A New Year with Jesus | Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (ELCA) Manchester MO

Pastor:

Pr. John Gerike

Sermon audio:

Sermon: A New Year with Jesus

December 31, 2011 and January 1, 2012

Luke 2:22-40

I get to preach this sermon in 2 different years.

Saturday night in 2011

and Sunday morning in 2012.

That doesn’t happen real often.

And I’ve been reminded that,

as we enter a new year,

I return again and again

to a prayer printed in the hymnal.

So, I will return to that again today.

Let’s find that and pray it together.

It’s on page 317 in the front of the hymnal,

right after the music.

It begins—“O God, you have called…”

Let’s pray it together:

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

It’s a great prayer for the new year.

We stand at the beginning of a new year.

If you’re like me,

you wonder what 2012 will bring.

What will be the joys?

What will be the sorrows?

What will happen in the year to come?

We don’t know.

Maybe it’s best that God doesn’t let us know.

Maybe it would become a burden.

We don’t know what the next year will bring.

But to say we don’t know the future,

is not to say that we know nothing of the future.

There are some things we know.

And the most important thing we know

is that God is with us.

And God will be with us

each day of the year ahead.

That’s the good news for 2012.

Just like it was the good news for 2011.

At the beginning of World War II,

Britain’s King George quoted these words

in a Christmas speech:

“I said to the man at the gate of the year,

‘Give me a light

that I may go forth into the unknown.’

And the man replied,

‘Put your hand into the hand of God.

That shall be to you better than a light,

safer than a known way.’”

We don’t know the future.

But we know who holds the future.

And, as we enter the new year,

we need to hear again and again

witnesses to our Savior.

We need to be reminded again and again

of the gift of Jesus.

In our Gospel reading from Luke,

we heard about Simeon and Anna,

who had been waiting for Jesus,

believing the promise.

And now Jesus had come

Anna was 84 years old.

She’d been a widow for years and years.

She never left the temple.

And was constantly praying and fasting

And when Jesus came into the temple—

--8 days old—

--she knew.

She knew he was the one

they’d been waiting for.

And she praised God,

and told everyone around

that he was the Messiah,

the redeemer they’d been waiting for.

She didn’t know everything that would happen,

but she knew that Jesus was the one

who was coming to lead the way.

And there was Simeon.

The Holy Spirit had told him

that he wouldn’t die until he saw the Messiah.

And he was getting old.

But on this special day,

the Spirit of God guided him to the temple.

And when Jesus was brought in by Mary and Joseph—

--he knew.

He knew this was the one.

This was the Messiah.

And he said words

which are now called the Nunc Dimittis,

which we sometimes sing in worship

(although not as often as we used to).

If you look on page 113 in the front of your hymnals—

--bottom half of the page

--and read those words with me:

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:

your word has been fulfilled.

My own eyes have seen the salvation

which you have prepared

in the sight of every people;

a light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace.

Jesus.

Salvation for Isarael.

And for the nations—

--for Gentiles

--for non-Jewish people

--for all people.

For you and for me.

The Messiah had come.

Simeon had seen him.

Now he could die in peace.

He was a witness to the Christ Child.

And Simeon’s song

makes me think of other songs.

The Christmas carols and songs we have been singing.

These, too, are witnesses to the Christ Child,

the Savior who leads us into the new year.

I haven’t done this for a few years,

so I’d like to tell you stories

of a couple of these songs.

There’s a familiar Christmas carol

that’s based on Psalm 98—

--although it’s not real obvious to me.

Would you turn to Psalm 98.

And we’re going to read from verse 4 to the end:

4-Shout with joy to the Lord,

all you lands;

lift up your voice, rejoice and sing.

5-Sing to the Lord with the harp,

with the harp and the voice of song.

6-With trumpets

and the sound of the horn

shout with joy

before the king, the Lord.

7-Let the sea roar, and all that fills it,

the world and those

who dwell therein.

8-Let the rivers clap their hands,

and let the hills ring out with joy

before the Lord,

who comes to judge the earth.

9-The Lord will judge the world

with righteousness

and the peoples with equity.

Do you know what the song is?

I didn’t.

It’s “Joy to the World”—hymn 267.

Which actually has been put in the Advent section of this hymnal

The words were written by Isaac Watts.

Do you see down at the bottom of the page

when he lived?

1674-1748.

His story is an interesting one.

He wrote his first poem when he was 7.

And his last when he was in his 70’s.

When he was 18,

he didn’t like the hymns at church

and he told his dad about it.

His Dad replied,

with the wisdom of the ages:

“Those hymns were good enough for your grandfather and your father;

son, they’ll have to be good enough for you, too.”

Egged on by his brother,

Isaac responded:

“They’ll never do for me—regardless of what you

or your father thought of them.”

And the angry Mr. Watts shouted:

“If you don’t like the hymns we sing,

then write better ones.”

To which Isaac replied:

“I have written better ones,

and if you relax and listen,

I’ll read one to you.”

(Does it seem like conversations between teenagers and parents

haven’t changed much in 300 years?)

But give his Dad credit.

He sat down and listened.

And Isaac read him his first hymn verse:

Behold the glories of the Lamb,

Amidst His Father’s throne;

Prepare new honors for His name,

And songs as yet unknown.

As was true for almost all his hymns,

this was based on the Bible—

--in this case Revelation 5:6-10.

Well, Dad took the hymn to church,

where it was lined out to the congregation—

--read to them in such a way

that they could sing it back line by line.

It was so well received,

that 18-year-old Isaac was requested to write a new hymn

for the next Sunday,

and then the next, and then the next.

Until he had written a hymn for church for 222 Sundays in a row—

--more than 4 years.

Isaac Watts went on the lead a congregation.

But he was only 38 when he health began to decline

and he had to resign.

He accepted an invitation from the Lord Mayor of London,

Sir Thomas and Lady Abney,

to recuperate at their spacious estate.

He planned to stay a few weeks,

and ended up staying 36 years.

(How would you like that from your Christmas guests?)

During those 36 years, he wrote many hymns,

including a collection based on the Psalms.

In that collection was a hymn based on Psalm 90,

which we know as:

“O God, Our Help in Ages Past”,

a meditation on Psalm 72,

which we know as:

“Jesus Shall Reign, Where’er the Sun”

and a Christmas hymn (or Advent in this hymnal)

based on Psalm 98:

“Joy to the World.”

Let’s sing the first verse (again):

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her king;

Let ev’ry heart prepare him room

and heav’n and nature sing,

and heav’n, and heav’n and nature sing.

The hymn is a witness to the Christ Child.

To our response.

And to the impact on the whole world.

For God so loved the world

that he gave his only son,

that whoever believes in him should not perish

but have eternal life.

One more.

Did you realize

that we don’t know

exactly where the word Noel comes from?

Some say it’s from the French,

meaning a shout of joy.

The shout of joy at the birth of Jesus.

Some say it’s from the Latin,

from a word similar to “natalis”,

meaning birth.

Or perhaps from a different Latin word,

from “Novella”, which means “news”—

--the good news of Jesus’ birth.

One interesting possibility that I like

is the possibility that it came from the English.

Through the years English phrases have been contracted

into words.

For instance,

when people were parting,

they’d say “Fare thee well”,

which over time was shortened to:

“Farewell”.

Or they’d say: “God be with you.”

Over the years,

maybe partially because of mumbling,

“God be with you” became…”Goodbye”.

Nor perhaps,

“Nowell” (N-O-W-E-L-L is an alternate spelling)

was at first a phrase, too.

Perhaps it was the phrase “now all is well”.

Perhaps on Christmas morning,

people greeted each other by saying:

“Now all is well.”

Because of the coming of the Christ Child,

in a very real way,

all is well.

And perhaps, over time,

“now all is well” shortened to

“nowell”.

So, when the unknown poet who wrote “The First Noel”

sat down to write this song,

that first noel

reminded us that “Now all is well”

because Jesus is born.

The First Noel is hymn 300.

Let’s sing (again) verse 1:

The first Noel the angel did say

was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;

in fields where they lay, keeping their sheep,

on a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel!

Born is the King of Israel.

As we move into a new year,

may we know that “Now all is well”.

Even though we don’t know what the year will bring,

we know that God will go with us into that new year.

And, as we gather again and again in 2012,

may we each be witnessed to one another—

--sharing the amazing good news

that God is with us,

that God is guiding us,

that we are following Christ together,

that the Messiah has come.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen