were running around trying to keep dry. A waterline had burst on the second floor causing a flood of water to come crashing through the ceiling on the top floor and flooding the offices on the second and 1st floors. It was an awful mess as people tried to avoid the torrents of water falling on them from above and at the same time, trying to gey all the computers and personal papers and stuff out of the offices. The fire Dept had responded to the sudden drop in water pressure that usually signifies a triggering of the sprinklers due to a fire.
Upstairs chaos was everywhere. The firemen were busting down ceiling tiles and the maintenance people were trying to find the shut off for the water pipe, supervisors and engineers throwing sheets of plastic over what couldn’t be moved. Meanwhile, our training supervisor was trying desperately to get all here training records out of her office. To salvage what was not yet soaked. It was an absolute nightmare!
Let me back up a few days. It had been unbelievably cold in the plant. With the cold weather, the foundry had been requested to go to it’s backup propane system to lessen the burden on the cities gas supply. Well, our system didn’t operate properly and many of the internal heaters did not come on and it got cold enough to see your breath as we worked. The maintenance dept. did the best they could, but we just weren’t prepared for the switch over to propane.
We kept putting off the testing of the backup system while the weather was nice until it was literally too late. We knew it needed to be tested but figured that it would operate fine, no need to hurry, we’re smart, competent people. We trusted that the last testing of the system would have been enough. We had done enough to get by. Even though we knew that it was going to get cold some time, well it worked last time and we’ve added some improvements to it, it should be OK . We’ll get around to testing it tomorrow. Well, the cause of the broken pipes was the extreme cold. The water froze and when it thawed out leaked. We had a lot of damage, lost time and money. We were not prepared.
A long, long time ago a man named John the Baptizer came on the scene. We spoke not in a soft, caring voice but in a voice filled with anger and urgency. Why are you people just standing there! Don’t you see your time is running out. You need to prepare yourselves, get ready. Make your paths straight. And don’t think for a minute any of you are off the hook, he yelled at the Hebrews, oh no, you “sons of Abraham” are no different than anyone else. God can raise up “sons of Abraham” from stones, easy. This is for you as well. Go, get ready! John’s message was straight forward. One is coming who will baptize you with fire and the holy spirit. The ax is already at the base of the tree. You are flat out of time!
Tough message to hear isn’t it, especially when we are all so caught up in the “Christmas” spirit. Fighting crowds at the stores, trying to get that perfect gift for a loved one. Get the tree up and house decorated and the cookies and breads baked the cards sent.
John tells us what we need to do to prepare for the coming of Jesus. Repent, share and serve. Repent means to turn 180 degrees from where you are, to take an about face. We know how to share our abundance of things we have, but do we? We need to look at what we are doing and turn towards doing what we know in our hearts to be right. Paul wants us to be happy, deeply happy. He says we can find happiness by being tolerant of every person, worry about nothing, have peace which passes understanding, pray for things we need, not what we want. and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Where is the balance point in our lives? How can we hear John’s words and still get the presents out on time?
Frank Lloyd Wright was a famous American architect who created an idea called organic architecture. He believed that buildings should blend into the natural environment. If you were to look closely at the buildings he designed on the campus of Florida Southern College in Lakeland, you would have a difficult time trying to find where the building end and the environment begins. It merges and blends.
If you look at the life of Jesus, you will see no sharp line between his religious life and his everyday one. They both blend and mesh together perfectly. You can’t where one ends and the other starts. It should be the same for you and me. If we have responded to John’s call to repentance, it should bring out the best, not the worst, in each of us. It brought out the best in Joseph. When Mary told here husband that she was pregnant, he had every legal right to divorce her. She could have been turned over to the authorities as an adulteress and the penalty for that was death by stoning. Not a person in a million could have been expected to believe her story of conception. But Joseph did. Christmas brought out the good in Joseph.
When Pope Julius I authorized December 25 to be celebrated as the birthday of Jesus in 353 AD, who would have ever thought it would become what it is today. When Professor Charles Follen lit candles on the first Christmas tree in America in 1832, who would ever have thought that the decorations would have become as elaborate as they are today.
It’s a long time since 1832, longer still from 353 , longer still from that dark night which was brightened by a special star that lit up the night when Jesus was born. Yet as we approach December 25 again, it gives us an opportunity to pause in the midst of all the excitement and decorations and expensive commercialism which surround Christmas today to consider again the words of the Baptizer and the person whose birth we celebrate.