Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for Sunday 13 December 2015:

The TV is full of it at the moment.

On the cooking channels and even on some of the more mainstream channels: Nigella’s Christmas Recipes, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal, River Cottage …

All the celebrity chefs are at it.

Just “do this” and you will have a stress-free Christmas that will be the tastiest ever.

Some of the recipes are simply fabulous, others downright weird, while yet others require ingredients that are just not that easy to find outside of multicultural cities.

But, while these shows and the recipes on them may be good, none of them guarantee you joy at Christmas. None of them guarantee you the real spirit of Christmas.

For that, I think, we need to turn to a minor Old Testament Prophet and a prolific letter writer. For they have the secret to joy at Christmas. And it is not in the way you baste your turkey or in what is lying under the Christmas tree. It is something much cheaper and much simpler.

Zephaniah’s prophecy

So let us hear, first of all from Zephaniah. His prophecy is only three chapters long and it starts very negatively – full of doom and gloom. But he does not leave it there and it ends on a real high, full of hope and promise, as we shall hear this morning.

14 Sing, Daughter Zion;
shout aloud, Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
Daughter Jerusalem!
15 The Lord has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
16 On that day
they will say to Jerusalem,
“Do not fear, Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
17 The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”
18 “I will remove from you
all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals,
which is a burden and reproach for you.
19 At that time I will deal
with all who oppressed you.
I will rescue the lame;
I will gather the exiles.
I will give them praise and honor
in every land where they have suffered shame.
20 At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortunes
before your very eyes,”
says the Lord.

Josiah had been a great king in Judah.

Sensing the Assyrian rule over Judah to be waning, he fought for, and achieved, firstly, religious freedom and, finally, political freedom.

He carried out some excavations in Jerusalem, which yielded a magnificent treasure: the rediscovery of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

He led the people back to a new covenant, as they rediscovered the law and vowed to keep the commandments. However, much of what was done was outward show.

The people returned to God outwardly, but their hearts were not really in it. The prophet Zephaniah recognized this and it was in this environment that we worked and prophesied.

His message, as I say, starts off all doom and gloom. But he is not one to pass judgment without giving hope and that hope comes at the end of his prophecy, in the section we just heard, for he gives, in these verses, his recipe for joy, gladness and the restoration of the nation.

It is quite a simple recipe, really.

It is to come together, realising that mistakes have been made over the way they have treated each other, which will lead to repentance, and then a renewed commitment to walk humbly with God and doing what is right. In other words, living justice and righteousness.

It is not a tough equation. Remove injustice and you remove hopelessness, bitterness and desperation. You replace it with hope and aspirations which, in turn, lead to joy and gladness.

If you want real joy and gladness this Christmas it is not going to be found under the tree or in the oven. They may bring you pleasure, but not joy. Joy is to be found in drawing closer to the source of real joy, who is God himself.

Paul rejoices – joy, gladness and peace

This theme continues with the lesson suggested from the New Testament.

However, Paul improves our Christmas recipe because, mixed in with the joy and the gladness, he then adds peace (Philippians 4: 4-7  New International Version (NIV))

Final Exhortations
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

It seems strange that a man in prison, facing death, would be telling a church to rejoice.

But Paul’s attitude teaches us an important lesson. Our inner attitudes do not have to reflect our outer circumstances.

Paul was full of joy because he knew that, no matter what happened to him, Jesus was with him.

Several times in this letter, Paul urges the Philippians to be joyful, probably because they needed to be reminded of that simple truth. Let’s face it, it is easy to get discouraged about unpleasant circumstances or take unimportant events too seriously. If that is the case then we need to ask if we are looking at things from the right perspective.

Ultimate joy comes from the indwelling of Christ.

We get a foretaste of it now, but it will be fully realised when he returns.

Dealing with worries

In the meantime, Paul instructs us to not worry about anything. Now, I don’t know about you but I would love to never have to worry about anything in this life ever again. I do not know how many times I have woken up in the middle of the night worrying about this or that, even to the extent of having an upset stomach.

But Paul says we should never worry. Instead, we should turn our concerns into prayers.

We all worry about things, whether it is work-related, family-related, money-related. But Paul tells us that, whenever those worries strike, we should stop and pray.

What it means to know peace

If we would do that one simple thing, then, according to Paul, we will know peace.

God’s peace is different from the world’s peace. This is not an absence of war. This is not the power of positive thinking or good feelings. This is the peace from knowing that God is in control. It is a knowledge that we are citizens of God’s kingdom, our destiny is set, and victory over sin is secure.

Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. He’s not called that because everything becomes peaceful when we get saved. He brings us peace in the midst of our troubles.

A personal experience of peace

Many years ago, when I was working overseas for the church, the country next to us, Afghanistan, was at war and, before we came home, two friends and I went travelling. We went up into the Himalayan mountains and over to the Hindu Cush and ended up quite close to where the war was happening. We were about 50 miles from the border in the Swat valley. But I wanted to go there because I had known a poem for years about the Akond Of Swat, by Edward Lear.

We went to stay at a hotel in this town only to find that one of the factions in the war was using it as a radio base. We realised very quickly that the people of the town thought that we had been sent there to find the base to tell the other army. We realised that we were in great danger.

We kept telling them that we were Christian missionaries and hoped that they would believe us.

That night, before we went to bed, we were very afraid, so we sat in a circle and sang some hymns together and prayed.

You know that a peace came over us. We realised that God was looking after us and we slept really well that night. But do you know God wasn’t finished yet because, in the morning, instead of just putting my foot into my sandal, as I usually did, I looked first and there, waiting to sting me, was a little black scorpion. Jesus was in control and he kept me safe.

The Advent recipe

So what is my Christmas recipe for this year?

It is, first of all, to confess your sins, worshipping God – not just in your head, but in your heart – and letting that worship flow out into the world in deeds of righteousness, in doing justice while putting all your trust in God that your eternal future is in his hands, that he is in control and will guard you from harm.

Those simple things will bring you more joy and peace this Christmas than any box under the tree or food on your plate.

The peace and joy of Christmas be with you all.