“The Spirit of Christmas”
Luke 1:26-38; Matt
There is a lot of talk about Christmas Spirit
Around this time of year.
Usually
when people say Christmas Spirit,
They are either talking about a Charles
Dickens
Spirit
of generosity and giving as opposed
To
the character Scrooge who had
No
Christmas spirit
At least until the end.
Well tonight I want to take a different look at the
Christmas
spirit, and I want us to think about
The presence of God’s Spirit.
Sometimes
we think that the Holy Spirit
Only
appeared after Jesus:
“I have said these things to your while I am
still with you. But
the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything,
and
remind you of all that I have said to you.”
Or we think
of the Holy Spirit appearing
for the first
time in Pentecost.
We take this to mean that the Holy Spirit doesn’t
appear
Until
Jesus ministry on earth is done,
But
we forget that the Holy Spirit was there
At
Jesus conception:
When
the Angel appeared to Mary, he said:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
And
the power of the Most High will overshadow you,
Therefore
the child to be born will be holy;
He
will be called Son of God”
When Joseph was concerned that his fiancé was
pregnant,
The
Angel in a dream tells him:
“Joseph, son of
Mary
as your wife, for the child conceived in her
Is from the Holy Spirit.”
So we could certainly make a case that the Spirit of
Christmas
Is indeed the Holy Spirit of the Triune God.
This is a
far cry from the Spirit of Christmas
That brings cheer and goodwill.
This
Spirit of God changes the world.
This
Spirit effects new life,
This Spirit changed Joseph’s heart and mind.
This
Spirit surprises us like the Shepherds
Were
surpised as they watched their flocks
This
Spirit is not a Spirit that we can control
But
rather the Spirit of God is
The one who controls us.
When
“
With
a loud cry ‘Blessed are you among women and
Blessed
is the fruit of your womb’.”
When Simeon went to the
The
text says: “Guided by the Spirit, Simeon
came into the
temple, when the parents brought the child Jesus.”
The Spirit of Christ, God’s Holy Spirit, is not a
quiet
Unobtrusive spirit of goodwill and good cheer.
God’s Holy Spirit changes our lives,
God’s Spirit brought us here to worship
tonight,
To receive and celebrate God’s Son, Jesus
Christ.
And God’s Holy Spirit will be here
long after the
Just
as Jesus said,
the Spirit will
remind us of all that Jesus said
and the Spirit
will comfort us and guide us.
The Holy Spirit is even more compelling and surprising
Than
the Spirits of Christmas past, Christmas Present or
Christmas
future in the Dickens novel,
“A Christmas Carol”.
“The Spirit of God was moving over the face of the
water”
When
God created the world by His Word,
The Spirit
of God was present in Mary,
And
Elizabeth and Simeon
as God
recreated the world
in his Word
made flesh.
And the
Spirit God is in each on of us
As
we come to worship tonight seeking the
Christ
Child and as we share
a communion meal in
his name
and by his
Spirit.
Ann Weems, a Christian poet
who has battled cancer wrote:
“The Christmas
Spirit is that hope which tenaciously clings
to the heart of the
faithful and announces
in the face of any Herod that the world can produce
and all the
inn doors slammed in our faces
and all the darkness of our souls,
that
with God all things are possible,
that
even now, unto us,
a child is born!
Amen