MAKING THE ASK by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    A few weeks ago, back before Christmas, I was sitting in an elementary school cafeteria, chatting with another Jody, while our kids played in a chess match.  So people are soccer moms, I’m that and a chess mom now too.   Our two kids are in 3rd grade together and have gone to the same school for 3 or 4 years. In the midst of the conversation I had the opportunity to talk about The Village. She said, “You know, our family does not have a church, and we’d like to find one. We just can’t find the right fit.”

    I invited her.  She said she thought they would like to come.  I’ve heard that before.  It was a busy time, in December around the holidays so it was 2 or 3 weeks before they made it. The first week, it was just Jody and Terry but they loved us. Then next time they came back with the three kids, and they have been back every week since.

    Just like that, in the snap of my fingers, a family of five that had no church home, has become part of our Village community. This weekend Terry was here Friday night and Saturday for our launch team retreat. They are totally committed. Do you know why?  Because someone “made the ask.”

    I took a risk to invite them to my church.  Now, sure, you can say it’s my job. But guess what, I have a fear of rejection too. I don’t like to get the cold shoulder.

    I’ve went to dinner once with a group of parents from the neighborhood. I asked a new mom, “Would you like to visit my church?” She looked right at me and just said, “No.” She didn’t give me any socially acceptable excuse, like, “I have another church.” or “I’m not really religious” and she didn’t make a joke: “I like to sleep in on Sunday.” She didn’t even say, “I don’t do church.” She just said, “No.” It was really awkward.   I still wonder what that was all about.

    But I keep inviting people anyway, because eventually I come across a family like the one I just told you about. They were just waiting. They were looking for us. The Village was made for them, and they were made for us. But unless I had stumbled across the opportunity to invite them one afternoon at a chess match, they would have lived right around the corner from us, and never known we were here. My children would have gone to school with their children for years, and I would have missed the opportunity to invite them to The Village.

    In our scripture for today (Mark 1:14-20, from the Message Translation for those following along on the net), Jesus “makes an ask” of four people who will become his disciples. The story is so simple:

18Passing along the beach of Lake Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew net-fishing. Fishing was their regular work. Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass." They didn't ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed.

 19-20A dozen yards or so down the beach, he saw the brothers James and John, Zebedee's sons. They were in the boat, mending their fishnets. Right off, he made the same offer. Immediately, they left their father Zebedee, the boat, and the hired hands, and followed.

    Just like that, snap your fingers, immediately they came along.  Now I have to believe there was something magnetic about Jesus’ personality that made it just about impossible for those men to say no to him. Of course, we know he was the son of God. He had the light and power of God shining all around him. I think Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John were astute enough to know this was no ordinary invitation. They knew in their gut, this was the offer of a lifetime. So they dropped everything and gave their lives to this mission with Jesus.

    But here’s the thing: JESUS HAD TO ASK THEM.

    THE ASK is crucial.  Sure, they might eventually have wandered their way into the mass of Jesus’ followers, but they could have just lingered on the edges in that case. But to be invited, meant that they were given an opportunity to commit and jump in with both feet.  They signed on the dotted line.

    Those four men faced a turning point in their lives. It was a breakthrough for them. Once they joined the movement of Jesus, their lives were never the same. This turning point, this breakthrough has happened to all of us.  It has happened to us too.

     Being part of this community has changed our lives. We have something that other people don’t have. We have the reassurance of God’s love. We have a community to encourage us. This community makes a difference to us, and together with other Christian communities we make a difference in the world.

    The Village is about to enter a new phase of our life together. We are moving to a new site in Maumee and launching a new worship service at Easter time. When you move to a new location, it’s an opportunity to get some new attention from a new group of people. We create some buzz when we move into a new neighborhood. We will take out some advertizing, put up some signs, and do some things to let people know we have come to town.   We joked at our leadership retreat yesterday how we are going to be the church and give Northwest Ohio something to talk about.  It’s a chance for us to build some new momentum for the church we believe God created us to be together.

    Our theme for 2012 is HOPE. We are bringing God’s hope to NW Ohio and SE Michigan. We are inviting the people of Maumee, and the greater Toledo region to embrace HOPE. We know people need HOPE. We have found our hope in God, and God has called us to share that hope with others.

    It’s not enough just to stay here in this wonderful community we have created, Jesus wants us to go out like Peter, Andrew, James and John did, and fish for some more disciples. Jesus wants us to invite some friends, neighbors, some co-workers and some strangers to experience the hope that we experience when we gather with The Village people each week.

    But they experience this community if WE don’t ASK THEM.   We have to make the ask!  We are the only people Jesus has available to ask some particular people that God is going to put in our path. I was the one that God put in Jody’s path on that day at the chess match.  I was the one to invite her. And then she was the one to go out on a limb and invite her husband and then they invited their kids.

    Someone invited you here. Do you remember who?   Who are you going to invite?  We are going to make it as easy as possible to invite folks over the next few months. In addition to worship each week, with great music, relevant messages, and the best coffee in town, every month we are going to have other events that are going to be easy to invite someone to.

    We call them “Taste and see events” because you can come and get a little taste of The Village at each event.  We are going to have silly fun showing Grease Sing a Long – to have fun and see our worship space.  Then on February 18th we are going to have a service project at the  Seagate Food Bank and spend three hours helping to feed hungry people.  Then on February 4th, we are going to go see the movie “Red Tails” and talk about the heroes of that movie and what they did for our country. 

    And then on March 18th we are going to have a concert and fund raiser for “Feed Your Neighbor” at the Village Idiot.  You can’t go wrong with the Village Church at the Village Idiot.  You can come hear music, feed the hungry, and hear about our ministries. And we are going to keep giving you great things to invite people to during Holy Week, and on Mother’s Day, and beyond (wait until you see what the Outreach & Marketing Team has planned this summer, and in October, let just say zombie makeup may be required.   In each of these we will be the church in our world.   We are going to give them something to talk about while we “follow Jesus and change the world”).

    Our goal is 100 people on Easter Sunday because we know there are people out there who are looking for hope for their lives and who are waiting for an invitation just like Terry and Jody and their 3 kids.

    Now we are not really even making a big deal about inviting strangers to The Village. But I, for one, am going to remember this scene of a guy inviting a stranger to church. If he can do this, I think I can certainly tell someone I know about The Village and what it means to me. Because I never know when there might be another Terry and Jody who are just waiting for someone to invite them to church.

“When We Weep . . .(God is still with us)” by Cheri Holdridge & Kurt Young

    Travis just sang a sad song for us (“Tears in Heaven” for those following along on the net). You may remember the tragic story of when singer Eric Clapton’s four and a half year old son fell from an apartment window in NYC and died. Mr. Clapton wrote this song while he was grieving. Any parent can relate to this song, whether we have lost a child to death, or we have just feared this awful tragedy, a parent’s worst nightmare.

    In our story from Matthew for today, Matthew 2:13-23 for those following along at home or on the road, babies are killed, not by accident, but because of the evil decision and deeds of King Herod.  He was the ruler of the area when Jesus was born.  He had heard from the Wise Men about the child being born and the star. He heard about the Messiah being born. 

    This wicked, evil man put out an order.  Kill all of the boys in the region, two years or younger.  That’s right, he ordered soldiers to kill innocent babies and toddlers to protect his own reign.   This is not a story we often tell in church, the Slaughter of the Innocents.   THIS IS THE TRUTH: EVIL EXISTS IN OUR WORLD.

    When people die in our world, especially when the death seems untimely, such as the death of a child, people try to make sense of it. We try to comfort ourselves by saying there must have been a reason. “It was their time.” “God needed another angel.”  We say these things because we hope it will make us feel better. In my experience it rarely makes the grieving parent or grandparent, or sibling, or friend feel any better. Because it does not make sense. And we want to believe God is a loving God.

    So how can God think it is the right time for a young child to die?   Surely God did not want a bunch of infants and two years olds to be slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers. Would a loving God have chosen that? I want nothing of that God. Do you? No thank you!

    These are hard questions.  Does God choose for a young father to be killed by a drunk driver and that driver to walk away unscathed?  Does God choose for an 80 year old woman to be shot by a by a gunman, a mistaken target, when some younger gang member was the intended target?   And even then, did God intend for the younger target to be shot instead?  I don’t think any of this is part of God’s plan. I think all of this is of human sin. There is evil in our world. And human choice. And there are natural forces. Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Stuff happens.

    This book, this Bible we read, and live our lives by, is a book of real stories about real people. We turn to this book for hope. We find miracles in here, and healings. We find words of encouragement. But sometimes we find stories that are just painful.

    We find stories where the bad guys win. We find stories that are of the things of the world, evil things, not the things of God. I don’t like to preach on those stories. I’m guessing you don’t like to hear them.  But they are in here.
And when we make the decision to be followers of Jesus, we get this WHOLE BOOK.
We are stuck with the whole thing: the good and the bad.

    So what do we do with a story like this? What do we do with a story of babies being killed because a terrible, insecure king named Herod, who did not like the idea that Jesus was born to be the new King of the Jews. And so Herod, in his evil and twisted mind, used his power, to kill all the babies in Bethlehem and the surrounding area under the age of 2. Now experts tell us it was only possibly around 20 babies. To be honest, when I had read this story in the past, I thought it was hundreds. But it really does not matter how many. If you are the mother of that baby, it does not matter if it is only one.

    If it is your baby, the loss is unbearable.  If ti is your baby, there is no good explanation.  There are no words to take the pain away.  There is just agony.
All I can think is this: Jesus came to bring salvation to the world, but he could not grow up fast enough to save those babies from the likes of Herod and his evil.
Not even Jesus could save them.

    But I began to imagine as I pondered this text this week, what it must have been like to be a brother or sister of one of those baby boys. What would it have been like to live in a family with that legacy? “Your brother was killed because he was born around the time of that young man Jesus – they say he is the Messiah. God sent him to save us all.”

    Do you think those families had some bit of hope, because of that promise?   Do you suppose, that even in the midst of such grief, that they might have been able to dig deep into their souls, and find a tiny ember of hope, burning ever so bright? God is still with us. In fact, God loves us so much, that God sent God’s own child to earth to love us. Wow!
    That could not entirely heal the pain of losing my baby. But it would give me some comfort in my grief.  To be a sibling who survived Herod’s massacre, I think, might have made one feel a strong sense of purpose. My brother will not have died in vain. I will find this Jesus and I will follow him. Herod will not win. Love will win. God’s love, come to earth in Jesus will win.

    Friends, I believe that’s what this painful and oh, so real story has to say to us today. It’s a painful story, a difficult one for us even today, thousands of years later.  Even as God’s love was born into the world, and the power of evil was trying so hard to vanquish it, the power of love was strong.

    You see, those weeping mothers and fathers had a choice. They could give in to their despair, and give up on God. I would have been tempted to be there.  They could stay in their anger and turn away from God, because God allowed their babies to be taken from them.

    Or they could turn to God, and embrace hope. An innocent child was taken from them, simply because he was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. So each family had a question: would they turn to God, and cling to the promise that God is still with them, and that God loves them. Would they trust that ultimately the power of God’s love always wins over the evil forces of this world? Or would they give up on God? We know of course, that God never gives up on us, but we CAN give up on God.  Have you ever wanted to give up on God? 

    So what does this say to us today?  For one, it tells us, that even the most painful stories in the Bible can speak to us, so we need not avoid the hard stories in the Bible. But that’s a minor point.  I think the message is this. We will all experience some kind of tragedy. We will all confront evil in this world. This is a time when we have a choice. We can get angry at God and turn away from God because we think God let us down.   We will all get angry, and to that.  But that’s hopefully something short.

    Or we can take the path that I believe those mothers and fathers in Bethlehem took long ago. We can acknowledge that the evil in the world is not from God. Evil comes from human sin. (And some bad things happen just by accident and forces of nature.)  God does not make this happen.  But out of any tragedy, God still loves us, and God can bring blessing to us. God wants to heal us and comfort us, and restore our lives to wholeness. God does not want to leave us in that place of weeping and mourning and brokenness. There is a time for that, and then there is a time to move on.

    When we weep, God weeps with us.  And then when it is time for the weeping to end, God reminds us that there is still a baby over in Egypt, ready to come back to us, to grow up and be our teacher and our Savior. Jesus is our hope. Jesus is always with us. That is the good news of today.  God is always with us.  God is ALWAYS with us.  Let’s follow Jesus and embrace that hope.

    Do you have a place where you can weep?  Do you have a community that can weep with you?  Do you hear voices that tell you God loves you and will take you through these times?  Do you have hope?  If not, find a community where you can get all of this.  There are many out there.  If you are near Central & Monroe in Toledo, and in just a few months Conant Street & the Trail in Maumee, come join us.  We will weep with you, because we have, but we also will show you hope. 

Overcome With Joy by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

      Are you done with Christmas?  Is it over.   Is that so last month, for you?  When did you pack away your Christmas decorations? Have you eaten, or thrown out, all your Christmas cookies?   My mom had a co-worker that kept her Christmas tree up all year long. LOL. Of course, we thought she was a bit nuts. And she was!

      But at our house we always keep our tree up through Jan 6th. It’s Kurt’s Birthday. It’s also a holiday in Puerto Rico, one of the places he lived when he was growing up as a Navy brat. The holiday is: El Dia de los Tres Reyes – The Day of the Three Kings – also known as Three Kings Day, or Epiphany on the Church calendar.

     January 6th is the day we celebrate the day the three kings, or the wise men, from the East arrived at the home of Mary and Joseph and Jesus to bring gifts to the baby. Now in all the Christmas pageants, we see these wise guys showing up at the manger with the shepherds and the angels, but actually we think Jesus was about 2 years old by the time they got there, and the family was living in a house in Bethlehem by this time.

      This is how the story goes. These men were scholars, probably astronomers from a country to the East of Israel. They had read in books, about a prophecy of a king that would be born, and a star that would point to this king. When they saw a bright star in the sky, one they had never seen before, they felt compelled to follow that star and investigate.

      They went to see Herod, who was the identified King, living in Jerusalem, placed there by the Roman government. They said, “We are here looking for a child who has been born King of the Jews.” Herod tried to hide his anger at this affront to his authority. He pretended that he also wanted to worship this newborn King. He consulted with his religious scholars and told the wise men that the prophets said the child would be born in Bethlehem. Then he told them that once they found the child they should let him know where they found him, because he wanted to go worship the child too. Of course, that was a lie. Herod was an evil man.  The wise men were on to him. They knew not to trust him.

     They found their way to Bethlehem.  This is when the story gets really good.  You see, those wise men are just like us.  They were looking for the Messiah.  They were looking for a Savior.  They were looking for someone who would bring hope and healing to their broken world.  Isn’t that what we are looking for?

      Isn’t that why we come here to The Village every week?  Let’s just pause here a moment and consider that question.   What are you looking for today? When you come here, to this holy place, to this community of Jesus followers – what are you looking for?  The answers we got in worship were peace, belonging, fellowship, hope, hugs, encouragement, guidance, to be reminded that God’s grace is enough. 

     The wise men went to see the baby, because they wanted to encounter the holy presence of God on earth. And guess what! That’s just what they got. “Instructed by the king, they set off. Then the star appeared again, the same star they had seen in the eastern skies. It led them on until it hovered over the place of the child. They could hardly contain themselves: They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time! They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneeled and worshiped him.”
   They were overcome with joy. And do you know what they did?  They kneeled in humility and worshiped Jesus. That’s what God invites us to do today.  We get one more chance at Christmas today.  We don’t have to let go of our Christmas joy quite yet. (We even got to sing one last Christmas carol today.)  We can kneel at the baby bed of Jesus, and imagine what it means that God wants to come into our lives.

    You see Herod was the political King of that time and place, and he was outraged that Jesus came. He went crazy, because he wanted all the power. He could not fathom that God was more powerful than him. He could not comprehend that vulnerability, compassion, generosity, and forgiveness were values that would out over political power, selfishness, greed, and judgment. But those wise men, understood. They had great status in their own right, but they chose to give up their power and status. They knelt in humility and were awestruck by a baby. They were filled with wonder at God’s promises.

      God wants us to be awestruck today.   What does it mean to you, for Jesus to come into your world today? We’ve prepared a little space up here where we can kneel and pray. I want to invite you to come up here and open your arms or hands and pray in an attitude of humility or vulnerability.

    I think that’s what Three Kings day is about.   It’s about the contrast between Herod, who was not humble at all, and the Wise Men from the East, who were completely humble.  They traveled across a vast distance, and had really no clue if they would find anything. But they had hope. They wanted to believe.

     We want to believe in Jesus too.   We want to believe Jesus can change our lives.  Other people might laugh at us for getting out of bed and driving across town to come to this humble little church on this dreary January day, thinking this will change our lives. But we have seen a star. We have seen the light of God. We have seen God transform broken lives into healed, strong amazing examples of new life. We know Jesus can make something of us too.

      So I want to invite you to come kneel beside the baby today. We had a baby basket up by the stage in worshp, to represent, the bed where baby Jesus might have slept. We to received Holy Communion and after we were invited to come and kneel, somewhere near the basket.  You can imagine a simple baby’s bed.  Come kneel down where you are.   Open your arms or hands in a position of vulnerability and humility.

      We all need Jesus, and God sent Jesus to the world to be here for all of us. So today, I invite us to ask Jesus to come to you again, and be your hope.  Amen.

Jesus: God’s Persistent Invitation to the World by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    So when my 9 year old son is watching TV or playing a video game, and I need to ask him a question, I might as well be talking to a brick wall. We have had his hearing checked on a regular basis. His hearing is just fine. But when he is focused on electronics, he cannot hear me talking.

    (move lips but don’t make sound): It’s as if I am speaking but no sound is coming out of my mouth.  (REPEAT quietly): It’s as if I am speaking but no sound is coming out of my mouth. (SHOUT):IT’S AS IF I AM SPEAKING BUT NO SOUND IS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH.  Any other parents experiencing this?

    Sometimes I will walk over to him and get between him and the TV or the video game and say, “Are you listening to me?” And then I will give him whatever message I want to convey.  Now, this can be somewhat amusing if I’m trying to say, “It’s time to empty the trash.” We can laugh that he’s just trying to get out of doing his chores.

    Sometimes it still gets old.  This happens in much more serious conversations all the time. You need to talk with your significant other, about some concerns you are having in your relationship. You are not happy. Perhaps you have a problem, for example, about the different values you have about spending money and you think it’s time to have a serious talk. Your partner just brushes you off, in much the same way a 9 year old brushes off Mom saying it’s time to do your chores. We don’t want to have the “money talk.” It’s too stressful. And it will point to other underlying values clashes in our relationship.

    And gradually, we just shut down, and stop communicating about just about everything. They just don’t deal with things.  This breakdown in communication is what happens between God and human beings every day. Did you hear me?  Can you hear me now?

    Think about it. God is our creator, our parent, our loving Mom or Dad. God wants to be right in there, in the thick of our lives. Yes God is like a nosey parent who wants to know our business. It’s because God really does know what’s best; because God made the world and everything in it. God gives us life. God give us opportunities, and God gives us free will to make choices: good ones and bad ones.
Then God watches as we do what we will do.

    And we make mistakes. We make some dooo-zies! But We do some good things with the skills and the resources God gives us too. Some incredible wonderful things that transform our world for the better.  But this is what often happens in our life cycle. We get cut off from God.

    In the days of Mary and Joseph, lots of the people had lost their way. I imagine God feeling like a frazzled Mom at the end of the worst day, when a child won’t pull his attention away from the electronics for ANYTHING – NOT EVEN his favorite dinner and a big old hug from the mama he loves. (And most 9 year old boys really do still love hugs from their mom, don’t let them tell you they don’t.) I imagine God feeling like that with a whole planet full of children.

    In the days of Mary and Joseph, I imagine God being like someone who is living in the house with a partner but they have not felt joy together in years. They are just sharing space. They are not communicating; they are not growing old together. They are just getting old. And God is living like that in a house with a billion people.

    So about 2000 plus years ago, in the time of Mary and Joseph, and King Herod, and all those folks, God said, “Enough!”  “I have got to do something.” “I love these people. These are my children. When they listen to me, I can guide them. I can help them find peace and joy. I am their Creator; I gave them life. They are so unhappy, so lost. How did this happen? How did this happen?   You have been in a relationship before and asked that.

    “When I was working through Moses and led the people into the Promised Land those were good times. My people were finally listening to me after all those years in the wilderness. I thought we were on the right track. I felt such a connection. But now look at them. Leaders have taken over that have lost their way.”  They just don’t get it.

    And so God formed a plan.  “I will start over again with them. God specializes in new starts.  I will send my own child down there – my Son. I’ll send a baby – no one can resist loving a baby! At least not until they need a diaper change, get cranky, etc.   And in time, He will show them. He will be so gentle and wise, and so radical in His love and so clear in His call for justice that they will see me – they will remember me.”   And so that is just what God did.  God sent Jesus.

    Today, we gather, and light the “Christ Candle”  to give thanks to God, for sending Jesus to our world. We give thanks that God Jesus to Mary and Joseph and to the shepherds and the Wise Men. Because God sent Jesus to those first disciples, to those fishermen who were not always that smart: Peter, James and John, to Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, God’s message got passed through to them, and filtered down through the ages to us. From that part of the world to ours.

    Now it’s up to us. So on this Christmas, we pause and marvel at this amazing gift of God’s child, born in the midst of humanity. Can we pause, before we go open the gifts and eat too much food and watch sports, and just let this gift soak in to us?
You see this gift proves that God really wants to love us and be the guiding force in our lives. God wants to cut through the noise, and the distractions. God wants to cut through our fears and our resistance and be in relationship with us.

    Will we listen? Will we turn down whatever video games and TV’s, or other material distractions we hold onto? Will we let go of whatever bad choices we know we make that keep us from saying “yes” to God’s path for us?  You see, today, is the day.  God gives us Jesus, to change our lives.  Jesus is the only gift that matters.
All the rest is just icing on the Christmas cake.

    Will you pray with me now? And open your heart to receive God’s gift of Jesus?
God, you did your part to come to us. And now God, we are going to do our part.  We are here, ready, ready to receive your gift of Jesus.  You love made flesh in the world.  We open our hearts to receive your love in the world.

Amen.

Advent: Resting in God’s Possibilities by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    A long, long, long time ago, an angel came to a young unmarried girl, who was part of a family that lived a simple life. They were not wealthy. They were not kings and queens. They were not part of the elite class. They were not special in any way.   The angel said, “You’re going to have a baby, and your baby will bring hope and salvation to the world. Are you ready Mary?”

    Mary was confused, she was stunned,  she was not married and was not doing the things that caused the usual human being to get pregnant. The angel explained that God would intervene in a miraculous way, and God would be the father of this one of a kind child. “How about that? Are you ready for that Mary?”  God is going to be the father of your baby.

    With a sense of calm and obedience well beyond her years, Mary said to the angel, “Here I am, your servant, let it be according to your word,”, what strength and trust.  Just like that great Beatles’ song says. LET IT BE.  There is such a sense of calm and peace to that song, isn’t there? LET IT BE.
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
When the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.

    Somehow, miraculously, Mary, knew. Mary knew in her heart, that everything would be alright. She is told that her cousin Elizabeth, who is well beyond her child bearing years, is also pregnant. Her child will grow up to be John the Baptist, the one who preaches and prepares the way for Jesus and his ministry. The angel says, such an old woman can have a baby, and Mary, can have a baby without being with a man – and here’s why, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD.

    That’s the message of this whole story: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD. And so, in this season, we are invited to lean into that wonderful promise.  Are you ready for that?

    Are you ready to rest in God’s possibilities? And to trust God?  Can we say to God, “Let it be”? Can we say to God to take our lives and mold them for your purposes.  Say “do something outrageous with our lives? Something we never dreamed we could do without God’s help?”

    Now, there may be something you believe God wants to do with your life individually. You may be praying, and you may hear God speaking to you about some big change God is making in your life. And if so, I encourage you to trust God, to listen to God, and to rest in God’s possibilities, and to be like Mary and put your future in God’s hands.

    But there can be more than one Christmas miracle. There can be lots of individual miracles.  As I ponder this scripture and consider the impossibilities before us, I believe God is doing something amazing with The Village right now. Right before our eyes. Right here at Christmas.

    I believe the power of God’s spirit is being born anew within us. It’s like we are a pregnant woman, just waiting to give birth.  I can give you some examples, ministry teams, a ministry plan, some new financial, unexpected support, a new band leader and new location, all signs of how we are getting ready for our ministry to be stronger, but there is something more than that.  Something intangible.   A God thing. The power of God.  The Spirit of God moving among us.

    I believe this is the question God is asking us today: will we be God’s vessels of incarnational love in the way that Mary was?  Will we be carriers of God’s love brought into the world?  You see, Mary brought Jesus into the world. Mary brought God into the world. And as she gave birth to Jesus, she brought to the world, God’s love and hope, God’s mercy and compassion.

    Now, I believe God is asking us, to give birth to Jesus in our little part of the world. WE are to bring God into the world. It’s our job now. WE are to give birth to God’s love and hope, to God’s mercy and compassion in whatever way we can right here in our little corner of the world.

    We are all God has in the world.  We are what God has to be God’s representatives We may not feel worthy. But Mary did not really feel worthy either.  She was probably about 12-13 years old, she didn’t feel ready.  And yet, in humility she stepped up to the task and said, “Here I am, let it be with me according to your word.”

    And so this is God’s question to us, as we walk through this last week of Advent, in preparation for Christmas.  I don’t care how many shopping days are left.  Here’s God’s question, Are we ready?  Are we ready to give birth to Jesus? Are we ready to represent Jesus in the world?

    Are we ready to be The Village Church in Northwest Ohio? To get out there and stretch ourselves to show God’s love through community service and to invite more people to be part of our church?  We can’t just sit at our new location and wait for God to come to us.   Jesus didn’t do that.  There are hurting people out there who need to hear the word of hope for hurting people.  We know that there are hurting people because we are them.  There are the things we need to do, in order to expand the reach of our ministry: Community service and inviting other people to try The Village. We can’t just sit here and wait for them to come to us. We have to get out there and look for them. Because they are hurting, and they need God’s healing love. You know they do.
Everyone here can be part of what seems to be impossible. We want to double our impact between Christmas and Easter. Because we know that there are more people who need a community like this. The task seems impossible. But what seems impossible for humans, is always possible with God.

    You will be hearing more about the opportunities to be part of the various ministry teams. And if you want to join one, today I invite you to take out a yellow Connection Card and just put your name on it and sign up for a Ministry Team. If you want to help with community service and outreach to new people then just write Outreach on the card and we’ll direct you to Kurt and Patrick.

    Most of all, let’s pray about the possibilities. Will you pray in this last week of Advent? Let’s try this: every time we hear a Christmas song this week, let’s invite God to use us, in the way God used Mary – to bring Jesus into the world.

    I know it’s a humbling thought. But it was humbling to Mary too. So let’s pray that God will use each one of us, through the Village Church.  I think it’s easier to think about doing it together. Every time we hear a Christmas song this week, let’s pray that God will use each one of us, together, to bring Jesus into the world, Jesus’ message love and hope, mercy and compassion. We are not Mary.  But think about how scary it was for Mary.  Let’s join Mary and offer our lives to God, “Here we are God, your servants, Let it be, according to your word.” Let’s bring Jesus’ message of love and hope, compassion and mercy into a world that desperately needs it. 

“Advent: An Invitation to Come Home” By Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

     What do you want for Christmas? Maybe you have made a Christmas list for your family, because that’s what you do. You let people know about some material “stuff” that you would enjoy having, because that’s our Christmas tradition. We buy one another “stuff” on Jesus’ birthday. It’s kind of an odd tradition if you think about it. God sends God’s own child into the world and we celebrate by buying one another lots of stuff. Occasionally we buy ourselves a little something as well.  Kind of an odd tradition if you think about it. 

       Now, at places like The Village, we try to balance all that consumerism by inviting folks to keep the gift buying manageable and to remember to buy for folks who are truly in need. So we give food and money to help people who economically poor, with our Christmas Fund for the AIDS Resource Center. This seems to be compassionate way to honor the birth of God’s own son.

       But honestly, what would you really LOVE to have for Christmas? I think if I really got to the heart of the matter with many of you – you would say something like this: peace on earth, harmony in your family or relationships, to not have to live with so much worry about whatever you worry about, when you go to bed at night, when you can’t sleep. How about that? 

     Underneath all of that, we want peace for ourselves and those we love.  We want to know everything is going to be ok. I would call that “home.” We want to be in that comfortable place, where we can be ourselves, take off our shoes, sit our comfy chair, and just be ourselves, and our mom and dad will love us.   In that best home, the idealized version of home.

       That’s what that song is about – “I’ll be Home for Christmas.” The person just wants to be home, where everything is happy and comfortable and good. They are separated from family for some reason. The song was recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby during WWII and was very popular during WW II. It reflected the story of a young soldier who wanted to be home for Christmas, if only in his dreams.

     That image is powerful in itself is powerful enough. We are all seeing the stories all over the news of the soldiers coming home from Iraq. At least those soldiers will be home this year for Christmas.  And it makes us feel good.   But the song, and the idea of the song, is about more that. You see, at Christmas, many of us get to spend some time with our birth family, or our chosen family. We take some time off work and spend time with people we love. This is Christmas at its best.

     Now let me just pause here to acknowledge that I know Christmas is not like that for everyone. Christmas is not picture perfect for many of us. It is depressing and stressful for many of us, because we don’t have those families that we want to see. Or we feel like we have to spend time with folks that we really don’t want to see. I understand that. But we’ll have to deal with that another day. But I do want to acknowledge that.

      But here is the thing.  We can all be at home with Jesus on Christmas Day. We can choose to be home with Jesus for Christmas.  In that first Christmas scene.  Jesus had humble beginnings.  Born in a barn in the back of an inn.

      In our scripture for today, Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist is preaching to the crowds. You see, he started his preaching ministry a few months or so, before Jesus started his ministry.  John the Baptist, started baptizing people with water and telling them to repent and turn away from their sins. But he said to them, “I’m just the opening act.” “The headliner,” meaning Jesus, “is on the way.”  The one who is coming, “He is the LIGHT. He is the one you are really waiting for.”

      John was telling them, that when Jesus comes, we can find our home with him. We can find our way to God, when we know Jesus. We can find our HOME in God, when we know Jesus. So we need to get to know this Jesus. Jesus is the one.  Where you will find that sense of peace, that place you are longing for. That sense of belonging in a family. 

       So every year at Christmas time, we have this big celebration, in order to re-tell this important story, of the baby, with humble beginnings, who would grow up to love the unlovable, and speak the truth to power, and overcome death with resurrection. That’s the baby we can be at home with. That’s the baby we want to love with our Christmas celebrations.   We want to remember Jesus to remember the one who loved the unlovable like us, who would speak to power, so we can too, the one to overcome death, so we can too.  This is why it is important to celebrate it that way, every year.

      It is now 14 days until Christmas. Yes, we can view it as 14 shopping days left. We can view it as 14 days left to cram in parties, and home decorating. And some of that stuff is fun.  I like Christmas parties and lights, and giving presents.  I would invite us, however, to consider, 14 days left to be still, and ponder the gift of Jesus – Emmanuel – God present in the world – to come into our home and live with us.

       And I would challenge us to consider how we will honor Jesus’ birthday, gift from God of Jesus. We will come and worship with our church family on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  Will we take time to pray that week, and open our hearts to receive Jesus anew? What does the birth of this child, your child to me, mean this year? 

       Will we give some time during Christmas week, or in the new year, to help others through some ministry of compassion – actually trusting God to change us and use us as servants?   To change ourselves through servant ministry.  Will we designate some money to help those who are even poorer than us? Because there are people in our community and our world who are poorer than us, even in Toledo, Ohio where we are pretty poor right now. And will we realize that in these acts, we are making a home with Jesus?  You see, Jesus wants to be at home in our lives. That’s why Jesus came to live on this Earth, Why God sent Jesus to live with us.

    You see, we will be home for Christmas. Our home, is with Jesus. God is sending Jesus to live with us and in us, and Jesus wants to be with us. Christmas is God’s gift to us every year – to let us receive the gift of Jesus once again. So let’s get ready. We only have two weeks left. Let’s get ready to be home for Christmas.

     Do you have your way home for Christmas?  There are lots of places to get on that journey.  If you need one, and are near Central & Monroe in Toledo, or Conant Street & the Anthony Wayne Trail this Spring, come join us at the Village.  We’re remembering an incredible gift, given to us about 2,000 years ago.  We’re gathering as a church family, where all are welcome.  Come join us, or another church family this season. 

ADVENT PROMISES by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    Back in 1997, not long after Kurt and I got married, we made a trip to Texas, my home. It was Kurt’s first trip to West Texas. His third trip West of the Mississippi River. We went to DeLeon, (don’t say it French, it’s DEE LEON) TX, population 2,433, also the smallest town Kurt says he has ever spent a night in (it’s 1/10 of the size of the prior champion in that category). He is a Big City Boy. But the trip there was the most frightening part. The flight down was not so bad. We flew from Detroit Metro to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. As I recall, that flight was uneventful. We rented a car to make the drive out Interstate 20 to my dad’s home town, where my grandparents had been living for more than seventy years. Kurt was driving and I was navigating. I grew up in West Texas. I know I-20 like an Ohioan knows the Ohio Turnpike. It all came back to me. This was my highway. I told him to slow down at Ranger hill, because it’s a speed trap. We laughed about the Dairy Queens at every exit.

    But to Kurt, this was unfamiliar territory. It was a dark, cold, rainy night. Texas was foreign soil to him. He was going to some tiny town, to meet my relatives, because my grandfather had died. He was feeling protective of his new wife and he just wanted to reach our destination. When we got to the exit for DeLeon, we turned off the Interstate and headed south, and I kid you not, the little state highway turned to dirt road. It started raining harder, and Kurt thought he had gone to the ends of the earth. “Are all the state highways in Texas dirt roads?” he asked me. It was as if he thought we were in some sort of horror movie, or gone to Hell. Remember, he’s a city boy. He had no idea where we were. He tried not to show it. But he had all these disaster scenarios playing in his head, because everything was out of his control. He was in the wilderness of small rural West Texas.

    Well of course, we got there, just fine. We got to my grandparents’ house. My aunt and uncle were there waiting for us. We had something to eat and got a warm bed to sleep in. I reminisced about all the fun summer vacations I had in that house, visiting my grandparents, and the Christmases there with family. This was the house my dad grew up in. The next day we went to the United Methodist Church where my grandmother had played the organ and my granddad was the song leader every Sunday night. I showed Kurt the pulpit where my dad preached his first sermon, and where I preached one of my first sermons. That was cool. This was home for me.

    Kurt relaxed and we had a good visit. You see, DeLeon was a home with family and with God for me. But it was wilderness for Kurt. It’s all a matter of perspective. He had never been there. He had never been there, it was far outside his familiar turf, and the road there was scary for him – literally! So he had to go there with someone he loved, and he had to have a tour of a new place, and be told, that it had good people, and that God lived there too.

    Well, this is my simple story, to help us to today’s Bible story Isaiah. You see, if you are not a Biblical scholar, then the text that was read for us today, might be pretty unfamiliar to you.  It’s poetry, written by a prophet, from another time and place. It takes some translating to make sense to us. But it’s a beautiful piece of writing and it speaks to us today, once we unpack it.

    This is the context. The people of Israel, who are God’s chosen people, have been defeated in a war. They have been taken from their country to a far off land and they are living in exile in Babylon. The prophet Isaiah is giving words of hope, because they are living in what is the wilderness to them. Listen to some of the words from Isaiah 40 again in this context:
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

3A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 6A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. 7The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. 8The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

9Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” 10See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
You see there is a promise that God stands forever. And that a highway will be made across that desert that will lead them out of exile in Babylon and back home to Israel.   Anyone been lost in the wilderness lately?  Anyone felt a little down, a little cut off from God’s love?  Feel like you are not going to get back on that highway back home?

    Highways were important in Israel. They are important to us now, but we take them for granted because they are usually so readily available. (Except for that night in West Texas, when by the way, the state highway turned to dirt because it was under construction.) Highways in Israel, back in the days that this text was written, were important trade routes between the East and the West. One particular road, The King’s Highway, connected modern Damascus to Cairo, and put Israel on the map for trading. It was a really important highway.

    These people wanted a highway back home.  They wanted a highway back to God, because they were feeling abandoned by God. I wanted a highway back home to my family because I had lost my grandfather.  They were lost. They had lost everything: their land, their homes, their culture, and their centers of religious practice. They thought that God had forgotten them. Many of you have told me you have felt like God has forgotten you. The prophet Isaiah comes to remind them: God has not forgotten you. God is coming back for you. God will care for you like a shepherd cares for his flock.

    We read these texts during Advent, because they point to Jesus. In fact, over in the New Testament, when John the Baptist is getting the people ready for Jesus, he quotes this passage from Isaiah 40 and he says that he, John, is preparing a way for Jesus.

     You see, scripture is full of God’s promises to God’s people. When we go through any of these wilderness times, and we will go through wilderness times, God reminds us that others have been there too. But God will make a highway, so that we can find our way back to God.

    When I went back to DeLeon, Texas, it was a sad time because my grandfather had died, but it was also a good time, because I connected with my family roots. My grandparents and their son, my father, loved God, and raised me to love God, and I am a pastor today, because of them. That little church in that tiny little town of 2,433 produced several pastors that went on to reach many more people in many more places. People like Kurt, who is a city boy and will never live in a town that small, are still touched by the legacy of the people in that little United Methodist Church. Going to that town was going to the wilderness for Kurt but it was going home to connect with God for me.
    Which kind of place are you in today? Are you in a wilderness time in your life? Are you looking for a highway to connect God to your life? Or are you feeling cozy and warm and right at home with God? We need some people who are at that place on the journey.  Or are you somewhere in between?  Wherever you are, remember that the promises of God are for you.  “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever” (Is. 40:8)

    Today, we are going to celebrate the promises of God in the lives of some more people. We are going to receive some new members into the community of The Village. We are going to baptize one. And then we are going to have the opportunity for all of us to remember our baptism. It’s a good way to take a step out of that wilderness if you are feeling you have been there, and take a step toward God. Because, you see, God is always ready to reconnect with us. That is a promise. God wants to be in relationship with us. Whether it’s a dirt road, or a super highway, God always wants to receive us. 

    We are going to be claiming one person today as God’s and we are going to give us all a chance to remember our baptisms.  If you are feeling alone in the wilderness, remember that God is there with you.  God never truly leaves us and God will be there if we need God. 

    If you need a place to remind you, that you are not alone in the wilderness, come join us at the Village.  We’re at the cross roads of Central & Monroe in Toledo on Sundays and coming Spring 2012 to the corner of the Anthony Wayne Trail and Conant Street in Maumee.