Come Home For Christmas

Religion

This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, December 23, 2012 by Pastor Paul Mims.

Matthew 1:18-24
Senator John McCain of Arizona was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict. He was an Air force Pilot and was shot down and held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi for 5 ½ years, 1967-1973, spending much of it in solitary confinement. They broke both of his arms. John McCain said this, “When I was being mistreated by the North Vietnamese, many times I found myself asking to live just one more minute rather than one more hour or one more day. And I know I was able to hang on longer as a prisoner of war because of the spiritual help that I received through prayer.” At Christmas, I was the room chaplain, not because of my excessive virtue, but because I knew all the prayers that went with a church service, since I had been in a boarding school and was an Episcopalian. We asked for a Bible, and the Vietnamese said they didn’t have any. Later we learned that thousands of Bibles had been sent to us.” Four days before Christmas, I was told that I could copy prayers and stories from the only Bible the Vietnamese had available…Our service consisted of a biblical passage read by me, followed by an appropriate song by the choir. I talked about the birth of Christ and the choir sang, ‘Silent Night.’ I looked around the room and there were tears in their eyes.” You can imagine that everyone was thinking of home and the celebrations that were going on there. Where ever we are at Christmastime our thoughts turn toward home and our family.

There are millions of Americans overseas today, and their thoughts are turning toward home. Many of us here today are away from our families. Others in our congregation have already left to be with their families for Christmas. We are prompted at Christmas to think about our lives – where we came from – who we are – our place in the family. We re-evaluate where we are now and where we are going.

I. COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS IS WHAT OUR FAMILY SAYS TO US.

The family says, “Come Home for Christmas. We want to see you. We want to be with you and celebrate like we have done in years past.”

As you go home I want you to look beneath the surface of the family gathering and ask yourself, “What is really involved in going home for Christmas?” I think that it is a time when we experience our roots again. This is necessary because we live in such a rootless society. All of us need a mooring. We need to be able to say, “This is where I belong.” The family is also saying to us, “Come home to your values.” You see, home is where life makes up its mind. It is there that character is formed and dreams are made and spiritual truths are taught. I asked my wife, Janice, to write a poem about the values of home. She wrote:
“Home is for wondrous things that can’t be found elsewhere –
Boys and girls, dogs and cats,
Frilly dresses and baseball bats,
Fresh baked pies and homemade bread,
Crisp clean sheets on which to lay one’s head.

Home is for wonderful people who can’t be known elsewhere –
Mother with power to heal skinned knees and broken hearts,
Father with Herculean arms to keep out any harm,
Son and daughter with zest for living
Bring to each day their own special giving.

Home is for wonderful memories that can’t be made elsewhere –
Birthdays, schooldays, happy days,
Sunday dinners, talks that guide our ways,
Christmases, Easters, vacations,
Summer jobs, wisdom that guides our vocations,
The daily building of ideals and dreams
That makes life’s joy burst at the seams.

Home is for wonderful faith that can’t be developed elsewhere –
Stories and bedtime prayers
Teach us from infancy that God cares,
Bible reading and family altars
Give a stability that will not falter.
The Christian faith taught and caught
Gives life a touch of what God has wrought.”
There is in the invitation of Christmas to come home to values, to roots, but especially to the people who love you.

In my boyhood home at 415 North Walker Street in Quitman, Georgia was a book of poems by Edgar A. Guest that I would pick up and read. He wrote one entitled, “On Going Home For Christmas.”
He little knew the sorrow that was in his vacant chair
He never guessed they’d miss him, or he’d surely have been there
He couldn’t see his mother or the lump that filled her throat
Or the tears that started falling as she read his hasty note;
And he couldn’t see his father sitting sorrowful
Or he never would have written
That he thought that he couldn’t come.
He little knew the gladness that his presence would have made
And the Joy it would have given
Or he never would have stayed.
He didn’t know how hungry had the little mother grown
Once again to see her baby and to claim him for her own.
He didn’t guess the meaning of his visit Christmas day,
Or he never would have written that he couldn’t get away.
He couldn’t see the fading of the cheeks that once were pink
And the silver in the tresses, and he didn’t stop and think
How the years are passing swiftly, and next Christmas
It might be that there would be no home to visit
And no dear mother to see.
He didn’t think about it – I’ll not say he didn’t care.
He was heedless and forgetful, or he’d surely been there.
Are you going home for Christmas? Have you written
You’ll be there?
Going home to kiss mother and to show her that you care?
Going home to greet father in a way to make him glad?
If you’re not I hope there’ll never come a time
You’ll wish you had.
Just sit down and write a letter
It will make their heartstrings hum
With a tune of perfect gladness
If you’ll tell them you’ll come.

II. COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS IS WHAT THE CHRISTMAS STORY SAYS TO US.

Joseph took Mary home. There was a time in those days that he did not want her in his home. He was afraid of what might be said when others saw her with child. The angel said to Joseph, “Take Mary home.” And Joseph took her home because there was where the Christian faith was to be nurtured – in a home setting. That is where if would find its deepest meaning.

Do you realize that the Old Testament faith is built on God’s work within the family and the same is true of the New Testament. In the Old Testament it is built on the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The story of the formation of these families was how they were the fabric around which the nation of Israel was built.

Then it is the family in the New Testament of Joseph and Mary in the line of David reaching all the way back to Abraham that the Christian faith is built upon. Many of us can say, “Yes, my Christian faith was first taught to me by my family. That is where I first heard it. That is where I first became aware of the church because my family took me to church. Home is where I began to revere Holy Scripture because my family read the scriptures to me daily. Home is where I began to realize that I needed God in my life.”
Joseph took Mary home. Do you realize that our Savior, although being formed in the womb of Mary, was away from home himself? He was away from the glories of heaven that he had with the Father in order to come to earth. Then Joseph and Mary had to be away from their home in Nazareth in order to go to Bethlehem and later to Egypt to flee the attempt of Herod to kill the Christ child.

There is something about us at this Christmas season that yearns for home. With the slaughter of the twenty children and six teachers last week in Connecticut, and all of the losses we have had as Americans from wars and the other shootings recently, we long for meaning and stability. Aren’t you glad that the Lord has provided for us a church, a church family that is our spiritual home?

III. COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS IS WHAT THE CHURCH SAYS TO THE WORLD.

The church is planted in the midst of the population for one purpose and that is to tell the people of Immanuel that “God is with us.” In driving through Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina recently, we delighted in seeing the number of churches of all kinds telling the same message. There are a lot of spiritual homeless people throughout the states where we saw these churches. Right around us in Fannin and Gilmer counties we are told that seventy per cent of the people are spiritually homeless – meaning they have no local church home. Most are lost and outside of the family of God.

I read Ruth Graham’s book PRODIGAL’S AND THOSE WHO LOVED THEM. She says that she and Billy had “two wandering children.” Two of their five were spiritual wanderers. She wrote the book to help people who have wandering prodigals to understand how they can come home. She tells of famous personages who were once wandering prodigals. One of these was Aurelius Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430 A.D., and made a great impact on Christianity as their son, Franklin is today. Augustine’s writings still speak to us today. He wrote, “God has made us for himself and we cannot be at peace until we are at peace with him.”

When Augustine was a young man he left home. He was a very bright and industrious kind of person and threw over his Christian faith and like the prodigal son in the parable of Jesus, found himself involved in a far country. But his mother, Monica, prayed that he would return. When he was almost 30, Augustine returned to the faith. One day, he knelt before the Lord and confessed all of his “awayness” to God and was restored both to God and home.

I wonder if there might be in you a wandering spirit that takes you away from God and home. You’ve come to worship at Christmas because you want to touch something in your past. You want to rediscover your spiritual roots and the church says to you today, “Come home and rediscover the faith in Christ that can make your life full and meaningful.”

As the Father in the parable of the prodigal son waited with open arms for his son to return from the far country, he stands looking at you and waiting with open arms for you to come to him.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!

Back to Top