We will not be getting together at Mountain View Academy to worship God this Sunday. Instead, we’ll be getting together in our LTGs (small groups) to hang out, watch the Super Bowl, and eat food together. Invite friends and have a good time. If you’re not part of an LTG, use this as an opportunity to check one out. Check out the LTG page for details and more information about each of the LTGs that are currently running.
Our passage for this morning is a really familiar one: Luke 2:1-7, the birth of Jesus Christ. There are a few things about it that I think are easy to skip over because we’re so familiar with it.
The first is that this Jesus is Joseph and Mary’s first born child. For those of you who have kids, think about the time when you were having your first born. Recall the feelings. All that anticipation. All that excitement. And yet, at the same time, all that fear. All that anxiety. Joseph and Mary were likely an emotional mess.
The second is that the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, that trip that they took late in Mary’s third trimester was an 85 mile trip through some steep inclines. And if you’ve ever ridden an animal, you know that that’s still a physical exhausting mode of transportation. Think of the time when you were late in your third trimester. How far were you able to walk? Jospeh and Mary were physically exhausted. They were running on fumes.
And lastly, Bethlehem was Joseph’s “own city”, verse 3. Though it’s unclear whether Joseph’s parents were still alive, it’s almost certain that Joseph still had close relatives in Bethlehem. And considering Middle Eastern hospitality, it would’ve been inconceivable for Joseph and his new family to stay the night in some random barn as it’s portrayed in many of our Christmas pageants and plays.
Joseph and Mary likely stayed in one of his relatives’ home as did many of his other relatives, hence, why there wasn’t enough room for their entire family to sleep. With everybody coming back to their hometown to be registered for the census, there was likely a family reunion in the house where Joseph and Mary stayed. There’s music, dancing, massive amounts of food, laughter, and hugging. Jesus is getting passed around the room from family member to family member. And at the end of the day, after the party’s subsided well into the night, Joseph and Mary lay him down in a manger, a step below the living area but under the same roof.
There is very little that’s silent about this night. Very little is calm. And there’s little sleeping in heavenly peace.
If anything it’s a chaotic night. They’re emotionally and physically exhausted before they even get to Bethlehem. And when they do get there, they’re greeted by Joseph’s extended family who are excited to see the new addition to their family.
But Jesus is there with them. And for that reason, one of the lines from Silent Night rings true. It was a “holy night”. Being holy isn’t about being composed and calm, about having it all together with your sins properly managed. Being holy is about being with Jesus, abiding in Him.
I know that many of you are in a place right now where you feel like life is too chaotic to be connected to Jesus. Well, our relationship with Jesus is a two-way street. Jesus reaches out to us as well. Jesus loves you.
But will you notice? Will you notice Jesus loving you in the midst of the chaos of your life?
To notice, consider group life, being part of an LTG. When we live life alone, in seclusion it’s all too easy not to notice Jesus. Our spiritual vision gets near-sighted as we just live through the routines of our lives. But as we share about our lives, chaos and all, others in our LTGs can speak into them revealing Jesus at work in it. And as we pray together through the chaos of our lives, we can tangibly feel Jesus ministering to us through His body, the Church.
Discussion Questions:
31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
35 “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.
Hi everyone.
This is just a reminder that we will not be meeting for the first sundays of the month (i.e., this Sunday, 08/02, and Labor Day Sunday) this summer. For two years now we’ve been saying that church is not a place, a time or an event; it is people (a family or a body). Or to be more specific, it’s God’s people living in God’s world and living out God’s purposes. Many of you were able to experience that last month whether it was connecting with friends who follow Jesus and friends who don’t, spending time with your families, learning what it means to “rest” in our culture here, enjoying a relaxing meal and “unplanned” and uninterrupted conversation with others. There was some great intentionality last month. And all the stories we heard were super positive — some even illuminating the fact that these were experiences that would not have happened at another time during the week or during a “usual” church gathering on Sunday morning.
Hopefully, we’ll all have similar stories to share as we explore what it means to “be” the church together in all the natural places and spaces in which God has set us. If any of you are doing something and would like to invite others (either this Sunday morning or for the weekend), feel free to post below or send out an email.
Have a great week/weekend.
Mike
Recently, we at Baylight have been challenged to be more Kingdom-centered. To live lives more centered around the Kingdom and to be a church that is more centered around the Kingdom. And to have more opportunities to do that, to have more time and energy to devote ourselves more fully into the Kingdom, we’re taking the first Sunday of July, August, and September off from our normal Sunday morning gatherings. Today was the first Sunday “off”.
Alinna and I took the opportunity to rest with coffee, tea, and scones and invited anybody to come and join us. I should explain more as to how this connects with being more Kingdom-centered.
Over the last year, I’ve really been convicted by the Lord’s command to rest. I’ve particularly been convicted by the fact that it’s a command, not a suggestion as if it were merely something for my own good. For as long as I can remember, I’ve treated God’s command to rest as God’s suggestion to rest. Practically, what this meant was that when it wasn’t inconvenient to me, then I’d rest. Those moments were pretty rare. It seems that there’s always something more to do. So, I’ve been having this conviction: God worked for 6 days and then he rested on the 7th… what makes me think that I can work for 7? What’s more, God commands His people to do the same. Work for 6 and rest on the 7th.
By purposefully disobeying God in this area, I am purposefully living outside of the rule of God (also known as God’s Kingdom). I realize that this could sound totally self-serving: Obey God by resting. But honestly, it’s been really difficult for me. And the more and more I talk with people living here in the Bay Area, the more and more I realize that I’m not alone. We are constantly busy. I go so far to say that we’re addicted to being busy. In this setting, by intentionally resting, I’m intentionally choosing to be under the rule of God.
That said, I feel that today went well for me. I got to rest. Some people stopped by and I had some good conversations with them. In fact, afterward, I was talking with Alinna and we both felt like we had more and better conversations this morning than we usually do on a normal Sunday morning at “church”. If we used feeling connected to one another and caring for one another as the metric for evaluating “church”, we were probably more the church this morning at our home than when we go to church on any other Sunday. This isn’t to say that we should do this every Sunday in lieu of “going to church”. I don’t think we could pull something like that off. It just made us pause to think about why we don’t get that same quality and quantity of relationship on a Sunday morning at Mountain View Academy from 10:30AM to 12:30PM.
Baylight, what did you do? Feel free to tell your story in the comments for this post!
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