For years our church put up large billboards in several locations around the city. The billboards simply asked the following question in huge letters: "Looking for God?" If you talk with people about spiritual things, as I regularly do, there are an amazing variety of ways that people have of experiencing God. Because God is the Creator of this world, many people experience something of God by being out in nature. I've talked with hunters who say that one of the things they love about hunting is not just getting a deer. It is being in the woods at the crack of dawn when everything is still. It seems that every breeze communicates something of God's Presence.
If you've ever watched a lightening storm over an ocean, the thunder and lightening can fill you with a sense of God's power and majesty. Walking by a flowing stream, hearing birds sing, or looking at a field of flowers can fill a person with a sense of God's joy and comfort. The Old Testament King David, who is the most famous of all of the Israelite kings, said this in Psalm 19:1-4, The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from
them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the
world.
Have you ever experienced God through nature?
Since God is love, many people experience God when they do good and serve other people. Why do you think so many folks enjoy going down to Faith Mission or the Ronald McDonald House, or our food pantries, or with us to the homeless camps to serve people at Christmas time? It is not only the satisfaction you get knowing that you've helped someone else; God reveals himself as we give ourselves away in acts of service. When you help a stranded motorist, when you shovel the driveway of an elderly neighbor, when you tutor a child in an after school program, you might find yourself experiencing God. Jesus says as much in Matthew 25:40, The King will reply "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."
Have you ever felt closer to God because you did some act of kindness for someone else?
Since God is the author of beauty, some people experience God through the arts - through music, dance, film, or painting. Because God is relational, one can often have a sense of God when families come together in love, or friends come together over a meal and enjoy warm conversation with each other.
An ancient Psalm says this in Psalm 133:1 and 3, How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!... It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.
But all of these general experiences of God: whether through nature or through service, through the arts, or through relationships - all of these general experiences of God, however wonderful they are, are meant to lead us somewhere. It is not the intention of God to leave us with vague spiritual feelings, or even a sense of wonder and awe. God wants us to know him! Nature and acts of service, the arts and community, are all sign- posts meant to point beyond themselves to a specific God who exists.
We read in Matthew 2:1-2 these words: After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."
The amazing truth about Christmas is that we get to experience the God to whom all signs point: signs in nature, signs of feeling fulfilled as we give ourselves away in service, signs through beauty, and signs of experiencing love through our relationships. Christmas means that Almighty God has come to us with a human face. God the Creator has made himself completely accessible to his creation.
This Christmas why not set time aside to experience more fully the God, who came to us in Jesus Christ? Here are some suggestions for experiencing God this Christmas:
• Read through the Christmas stories and, perhaps, pick up a wonderful book on Christmas to read along with the gospel accounts in Matthew and Luke. Two of my favorite Christmas books are titled Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas and the Kingdom by Walter Wangerin, Jr. and a book written by my dear friend, Adam Hamilton, the pastor of Church of the Resurrection, the nation's largest Methodist Church, titled The Journey: Walking the Road to Bethlehem.
• Consider donating gifts, meals, or even volunteering for "NAVIDAD LATINA", our Christmas outreach to our Latino brothers and sisters on Friday, December 9, at 7:00pm. Gifts are asked to be age appropriate for children between 3 months and 12 years old. For more information contact Irene Casale at 614 - 259-5254 or Irene.casale@vineyardcolumbus.org.
...or perhaps consider:
• Cooking a Christmas meal for the homeless who are living outside and not in shelters, and for women living at Rebecca Place Shelter. Meal items will be needed on December 21, 2011. Contact Jenney Rice at 614- 259-5370 or jenney.rice@vineyardcolumbus.org for details.
• Donating items for Christmas gift bags at Bryden Place Nursing home, Scioto Juvenile, and the YWCA Family Shelter. You can access our Christmas Wish List for donation items on our Urban Ministry Page at www.vineyardcolumbus.org.
or why not consider...
• Inviting friends and family to church on Christmas Eve. Services at our main Campus will be held at 4pm, 6pm, and 11pm and at our Lane Avenue and Sawmill Campus Satellites at 4:30pm.
One of my favorite meditations at Christmas was written by St. Augustine 1600 years ago:
Maker of the sun,
He is made under the sun.
In the Father he remains,
From his mother he goes forth.
Creator of heaven and earth,
He was born on earth under heaven.
Unspeakably wise,
He is wisely speechless.
Filling the world,
He lies in a manger.
Ruler of the stars,
He nurses at his mother's bosom.
He is both great in the nature of God,
And small in the form of a servant.
This is the God we experience at Christmas!