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Welcome to Alachua First Presbyterian Church!
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We're glad you found us online!
Please join us for worship, Sundays at 10:30 a.m.
Click here for directions.
First Presbyterian Church of Alachua
14623 NW 140th Street
Alachua, Florida Food 4 Kids - click here
(386) 462-1549
presfirst@hometc.com
Rev. Virginia McDaniel, Pastor
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Christmas Presence
January 4, 2009
First Presbyterian Church of Alachua
A sermon preached by the Rev. Virginia Ann McDaniel
READ: Matthew 2:1-12
We have just ended a year in which a great many things happened that we thought could never happen… or would never happen again… in our lifetime. So many things came loose that we thought were nailed down that we find ourselves entering the new year in something like a state of shock. I think a lot of people who stayed up on New Year’s Eve to watch the ball drop in Times Square woke up the next morning thinking about when the second shoe will drop…
• Will I still have a job when I go back to work on Monday?
• Will I pay my medical bills if I get seriously ill?
• Will I be able to send my children to college?
• Will there be anything left in my pension fund to retire on?
These are troubling and volatile times and people are under extreme stress. An urgent question for me as a Christian is this: Does our faith have anything to say about these circumstances as we enter 2009?
A good many Christians build their hope exclusively on the life to come. Their belief that Jesus came with a promise of eternal life for those who follow him doesn’t have much bearing on this life. All that matters is that you accept Jesus as your savior. But that isn’t the faith that anchors me in these perilous times.
It seems to me that no act of God in time and history gives us more reason to hope than the event we celebrate at Christmas… the Incarnation. And what is the Incarnation? At the right time and in the most unforgettable way, God stepped into our world to break the grip of evil and to save us from ourselves and all the negative forces that deface the image of God in us. On one night of all nights God became one of us. We don’t know the exact date, although it has come to be celebrated on December 25th. About 2000 years ago a baby was born under extremely forgettable circumstances to impoverished Palestinian parents. But this was no ordinary infant. The baby they named Yeshua (or Jesus in Greek) grew up like any other child of his time, but he had a reason for being that not only required him to be human, but more. As Jesus grew into adulthood, it became increasingly obvious that he was more than just a man. In Jesus we got a permanent glimpse of God, and in him we came to know more about God than has ever been known, before or since. In this man Jesus, we saw, and still see, the face of God. That had never happened before and has never needed to happen in that way again.
Now Matthew, in his telling of the story, wants his readers to know what a singular event this birth was, and so he includes in his description of Jesus’ birth this story of three wise men arriving from the East… three astrologers? three royal advisors? …three travelers who sought out Jesus to bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It is important for Matthew’s readers to understand that this was no ordinary baby and those who came for the baby shower brought no ordinary gifts. They brought gifts befitting a king. But do you know what? Matthew’s story of the majestic procession of royal visitors bearing gifts doesn’t appear anywhere else in scripture. Although scholars have tried to pinpoint the time when this extraordinary visit might have occurred, and astrologers have tried to find evidence of an extraordinarily bright star, there is no evidence outside Matthew’s gospel to support such an event.
It would come as no surprise to the religious community of Jesus’ time that God was showing up in some manner to influence people and events. The Jewish people were “marinated in a God-haunted history.” Ever since people began telling stories, they identified God’s activity in the nitty-gritty details of their individual and community life.
Think back over the stories the Jewish people told about the way God was involved in leading and shaping them. One by one God appointed someone to be a spokesperson. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob. Perhaps God’s guiding presence was never more obvious in the lives of any of the remembered heroes of Jewish history than in the life of Moses. Remember that Moses was miraculously protected as an infant and seemed destined for some sort of special role? As an adult, when it appeared that Moses was not to have a leadership role in the God-guided history of the Hebrew people after all, God spoke to Moses from a burning bush. That began an intimate relationship through which God guided the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. Moses was the one who confronted Pharaoh. Moses was the one who parted the Red Sea. Moses was the one who brought forth water from a rock. Moses was the one who was chosen to go up on the mountain to receive God’s commandments.
And Moses continued to be God’s main man right up to the edge of the Promised Land. But when Moses learned that he would not live to enter the Promised Land with the Hebrew people, he asked a final favor of God. He wanted to see God’s face. And why not? If anybody deserved to see the face of God, it was Moses!! But the request was denied. This man to whom God had spoken so clearly and so frequently and for so long, was told that he could see God, but not all of God. “You can see where I have been. You can see my backside, but you cannot see my face.” That was as good as it was going to get.
No, the Jews in Jesus’ time were not surprised that God would show up, but they did not expect God to show up as God did--as a child of peasant parentage, without royal credentials, without power as they understood power, and with a human face. The incarnation… God’s “Christmas Presence” brings us face to face with the God whose face even Moses was not allowed to see.
If we want to know what God is like, all we have to do is to keep our eyes on Jesus. In Christ there is opened to us a whole new understanding of God. It is difficult for those of us who have inherited 2000 years of theological explanation of the Incarnation to realize what an incredibly joyful surprise it must have been for the first disciples of Jesus to hear him say: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9b) No longer is God a disembodied voice from some distant place. The Incarnation gives us the wonderful insight that not only is Jesus like God, but God is like Jesus, and always has been.
And it is reassuring to know that the God who came in Christ still comes. The experience of the incarnation is not limited to dead saints and distant history. It is the reality that anchors me in my faith. It happens every day to and through some of the strangest people and circumstances. It can happen to you. Perhaps it already has.
One of the most chilling images that came out of the events of 9/11 was a candid photograph of the people streaming out of the World Trade Center as grim-faced firemen in full gear were running in. One woman who was there said that as she was escaped the burning tower, she turned and looked back. One of the firemen turned and looked at her. She said that in that moment of eye contact, frozen in her memory, his face was transformed into the face of Christ. It happens. We do not live in a God-forsaken world!!
A Pulitzer Prize winning play, “Green Pastures,” opened on Broadway in 1930, in the darkest of times for people living in this country. Weaving together Hebrew folk stories and Negro spirituals, playwright Marc Connelly created a dramatic work which resonated with a frightened and desperate 1930 America. In one memorable scene God, who is “De Lawd,” is anxiously looking out over the parapets of heaven, trying to decide what to do with the situation on earth. Gabriel enters with his horn tucked under his arm. Sensing God’s dilemma, Gabriel brushes his lips across the trumpet to keep the feel of it and asks, “Lawd, has the time come for me to blow the trumpet?” “No, no,” said God, “don’t touch the trumpet, not yet.” God continues to worry with the problem. Gabriel asks God again what he plans to do. Will he send someone to tend to the situation? Who will it be? Gabriel makes some suggestions. “How about another David or Moses? You could send one of the prophets: Isaiah or Jeremiah. There are lots of great prophets up here. What do you think, Lawd?” Without looking back at Gabriel, God says, “I am not going to send anyone. This time I am going myself!!”
That’s what God’s Christmas presence is all about. Sing “Joy to the world!” for the Lord has come. It’s a Christmas Presence that keeps on giving.
A sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Alachua
by the Rev. Virginia Ann McDaniel
Who we are...
We nourish our spirits:
In addition to inspiring services every Sunday we offer several special services throughout the year… Thanksgiving eve, candlelight Christmas Eve, Maundy Thursday supper, Good Friday and others. Adult education takes place on Sundays before worship and Thursdays at noon.
We nourish our local community:
Following in the small town tradition of the church as community center, our buildings are used for Girl Scout meetings, support groups for Alzheimers Caregivers, Alcoholics Anonymous, and others. We join with the First Baptist and First United Methodist Churches on the third Monday of each month for PEP – People Enjoying People! – hosting this lunch-time ecumenical fellowship in February, May, August, and November.
We nourish our wider community:
Whether through special offerings or as part of our annual budget, we support disaster relief and development projects around the world as well as providing food and clothing for needy families right here in Alachua.
We nourish our bodies:
Of course, we could be the most loving and food-oriented community of faith you’ll find. In addition to delicious Fellowship Hour repasts each Sunday, we enjoy frequent luncheons and covered dish suppers, picnics, pie socials…and let’s not overlook the annual Easter egg toss!
Food 4 Kids of Alachua
A partnership of local churches, businesses and individuals
Hunger and under-nutrition contribute to a number of negative health issues and can seriously impact a child's ability to learn.
Food 4 Kids of Alachua is a pilot program during 2008-2009, in partnership with Alachua Elementary School, to provide hungry children with food each weekend during the school year.
Every Friday, children who participate in the program will take a home a backpack on wheels with food for the children in that family. Every Monday they return the backpack to the school empty.
Contact Rev. McDaniel to learn how you can help.
Remember...
- You can sponsor one child for $6 a week
- You can sponsor a family for a contribution of $20 a week
What goes into a backpack:
- canned meat (tuna, chicken, etc.)
- canned pasta
- canned soup
- canned vegetables or beans
- milk (shelf-stable)
- juice boxes
- macaroni and cheese (boxed)
- pudding cups
- fruit cups
- peanut butter
- cereal (single-serving boxes)
- snack bars
- cheese or peanut butter crackers
Newsletter
DECEMBER 2008
"War on Christmas," anyone?
Once again (it seems to be a seasonal ritual!) we are hearing commentators lament the “War on Christmas,” claiming that it is an assault on Christianity by secularists.
But how did the “War on Christmas” originate? As it happens, once upon a time there was a real “War on Christmas” and it was initiated by the theocratic Christian right of its day, Swiss Calvinists and Scottish Presbyterians, as a protest against the “secularization” of a religious holiday: all those greens and candles and the holly and the ivy, not to mention carol-singing, gift-giving, Yule logs and wassail! Here’s a brief history…
The “war on Christmas” traces back to Calvinist bans on the celebration of Christmas which began in Geneva and then migrated, with the spread of Calvinist theological views, to Scotland, where Christmas was banned in 1583. The Scottish ban on Christmas was only lifted in the 1950’s, as Amy McNeese writes:
“For almost 400 years, Christmas was banned in Scotland. At the height of the Reformation, in 1583, when anything smacking of Catholicism and idolatrous excess was thrown out with contempt, Christmas and all its trappings was wiped off the official calendar...”
From Scotland, the ban on Christmas spread briefly to England. Scottish Presbyterians, when called on for support by the Puritans of the English Parliament in 1644, did so on the understanding that their allies would in exchange impose the ban on Christmas. For over a decade traditional English Christmas festivities were prohibited, but the measure was unpopular. Feelings among pro and anti Christmas advocates ran strong and a second enforcement act against Christmas was passed by the English Parliament in 1647.
Again the people rebelled, this time so forcefully that armed officers had to be sent to remove evergreens decorating St Margaret’s Church, near the English Parliament itself. Rioting broke out in London, Kent, Oxford, Canterbury and Ipswich, in which several people were killed. A petition with more than 10,000 signatures demanded either the restoration of Christmas or else the king back on the throne!
Even after the bans were revoked in England in 1660, Puritans and other Non-Conformists “ranted against Anti-Christ’s-masse and those Masse-mongers and Papists who observe it”, and were commonly known to “inveigh against New Year gifts and evergreens, or to attack the Pope by refusing to eat plum-broth; or to condemn those who ate mince-pies as Papists and idolaters.”
From England the Protestant War on Christmas then crossed the Atlantic, migrating with the Puritans to the New World. Under Puritan rule in the Bay State Colony, Christmas was at one point legally banned for two decades. In America, reprisals were as harsh here as back in Scotland. In Massachusetts a five-shilling penalty was imposed on anyone found feasting or shirking work on Christmas Day.
So if you want to join the argument about the “war on Christmas,” make sure you know which side you’re on!
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