A Quiet Chamber of Christ’s Peace Within the Heart Colossians 3:14-15Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.  (Colossians 3:14-14)

Pray: Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child, Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled, Within my heart, that it may be A quiet chamber kept for Thee. Amen.

Well, we made it!  Christmas is over. And we survived!  At least by the world’s figuring.

Now the returns, using gift cards, taking down decorations and thinking about what this week will bring.  Now we look forward to the New Year…or do we?  I’ve never heard so many people, and even the newscasters are saying it, “better to be done with 2009!”  “2010 has got to be better!”

In the Christmas carol Deck the Halls we sing, That’s the way the old year passes: fa-la-la-l-a-la la-la-la! Hail the new ye lads and lasses: fa-la-la-l-a-la la-la-la!  Is that the way it’s supposed to be?  Are we simply to deal with the troubles and hardships and disappointments and sorrows of 2009 by simply singing, fa-la-la-l-a-la la-la-la?

If so, then I can’t help but think of the words of the Rich Fool in Jesus’ parable in Luke 12, “relax, eat, drink, be merry.”  But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ (Luke 12:19-20)

One sign that Christmas is over and that things will not be much different, at least not in the foreseeable future is how people’s attitudes are slowly beginning to change back to their old selves.  Trying to navigate the roads. I was cut off or nearly run off the road several times.

Yet like our Lesson today from Colossians, chapter 3, reminders still are there that the Christ Child changes things and changes people’s lives. 

I got a belated Christmas card from former members that had a hand written note: God blessed our church when you came to be our pastor!  That surprised me. I’ve been gone 17 years from there.  And then that note reminded me of our first Christmas as a pastor in my first church.

A woman died unexpectedly on Christmas morning.  She was elderly. A wife and a mother. A sister, aunt, and  grandmother.  The family was devastated.  Her death meant that Mindy spent that first Christmas alone in the parsonage while I was with the family all Christmas day. (Well, she wasn’t entirely alone. I had surprised her Christmas Eve with a new puppy –a black cocker-spaniel we named Ribbons, because she had Christmas ribbons on her collar.)

Even though this woman was a devout Christian, it was hard for the family to loose her suddenly on the Christmas and for us to be a part.

We do think about those who have gone to be with the Lord at this time of the year.   Not just at the holidays, but also with the passing of the year.  It makes us feel somehow like we leave them behind as we move ahead.  For those who died this year, the year 2009 is the final year. On earth it goes no further for them.

Simeon and Anna in our Gospel Lesson were old and were ready to go to the Lord.  Both looked for God’s salvation and waited to be delivered from the cares and troubles, and mostly sin of this life and to go to be with the Lord in that perfect life.  They weren’t looking to be taken because somehow their quality of life was not what they hoped for or wanted.  They were looking for the Christ and the redemption of Israel.  They wanted to see the light for the Gentiles and the glory of Israel.  They truly looked for God.

I’ve noticed how people change as they get older.  Someone asked me the other day if I felt there were some in our church who may have become a bit more understanding about what a pastor goes through –given the difficult challenges of this past year.  I was going to see a shut-in member and so I said, “You know, I have noticed as a pastor that the closer a person is to heaven, the friendly they are towards the pastor!”

Notice the life Paul calls us to in Colossians:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,  bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

This is just what you expect form an older, more mature Christian.  Whenever somebody celebrates a eightieth or ninetieth birthday and they tell me they’re old, I say, “We are all getting old at the same rate. It’s just that some people have had a head-start.” 

Where are you in life.  And where is your love and forgiveness?

Age matters.  Believe me.  Not because I have accumulated a whole lot of it yet.  But because I’ve read a lot of Bible and have known a lot of people with years.  Think of it this way: older people know how it going to turn out.  Young people don’t.  The older you are, the more blessings from God you can look back upon.  The younger you are, the more you are tempted to wonder and doubt God and His Word.

Simeon, when he saw Jesus said,

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word;  for my eyes have seen your salvation  that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

I’m reminded of the death of one of our members a couple of years ago.  This person was all alone with no close family.  And while she was watched over and cared for very well by others in our church, it finally was necessary that she go to the Lutheran Home.

Then I got an urgent phone call that she was dying and would die soon, and to hurry to her bed side.  When I arrived I was told she just kept hanging on, and the staff said it could be any time.

I asked, “Did you tell her it was ok to go?” And they said, “we didn’t know to do that –no one told us to say that.”

I said, “watch.”

And then I told her it was ok to go to be with Jesus. That if Jesus came for her that she should go with Him.  Then I prayed the 23rd Psalm. And then we prayed the Lord’s Prayer and she seemed to know what was happening, and as I completed the Lord’s Prayer she died.

Needless to say there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

That’s what Simeon and Anna teach us about being a Christian in hopeful expectation of the Lord.  We don’t know if they had by the time of the purification of Jesus and Mary heard the about the Christ’s birth.  Perhaps the words of the Shepherd’s had reached Jerusalem.  Perhaps the word of the visit of the Magi and how it had upset Herod had also caused them to spend more time at the temple.  Most likely they had made a connection with these things and that the Christ was to come into his temple and appear.  He would come.

What Simeon did know was that the Christ would suffer and die for the sins of the world.  How that would happen through this child was yet to be seen.  But by faith, Simeon and Anna saw and believed and it was credited to them–just as with all God’s people –as righteousness.

One Christian death I’ll never forget was that of Lawrence.  Lawrence was a man in his eighties who was sick from the first day I came to his church in Southern Indiana.  But he wanted to meet the new pastor. And we got to know each other pretty well.

Lawrence and his wife Edith–who had already died before this–had traveled to Florida every year in the winter. They had done that for, maybe, 30 years together.

One day I was called to Lawrence’s bedside.  He wanted the pastor.  He told me he was going to die.  I said yes, we are all going to die, that was true, and he would some day, when the Lord calls him, going to die.

Lawrence said, “No, my bags are packed.  When I used to go to Florida we would be all packed-up and would be excited for the trip and couldn’t wait.  That’s how I am now.  My bags are packed.  I’m going to die.”

I gave Lawrence Holy Communion, and then I read the words of Simeon.  I left him saying, “Lawrence, I’ll see you later.”

He told me, “No, pastor, I am going to heaven.”

So then I said, “Lawrence, I’ll see you later, or I’ll see you in heaven!”

One hour later I was called back because Lawrence had gone to be with the Lord.

That is the Christian way to be prepared to meet the Lord.  Always knowing He will come for us at any time.  Confident and hopeful.  In the mean time we wait.  Just as before this season we waited, we continue to wait. In the temple.  Receiving Him in the body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.

Holy and beloved.  Compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient to one another.  Putting up with one another.  If anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you.  And above all these putting on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, to which indeed we were called in one body. And be thankful. Amen.