It's Always Something |
Matthew 2:13-23 |
To begin the message this morning, let me take just a moment to tell you how Christmas began at our house this year. The kids were in bed, Nancy and I had completed our preparations, and she, mom and I settled down in the living room to relax and watch the film “A Christmas Story” on television. The tiny, 9” television, I might add. The television that used to be in the kitchen, but had to be brought into the living room to replace the 2 month old 42” widescreen TV that had been sent out for repairs earlier in the week with the promise that it would be ready in 3 or 4 days, a 3 or 4 day promise that had now been extended to at least a week or two. Not that I was counting. Well, anyway as we sat on the couch squinting to try to make out just exactly what it was that we were watching on that tiny television on the other side of the room, I said to Nancy, “I’d better go downstairs and get out the cameras, so that I can plug them in and get them charged up before tomorrow morning.” So as Santa was telling Ralphie that he shouldn’t be expecting a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas, saying, “You’ll shoot yer eye out kid!” Downstairs I went to the coat closet where we always keep our camera bag only to discover that the shelf was empty. “Nancy!” I called, “Have you seen the camera bag?” “No,” she replied, “Not since we took it to Nick’s basketball game at Fitch last week.” Oh no. I looked in the van, I looked behind the chairs, I looked on the kitchen counter, I looked beside the bed, I looked in the trunk of the car, I looked in the cabinet under the bookshelves and then I looked in the van a second time, all to no avail. And then I resigned myself to the truth. We had left our black vinyl camera bag which contained both our still and video cameras, along with about 8-12 months of digital video tapes on the floor of the Fitch Middle School gym, and there would be no pictures or videos of Christmas 2007 at the Hamby household. And that’s when I said to Nancy, “You know, it’s always something, and I’m just sick of it. Why does it seem that there’s always something going wrong?” Have you ever felt that way? The TV’s broken, the camera’s lost the kids are sick, the cars’ in the shop and the computer won’t connect to the internet again. It’s always something. And that’s not even to say anything about the more serious “somethings” of life that seem to go wrong with far too great a frequency. Many of you will remember the year 2001 for my family. Nancy and Hallie were being treated for heart problems when Nancy was rear ended by 2 trucks on 395 when she was stopped for construction one morning in late August. Before the van was back from the body shop came the events of 9/11 which just so happened to be the day that my dad went into the hospital, which turned out to be the beginning of his battle with pancreatic cancer, a battle that he lost just a little more than 4 months later. 2 days after the van came back from the shop we took the kids to 6 Flags amusement park and on the way home, while stopped at a traffic light we were rear ended by a guy going 45 miles an hour. The van burned to a cinder and we spent the night in the hospital. And spent the better part of the next 2 years tied up in all sorts of ridiculous litigation that was being tossed about by the lawyers representing the 4 cars involved. On the Monday following the accident, we went to rent a van and when we arrived home, I checked the mail to find a letter from the state of Connecticut. I opened the envelope to discover the title to the van that was now a pile of burned metal that was sitting in a scrap yard in Suffield. I laughed as I handed the envelope to Nancy and said, “It’s always something.” And it is, isn’t it? Just look around this sanctuary and you’ll see the faces of so many people who could stand in front of the congregation this morning and tell stories far more painful and traumatizing than my own. All around us every day there is example after example of evidence for my insistence that “It’s always something.” In fact, I have to wonder whether or not this might have been Joseph’s reaction when the angel appeared to him in the story that we read from this morning’s scripture lesson. Think of all that he had been through. First he found that his wife to be was pregnant with the Son of God. Then he had to endure all the verbal barbs and insults that had to have been leveled at him by his friends and family when he tried to explain to them the reason why he was still wiling to take Mary as his wife, despite her condition. And as if that wasn’t enough, then he had to travel a few hundred miles with this extremely pregnant gal in order to go and pay their taxes. What a load of fun that had to be. But then to add insult to injury, when they arrived in Bethlehem, as you all know, there was no room at the Inn, and so they spent the night, and their child was born in a dirty, smelly animal pen. And so it was after all that that the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Vs. 13 And I can almost hear Joseph now, “Hey God, give me a break here, I’ve done everything that you’ve told me to do. I’ve taken Mary as my wife. I’ve taken the insults. I’ve taken on the responsibility of raising YOUR Son. I’ve traveled all this way to Bethlehem, and now you want me to pack up the family and run off to Egypt? It’s always something!” But that’s OK. Because, you see, we know the end of the story. After all of the hardship and hassle that Jesus and his family had to endure, in the end, Jesus grew up to teach, heal and save the world from its sin. But it wouldn’t have happened had Joseph and Mary not listened to the voice and the leading of God and been faithful in following where they were called to go. And back to my own story, Christmas was still Christmas, despite the 9” TV and lack of video evidence. And despite all of the pain and trauma that the crazy year of 2001 brought to my family, here they sit this morning, my mom included, happy and healthy despite it all. Even though it is true that life can be hard and it does seem like there’s always something going wrong, the story of Joseph, Mary and Jesus reminds us that even though the going can get rough, when we are willing to listen to the voice of God and follow faithfully in the direction that God calls us to go then everything just has a way of working out in the end. May God bless us all as we seek to faithfully follow God’s leading through all of the inevitable somethings that await us in the New Year. Amen. |