Carol Service Message: 4th Advent Sunday December 19th, 2021
“It must be every day...”
So, did you enjoy our sketch – “The Shepherd and the Psychiatrist?”
Talk about type-casting – Irene as the therapist and Mark as the patient needing treatment!
So, who can tell me what is a psychiatrist & why would you need one?
What do you think would have happened - if the shepherds had simply stayed in their fields watching sheep and not gone to Bethlehem – and had (as it were) taken the shrink’s advice to forget about it all – the visit of God’s angels and the baby Jesus – or (at best) think about it just once a year?
Well, we might not have the story? That is hard to imagine...
But the Lord made sure he visited lowly (lonely) shepherds. He knew they would “do as they were told” – that they would go and tell others about what they had seen and heard. He knew they would follow the bright star and make their way to Jesus.
The shepherds must also have known just how much the Lord loved them – because (after all) it was to them that He came – and He came for them – not only in a spectacular array of singing angels...but in the face of a child born (probably just like them) in the meanest of circumstances...near to the fields where they lived and worked and died. The shepherds were simple people.
I feel sure that the shepherds not only made their way to the cradle...to a baby...but they would have followed the God man Jesus all the way to the cross and beyond. The shepherds knew what so many people seem to have forgotten nowadays - that Jesus was “not just for Christmas.”
“Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay; close by me forever, and love me, I pray. Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care; and fit us for heaven to live with Thee there...”
There was a time when the people of this country thought very deeply about the meaning of the birth of Jesus. Christmas was a simple, wonderful Christian festival. They knew the story of Jesus Christ...the never-ending story.
It is easy to forget all about it, to discard the things of God altogether. Even we’re sometimes guilty of that. It’s easy to keep the child in the cradle – because then we don’t have to think about the cross and what that means for our lives and how we should live them. Why else would we sing, “Holy Jesus, every day; keep us in the narrow way?”
Faith in Jesus is a 24/7 365 thing. It’s all or nothing. There is no fence to sit on. We cannot worship God in the holiday season. It must be every day. We can’t just drag the baby out at Christmas and then, when the fairy-lights get taken down, pack Jesus away to collect dust for a year. It must be every day. That may mean that sometimes people will think we suffer from delusions, and there’s nothing new about that. The bible tells us that even Jesus’ family thought he was mad – that he was “beside himself”.
Well, I’m happy to be like Adam Sheepdip-the-shepherd. I’m happy to ignore the shrink’s advice. Some people might think I’m barking, bonkers or batty. But I remember what the very grown up Jesus says:
8 “I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. 9 But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God.
You need your head examined if you ignore the Great Physician’s advice!
MFR (18/12/21)