... to Your Silent Nights

My name is Mark. One of the pastors wants to welcome you. I'm so glad that you are here in church today, especially if you're new to Twin Lakes Church. I hope you feel welcome. And I also hope that your Christmas season is off to a great start. I know at least this much: it's off to a very cold start. My goodness, it's been freezing. I mean, between the frosty roofs and frozen lawn and scraping ice off the windshield every morning, I've decided this much: that this whole white Christmas thing is completely overrated. I want a warm, balmy Christmas.

It's been so cold, we actually had to put a sweater on the dog because we have one of those kinds of dogs. A poodle, in fact. I'm publicly confessing that right now. About three months ago, my nine-year-old daughter rescued this little stray. She was elated to have this cuddly little poodle. My sons, 11 and 13, were mortified. Totally not down with this. The poodle does not fit their idea of cool at all. And so they've been working on his image lately, and they gave him an early Christmas present. They got him this little rubber skull as a chew toy. That's pretty tough, huh? God, he's a killer.

But it's this odd mix right now. We've got the Christmas decorations going up and the skull rolling around on the floor. So it's this odd mix of Halloween and Christmas all at once. But hey, it's beautiful here at Twin Lakes Church, and for this next month, we are going to be focusing on the fact that light has come. That Jesus Christ, the light of the world, was born in Bethlehem. That is the heart of the Christmas story. It is such great news, and of course, a lot has been tacked on over the centuries, hasn't it? Now we've got traffic and shopping malls and trees and lights and trying to find the perfect gift and red cups at Starbucks and office parties and family parties.

And anyone get just a little bit stressed out this time of year if you're honest with me? Yeah, I do too. Low-level stress, nothing bad. In fact, one of them comes out of a huge, huge blessing in her life because both for myself and my wife, Laura, we both have our parents, which we're so grateful for, and both sets live right here in Santa Cruz, which is very convenient but also can be a little bit of a challenge on the big holidays because we have to decide who's going to be where with their grandkids. That's really what it comes down to. We want to be fair and all that. So there's this give and take, and it can be a little stressful.

And so this year, Laura says, "That's it. I'm just going to get out in front of this. I'm going to set expectations up front." She grabs the calendar. She says, "Mark, you don't have to worry about this. I'm going to come up with a holiday schedule." I say, "Great, honey, that's awesome. Go for it." She's on the phone with, I guess, my mom, her mom. She had a particularly long conversation with her own mother. And after that, she came back and presented us with the new holiday schedule, starting out with the places we would spend with her family. And it looks about like this right here. You see it's all dialed in there.

But she didn't leave our family in the lurch. She did put down the holidays we would be with my family. So here's those holidays. There you go. It's all good, man. It's all good. Now, you know, I'm just kidding, but the point is schedules can get crazy this time of year. Or maybe for you, it's not so much your schedule that gets ratcheted up during the holiday season. It's your grief or your loneliness. Or your bouts with depression. Maybe your addictions come on like a vengeance this time of year. Maybe for a lot of us, it's a mix of all the above.

We have kind of the highs and maybe some of the manageable stressors, but there are some of our darker demons that we also battle this time of year. It all gets compressed during this time of year. And if you can relate to any of this, if any of this connects someplace in your life from the highs and lows of Christmas and everywhere in between, I think you'll be encouraged to know that this is nothing new. In fact, at the very first Christmas, there were all sorts of high points and low points and everything in between. And it all happened in the life of a young couple that you may have heard of. In fact, you might even have little statues of them adorning your house right now, your fireplace mantle.

But unlike the little figurines of Joseph and Mary that we pull out of the box every year, the real Joseph and Mary, they went through some amazing times and they went through some stressful times as well. You can read their stories in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. And you may recall that the Christmas story begins with the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and telling her that she's going to conceive in a way no woman on the planet ever has. It's going to happen in a way that most people won't believe. And it's going to happen when she's engaged but not yet married. Now, in her day, this was a big deal. She could be killed for this, put to death by stoning for what everyone around her would assume was a sin.

Even so, she turns to Gabriel the angel and she says, "Let it be done to me according to your word. If this is God's will, let it be done." Incredible moment for her. Right after that, the angel leaves, which means the angel doesn't stick around to explain this to her mom or her dad or her village or her neighbors who love to gossip. She's left to herself to explain this. And when she becomes pregnant, for whatever reason, she goes and visits a relative of hers, a woman named Elizabeth, who is pregnant herself. In fact, she's carrying a person who will become John the Baptist. And the Bible says that when Mary arrives, he approaches Elizabeth, little John the Baptist in utero. He leaps in her womb because he recognizes that Mary is carrying the savior of the world.

It's like this little baby-to-baby moment. It's like, "Yeah, go Jesus." And that had to be a huge confirmation for Mary. Wow. Even the babies are saying amen. But then what? Then week after month after month of silence. If the angel ever showed up to remind her or reassure her, the Bible doesn't say. All the while, she's becoming more and more and more obviously pregnant while engaged in a world where that is not just a little bit awkward. In Joseph's account, Christmas begins for Joseph when he discovers that his fiancée is pregnant. And he is none too thrilled about this. In fact, he immediately sets his mind on figuring out how he will get himself out of the situation when an angel appears to him in a dream and says, "It's okay, Joseph. You can relax. This is God's doing. It's all part of His plan."

In fact, you may recall, Joseph, remember way back when you were in Sunday school, you covered the book of Isaiah, and Isaiah makes a prophecy, a sign will be given about when the Messiah is going to come, and that sign will be in Matthew 1:23, where it says, "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to his son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us." And the angel says, "Guess what? Mary is that virgin, that baby Emmanuel, that is God with us in her womb." It's like, wow, that'd be a lot to take in, don't you think? I mean, I'm sure on one hand, Joseph is happy about the fact that the angel's explanation is a whole lot better than what he was thinking in his mind.

But again, this revelation comes to him in a dream. No one can overhear the angel. No one else can see the angel. No one can verify this. So he's left to himself to talk to his parents and say, "Yeah, mom, dad, the rumors are true. Mary's pregnant. Wasn't me. Wasn't some other guy. The angel told me in my dream that this is all God's doing." And they're like, "Yeah, right, whatever you say, son." And from the time that the angel appears to Mary and that she has her time with Elizabeth, her relative, and the time that the angel talks to Joseph in his dream, from there until the birth of Jesus, it's pretty much silent, day after day after day of silence.

Have you ever thought of it that way? Every year we sing "Silent Night." In fact, I'm sure we'll sing it again at our candlelight Christmas concerts. And it's one of my favorite moments where we hold our candles and we sing "Silent Night, Holy Night. All is calm. All is bright." But I have to think that for Mary and for Joseph, there may have been far too many silent nights, if you know what I mean. Think of it this way. It'd be like if you took a stopwatch and you said, "Well, it's just time, the amount of time that the angel is talking to Mary." Click, we start. And then let's add in the length of Joseph's dream. Click. Okay, so how much time do we have on the clock now? Five minutes? Ten? Fifteen if we're being really generous? Now, let's start that clock again for all the time that they don't hear from heaven.

The wise men haven't even packed their camels yet. They're not going to show up until Jesus is a toddler. There's no other revelation. It's just week after week, after month, after month. How much time do you have on the clock now? The better part of nine months, don't you? The better part of nine months of silent nights. And that's why this story is so relevant to us here today. Because you've had your own silent nights. You've had them over and over and longer than you would care to ever have. And occasionally, we do have these moments of revelation. I mean, last weekend, I mean, talk about God speaking, this 2020 thing, mind-blowing. Something that I... If God blesses me with grandkids, I'll be telling them about what happened here last weekend. And they'll traipse into those buildings like they've always been here. But we'll know. Wow, God showed up in a major way.

But most of life, months, years can just be hard yardage. So let's see what this story has to say to us. Let's see if it can shed a little light on our lives when we're in the midst of silent nights. I'm going to invite you to open up your Bibles and find Luke 2. And if you don't have your own Bible, you're welcome to grab one of those TLC Bibles in the pew rack in front of you. If you're, you know, doing stuff on your phone right now or your Kindle, you can just pull up your Bible app or something like that. If you're watching us over in venue, the Bibles are in the back of Munski Hall or on public TV or online. Find the family Bible, open it up, find Luke 2. We're just going to cover the first seven verses here this morning.

But there is something profound in this story that we're going to see that when we apply this to our life is going to make a huge difference during our own silent nights. And if you've never been in that place, in that gap between when God has spoken into your life, he's done something that is unmistakable, and the place you know that he will take you because you trust his promises and you believe that he is faithful. If you've never been in the gap between those two places, you will be because that's where we actually spend most of life in that gap between those two places. And so let's see how God worked in the life of Mary and Joseph and how he works in ours, starting with verses one and three.

In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world, and everyone went to his own town to register. Now, why does Caesar want to take this census? Why does he want to count heads? Because he wants to tax people. Yeah, he wants to tax people like Mary and Joseph. Now, he's never heard of them. He doesn't care about them, but he wants their money. And this decree could not come at a worse time for Mary and Joseph because by now she's late in her pregnancy, very late. But because of the decree, Joseph is going to have to travel to his ancestral village of Bethlehem. Now, they live in Nazareth. That's 90 miles to the north of Bethlehem. And so that's like having to walk from Marin County to Santa Cruz on foot or bouncing on the back of a donkey while Mary is great with child. This is horrible timing.

And yet, they don't have the luxury of arguing with Rome. And so off they go, picking up at verse four. "So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child." You see what Luke does there right there where he says, "She was pledged to be married and expecting a child." He puts their situation right out in the front there for us, reminding us this is a real tricky situation for these two.

And because of Caesar's decree, it was bad enough they had to live this out in front of the hometown, but now it's like they're taking the scandal on tour, right? I mean, that's what appears to everyone else for 90 miles. Everyone they encounter, every time they stop and rest in a village or talk to people along the road, they're met with, "Wow, boy, you're such a cute couple. Oh, God bless you. You're about to have a baby. That's wonderful. Do you have any other children?" "Oh, no, no, this will be our first." "Oh, well, how long have you been married?" "Well, it's a little bit complicated." And over and over again. And so in their life, I don't know whatever expectations they had when they were informed they were going to be, you know, the parents of the Savior, but I doubt they thought of all of these moments that would just be uncomfortable, where they would feel alienated, where they would be shunned, where they would be talked about.

And yet from all appearances, you know, it is what it is. And again, the angel didn't stick around to tell the rest of the people around them. And so they just lived this out one step in front of the next. But here's the amazing thing, because while they have got to be completely baffled by all of this, God's plan is going just swimmingly. Because as I mentioned, Isaiah talks about the virgin giving birth. That's one of the qualifications of the Messiah, the Savior. The other one is where the Messiah would be born. And this is what is so cool because living at the same time as Isaiah was another prophet named Micah. And Micah makes a prophecy 700 years before Christ about the town where the Messiah would be born. And you got to see this for yourself. It's in your notes. It'll be on screen. But in Micah 5:2 it says this, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are of old from ancient times."

So not only do we know the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem, but he's got this interesting past, his origins are from ancient times. And you can translate that phrase in Hebrew, ancient times, just as fairly as from everlasting or eternal times. In fact, when Jesus says, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever," it's the same word in Hebrew. And so there's this mysterious ruler that will come who will be born in Bethlehem, must be born in Bethlehem. Not Nazareth, not Jerusalem, not anywhere else, Bethlehem. And so here go Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, not because they want to, but because they have to. Now does Caesar know that his decree is accomplishing God's plan? No. He doesn't even know anything about this prophecy. And yet here's the guy who thinks he is the ruler of the entire world, and he's doing God's bidding. And this is all going exactly the way God intends it to go.

Picking up at verse 6. "While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn." Not exactly a big entrance for the Son of God. Humble little stable, might have been a cave that shepherds have taken refuge in over the years with their flocks, and it's grimy and the ceiling's lined with smoke and it smells of animals. And I have to think that Joseph, as Mary's husband, is thinking, "Man, what else can go wrong? I can't even find a decent place for my wife to give birth." Now think about this. The greatest event in history. God becoming one of us takes place on a night in Bethlehem, and nobody knows, except for this tired, stressed, confused couple, a couple of Mary's extended relatives, and that's it.

In the rest of Bethlehem, in the rest of Israel, in the rest of the world, it's just another night, just an ordinary night. Now soon the word will spread to the shepherds and they'll come, and that'll be a great moment, but at the moment of birth, God enters the world anonymous, homeless. Now, I don't know about you, but it blows my mind that the greatest event of history happened in a way that was undetectable by most people. And it causes me to think that just maybe, God could be doing something in my life and your life in the midst of stress or confusion or chaos. God could still be working, and I could be completely clueless. I mean, is it possible? Would you just entertain the possibility that the God who worked that way then still works in mysterious ways now? That the God who was in control of Mary and Joseph's life is still in control of your life, and that he could be doing something, maybe not on par with the birth of the Messiah, but doing something great, something that would blow your mind, and yet right now you have no idea that's what he's doing. Is it possible?

And if that is true, that has huge implications for our lives. In fact, here's to me just the big truth, the big principle that comes out of this story, and I hope that you will never forget this. I hope that when you find yourself in silent night, after silent night, after silent night, I hope that you will remember this because it will lift you up and change your perspective. And here it is: don't confuse God's silence with his absence. Don't confuse God's silence with his absence. Hey, God is silent a lot of the times, but he is never absent. It's not possible for God to be absent. God is always present in our life. He cannot be absent from us. And when you know that, that changes everything.

And I get it, you know, when the sky is blue and everything's going well, we're not so concerned about whether or not we can hear from the Lord. But man, when the chips are down, when you're fighting a disease, or you're in the middle of a divorce, or you've got a relationship that's gone totally sideways, or you're at odds with your kids, or you've got money problems, you lay your head on your pillow at night, and you worry about the welfare of one or more of your children, or you have begged God night after night after night to give you a child to love and have the luxury of worrying about. When you lose your spouse and heaven is silent, remember God is not absent.

Now we long, we long for the heavens to open up and for the angel to appear and say, "Fear not." And sometimes we get these amazing divine assurances that I think are very real. God will speak to us through His word or through someone else, or you're singing a song and God just, bang, you know God just did that. But those assurances don't arrive like the daily mail. Often God is silent, but He is never absent. So let's flesh this out a little bit. How does I begin to, how do I begin to incorporate this into my life? Well, I think I need to start thinking that when all I can hear is God's silence, and I feel His absence, the thing to do is to trust His presence. Trust His presence in those moments.

Now I'm not talking about a feeling, I'm not talking about conjuring up some sort of, you know, feeling like God is here, because feelings are fickle, feelings come and go. I'm talking about taking God at His word when He says, "I will never leave nor forsake you." Take that to the bank. That's His promise that when Jesus is the Emmanuel, God with us, that means He is with you. Right now He is with you in whatever circumstances you're facing. And when you know that, it doesn't mean that trouble isn't going to visit you. Let's face it. We will all have troubles in this life. But when you know God is with you, it can make a huge difference in how you walk through those trials.

I'll give you a vivid example of this. Just this last week, the story and video went viral of a man who survived, get this, his ship sinks 100 feet underwater. He's caught in the hole for three days, and he survives. Did you see this? Amazing story, a Nigerian man named Harrison Okene. He's the ship's cook on a tugboat. He gets up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and for whatever reason, the tugboat capsizes, quickly sinks, and he manages to find this airspace. And there he is, 100 feet under the surface, alone, in the dark, in the silence, in one of the most remote situations you can possibly imagine. You may as well be on another planet.

Well, what does he do? Well, he begins to talk and pray and cry out to the God he believes is still with him, the only person who is still with him. And he begins to recite scriptures that he's committed to memory. In fact, this is the amazing thing about this story. Hours earlier, he was on the phone with his wife, and as was their custom before, they would say good night. She would either send or text him some verses that he could think about after he got off the phone with her or recite to himself. And on that particular night, just hours before the ship sinks, she sends him Psalm 143, which is often called the prayer of deliverance. And you just got to hear a few verses from Psalm 143 because it's amazing that this would come to him right when it did.

Verse 1, "Lord, hear my prayer. Listen to my cry for mercy in your faithfulness and righteousness. Come to my relief." And that's what he's praying in the silence in the dark. You know, you don't do that unless you believe someone is listening to you. Otherwise, you're just wasting your breath, which in his case wouldn't be a real wise thing. Verse 3, "The enemy pursues me. He crushes me to the ground. He makes me dwell in the darkness like those long dead." He's living this out right there, like a dead man in tuned under a hundred feet of water. Well, what happens? One, two, three days in the darkness, in the silence. His wife has been told that he's lost. And on the third day, divers arrive to recover the bodies and to prepare the ship to be salvaged. And while they're searching for the bodies of the crew, this happens.

All right, so you should be walking on the ceiling, yeah? What's that? All right, you found one, yeah? He's alive. He's alive. Okay, keep him there. All right, just hold him there, okay? Just keep him there. Just move him, head him on the shoulder. Okay. Keep drinking water. What's your name? Harrison. My name is Bobby. Okay, I'm not going to give you a hand, okay? What is your rank? You're the cook. Put your hand under water, please. Come to me, okay? Okay, I'll set. Are you all right? All right, stick his head in. Are you the belter? Give me a thumbs up. Good job, my friend. Well done. You're a survivor.

How awesome is that? That's incredible. They are decompressing. I love that South African diver when he says, "You're a survivor." More than just a survivor, he's the guy who believed that his God was with him in every moment of that ordeal. And here's the thing: that wasn't going to change. Whether God took him to heaven or rescued him in the way he did, God was going to be with him no matter what. His story was going to end with God. And when you know that, you have hope. You have hope that is unshakable. And this is so key in life.

This week, my daughter, she's at that stage of life where she's just devouring books. She reads a couple books a week, and she picks up a book this week called "Each Bird That Sings." And I think she's drawn to it because it's got a picture on the cover of a little girl and a dog. And I mentioned the poodle. She's all about dogs right now. But we've had a little bit of dog drama because we also had to get rid of about a month ago a dog that we've had since she was four. So she's been grieving all that along with her brothers. And she goes, "I'm sure she thought this would be a nice thing just to read this happy book about a girl and her dog." What could be better than that, right? Well, a lot of things apparently, because it actually wasn't the most happy book in the world.

She's reading it, and in the living room, I'm prepared, working on dinner with Laura. And all of a sudden, she just breaks into tears. She starts sobbing, and she goes down to her room, closes the door behind her. I hear her sobbing, and I better go check on her. So I walk in there, and she's in bed. The cover's pulled up in this book like this. She's desperate to get through the last 30, 40 pages. Meanwhile, she's just drenching her pillow, just sobbing. And I don't know what's going on in this book, but I say to her, "Wonny, whatever sad thing's happening in that book, I'm sure it's going to get better by the end. Just hang in there, baby, it's okay." Meanwhile, my 13-year-old, he hears all this going on, and so he whips out his iPad, and instantly, he's got a synopsis of the book right there.

And while I'm trying to comfort her, all of a sudden, I hear him go, "Oh, no, it doesn't get better." Her aunt dies. Her uncle dies. And then the dog dies, the end. He goes, "They all die, and she just has to get used to it." So at that point, I just do what, you know, every husband knows to do. I just turn to my wife and I say, "You got to go rescue our daughter, sweetie." So she goes in there and talks Anna off this emotional ledge that she's on and says, "You know, honey, maybe you don't have to finish that book. It doesn't sound like it's going to get any better." What was the problem? There was no hope. No hope.

It's not just nine-year-old girls that need hope. We all need hope. But you know what? I'm here to remind you this morning, our story ends so much better. It's easy to look back at Christmas, that very first Christmas, from our perspective, with all the hindsight and say, "Well, of course it all went according to plan." Of course it did. But the same God that achieved his plans back then is the same God that we have now, isn't he? Same God that's in control in our lives. So let's bring this home. Let's not leave today without asking ourselves this question. What would I do if I was convinced God was present and active?

What would I do if I was convinced God is present and active right now in my life? How would that affect my perspective? How would that cause me to view my challenges and my trials? How would that impact my choices, the things that I value? I have to think it would make me perhaps more apt to say, "Let it be according to your will," if God is right here, right now. Some of you, you feel like that guy in the sunken ship, you feel you are just buried under a mountain of water and you can't seem to break the surface. Remember, your God will never leave nor forsake you. And maybe it won't turn out the way that you want, but it will turn out in a way that you will be able to say, "My God is faithful."

Some of you have a decision to make in your life, and you don't know what to do because you checked your Bible, you looked it up, the Ten Commandments doesn't cover that particular dilemma that you're in, or you've searched your Bibles and you don't see anything that directly speaks to it. What do you do? Well, what if you were to imagine making that decision right in front of God's face? Because you will. How would that impact that decision? Now, God doesn't watch us in some creepy Santa Claus way waiting for us to see if we're going to be naughty or nice. God is with us present and active as a loving Father who loves us so much, he didn't even spare his own Son so that we could have life and light even in our darkest moments.

How do I know? I have the testimony of His Word, I have the testimony of the life of Jesus Christ who died on a cross and rose from the dead, the testimony of His church for 2000 years, the ripple effect of Jesus being born unto this earth, and I have even more than that. I know this firsthand because it was like yesterday when we were late in Laura's second pregnancy, just a couple weeks before our baby was going to be born, that his heart stopped, he died, and this all just came upon us in a rapid succession of moments. I'm there in the hospital room over in Los Gatos looking down at Laura as she's delivering our baby's body, and I needed the Lord to show up, I needed something, and I learned that God will give you what you need when you need it.

May not come before you need it, but you will get it when you need it and not a minute later. I'm looking down at Laura, and all of a sudden a verse that I don't even remember committing to memory, it just sears itself across my brain, it's like I could read it in my mind's eye. It's a little sentence from 2 Corinthians 4:9 that goes like this, "We are struck down but not destroyed." It's as if the Spirit of God was saying, "Mark, you are struck down, Laura is struck down, but you will not be destroyed." In that moment, I knew. I knew we were going to be okay. Despite the grief, despite the many sad days that would follow, we were going to be okay. We are okay because our God was and still is with us.

Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for your presence with us right here, right now. Lord, we want to simply acknowledge that and be comforted by that. And Father, I pray that you would by your Spirit come alongside every single person in this room who needs your comfort in their life, who needs your direction, your encouragement, your strength, your compassion. Father, in a group like this, there are so many stories of hurt, of grief, of confusion, of doubt, people who came here today and they're thinking, "This is it. I can't." They're on the verge of giving up on something that really matters. Lord, I pray that you would enter into their situation, into their lives, and into their hearts and make the difference that only you can make.

Thank you, God, that you love us so much that you invite us to cast our cares upon you. Thank you that you bear our burdens. Thank you that you know the number of our days, the hairs on our head. Thank you, Lord Jesus, because you know our name and you call us friend.