Good News - Advent4

Fourth Sunday of Advent

with Micah 5:2-5 and Hebrews 10:5-10

www.FirstChurchBville.com    @FirstUMCBville     @kerrfunk  

• First message of Advent: don’t forget!
Fourth message of Advent: Are we here already?

• I see in today’s passages two “good news” stories.

Once upon a time a kind Cokesbury bookstore manager wanted to reward my 5-yo daughter for her good behavior in the store, and offered her one of the shiny plastic rings she’d been admiring. We were very thankful. An hour or two later, our daughter was joyfully showing us the rings she’d gotten from the store.  Plural.  The look on her face when we told her she’d stolen… she hid under her blanket in shame.

A sin, and awareness, and shame. And shame is bad news. Self-will.

Good news is there is loving in spite of shame and there is hope of renewal, of sanctification.

• Micah, prophet 700 yrs BC, saw fruit of unfaithfulness to God, self-will, also hope of divine forgiveness hand in hand with righteous living / humility towards God. Speaks into dark time, chaos, of righteous leader to come, bringing strength security and peace.

• Trouble with own self-will, as 5-yo daughter. Trouble with my own will, and back to the beginning. Personal trouble at own will.

Good news: Christ comes to do the will of the Father.

Book of Hebrews compares and contrasts the Law
– in a time and for a purpose --
and the arrival of Christ – for all time, and covering all sin.

• Good news: Jesus Christ came and was and is perfectly sufficient to redeem broken humankind & give the tools to follow (thy will be done… in the garden and in the Lord’s Prayer)

And now, the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.  And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.  Amen.

• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Micah 5:2-5        (CEB)                                          12/20/15

² As for you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
    though you are the least significant of Judah’s forces,
       one who is to be a ruler in Israel on my behalf
            will come out from you.
    His origin is from remote times, from ancient days.
³ Therefore, he will give them up
       until the time when she who is in labor gives birth.
       The rest of his kin will return to the people of Israel.
⁴ He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,
             in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
        They will dwell secure,
        because he will surely become great throughout the earth;
⁵        he will become one of peace.

Hebrews 10:5-10        (CEB)                                         

⁵ Therefore, when Christ comes into the world he says,

You didn’t want a sacrifice or an offering, but you prepared a body for me;
⁶ you weren’t pleased with entirely burned offerings or a sin offering.
⁷  So then I said, “Look, I’ve come to do your will, God.
    This has been written about me in your Word.”

⁸ He says above, You didn’t want and you weren’t pleased with a sacrifice or an offering or with entirely burned offerings or a purification offering, which are offered because the Law requires them. 

⁹ Then he said, Look, I’ve come to do your will. 

He puts an end to the first to establish the second. 

¹⁰ We have been made holy by God’s will
through the offering of Jesus Christ’s body once for all.