{"id":575,"date":"2020-01-06T08:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T08:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=575"},"modified":"2020-01-15T20:56:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T20:56:54","slug":"second-sunday-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2020\/01\/06\/second-sunday-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Sunday of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

John1:10-18<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merry Christmas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nI just read, Jesus, God\u2019s Son, \u201cwas in the world and the world came into being\nthrough him; yet the world did not know him.\u201d \u201cThe world did not know him\u201d My\nson Paul, who works in advertising, would probably look at this as an\nadvertising problem. And in some ways, he would be right. What I believe was\nand still is needed, is a lot more person to person sharing of the good news of\nJesus Christ; my son might come up with a variety of other things. But remember,\nback when Jesus was born, there were no TVs to advertise on, no radios, no\nbillboards, no bus or train signage, no newspapers or magazines, yet what God\nsaw that was needed to be done, God arranged for it to be done long before the\narrival of the Messiah of God, Jesus. God, in preparation for the coming of the\nMessiah, inspired prophets to proclaim Jesus\u2019 coming to the People of God and\nGod inspired prophets to write down these prophesies, and God inspired rabbis\nto teach the prophet\u2019s words, so that when God\u2019s Son would come into the world\nthe people would recognize him and be ready for him. All that the People of God\nneeded to do, was to teach what God had revealed to their ancestors and then remember\nthose teachings. And God also put the image of what was to happen in the wisdom\nand writings of Gentiles. They simply had to understand and believe the signs. And\nthen those fortunate enough to live in the same time as Jesus, all they had to\ndo was listen to their hearts as they saw Jesus, as they listened to him\npreach, listened to him teach, watched as Jesus healed and fed the people\naround them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwere, of course, many who met Jesus in those ways, who did believe, at least\nfor a time, but their faith it seems, was not up to the challenges of their world,\nthey did not hold fast to the prophesies passed down by their ancestors and\nthey fell away from following Jesus. Even the closest of Jesus\u2019 followers, his\nDisciples, wavered in their faith. They were remiss in that they did not share\nthe good news of Jesus when faced with Jesus\u2019 suffering and death and when\nafter the resurrection they faced the threat of arrest and execution by the\nTemple and Roman authorities; they let their fear overcome their faith and\nresponsibilities. But that changed. The Holy Spirit impowered the Disciples and\ngave to them gifts that made it possible for them to share, beyond even the one-person\nto one-person method of sharing the good news, allowing them to speak in\nvarious languages to large groups of people, even to heal those who were\nsuffering. For those who were not gifted in the same ways as the Disciples, the\nSpirit gave them the ability to speak to family and friends and neighbors\none-person-to-one-person, or to write Jesus story for others to read or\nwrite\/compose carols to be sung and because of this and in spite of the threats,\nfaith in Jesus began to spread around the known world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\njust began the year of 2020. With the coming of the new year many of you have\nsurely made resolutions; most of the resolutions we make have to do with\nself-improvement; we all make them; I encourage you to make one more\nresolution, a little late, but still I encourage you to resolve to share the\nfaith that you know, the faith that brings you comfort, brings you some joy,\nhelps you to really know love and brings you much hope with someone who does\nnot know Jesus. I encourage you to resolve to tell your friends about the love\nthat you have found within this community, which is centered on faith in Jesus\nChrist, the love and forgiveness that is offered by our Lord and Savior and the\ntrust that you have come to feel for the promises offered by Jesus. Unlike the\nearliest of Christians, we face very little in the line of risk by sharing our Christian\nlove and by sharing our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior; by sharing these\nwe will be practicing the most effective advertising method ever devised and\nthe one chosen by Jesus, one-person-to-one-person. Today the resources\navailable to us to share the good news of Jesus Christ are many. We have things\nnow like facebook, websites, newsletters, personal mail and for those who want\nto spend large amounts of money there are print ads and radio and TV ads. I\nhave nothing against the expensive forms of advertising, except for the cost,\nbut all of these things can help to share the good news of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nwhat you and I do as Christians, so that the world can come to know their Lord\nand their Savior, is personal and will likely not reach the hearts of those who\nonly see or read an advertisement. My feeling is that the Spirit did not\nspecifically give us the gifts of facebook and websites and other technological\ndevises, but I don\u2019t doubt that the Spirit has given us the gifts needed for us\nto make use of such things. These advertising tools can be helpful for the sharing\nof our Christian beliefs, but they need to be accompanied by our sharing, in\nlove, of our experience of faith in Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turn,\nif you will, to the person sitting beside or near you, (each person a Christian\nmuch like you) and simply say to each other that you believe in Jesus as your\nLord and Savior; you can tell your stories of how you came to faith or why you\nbelieve at another time. As a people of faith, we want everyone to know that\nJesus, the Son of God, who was with God from the beginning of time and\ncreation, has come into the world, he lived among us, he suffered like the\npeople of his time and he died for our sins; and we want everyone to know that he\ndid this so that all people may be forgiven, and we want everyone to know that Jesus\nwas raised from the dead by his heavenly Father in order to reassure all his\nfollowers of God\u2019s love and Jesus\u2019 purpose to save humankind. But all this said,\nit is not enough to share the word of God\u2019s forgiveness alone; we need to share\nJesus love by acts of kindness as well, providing for those to whom we do this\nsharing, an understanding that such acts are done, because it is the will of\nGod; because it is what Jesus wants us to do; because Jesus loves them and\nwants to share with them his salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\nwants for us to change things so that future writings will be able to say that\nJesus came into the world and while the people then did not know him, the\npeople today do know him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John1:10-18 Merry Christmas As I just read, Jesus, God\u2019s Son, \u201cwas in the world and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.\u201d \u201cThe world did not know him\u201d My son Paul, who works in advertising, would probably look at this as an advertising Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":576,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}