William H. Willimon - "The Fullness of Time" (December 26, 1999)
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| - | The third reading is from the gospel, | 0:06 |
| according to Saint Luke, the second chapter. | 0:08 | |
| When the time came for purification | 0:14 | |
| according to the law of Moses, | 0:18 | |
| Mary and Joseph brought Jesus up to Jerusalem | 0:21 | |
| to present him to the Lord. | 0:25 | |
| As it is written in the law of the Lord | 0:27 | |
| that every first born male shall be designated as holy | 0:30 | |
| to the Lord. | 0:34 | |
| And they offered a sacrifice | 0:36 | |
| according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, | 0:38 | |
| a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. | 0:42 | |
| Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. | 0:47 | |
| This man was righteous and devout, | 0:53 | |
| looking forward to the consolation of Israel, | 0:55 | |
| and the Holy Spirit rested on him. | 0:59 | |
| It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit | 1:02 | |
| that he would not see death | 1:05 | |
| before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. | 1:08 | |
| Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came in to the temple, | 1:11 | |
| and when the parents brought in Jesus | 1:16 | |
| to do for him what was customary under the law, | 1:19 | |
| Simeon took Jesus in to his arms and praised God, saying, | 1:22 | |
| Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, | 1:27 | |
| according to your word. | 1:32 | |
| For my eyes have seen your salvation | 1:34 | |
| which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples: | 1:37 | |
| a light, for revelation to the Gentiles, | 1:41 | |
| and for glory to your people, Israel. | 1:45 | |
| The child's father and mother were amazed | 1:49 | |
| at what was being said about Jesus. | 1:52 | |
| Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, | 1:55 | |
| This child is destined | 2:00 | |
| to cause the falling and the rising | 2:02 | |
| of many in Israel | 2:05 | |
| and to be a sign that will be opposed. | 2:07 | |
| So that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed, | 2:11 | |
| and a sword will pierce your own soul, too. | 2:15 | |
| There was also a prophet, | 2:20 | |
| Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, | 2:22 | |
| of the tribe of Asher. | 2:25 | |
| Anna was of a great age, | 2:27 | |
| having lived with her husband | 2:29 | |
| seven years after her marriage. | 2:31 | |
| Then, as a widow, to the age of 84. | 2:33 | |
| She never left the temple but worshiped there | 2:37 | |
| with fasting and prayer night and day. | 2:41 | |
| Coming up to Mary and Joseph, | 2:45 | |
| she began to praise God | 2:47 | |
| and to speak about the child to all there | 2:49 | |
| who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. | 2:52 | |
| When Joseph and Mary had finished everything required | 2:57 | |
| by the law of the Lord, | 3:00 | |
| they returned to Galilee, | 3:02 | |
| to their own town of Nazareth. | 3:04 | |
| The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, | 3:07 | |
| and in the favor of God was upon him. | 3:12 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 3:16 | |
| - | Thanks be to God | 3:19 |
| - | They had waited for a child, | 3:30 |
| prayed for the gift of a baby. | 3:33 | |
| The test. | 3:36 | |
| The waiting, the hoping, the disappointment. | 3:38 | |
| And then, praise God, the news was good | 3:43 | |
| and after a nine month wait, | 3:46 | |
| she gave birth to a lovely baby girl. | 3:48 | |
| Rejoice! | 3:53 | |
| But not completely. | 3:56 | |
| A friend told them in their joy, | 3:59 | |
| "Well, now comes the hard part. | 4:03 | |
| "Raising a child, enduring a teenager, paying for college. | 4:07 | |
| "Each day, as a parent, | 4:12 | |
| "you have less control over your child's life, | 4:15 | |
| "and there's just so many dangers | 4:18 | |
| "for children these days. | 4:21 | |
| "So many distractions, I tell ya, now is the hard part." | 4:22 | |
| To their surprise, it was not yet time to rejoice. | 4:29 | |
| December graduation from college, | 4:37 | |
| Well, congratulations, 16 plus years of education | 4:39 | |
| successfully behind you. | 4:44 | |
| You got to be filled with pride. | 4:46 | |
| Rejoice! | 4:49 | |
| Not necessarily. | 4:52 | |
| Because now it is time | 4:54 | |
| for getting in to graduate school, | 4:57 | |
| and then getting out. | 4:59 | |
| You're not finished yet. | 5:01 | |
| Not by a long shot. | 5:03 | |
| You better postpone that post-graduation party. | 5:04 | |
| It's not yet time for noise makers and party hats. | 5:10 | |
| There're responsibilities and duties. | 5:14 | |
| It's not yet time to rejoice. | 5:18 | |
| A Christmas wedding! | 5:23 | |
| It's a beautiful setting particularly this time of year | 5:26 | |
| with the poinsettias, and it's just perfect. | 5:29 | |
| The church so beautifully decorated | 5:31 | |
| for the season just, what a perfect beginning | 5:33 | |
| for a marriage. | 5:38 | |
| But of course nothing is perfect. | 5:43 | |
| Marriage! | 5:45 | |
| Marriage means responsibility and setting goals together, | 5:47 | |
| and working to achieve those goals. | 5:52 | |
| A wedding is a fine event, but marriage, | 5:56 | |
| oh that's another matter. | 5:58 | |
| Lots of marriages don't work out so well. | 6:00 | |
| Even though they start with much promise. | 6:04 | |
| They fall, they fail, they break apart. | 6:08 | |
| They end in sorrow. | 6:10 | |
| Better to wait a few years before pronouncing the word | 6:13 | |
| perfect upon this union. | 6:17 | |
| Let's keep the couple on probation. | 6:20 | |
| There comes the seven year itch, | 6:23 | |
| and then there's the 10 year hurtle to get over together. | 6:25 | |
| It's not yet time to rejoice. | 6:30 | |
| The incarnation, | 6:35 | |
| God with us, | 6:38 | |
| dwelling among us in the flesh. | 6:40 | |
| We had waited. | 6:45 | |
| We had waited down through | 6:46 | |
| the dim millennia for deliverance. | 6:48 | |
| We had prayed with the prophets. | 6:52 | |
| God come down here and save us! | 6:55 | |
| Or show us glory! | 6:59 | |
| But mostly what we got were just hints, glimpses. | 7:06 | |
| We got promises. | 7:11 | |
| And it is of the nature of a promise that everything | 7:15 | |
| is future oriented. | 7:18 | |
| There's this great gap in a promise | 7:22 | |
| between the expectation and the fulfillment. | 7:26 | |
| I shall come, God promised. | 7:32 | |
| I shall not leave you desolate. | 7:36 | |
| I shall bear my strong arm to save! | 7:39 | |
| And still we waited. | 7:46 | |
| We waited and waited. | 7:49 | |
| Then, in the middle of a star lit night in Bethlehem, | 7:53 | |
| there was a baby's cry. | 8:00 | |
| Light shone from the stable out behind the inn. | 8:03 | |
| The heavens were split open with sounds of angelic joy. | 8:09 | |
| Music, such had never been heard before. | 8:15 | |
| Heavenly messengers spoke glad tidings. | 8:20 | |
| Wise men came to worship. | 8:26 | |
| Joy! | 8:30 | |
| Promises fulfilled! | 8:32 | |
| Pledges made good! | 8:34 | |
| Deliverance, salvation, joy! | 8:36 | |
| Joy. | 8:42 | |
| But Christmas is only a day old. | 8:48 | |
| And already you can feel the music begin to dissipate. | 8:53 | |
| We had put away the twisted ribbons | 9:02 | |
| and the wrapping paper. | 9:04 | |
| Today there will be leftovers for lunch. | 9:09 | |
| Relatives from the East baring gifts | 9:12 | |
| have returned home by another way. | 9:17 | |
| And what of the joy? | 9:22 | |
| January is bills to pay, | 9:25 | |
| and the darkest days of winter. | 9:30 | |
| And if January the 1st comes, | 9:33 | |
| can April 15th be that far away? | 9:35 | |
| So we think, well, maybe we move too quickly | 9:40 | |
| to the victory songs. | 9:42 | |
| Maybe we should've waited | 9:45 | |
| to claim fulfillment. | 9:49 | |
| Perhaps there are more promises yet to be made good upon. | 9:53 | |
| See! | 10:01 | |
| There is something about us | 10:03 | |
| that makes joy difficult. | 10:08 | |
| Joy! | 10:11 | |
| Complete, unrestrained, unconstrained, uninhibited joy | 10:12 | |
| is hard for us. | 10:18 | |
| We are just full of reservations. | 10:23 | |
| Claims of fulfillment. | 10:27 | |
| Always have to answer to hard realities. | 10:30 | |
| Christmas card sentimentality | 10:35 | |
| must answer to sober pragmatism. | 10:37 | |
| It may not yet be time to rejoice. | 10:43 | |
| What is there about us that makes joy so difficult? | 10:51 | |
| Maybe it's because you think back on your life | 10:58 | |
| and how many times have you gotten pumped up? | 11:01 | |
| Only to be deflated and let down? | 11:04 | |
| That invigorating new job, the perfect job | 11:08 | |
| becomes, in just a month, | 11:11 | |
| just another day at the office. | 11:14 | |
| Maybe we learn to defend ourselves | 11:19 | |
| by not allowing ourselves to become too joyful. | 11:23 | |
| You live a while. | 11:27 | |
| You go around the block a few times. | 11:29 | |
| You learn to hold back. | 11:31 | |
| Prudence requires restraint. | 11:33 | |
| A student awhile back telling me, | 11:38 | |
| she is just the most perfect person in the world. | 11:41 | |
| This is love. | 11:45 | |
| This is just wonderful. | 11:46 | |
| I want to spend my life with her. | 11:49 | |
| I just can't get her out of my head. | 11:50 | |
| I ask him. | 11:55 | |
| I said, "You didn't date much in high school, did you?" | 11:56 | |
| (crowd laughs) | 11:59 | |
| This has got to be the first time. | 12:01 | |
| If you noticed with children, | 12:05 | |
| it is of characteristic of young children | 12:07 | |
| that they just, they specialize in unrestrained | 12:09 | |
| joy and exuberance. | 12:13 | |
| But as a child grows up, | 12:17 | |
| there is this diminution of delight. | 12:19 | |
| You learn, as you grow older, that the time is rarely right | 12:25 | |
| for full throated joy. | 12:30 | |
| Church. | 12:36 | |
| Church is bad about this, I'll admit it. | 12:38 | |
| You come here on Sunday, | 12:42 | |
| you hope to get a word of encouragement. | 12:43 | |
| Some great affirmation that God is good, | 12:46 | |
| that life is worth living. | 12:49 | |
| That you're going to make it through the week. | 12:50 | |
| But I, as your preacher, stand up, and I say, | 12:54 | |
| Wait a minute, not so fast! | 12:56 | |
| You're not yet to the land of rejoicing. | 12:59 | |
| I don't care what the hymns say. | 13:02 | |
| You got these bad habits. | 13:05 | |
| You got these little dark secrets. | 13:06 | |
| All the ways that you disappoint; you fall short. | 13:10 | |
| You're not ready to rejoice, it's not yet time. | 13:14 | |
| Pull up those tulips and plant turnips. | 13:19 | |
| Exchange those patent leather pumps for sensible Rockports. | 13:23 | |
| The end of the service today, I've got a baptism. | 13:30 | |
| Baby that I helped create. | 13:34 | |
| Married the couple a couple of years ago, | 13:37 | |
| they're back here at the altar | 13:39 | |
| for the baptism of their child. | 13:43 | |
| And they are so excited, it's their first child. | 13:45 | |
| They are exuberant. | 13:48 | |
| And I stand up there, and I stare this baby in the face | 13:51 | |
| in the baptism service, and I say, all right. | 13:54 | |
| Are you prepared to resist injustice, and evil, | 13:59 | |
| and oppression, in whatever guises they present themselves? | 14:03 | |
| The answer is: I will. | 14:07 | |
| It's just discipleship, it's this burden. | 14:12 | |
| Too many of my sermons can be summarized by the phrase | 14:19 | |
| 10 reasons you're not really a Christian even though | 14:25 | |
| you thought you might be when you came to the service. | 14:29 | |
| (crowd laughs) | 14:32 | |
| Church specializes in deflating the enthusiastic | 14:34 | |
| and in puncturing the exuberance | 14:38 | |
| of the blissful. | 14:43 | |
| Church is where we come to be bathed | 14:45 | |
| in this weekly should, ought, must. | 14:48 | |
| A party? | 14:55 | |
| Oh, not so fast, you're not ready to rejoice. | 14:56 | |
| There's still more for you to do. | 15:01 | |
| There's still more for God to do. | 15:03 | |
| But not today. | 15:09 | |
| Not this Sunday. | 15:12 | |
| When the epistle speaks of the fullness of time. | 15:15 | |
| Paul has been going on to the Galatians, | 15:21 | |
| hammering them for their inadequacies. | 15:23 | |
| He begins a letter to them: | 15:26 | |
| You stupid Galatians. | 15:28 | |
| I've only been away a couple of months, | 15:30 | |
| and how dumb can you be? | 15:32 | |
| You've already fallen back in your, | 15:33 | |
| and he hammers on them for a couple of chapters, | 15:34 | |
| and then he gets here, and he says but, | 15:37 | |
| but in the fullness of time | 15:42 | |
| God sent his son so that you might no longer be slaves | 15:47 | |
| but you would be children of God. | 15:53 | |
| The fullness of time. | 15:58 | |
| The fullness of time! | 16:01 | |
| What a great way to speak of the incarnation in Bethlehem | 16:02 | |
| of God Almighty. | 16:06 | |
| The fullness of time. | 16:08 | |
| Time's fulfillment. | 16:10 | |
| Time before Christ is for us time of yearning, and reaching, | 16:16 | |
| and wishing, and hoping. | 16:21 | |
| Time of desire not yet assuaged | 16:24 | |
| and hope not fulfilled. | 16:28 | |
| The theologian, Karl Barth, | 16:31 | |
| spoke of the Old Testament | 16:34 | |
| for all of its beauty and grandeur and places. | 16:37 | |
| He says it is the finger pointing into the void. | 16:40 | |
| You heard, didn't you, during the Sundays of Advent, | 16:48 | |
| the Hebrew prophet speak of darkness and of sin, | 16:52 | |
| and desire, and yearning? | 16:56 | |
| The pain of exile. | 16:59 | |
| The hopelessness of homelessness. | 17:02 | |
| But not today. | 17:08 | |
| Not this Sunday. | 17:10 | |
| Not this Sunday when old Anna | 17:12 | |
| at last sees what her tired, geriatric eyes | 17:15 | |
| have been scanning the horizon for her whole life to see. | 17:18 | |
| Not today. | 17:24 | |
| Not today when the prophet Isaiah proclaims an exchange | 17:26 | |
| of ashes for garlands | 17:31 | |
| and green shoots springing up in the dry desecrated desert. | 17:34 | |
| Not today. | 17:39 | |
| Today is one of those days when even for preachers, | 17:40 | |
| it's just impossible to get around the joy. | 17:45 | |
| The pure joy. | 17:49 | |
| Joy is full, large, unrestrained. | 17:51 | |
| And I'll tell you why. | 17:58 | |
| Because today you see it is joy not of our devising. | 18:00 | |
| If there is to be hope for us, for us, | 18:07 | |
| at the end of history's maybe most bloody century, | 18:10 | |
| if there is to be hope for us, | 18:15 | |
| it's gonna have to come from the outside. | 18:19 | |
| It will not come from digging down | 18:22 | |
| and seeking human potential. | 18:26 | |
| It's going to have to be a joy that comes | 18:30 | |
| not of our devising. | 18:34 | |
| It's joy that comes when desperate prayers | 18:39 | |
| have been answered, and hope is fulfilled, | 18:43 | |
| and dreams made reality. | 18:46 | |
| It's joy that can only come as gift of God. | 18:50 | |
| Not as something of our own making. | 18:55 | |
| Sad what passes for joy around here. | 19:00 | |
| Particularly next week. | 19:04 | |
| New Year's. | 19:07 | |
| One of the dumbest holidays of the year. | 19:08 | |
| People get together, run out in to the streets, | 19:11 | |
| and try to look pleased that they're a year older. | 19:13 | |
| That the calendar has flipped over. | 19:17 | |
| You can't feel joy at an occasion like that | 19:20 | |
| except through chemical inducement. | 19:23 | |
| (crowd laughs) | 19:25 | |
| Joy, real joy, it cannot be self or chemically induced! | 19:28 | |
| It's got to come from the outside as a gift. | 19:33 | |
| Real joy is always reflexive. | 19:36 | |
| Something that is received. | 19:41 | |
| Joy comes to us as a baby. | 19:42 | |
| God with our face. | 19:48 | |
| God with us. | 19:52 | |
| God comes to stand beside us | 19:53 | |
| and be for us in order that we might truly be for God. | 19:56 | |
| Today in this post-Christmas sermon, | 20:01 | |
| you will note, I've got absolutely nothing for you to do. | 20:06 | |
| I have no good work to urge upon you. | 20:12 | |
| I don't want you to improve or try to do better. | 20:16 | |
| Or clean up your social attitudes. | 20:19 | |
| Or get out there and feel something inspirational. | 20:22 | |
| I don't think I have once in this sermon invoked | 20:28 | |
| those three favorite homiletical words: | 20:30 | |
| Should, ought, must, you gotta do. | 20:34 | |
| Only thing I want is to invite you to rejoice. | 20:39 | |
| To permit you to praise, to encourage you to carol. | 20:42 | |
| Time is full, tomorrow bright. | 20:49 | |
| The future is light, | 20:53 | |
| 'cause we're not alone. | 20:57 | |
| To our surprise, | 21:00 | |
| and great delight, something's afoot at Bethlehem. | 21:04 | |
| God among us. | 21:10 | |
| Rejoice! | 21:13 |
