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Show video - Bing Crosby I’ll Be Home for Christmas (Sound - Turn down volume to low background level when Pastor Tim ascends stage)I’ll Be Home for Christmas Bing Crosby sang it first 1943.In 1943 the United States was in WWII. So, it originally had the idea of a soldier who was hoping & dreaming of being home for Christmas.It was a hit song on the charts for 11 weeks its 1st year making it to #3.And it still is one of the most loved and most produced Christmas songs in America.It’s popularity, I think, is because its sentiment is part of the American Christmas experience.We all want to be home for Christmas.The little ones don’t think of it much, except that they get to see a lot of family at Christmas.But once you head off to college or move out on your own, you start to think about being home for Christmas.Those in military service, either oversees, or just stationed somewhere away in America, still hope to be home for ChristmasWhen you have kids, you start to think about heading home for Christmas for grandparents.And when your kids grow up and move out on their own, being home for Christmas takes on a new dimension when they come home to you.I imagine there are even more ways we long to be home for Christmas when we are in the hospital, or in a managed care facility, or when our life-long loved one has gone on before us ... or other situations. When I was in college, my wife and I were married, we’d love to come home for Christmas. We’d put the little ones in the hatchback and drive 11 hours. We’d come home for Christmas to our families and sleep on their blow up mattresses & floors.My dad would get tired of us being in his family room after 3 days ....(Pause) Remind what was my point. For a couple years now, we’ve had our kids coming home from college at Christmas.That’s so nice ... (pause) for about 3 days. :)And then this year was the 1st year our oldest daughter brought our granddaughter home for Christmas.131064017970500Show pictureThere is no 3 day limit on that.In the Christmas story, Mary and Joseph headed home for Christmas ... and it was also complicated.The Gospel of Luke, ch 2 tells us that the Roman Caesar declared a census, a counting of all people.In order to do this, they required that everyone went to their home town.Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth and their hometown was Bethlehem, some 70 miles south.Do you know why Mary and Joseph, or their families before them, moved to Nazareth?Since he was a carpenter, or the word could mean stone mason, Joseph probably built houses. We now know that Nazareth was a more metropolitan, a more up and coming town, than Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the south. They probably moved there to find work.So, they headed home for the census. Luke tells us there was no room at the inn. The inn was probably not like a Holyday Inn or Motel 6, which would have been Motel ... 1 then.They probably didn’t have anything like that.It was probably a room in the house of family that was more like a guest room. But, because all the family came home for Christmas, all those rooms were already very full. So just like when you go home for Christmas and your sister gets the guest room, and you have to sleep on the floor in the family room, that’s exactly how it was for Mary and Joseph.Especially, if the kitty litter box and the dog bed are in that family room. Mary and Joseph headed home for the first Christmas.And they had that same interesting feeling a lot of have at that point.They were home, but not really home.Later in the story, In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 2 we find that Joseph is warned in a dream to take Mary and the newborn Jesus to Egypt,because the king Herod was seeking to kill the one-day usurper to his throne. Mary and Joseph established a home in Egypt, probably for a couple of years.They certainly spent Jesus’ first birthday in a foreign land.Where they longed to be home . for Christmas.They were home, but not really home.Now here’s one more “home but not home” part of the Christmas story In the Gospel of John chapter 1, John tells the story of the birth of Jesus in a symbolic way.He knows that Matthew and Luke have told the historical story.So, he takes a more creative and more theologically advanced perspective.He writes,John 1:1-2, 14In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.The Word, “ ”, here is a synonym for Jesus.In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. He was with God in the beginning.... and The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.Jesus was God who became flesh and what?Made his dwelling among us.He made his dwelling among us.He made his home among us.At Christmas, when God became flesh in the baby Jesus, He was making his home among us.He was coming home . for Christmas.The word for made his dwelling is really interesting in the Greek, that the NT was originally written in.It is skenao.It means tented or to pitch a tent.Jesus pitched his tent among us.The interesting thing is that in the OT God skenao’d too.In the OT God told Moses to make a tent – a skene.On Mount Sinai God told Moses to make a place where God could meet the people.Since it had to be movable while they were still in the wilderness, it was a skene, a tent, a tabernacle.If you are interested you can look at Exodus 33-34 later. That is where God would physically come down and appear to them. That is where Moses would hear God’s voice – his word. That is where Moses was told to remake the two tablets that he destroyed in anger – the word. That is where God’s presence would be so brilliant that Moses would glow with the glory of God... And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, come from the father.Jesus came to be the fullest and most complete appearing of God – the word of God made flesh.At Christmas Jesus made his home with us.But he knew it was not his real home.He came to our home, because he wanted to bring us to our real home.You see that’s how God sees us.He sees us as if we were his children, but we have left home. And he wants us to come home.(Blank slide)In Luke 15 Jesus tells a parable that makes this perfectly clear.He actually tells 3 parables of what he calls 3 lost things.A lost coin – A woman loses a coin and she sweeps the house dirt floor to find it.A lost sheep. A shepherd has 100 sheep and he loses one, so he leaves the 99 to look for it.And a son who leaves home.He asks for and gets his inheritance early.He goes and squanders it on partying and immoral living.He runs out of money and ends up working on a pig farm, eating pig slop, starving .He comes to his senses and decides even though it will be humiliating, he’ll go home,And he’ll beg his father just to let him work on their farm.(Luke 15:20-24)He comes home.And as he is off in the distance, his Father is looking for him. And when the Father sees him, He runs to him. And he throws a party.This how God sees us.He sees us as lost.We are the son.We have left his home to go and live our lives our own way.And this is how God wants us to see him.He is the one looking for us to come home.He is the one looking for us to come home.At Christmas God became a man and made his home with us, so that we could come home with him. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I left the church. I quit following Jesus in my everyday life. I still believed.I just did nothing that a follower of Jesus should do and a lot that a follower shouldn’t do. Many times during that period of my lifeI would see people who were in some way talking about God or going to church or in some way they showed that they were Christ followers and I would think, I wish I could come back. But I just couldn’t. I wanted to, but there was a bigger part of me that didn’t want to.And there were times I remember thinking, I wish someone would just grab a hold of me and shake me and tell me to come to my senses.Then, at one point, I got a DUI and a lot of things in my life feel apart.And that is when I turned back to God. and I asked God to forgive me for straying and to take me back. And he did.And he became very real to me then.And he has shown himself to be full of grace and truth in so many ways in my life since.And I have not regretted giving him my life for one moment since.How about you?In your life, is it time to come home?Is it time to come home to God?Is it time for you to come home for Christmas?Jesus came to this earth, to make his home among us,so he could make a way for us to come home to God.He died on the cross, to take our place.He showed us how much God loves us. (Arms out)We have seen the glory of the One and Only Son of God.This is how God ran to us.This is how much God wants us to come home to him.Won’t you come home for ChristmasLet’s stand and sing the song, a short version. And then I’ll close in prayer.As we sing, if you have something to work out with God, you tell him about it. ................
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