Special Outreach Christmas Service

“SERVICE OF THE LONGEST NIGHT”

First Christian Church is sponsoring a worship service on Tuesday evening, Dec. 21, 7:00-8:00 PM for people in our community who are struggling and hurting and not having a "merry" Christmas. For some, the memories of beloved family members who have died brings pain at this time of year. For others the sadness of divorce or broken relationships brings anguish to this season. For many, the anxious insecurity of unemployment or the menacing cloud of poor health darken this Christmas.
For those who have empty places in their hearts and homes, we are offering a worship service on the longest, darkest night of the year, Dec. 21st. This informal Christmas worship service will be an opportunity to acknowledge sadness, grief, struggle, and to know that you are not alone.
No need to dress up, just come as you are and receive the strengthening words of hope from Scripture and from the community of faith. We will be reminded of the Christ child who comes into our dark and troubled world to bring light and hope.

If you have questions, contact Judy Turner, 479-253-5865

Hope for a Lifetime

A Christmas Eve Meditation

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that, in the Old Testament, God spoke in many ways, but that he has spoken in a unique and definitive way through his Son Jesus, for whom and through whom God created the world. Jesus is the glory and image of God and the sustainer of the universe by his word of power. He atones for sin by means of his perfect offering of himself, and he is seated in the place of authoritative judgment at the right hand of God. God the Father commands his angels to worship Jesus. We do well to echo the angels as they worship, “With the angelic host proclaim, “Christ is born in Bethlehem!”

Why all this fuss about Jesus? Quite simply, Jesus Christ is our one and only hope. I am not offering a one-dimensional claim here. I am offering a multi-dimensional and all-encompassing claim. Jesus is our one and only hope in every dimension worth mentioning.

1. The God-dimension. The most basic questions in life are these: Does God exist? If God exists, how powerful is God? If God exists and is powerful, is God worthy of our trust, love, obedience, and worship? How can we know that we know that we know about God? The most basic and most profound answers to these God questions are given in Jesus. As John writes in the preamble to his Gospel, “No one has ever seen God, but the one of a kind divine Son has made him known.” Jesus the divine Son gives us unique and dependable evidence, evidence that human beings like us have seen with their eyes and touched with their hands, evidence that God exists, that God reigns over all, that God is love, that God is holy, that God is worthy of our total devotion. I do not know of any other avenue by which we can know nearly so much about God and know it so reliably. By definition, we can only have one best hope, and, in the God dimension, Jesus is our one best hope, our one and only hope.

2. The human purpose dimension. When I was young, it was fashionable for young people to travel and dabble and experiment to try to find out who they were and what they were going to do with their lives. What is the purpose of human life in general and of my life in particular? In the scriptures, God has revealed a great deal on that topic, and, in Jesus Christ, God has brought all that into clear focus. The scriptures tell us in many times and in many ways that our human purpose is to be children and servants of God and to live for God’s glory. As the Letter to the Hebrews says, Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature; he is the very picture not only of who God is, but also of who we can become. The New Testament assures us that Jesus is both the Royal Son and Suffering Servant of God. If we want to find ourselves, we will best do so not by dabbling in this and that, but by being immersed in his life, death, and resurrection, by exploring the deep mysteries of his self-giving, redeeming, and ultimately victorious love, and through him to discover the disciplines of becoming children and servants of God, the people we were created to be. In the human purpose dimension, Jesus is our one best hope, our one and only hope.

3. The human dilemma dimension. The problem is that we have rebelled against God, we have decided to take matters into our own hands, believing and doing what is right in our own eyes. Our moral or spiritual shortcuts have made a great mess of our lives and world. God cannot tolerate our sin forever, but neither can God abandon his love for us. So Jesus came to bring God’s love and holiness together in a way that rescues us from our sin, dying on the cross to show us both the great cost of our sin and the great payment he has made to cover the cost. Then he offers to clothe those of us who believe in him with his own righteousness while he restores us by degrees into his image as children of God. In all of human history, there has never been one other sufficient resolution of the human dilemma. Jesus is the only game in town. In the human dilemma dimension, Jesus is our own best hope, our one and only hope.

4. The social dimension. Sin is not just an individual problem, but it gets institutionalized in the ways we organize our lives together. We have many cultural, consumer, vocational, and electoral choices, but most of the choices amount to, “Whose set of perks do we pad?” Jesus did not get into supporting one set of social elites over a competing set of social elites. He did not support synagogue elites versus temple elites, or vice versa, He did not support national liberationist elites versus imperialist elites, or vice versa. He did not support liberal Pharisaic elites versus conservative Pharisaic elites or vice versa. He instead structured his disciples into mutually supportive communities of hope, embodying redeeming and reconciling love in their daily relationships. The rest of the culture was seeking to climb one ladder or another to power, privilege, and prosperity. Jesus’ disciples were seeking instead to empower children and servants of God to lead fruitful lives for the glory of God. Even the best church is infected with sin, but churches built as communities of hope can help us hold our own against the dominant forces of our cultural institutions so that the lives we lead are more meaningful and satisfying. In the social dimension, Jesus is our one best hope, our one and only hope.

We could go on listing dimension after dimension in which Jesus gives us our only hope, not least the eternal dimension in which Jesus is our only hope to enter the perfect and everlasting new heaven and new earth. But, for any dimension of our lives, the point is that we begin to see and claim the hope. Do you want to see and claim the hope? Focus on Jesus. Believe his gospel. Be baptized into him. Let him be your Savior and your Lord. Let him teach you to see all of your life in a new way, through his eyes. He offers you a hope for a lifetime, our one best hope, our one and only hope.

Taking Joy to a New Level

A Meditation on Mary's Praise of God

After the Angel Gabriel visited the betrothed but still virgin Mary with the news that she would give miraculous conception and birth to a son to be named Jesus, who would be the Son of God, the heir of David’s throne, and the king of an eternal kingdom, she went to visit her much older cousin Elizabeth who prophetically and miraculously confirmed Gabriel’s message. Mary then praised God with the words that have become known in church tradition as the Magnificat, a rich meditation on scripture and deep praise to God. Here is what she said:

Luke 1:46 And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50 And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; 52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; 53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55 as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

What I want us to notice about this passage are the precocious characteristics of young Mary, whom many scholars guess to be approximately 14 years old in this passage.

(1) Mary was willing to rejoice in God even when she was facing very troubling circumstances. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior….”

(2) Mary had a deep understanding of God’s sovereign power. “He who is mighty has done great things…. He has shown strength with his arm

(3) Mary had a deep understanding of God’s scriptural promises. Her words especially echo the prayer of Hannah as she dedicated her son Samuel to the Lord, but through them resonate the heart of the Psalms and the Prophets. Mary knew that all this was rooted in the saving work that God began through the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and it would enter a dramatically new dimension in Mary’s son Jesus.

(4) Mary had a deep understanding of the holiness and mercy that come together in God’s character. Holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

(5) Mary had a deep understanding of God’s purposes for transforming life in this world. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

Next, I want us to notice, as we look through the years beyond Mary’s spiritual precociousness, that she still had to struggle to come to terms with daily realities, and not just for a short time, but for much of her life.

(1) She and her betrothed Joseph were poor.

(2) She had a pregnancy that neither Joseph nor their Nazareth neighbors could comprehend by ordinary rationality as anything other than the result of adultery.

(3) Just as she was nearly due to deliver her child, she and Joseph had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census tax imposed by an occupying empire.

(4) When they dedicated Jesus at the Jerusalem temple, the elderly Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be a sign that was spoken against and that a sword would pierce her soul.

(5) Warned by the wise men that Herod the Great planned to kill their son, Joseph and Mary fled with Jesus to Egypt where they stayed until they heard that Herod had died, and then they moved back to Nazareth.

(6) When Jesus was twelve, Mary began to experience that mothering the Messiah was not going to be something that left her in full control.

(7) When Jesus and his first disciples attended a wedding in Cana of Galilee, Mary discovered that, even when Jesus did the miracle that she requested, he reminded her sharply that she was not in charge of his ministry.

(8) When Mary and Jesus’ younger brothers became convinced that Jesus was losing touch with reality, letting his ministry spin out of control, not taking care of himself, arousing enmity from the religious leaders, and they sought to seize him in order to protect him, they had to listen from the edge of the crowd as he redefined his family as those who hear and do the will of God.

(9) Mary had to live in Nazareth as the residents, enraged with Jesus’ affirmation of God’s love for Gentiles, sought to throw him over a cliff.

(10) Mary had to stand by helplessly and watch as Jesus was crucified in an agonizing and generally considered shameful death.

(11) Mary had to experience the shock of finding Jesus’ tomb empty, with the first assumption no doubt being that someone had robbed the tomb to further dishonor Jesus’ body.

(12) It is with immense relief that we find her gathered with Jesus’ disciples in the upper room following his ascension. We can be assured that she was part of the joyous proclamation that went out through Jerusalem and ultimately to the whole world that Jesus was not only risen from the dead, but also ascended into heaven, in the place of power, from which position he sent the Holy Spirit to lead and empower the mission of the church to the world. Despite her many struggles, we may trust that she experienced in this life the joy of carrying the gospel to the world and that her place in eternity is one of honor and continual rejoicing.