Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Well, the countdown is on! The Christmas tree has arrived. The poinsettias have arrived. The wreaths are hung. The services for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are initially designed. The fourth Advent candle is lit today, meaning there are no more Sundays until Christmas. If you don’t count today, there are three days until Christmas Eve and four days until Christmas. Where has our time of preparation gone?

With a timetable like that before us , merchants are asking us many questions: “What do you still have to buy?” ; “For whom do you still have to buy?” ; “At what price can you continue to not buy?’; “How early do we have to open and how late do we have to stay open to convince you to buy?”; “What else do we have to do to get you to buy and to buy from us?”

Yes, the countdown is on. We’ve ticked things off our list, which is hopefully much shorter than it was the day after Thanksgiving. We still have four more days to listen to the merchants before they start with their post-Christmas advertising. I am not going to recite any of the questions we will then hear from the merchants as the first evidence of Valentine’s Day appears on the store shelves, but I am going to ask you a question, a very important question, the most important question you will ever answer in your entire life. That question is “How will you greet Jesus?”

Elizabeth didn’t have to ask herself that question. Her response just kind of happened all by itself. St. Luke tells us that as the recently pregnant Mary approached and greeted her cousin, the recently pregnant Elizabeth, the unborn child in Elizabeth’s womb, whom we would later come to know as John the Baptist, lept. Then Elizabeth herself uttered some words that have eternally made their way into the Roman Catholic “Hail, Mary”: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the Child thou shalt bear.”

Now here are some questions for you. How was the unborn John the Baptist prepared to leap at the exact moment that the unborn Christ-child approached? I mean, baby movements in the womb are not unusual, so that must have really been some kick – some jump – for Elizabeth to have taken note and comment about it. How did the unborn John the Baptist know that exact moment? Luke tells us that it was in response to Mary’s greeting, but how did the unborn John the Baptist know that voice? He had never before heard it. And at least St. Luke doesn’t tell us that Mary spilled the beans with the words of her first greeting. And, if that’s really the case, how did Elizabeth know the words she prophetically proclaimed? As I read Scripture, Mary had been told that Elizabeth was pregnant, but Elizabeth had not been told that Mary was pregnant, let alone that she was pregnant with the long-expected Messiah.

Now answer those questions. No, don’t answer those questions. Those questions have been asked for 2,000 years now without any answers clearly emerging. In the end, even a correct answer to those questions, beyond what St. Luke tells us, that they were filled with the Holy Spirit, is really not all that important. A correct answer won’t change history. A much more important question to ask is “How will you greet Jesus?’

In my Uncle Jerry’s family, when they sit down to eat their Christmas dinner, they join hands and sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. In Latin American tradition, Mary and Joseph are present in creche scenes during Advent, but the baby Jesus doesn’t appear in the manger until Christmas morning. In liturgical church tradition, a formal proclamation is read – as it will be read here on Christmas morning – stating in elegant words how many years had passed since the creation of the world, how many centuries had passed since the great flood, and God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah, and Moses leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt, and King David’s reign, finally culminating with the words, “Jesus Christ, eternal God, Son of the eternal Father, willing to hallow the world by His coming in mercy, was born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judea. Today is the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, God-made-flesh.”

That’s how others greet Jesus. How about you? How will you greet Jesus this Christmas? Those are personal questions, the answers to which are probably as varied as there are people here today. As your pastor, I would certainly encourage you – however you do it – to greet Jesus this Christmas and make sure that Christmas is not just another day off work, another day to gather with family and friends, another day to gorge ourselves on good food.

Let me ask you an even more important question: “How will you greet Jesus when He comes again, maybe even when He comes for you individually, which may be today or tomorrow or during 2010? How will you greet Jesus when He comes again?”

During the past 16 years, I have conducted close to 200 funerals. With just about every one of those funerals – whether for a member or a non-member of this congregation – I have either personally seen or later heard a story, a story of how that person died. That’s part of our grief process – repeating that story of that loss in our lives over and over again. Some are peaceful stories, as a person well-advanced in years simply went to bed and didn’t wake up the next morning. Other stories bring a tear to your eye, like the first funeral I conducted here in October, 1994 – a 30-something-year-old diabetic, a member of the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue team, who died while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains, his truck found at the trail head, his body not found for several more days, or the story I was a part of during 2008 of the young couple whose five-day-old son, Quinn, died.

Of all the stories I have heard, one will forever remain in my mind, a story that I heard in October, a story of how our former member, Lee Klima, greeted Jesus. Ninety-two years old and with a rock-solid faith and with good, strong Northern Illinois blood flowing through her veins, Lee was certainly ready to go home whenever Jesus was ready for her, but most of us thought she’d still be around for a few more years. She was found one morning in her recliner, where she had probably been the night before. Not an unusual story, until you hear one little pertinent fact: she was found with a smile on her face. What a wonderful thing for a care facility staff member to be able to mention when placing that difficult call to her family! A smile on her face when she greeted Jesus!

Lee was obviously on the same page as John the Baptist and as Elizabeth. She had obviously been filled with the Holy Spirit, Who had brought her to saving faith in Jesus Christ and Who had convinced her that meeting Jesus was nothing to be feared, but something to be joyfully celebrated. In my own imagination I can even see her body participating in a little “John the Baptist leap” as her soul left her body with a smile on her face.

You and I can greet Jesus in that same way because the Holy Spirit has touched our hearts and brought us to saving faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior – we call it Baptism. The Holy Spirit has, through the daily study of His Word and through weekly corporate worship, taught us the almost unbelievable saving truth about Jesus – that He, the sinless Son of God, entered our time and our space and not only clothed Himself with our flesh [Philippians 2:7], but clothed Himself in our sins [2 Corinthians 5:21], carrying them to a Cross on a mountain called Calvary, paying the price for each of those sins, suffering death for those sins, then rising joyfully and victoriously on Easter morning for you and for me.

As you greet Jesus this Christmas and when you greet Him when He comes again, whenever that may be, greet Him not with excuses or apologies, but greet Him with joy – with a smile on your face – with full confidence that in the Babe born in Bethlehem you find nothing but your Savior.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena