Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this first Friday of December. We are excited and thrilled that the Lord has brought us to another Advent - Christmas season. We know there are many who did not get to see this Advent season. It is a season of greater adventure with Jesus our Lord. It is He who has orchestrated the whole event of Christmas. We are just the recipients of that great gift of grace.
My wife Alice becomes like a child again during this season. We walked for over 4 miles last night. She said how the Lord spangles the sky with brilliant stars and gentle Moon. When the nights are the darkest the Lord shines on with His Light.
Pray for our weekly Tv outreach this evening o Time Warner Cable Channel 4 at 7 PM. I am preaching from Isaiah 7. Tomorrow, Saturday the 3rd of December, we will gather for a spectacular Evening of sacred and classical music at the Historic First United Methodist Church, Endicott. The music will be presented by four Russian Men from St. Petersburg, Russia. They are gifted and talented. Those who live in the area, join us. Do not miss it. The concert starts at 6:30 PM.
We come to Christmas thinking of Christmas as the time that sets everything right. Christmas is the time to come home, to return to that time in our memories when all was warm, and good and right, when everything that's is upside down in our lives is set, at least for a couple of days in December, right side up. Yet, in the Bible, Christmas was that time when everything was turned upside down. It wasn't about a loving, family-value mother caring for a conventional child. It was about Mary, an unwed mother, expectant in a most unconventional, upside down way. The message came not through the official, governmentally sanctioned communication channels; it was delivered in song by angels. The good news came not to the learned and the powerful; in fact, shepherds working the night shift first got the gospel. It was not a message delivered to biblical scholars poring over the sacred texts in Jerusalem, but to Magi, who were Gentile outsiders, pagan astrologers. Apparently the star appeared to outsiders rather than insiders. The Babe whose birth we sing lay in a cattle feed trough, not an expensive baby nursery.
When Mary got the news from the angel, telling her that she was going to have a baby, Immanuel, Messiah to bless the world, she sang a Christmas carol. It's about, "An Upside Down Christmas:" We commonly call it the Magnificat.
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name.
His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty."
Mary sang of a world turned upside down, of those who are high and exalted being brought low, of those who are poor and hungry being filled, all by the advent of a baby. Mary got her life turned upside down by that angel Gabriel and then she sang of a child in her womb who was going to dislodge, disrupt, disturb. In years to come one of the charges against Christians, followers of the babe, was, "These people are turning the whole world upside down" (Acts 17:6).
Let us think of Christmas as a time when God began turning things upside down. Jesus comes to our world to turn it right side up and upside down. May the Holy Spirit provoke us to surrender our upside down lives to Him. He alone is able to turn us right side up.
Thank you Jesus .
Brown
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