Today, somehow, we have the wrong scripture in your worship folder. We are looking at the gospel of John 1:1-14.

Have you ever awoken in the night and you stumbled to feel for a light switch? You carefully navigate your feet, right? What you think might be on the floor at the time...trying to remember exactly where the chairs are, the nightstand, the dresser, the lamps...other obstacles, so that you don't stub your toes or bump your knees. You move cautiously and carefully through the dark room until...you extend your hand on the wall, right? As you move your palm up and down on the wall trying to find that light switch, right? Trying to find the light switch and you're puzzled to wonder if there ever is a light switch on the wall. You question yourself, you begin to search with your fingers in the other direction until you say, 'Oh, there it is,' and you turn on the light.

Now everything is clear, right? The glowing light bulb overhead makes all the difference in the world to navigate your bedroom. This is what the writer of John is trying to communicate to us in his gospel.

When we try to navigate life without light - we move cautiously - and if we aren't careful we can run into danger. In fact without light in our lives - we are lost.

What does it mean to live in the light? How do we receive the light? What difference does the light make anyway? John gives us this cosmic...

Christmas has come! Homes are decorated with Griswoldian fervor, our freezer, refrigerators and stomachs give new meaning to the word "stuffed." And the music is everything from Bing and Chip to James, Kenny and George Frederic. Christmas has come!
Many families are experiencing family once again. Moms and Dads of test-weary, college aged students have fantasized about this very moment: having their "whole families together" in church, in the warmth of candlelight and love.

Christmas has come! And we welcome Christmas Eve. Christmas has come once more. But this is no ordinary night. God is once again on the move to make the Christmas story our story.

God's desire was from the beginning of the first moments of creation, up to this very moment to have the birth of Jesus in that manger so long ago to be a birth in us. God wants to take his Christmas story from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

There was a snickering in the congregation. People were glancing one way and then another while parents were trying to quiet their children. It was a snore - a mixture between a groan and a whistle. Someone had fallen asleep in worship-and they were snoring loudly. The priest seemed unaffected by it. He had just concluded a sermon on the need for kindness to the poor, the outcast and homeless. And, while children had slipped into their dreams of Christmas, the adults had slid into thoughts of persons they didn't like or trust. Just the kind of people the priest was talking about. At the conclusion of the homily, the priest continued and that's when the snores began. They soon identified the culprit, wrapped in a blanket and fast asleep. He appeared to be a homeless bum that had drifted into the church for a safe and warm sleep.

And as the parishioners looked at this nameless intruder, it happened. In the midst of the snickering and disgusted glances a small voice said, "Do you think he had a nice Christmas, too, Mommy?"

122 years ago this week, people started to think differently when exposed to a new reality. What was this new reality? Any trivia buffs out there know? It was the new reality of air travel. If people picked baby names on the basis of historical importance, the world today would be full of Orvilles and Wilburs. But it's not.

Still, few people have changed the course of history more than the Wright Brothers of Dayton, Ohio. In the process, they developed steering techniques that are still being used in 21st-century airplanes, spacecraft, submarines and robots. On December 17, 1903, Orville took off from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, near Kitty Hawk, and flew the gasoline-powered Wright Flyer for 12 seconds. That same day, Wilbur piloted the plane for 59 seconds, covering a grand total of 852 feet, the two of them thus becoming the first flyers¾ first famous flyers, first famous frequent flyers. And thus, too, the advent of the age of aeronautics.

Because of these feats, people started to think differently. What had been heretofore impossible was now possible. Worlds that before December 17 were inaccessible were now accessible. Bill Gates puts it in perspective when he says that "The Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages ideas, and values together."

Not many such days come along in history when people from that moment on start to think differently. We've had a few in our own time. The day Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak jerry-rigged a computer in their garage and the day atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the bay of the Enola Gay come to mind.

The day a baby was born in Bethlehem was such a day. With his birth, everything...

In ancient times, when cities anticipated important civic celebrations-particularly the visit of a king or great leader there would be a time of building, upgrading, remodeling and renewing to prepare the people and the city for the royal visit. Words like "repair" and "prepare" would become part of an often-chaotic ramp up to the royal arrival. These cities would not want to disappoint their leaders by having their roads, and buildings looking dismal. Are you doing this now if you are hosting family for the holidays? You are making things look nice and festive.

We witnessed this as the Christmas stroll and parade was drawing near. Business's decorating for the season, some doing some repair work and replacing things. Floats were prepared, hot chocolate stands were put together and manned on the night of the parade. Good thing because it was cold out there. Preparations is what this season is all about. Are you prepared for it?

Consider all that you do to prepare for Christmas. Often we are so hurried and bustling about, preoccupied with all our preparations that we miss the whole purpose for which we are preparing. What is preoccupying you? Make a mental list or jot it on your bulletin. What are the most important things you don't want to miss this season? Perhaps these include quality family time, conversations with your children, a real vacation, or just staying within your budget.

In the text from Luke, we encounter the call to prepare our lives for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus. The Gospel writer, Luke, begins this great section of the unfolding story of God's salvation by naming the chaos; lifting up the need for repair and preparation. What Luke writes about and describes in Luke 3 is nothing short of...

DNA-it's the way we're made! It's a part of the way God made every living thing through the process of creation, but it took us until 1957 to understand the process whereby proteins are produced from nucleic DNA. In 1962 James Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize for their determination of the structure of DNA.


In the next four weeks we're going to look at God's DNA, the spiritual strands that connect generations from the beginning of time and into eternity. Remember the words from Jeremiah 33: "I will cause a righteous branch to spring forth." This righteous branch is David, but every branch has roots that grow from somewhere. The roots of this family tree are found in Abraham, the great father of the three major religions of the world. From the deep, great roots of Abraham springs a branch. His name was David. He was a king. He was the right person in the right place at the right time to continue the spiritual DNA that began with Abraham. And while he was the right person, he wasn't a perfect person. And while it was the right time, it wasn't a perfect time.


When Jeremiah spoke the prophetic words of Chapter 33 that were just read, God's people were in exile in Babylon. Jeremiah had called them to repent; they didn't. Jeremiah strongly urged them to return to God; but they wouldn't. So, in Babylon the people mourned their losses and wept because they'd been forcibly removed from what was, in Jewish thought, the only place where God lived. The people of Israel sang together and lamented in their hearts...


Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?

It's called exile! And in the middle of the darkness comes a voice of hope from the prophet Jeremiah. The Message says it well in this very creative way...

"Watch for this; The time is coming" God's Decree-"when I will keep the promise I made to the families of Israel and Judah. When that time comes, I will make a fresh and true shoot sprout from the David-Tree. He will run this country honestly and fairly. He will set things right. That's when Judah will be secure and Jerusalem live in safety. The motto for the city will be, 'God Has Set Things Right for Us.'

God has made it clear that there will always be a descendant of David ruling the people of Israel and that there will always be Levitical priests on hand to.​..