In The Fullness of Time

St. Patrick Presbyterian

In The Fullness of Time

December 3, 2023 • Rev. James M. Holland • Luke 1:5–25

Advent! The world literally means, coming. That is, the coming of God into the world. This Sunday marks the beginning of our celebration of Advent at St. Patrick; and, especially if you are new, I can’t wait for you to journey with us the next four weeks leading up to Christmas. It is a time of obvious joy and celebration. I mean, if you can’t celebrate the coming of God in our flesh, what can you celebrate? But it is also a time of reflection and examination because we ponder the second coming of Jesus as well.

When I was growing up, we took a more subdued view of this month-long enactment of God’s coming, at least at church! We celebrated Christmas with relish in our home, but at church the festivity was limited to a few Christmas carols, a sermon on the Incarnation, and a little decoration. Our reasoning was, we should celebrate the coming of Jesus all the time, and too much falderal and excess would be a distraction. One day of hoopla was enough.

The only problem with that is our imaginations will not allow us to minimize the magnitude of the sublime, or memorialize the most memorable moments of our lives. For instance, birth, death and marriage are all rather mundane events if looked at from the fact that all of us were born, all of us will die, and most of us will get married. And yet, try as we might, we can’t brush over a birthday without cakes, silly hats, treasure hunts, and gathering all our friends and relatives around. For weddings, we spend lavish amounts of money, prepare an extravagant feast, and make it a huge celebration. Funerals are the same, except in a more somber remembrance. We don’t quietly bury the dead. We have to gather together publicly, dress in drab clothing, weep together, and hallow the passing with a meal.

Why? It is because of our nature. We are not saying our little child is special only on this one day of the year, heaven forbid. But we tend to forget, as we chase multiple children around in the endless cycle of feeding, clothing, and cleaning up after them. So we set aside times of ceremony to sort of remind ourselves of what is true all the time.

So when it comes to celebrating the Incarnation of Jesus, a fact that is just as true in June as it is in December, why all this fuss? Why all this festooning of the church, this gilding the lily with trees, candles, wreaths, and garland? Is this mere play-acting? No, and here is the reason. I will let Tom Howard explain it: The answer is to be found in the profoundest mysteries of our humanness. Of course the Lord is here. Of course one needs to keep moment-by-moment account of one’s heart, so to speak. But as we have seen in the case of birth, marriage, and death, somehow ceremonializing what is true does have the effect of assisting us. We are not seraphim, who, we are told, can gaze unblinkingly at reality all the time. We have to come at it by fits and starts. To enact something by an act of will does turn out to have its effect in our hearts. If the principle were false, then the early Christians would have been mistaken to have gathered on Sundays to mark the Resurrection. Somehow the weekly ceremony brought home to them what they believed hourly and daily. (Tom Howard, Evangelical is not Enough)

During this time of remembrance at St. Patrick, our liturgy is different and our messages sound the note of what happened over two thousand years ago that—in the fullness of time—Jesus came. We are pondering this from the first chapter of Luke’s gospel, and this week we look at the least preached text of all the birth narratives of Jesus. It is about the time an ordinary parish priest went to the temple and got the surprise of his life! With no expectation of children, he was told by an angel not just that he was having a child. No, he got the pregnancy news, the gender reveal, the naming, the upbringing, and career of this child—all in one throw.

I can’t wait to begin this journey with you again. This never gets old! If it has for you, join us and we will help you brush off the Scrooge-ness and enjoy the feast!

Hungering for God

January 7, 2024 • Rev. James M. Holland • Psalm 63

I don’t know about you but I come through the holiday seasons a little spiritually dry. It seems to always happens. I have tried to change it but not been very successful. I suppose I get out of rhythm. It seems my spiritual life has diminished, my prayer life seems shorter, and I am restless. My physical appetites have been satiated but my soul is hungry for something. C. S. Lewis explains why this is true of many of us: Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.” (C.S. Lewis, https://stpatrickpres.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ba3413bb6fa020132a4bc21a5&id=aba891a60e&e=b77c6e6023) The Psalmist says it like this: O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. In an age where we can glut our senses and desires, the hallmark of our age is restlessness—never finding real deep satisfaction. This week we look at causes and cures of our malaise in Psalm 63. Please go read it before Sunday. It has been like medicine for my starving soul. I hope it will be for yours as well.

The Benedictus

December 24, 2023 • Rev. James M. Holland • Luke 1:57–80

Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Advent. As it is also Christmas Eve, we’ll have two services at St. Patrick to ponder the greatest mystery of all times—God taking flesh. Every year in our Advent preaching series, we seek to get at this mystery from different angles—this year we have been in Luke 1. While it is popular to skip right to mangers, stars, and wise men, there is enough wonder in the angelic announcements to an aged priest and a young girl to make your head spin. This week we ponder with Zechariah his song of redemption known as “The Benedictus.” Here we see an elderly priest praising God for bringing to pass the promises of redemption, not just for Israel but for the whole world. For nine months, Zechariah has been mute, unable to speak, but his song of praise basically brings together all the Old Testament promises that are coming to pass in the births of a couple of infants. And while Zechariah is thankful for the coming of his son, it is not surprising that most of his praise is for the One who is coming to “forgive sins.” As I mentioned, this Sunday we have two services of worship—our morning worship will be at the regular time, 10:30am. (Please note we will not have Sunday School this week.) Then, at 5:00pm we have our Christmas Eve Service where in music, song, Scripture, and prayer we walk with prophets of old to behold Him who created the world lying in a manger. If you can, please arrive early to our evening service, as it is usually packed. Until then, may your preparations for the Feast of Christmas be marked with joy, generosity, and wonder.

Blessed Are You

December 17, 2023 • Rev. Joshua Smith • Luke 1:39–45

One of our staff members is the foster mother of a preternaturally perfect baby boy. As an occasional attendee of our staff meetings, this young fella contributes to the overall productivity by boosting morale to historic levels. His big smiles and gentle cooing create an atmosphere of joy that’s just impossible to measure. Even his rare moments of pouting motivate us to work harder for our little mascot. A ministry resident commented this week that he’s not being paid near what he’s worth, and that is most certainly true. I recently heard someone describe how having a baby around amplifies everything. On a quality-of-life scale from one to ten, it’s like levels 2-9 have simply been removed. The fader on extreme feeling is turned up all the way to a Dickensian “best of times; worst of times.” We haven’t had a baby in the house for some time now, but that resonates with my memory of the thing. There’s a texture of unbreakable joy that lies underneath these extremes and wraps the whole thing up in swaddling clothes of wonder and beauty. This Sunday, the third in Advent, has for about a thousand years been referred to as “Gaudete,” or Rejoicing Sunday. It represents a break in the penitent nature of the season, where the nearness of fulfillment is brought to the middle of the waiting. It’s fitting, then, that we take a look at the passage in which the unborn infant John leaps with joy in Elizabeth’s womb at his first encounter with Jesus, only days newly arrived in his own mother’s body; still close to 40 weeks from his birth. It’s a perfect Advent text, just brimming with the already-but-not-yet nature of the Kingdom. Shot through it all is a sense that whatever is happening, however complicated and burdensome, this is nothing short of blessing. - js