December 19, 2021 ~ Fourth Sunday in Advent ~ Sermon & Zoom Worship Video Link

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/3p1hskhs_Qcmhzb92lyFSRoW0xb3vyob05g2_zfQc8SxB0I9TlR_X0OL7z9Za9r0.h7Jy9kMJBtwIPa6H?startTime=1639925816000

4^th Advent                                                                               12/19/21—Highland—Meute

“Hints of Hope” Advent Series: “God Has Mercy”

Micah 5: 2-5a; Luke 1: 39-55

Pearl: God’s grace and mercy abounds.

Function: To inspire the spirits of the listeners with the grace and mercy of the Lord.

Having children is an action of hope in any day and age.

1. I always tell this to young couples when they marry and when they speak of plans to have children. I also speak of it when talking to parents about the baptism of their children.
   1. I encourage them in their obvious general sense of hope in themselves, in the world, and in God, to decide to birth and nurture children into adulthood.
   1. It is a concrete act of hope.
2. On the other hand I heard a sermon preached by a young man recently. It was about the stewardship of creation including issues related to climate change and he made the statement which I keep recalling that many young couples are choosing not to have children over concerns about the nature of the world into which they would be born. So they are choosing not to have children because they are not as hopeful for the world in which we live.
   1. Recall that as Jesus was being led to the cross he noticed women weeping and he said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed” (Luke 23: 29, 30).
   1. Honestly, I get both postures.
   1. There is much to discourage us from bringing children into this beautiful but also terrible world.
3. At times there are very few “hints of hope.”
   1. Yet those hints assuredly do appear.

While there is much to discourage us there is also much to encourage us. God’s grace and mercy abounds, is ever-present, and does appear.

1. The prophets who spoke harshly and often with great distress also confidently proclaimed God’s goodness and trustworthiness.
   1. It was proclaimed about the promised Savior in Micah 5; “And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord.”
   1. The image of the Savior Messiah “standing and feeding,” that is, calmly tending a flock is one which inspires assurance and confidence.
2. Even in the most dire of circumstances the Lord oversees and sends forth grace and mercy.
   1. In the wake of the devastating tornadoes in Kentucky and surrounding states last weekend I read of a fellow who threw his big smoker-type grill into the back of his truck, loaded up food and water and drove about an hour to get to the center of destruction in Mayfield.
   1. He arrived and set up his grill and started cooking. People came to him as he gladly served up food and passed out water.
      1. God provided grace and mercy through this good soul who was moved to help. He provided something that was greatly needed and appreciated. Even though the food and water were needed, this good soul showing up and being there was just as good.
3. When Jerusalem was invaded and the temple destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6^th century B.C., Jeremiah lamented before God.
   1. In chapter three of Lamentations Jeremiah recorded his deeply despairing thoughts for which he blamed God:
      1. “I am one who has seen affliction under God’s wrath: he has brought me into darkness without any light; against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all day long…
      1. Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer…
      1. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding…
      1. He shot into my vitals the arrows of his quiver…
      1. The thoughts of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.”
         1. Over the course of twenty verses is this bitter lamentation depicting deep depression in Jeremiah.
   1. But then there is a dramatic turn and Jeremiah pens the following:
      1. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
      1. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
      1. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’”
4. Such despair in Jeremiah about the state of things for Judah and Jerusalem and God’s people…and then such deep hope in God!

God’s mercy and grace flow freely and God shows up.

The Pascucci household really got into the spirit of Christmas and always enjoyed decorating their home in Bethpage, NY.

1. Anthony, the family patriarch would take on the outside installation of lights while his wife Connie worked on decorating the tree inside playing “White Christmas” over and over to get into the spirit. Anthony and Connie enjoyed shopping and checking out new decorations every year to see what innovations they would bring to their display.
2. Last year, in 2020, Anthony’s son, Anthony Jr., and daughter, Sara, who share the home pitched in as well. After they were finished the whole place looked like a scene from a pop-up Christmas storybook. It was such a rough year (2020) that they tried their best to make it extra special.
3. On Christmas Eve they were all looking forward to platters of fried calamari and stuffed clams—a typical Italian feast. Most of all they were looking forward to another Christmas together as a family.
   1. Then Connie got a call: someone at work had tested positive for Covid-19. Though Connie didn’t have any symptoms she decided to get tested right away. Her rapid test came back positive. Anthony Sr., Anthony Jr., and Sara got tested as well. They learned that they also had Covid.
   1. Five days later Connie felt weak and wouldn’t eat. Sara called an ambulance, but Connie died before she got to the hospital. Less than a week later Anthony Sr. passed away.
4. Anthony Jr. and Sara dealt with deep grief over the next several weeks as well as their own battles with Covid. They had to work through all of the many details like mortgage, transferring utility bills and the endless list of to-dos.
5. When Sara pulled up to the house at the end of a long day the Christmas lights brought her a spark of joy. The lights were the last mementos to Sara and Anthony Jr. of their beloved.
   1. Sara couldn’t bring herself to put them away.
6. One day in February an anonymous letter showed up at the house. It was a typed message which read, “Take your Christmas lights down! It’s Valentine’s Day!!!”
   1. Sara was in shock and then she got angry.
   1. She logged onto a local Long Island Moms Facebook page and shared the letter, adding a note of her own: “For anyone in the Bethpage area—if you know of a person who would do something so insensitive like this, please pass along my message.” She ended the post with this: “Be kind to people because you never know what they are going through.”
7. Others in the group rallied to Sara’s side. Her inbox quickly filled with messages of support. A local news station learned what happened and ran a segment about it.
   1. The prevailing sentiment from many well-wishers was: keep the Christmas lights up.
   1. Then driving home from work one day Sara began to notice that Christmas lights and decorations were appearing—or reappearing—on neighbor’s houses.
      1. Her neighbors had gotten together and decided, collectively, to hang their lights back up and turn them on in honor of Anthony Sr. and Connie. They were a beloved couple in the neighborhood.
   1. The support didn’t stop there. The man formerly named Frank Pascuzzi—who legally changed his name to Santa Claus—saw Sara’s story on TV, he decided to take his Santa suit out of seasonal retirement. On Valentine’s Day, Claus rode down Sara and Anthony Jr.’s street in a car parade he helped organize and which featured Mrs. Claus and the Grinch. One of the first cars in line blasted “Frosty the Snowman” while some 60 others followed in vehicles decked out with flashing Christmas lights.
8. A few weeks after the “Valentine’s Day Christmas Parade,” Sara and Anthony decided they were ready to take down the lights. Sara said it was hard to pack them away—“but not as hard as it would have been if we didn’t experience all that support and love” (RD, Dec’21/Jan’22).

This family experienced God’s grace and mercy through many, many good-hearted souls, too many to even know.

1. For everyone who was moved by what happened they acted because in some way they understood all of God’s goodness, grace, and mercy toward them and wanted to share it with a family in distress who were the victims of rude and insensitive, unkindness.
2. For those who perceive it, and for those who are opened to it, “God’s goodness and mercy follows them all of their days” (Psalm 23:6).

God’s grace and mercy abounds.

And God’s mercy is so great that it is certainly available for the Scrooges who send letters like the one sent to the Pascucci household.

1. I think the sender of that letter watched what happened, and like the Grinch himself, his small heart grew three sizes the day he saw the neighbors redecorate their homes and the parade that occurred. And that was God’s doing.
2. Grace and mercy change the world.
3. This fourth Sunday of Advent as we anticipate the birth of the Savior we wait to celebrate the gift of God’s mercy and grace.
   1. Jesus was the embodiment of God’s grace and mercy.
   1. He showed in his life, in his ministry, and in his death, a human soul fully possessed by the grace and mercy of God.
   1. He embodied the very real truth that God’s love never ceases and his mercy is new every morning.
   1. The community which rallied around the Pascucci family showed that love and mercy are new every morning.

In these kinds of ways, through people who perceive it, the goodness of God provides hints of hope.

1. As people take the time to see each other, as people realize that you never know what someone else is going through, God’s mercy and grace is able to flow through them, providing hint after hint of hope.
   1. The appearance of the Savior of the world, in Jesus Christ, is the embodiment of God’s grace and mercy.
      1. “Let every heart prepare him room,
      1. And heaven and nature sing”
         1. Of God’s great grace and mercy.