COME HOME TO STAY

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Luke 2:1-20

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Christmas doesn’t have to end.<= /span>

A sermon preached by

Dr. William O. (Bud) R= eeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

December 24, 2008=

Did you ever get a Chr= istmas card from someone you didn’t know?&n= bsp; Every once in a while we will get a card, and we don’t know wh= o it is from, but whoever it is must be a wonderful person, because he or she se= nt us a Christmas card! Or we= 217;ll get cards from businesses wishing us the best of holidays and thanking us f= or our business, and we don’t recall ever having done business with them. Maybe that says more ab= out our memory than it does their mailing list, I don’t know.<= /span>

A university professor= from Salt Lake City co= nducted an experiment at Christmas time several years ago. He randomly selected six hundred n= ames from telephone directories from several major cities and sent Christmas car= ds to each of them. His return a= ddress was included on the card, and he received an amazing one hundred and sevent= een responses from the 600 cards sent to perfect strangers.

One replied, "I j= ust got out of the hospital, and how good it was to hear from a longtime, wonde= rful friend!" Must have been = in the hospital with amnesia.

Another said, "We= had difficulty at first remembering who you were, but after some thought, we remembered. Please give our l= ove to your father. He is a wonderful man." That’s a cre= ative memory!

One reply was unexpect= ed: "It was really great to hear from you again. We will be in Salt Lake City this summer, and if you = have a spare room, we would like to stay with you two or three days!" Hey, what are close friends for?= = [1]

Where are you staying = this Christmas? Not just in terms = of your physical location, but in terms of your spiritual location, where are you staying? Where is your heart, your life, yo= ur soul this Christmas?

Many people have journ= eys to make and places to stay at Christmastime.&= nbsp; One of the joys and blessings of the season is the chance to go see family and friends. Across America= , there is now and will be in the next few days a lot of traveling going on. It wasn’t much different the first Christmas when Jesus was born. Mary a= nd Joseph had a very long and arduous journey to make from Nazareth of Galilee= to Bethlehem of Judea. As the cr= ow flies, it is only about 80 miles. Bu= t when you consider that they probably made the journey on foot (or if they were lucky, on a donkey), and that Mary was nine months pregnant, about to have = the baby at any moment, it was a tough trip to make.

The shepherds had a jo= urney to take when they heard the announcement of the birth of a Savior in Bethlehem. They ran from their hillside post outside of town down into the village to try to find this newborn King.

Some time after Jesus = was born, Mary and Joseph received some very important guests. They were kings or astrologers fro= m the East, probably from the neighborhood of modern-day Iraq. They had come a long way because t= hey had seen this star in the east and had followed it to the place where Jesus was. They won the “Who = Came Farthest” contest by a long shot.&nb= sp; Just about everybody connected with the story of Christ’s birth was on a journey of some sort.

I want to invite you to take a journey tonight, = and while it is not very far, it may be the most surprising and difficult trip you’ve ever taken. The journey I want to talk about tonight is the two-foot odyssey from the head = to the heart. =

We are here tonight because we are aware to some extent of what the Christmas story is all about. We know in our head that we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.&nbs= p; But I believe what God wants to happen tonight is for Jesus Christ t= o be born again in the hearts of everyone who worships him in this place. It may be for the very first time,= or it may be the hundredth time. Yo= u may have talked to Jesus this morning, or it may have been twenty years since y= ou felt the real presence of God in your life. It doesn’t matter. God has a great blessing for you, = a life to be lived on a whole new level if you will take the journey tonight from = your head to your heart.

When the baby Jesus grew up and began to teach= , he told a story about a young man who had to go far away before he could make = the short trip from head to heart. He asked his father one day to pay him in advance his share of the inheritance= , so he could go off and make his way in the world. His father agreed, and the young m= an went to a far country and wasted his inheritance on meaningless living—wine, women, song, that sort of thing. When his money ran out, so did his friends, and because the far country was in a recession, the only job he co= uld find was feeding pigs. Nothing could have been more distasteful than that, until the day the young man realized he was so hungry that the pig slop was looking good to him. Suddenly he came to his senses, an= d he realized that even the servants in his father’s house were fed and clothed well. He could go hom= e and fling himself on his father’s mercy and beg to be taken on as a serva= nt, and at least he would eat kosher.

As he approached his boyhood home, the young m= an was surprised to see his old dad running—he had never seen his dad run—down the road to meet him. He had evidently been watching for him all these years. He embraced him with tears in his = eyes, and when the son began his well-prepared speech about not being worthy to be called a son and coming to work as a servant, his father hushed him and sai= d to the real servants, “Bring him some clothes and shoes and get the feast ready. We’re going to celebrate, because this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost, but now he is found!&= #8221;

We know this story as the Parable of the Prodi= gal Son, and it’s an ancient tale. But it is a story that continues to be played out in our world every day:

· Whenever a teenager leaves home in anger aga= inst his parents

· Whenever a parent neglects a child for the pursuit of pleasure or wealth

· Whenever a person falls victim to any kind of substance addiction

· Whenever a husband or wife is unfaithful to = the vows of marriage

· Whenever a self-righteous and legalistic religion closes the heart of compassion in a person of faith

· Whenever the pains and griefs of life embitt= er a person against God

· Whenever there is a moment of self-awareness= , a realization that we are far from home, and a desire to return.

There are many prodigals among us today. In fact, most of us have a little prodigal in us. The word of t= he waiting Father to each one of us is the same: “Come home. Come home to stay.” When we realize how much better th= ings are in our Father’s house and we do come back, his word is always “Welcome home.”

When I was a kid, I thought “prodigal= 221; meant “runaway” or “wandering.” I was surprised to find that the dictionary actually defines prodigal as “recklessly extravagant.̶= 1;= = [2] Indeed, the son is recklessly extravagant in the way he spends his inheritance. He is prodigal. But so is the father. He is recklessly extravagant in th= e way he loves his son. He waits fo= r him; he watches for him; he never gives up.&nbs= p; When he sees his son at a distance walking back toward the house, he forgets any appearance of decency or dignity, and he runs to him in tears a= nd hugs his dirty neck and calls for the celebration to begin. He is the prodigal father, reckles= sly extravagant with his love, his mercy, and his grace.

When I was 14 years old, I had been playing the guitar seriously for about a year, and I seriously wanted an electric guitar. It was time in my min= d to start becoming a rock star. A= s I shopped, it was clear what I needed: a Fender Stratocaster. If you’re not a guitar playe= r, that doesn’t mean a thing, but the Fender Stratocaster was a premium instrument favored by many of the great guitar players of all time—Ji= mi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and others.

The problem was, a Fender Stratocaster was a f= airly expensive instrument, and our family was barely getting by as it was. My dad had quit his job to go into business for himself. We had = moved to a new town, bought a new house, and his business was not up and running yet. We were living off our s= avings and the money the bank had loaned him to start the business. My dad was sympathetic to my desir= e, but he said there was no way he could afford a Fender Stratocaster. He said that Sears sold electric guitars, and it would just have to do.&nbs= p; So I had resigned myself to the Sears Silvertone, and to the fact th= at Jimi Hendrix probably started out on a cheap guitar, too.

Christmas morning came, and I was not as excit= ed as a 14-year-old should be, until I walked into the living room, and there und= er the tree, was a brand new sunburst Fender Stratocaster under the tree! Every time I pick up this guitar, I remember my dad pulling my leg first of all, but most of all the sacrifice = he made in those uncertain times to go the extra mile for me.

That was a reckless and extravagant gift. I did not deserve it. But it was a gift of love that I w= ill never ever forget. When God t= ook on flesh in Jesus Christ, that was reckless and extravagant—prodigal even—but it was a gift of love we can never forget. We didn’t deserve it. But God so recklessly and extravag= antly loved the world that he gave his only Son—born in Bethlehem, laid in a manger in a stable, whose birth we celebrate tonight. Why? So that whoever believes in him should not perish but should ha= ve everlasting life. So we could= come home. So we could join the party. So we could make the j= ourney from our head to our heart and stay at home forever.

On that first Christmas, the shepherds walked = out of the stable praising and glorifying God for all they had seen and heard. The Wise Men left Bethlehem by another way, because they = had been changed by being in the presence of the baby Messiah. You will leave this church tonight= , but you don’t have to let Christmas end.= This warm and wonderful assurance of the reality of God’s pres= ence in the baby Jesus does not have to be like some Christmas sale that will be over before the kids go back to school.&nb= sp; God’s love, his grace, his mercy never end. Our lives in Christ will never end= . The key to this kind of life is to= make the journey from your head to your heart.&= nbsp; Make this good news your= good news. Tonight, come home, and= you will never have to leave. You= can come home to stay. Amen!