Scripture: Luke 12:32-40; Isaiah 11:1-6; John 3:16; Ephesians 6:10-18
Because the incarnation marks God’s unconditional ‘yes’ and Christ will return at an unexpected hour, believers should live ready now by praying for what they truly desire, serving their neighbors, and giving away the possessions that weigh them down from the heavenly kingdom already given.
Illustrations: stained-glass-nativity-window, shelf-stable-advent-calendars, knowing-the-hour-set-an-alarm, paths-painted-with-fake-gold, prayer-is-throwing-up-to-god, mccabe-distractions-sinking-ships, king-ralph-heir-to-england, bezos-70-billion-inheritance, wipe-dust-off-shoes
August 10, 2025
The Birth of Jesus
Isaiah 11:1-6 Luke 12:32-40
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. - Isaiah 11:1-6
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
- Luke 12:32-40
Jesus was not born on December 25. It’s the day we celebrate the incarnation of Jesus. It is not Jesus’s birthday. Jesus’s birthday could have been today. Birthdays weren’t a big deal in Israel, at the time of Jesus. Families didn’t celebrate birthdays. The Romans did but Jews did not.
I love the season of Christmas. I love Christmas Eve. I love these celebrations. I love the lights and the carols, but we need not forget about the birth of Jesus in August.
We are going to continue our series on the Stained Glass Windows at Covenant. In today’s window, there is a manger signifying the birth of Jesus, the incarnation of God, that God is with us.
In our passage from Isaiah, there is a beautiful messianic text preparing us for Jesus. The passage from Luke is a little different. There’s a very important concept going on here about the time of Jesus’ return. A concept which has everything to do with Jesus’ birth.
In the Church Calendar, the season before Christmas is called Advent. It’s one of those seasons that has been almost completely secularized in that every object imaginable has its own advent calendar. They don’t actually follow Advent, though. For instance, this year, Advent starts on November 30th. There’s not a single Advent calendar for sale that will start on November 30th. They want the products to be shelf stable so that they can sell their whiskey advent calendar this year and next year and the next year, so they all start on December 1st.
During advent, we prepare for the second coming of Jesus by remember our preparations for the first coming of Jesus. Advent means to come. And this is where there have been a lot of debates over the years among Christians. When is Jesus Christ going to come again? When will the world end? When is revelation going to happen?
The funny thing for me is that so many seem to ignore the explicit words of Jesus by asking these questions again and again. Our Gospel reading for today explains everything.
If the owner of the house had known of what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. The Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect. If you knew the time and the hour, you would simply go to sleep and set an alarm and then wake up, right? If you know that Jesus is gonna come back next Tuesday, you might live differently today. Maybe there are some things you really want to do and you can get that out of the way, and then seek mercy.
But if you don’t know when Jesus is going to come, you should live right now as if he’s going to come at any time. Really. The point is: why waste your time living the life of destruction.
Because it is tempting, that is why. It seems good. It looks good. There are paths painted with fake gold that seem like the best way to live, but they tear us apart from our community, from our neighbors, from our families, from our God, from our selves.
When we cling to harming our neighbor, we cling to lies. To break this cycle, this is why Jesus came to begin with. This is why a shoot came out from the stump of Jesse where a branch grew out in its roots, because we, humans, were clinging so tightly to our lies.
The birth of Christ marks the yes of God for us. God is saying yes to you. Unconditionally. The conditions are on our part, not on God’s. As John writes in his gospel, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
The birth of Christ is part one of the solution to the problem of sin. The opportunity of reconciliation with God, and among people. We are the ones, though, that can put up barriers between God and ourselves. We’re the ones who put up barriers between each other. It’s not easy. We have to start, person by person. We have to start neighbor by neighbor.
The birth of Christ represents the encounter of the second person of the Trinity with the world, the creation, which he spoken into existence. How are we going to respond to that encounter? Are we going to be dressed for action and have our lamps lit? Are we going to be ready to love our neighbors? Ready to worship our God, ready to pray? Ready to serve? Ready to give?
I want to talk about those three ways of being dressed for action First, be ready to pray. There are a number of ways to pray. The most important thing is to do it. I have a teacher who used to tell me, prayer is like throwing up to God. You just put it all out there; let go of self-consciousness. God sees all anyway. If we can pray in an intercessory manner, we can pray about specific things.
But when we pray to God, the very prayer we send forth makes us intimate with Him, inasmuch as our soul is raised up to God and converses with Him in spiritual affection, and adores Him in spirit and truth.
We can pray following the armor of God and Ephesians 6, we can pray following the Lord’s prayer. There are many patterns to prayer that we can follow, but even when we follow a pattern, many of us are concerned about distractions. As Herbert McCabe says,
People often complain of “distractions” during prayer. Their mind goes wandering off on to other things. This is nearly always due to praying for something you do not really much want; you just think it would be proper and respectable and “religious” to want it. So you pray high-mindedly for big but distant things like peace in Northern Ireland or you pray that your aunt will get better from the flu–when in fact you do not much care about these things; perhaps you ought to, but you don’t. And so your prayer is rapidly invaded by distractions arising from what you really do want–promotion at work, let us say. Distractions are nearly always your real wants breaking in on your prayer for edifying but bogus wants. If you are distracted, trace your distraction back to the real desires it comes from and pray about these. When you are praying for what you really want you will not be distracted. People on sinking ships do not complain of distractions during their prayer.1
We start praying with what we actually desire, not what we think we should desire. Prayer is not a posture or a performance, but the presence of God. Being ready for action is longing for that presence now.
Next, we should be dressed for action with service. This is another thing Jesus did in his life, he served people, he healed people, he cared for people. Not everyone. Jesus wasn’t a maximalist. Sometimes he left places. He told his disciples. “If you are not welcome, wipe the dust off your shoes. move on. But do something beyond yourself. Be dressed for action, not to justify your sins, but to draw you closer to God. Find a way to serve and even if you’re busy. There are times and there are ways. And if you want to talk about it, I am always available.
Finally to give as Jesus starts this passage, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
We have been given a kingdom. If tomorrow, you get a letter that you’re the next heir to England, like John Goodman movie, “King Ralph,” You’re the long lost heir, and you’re about to inherit. Like, King, how much of your stuff are you gonna take with you to Buckingham Palace? Really? Or you find out that Jeff Bezos just left you $70 billion. What of your current house are you really bringing with you?
Jesus says that we have already been given a kingdom. It is yours now. Not a worldly kingdom, glitzy and golden, but a heavenly one, directly connected to our future with God. Giving what we have now is a measure of living into the kingdom. Because we just don’t need all the stuff. And it weighs us down. Worry about our things keeps us from God and from our neighbor. Worry about our future keeps us from God and from our neighbor. Let us be dressed for action through our gifts.
The birth of Christ began a new relationship between God and the world God created. We can reflect and pray and serve and give in response to it all through the year. Every time we enter this holy space, may this window remind us of God’s great gift for us, and the opportunity to respond made possible through God’s grace.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Footnotes
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Herbert McCabe, God, Christ, and Us, p. 8 ↩