Keep Awake

How do you care for people at Christmas? The holidays can be a challenging time. Human interaction is intense with parties and social engagements that intersect with work, family, friends, and church. Over four weeks we will explore how to be “Caring During Christmas.” In this Advent sermon series you will learn four practical things based on Biblical wisdom that you can do be caring. These four weeks in December, called “Advent,” are a traditional time to prepare for Christmas spiritually. So dive in with us and prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ!

Constant Distractions

Constant distraction keeps us from caring. We occupy ourselves with things that prevent us from having to deal with people. We take things that aren’t necessarily bad and use them to distract ourselves from people. There are tons of examples. If you think about it you can identify what you use to distract yourself. It could be a dependence on work, social media, or substances like drugs and alcohol. These distractions can keep us from caring for others. They can keep us from having to feel emotions that come along with interacting with people.

Think about the story of Noah. In those days people were terrible toward one another. They robbed and cheated one another, and were incredibly violent. God was angry and decided to flood the entire world. God spoke to Noah and instructed him to build an ark in order to preserve life. Noah didn’t keep this information a secret! Others heard the warning of a flood. But they continued to distract themselves. Jesus said, 

“For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.”

Matthew 24:37-39

The people in Noah’s time were so distracted that they were oblivious to a massive flood that would destroy everything around them. Maybe they distracted themselves from a painful and uncomfortable truth.

We Distract Ourselves Because We Don’t Feel Good

Noah and his family survived the flood. When the water subsided they returned to the Earth to create a new civilization. Noah was probably traumatized by all that he had seen. It wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows! According to the book of Genesis, Noah promptly got drunk after leaving the ark. He was trying to distract himself from his feelings. Imagine what he must have felt after seeing such things! He must have felt: sad, happy, angry, peaceful, confused, hopeful, and more. 

Have you ever felt intense and mixed emotions? It isn’t easy. It makes sense why distractions can be such a big part of our life. We have complicated feelings to deal with. But distractions don’t help us deal with difficult feelings. They are only a temporary fix. 

God Knows How We Feel

We might be able to distract ourselves from how we feel for a long time. We cannot, however, prevent God from knowing how we feel. Jesus promised that he would come into our lives at unexpected time. He used an unusual metaphor to explain what his arrival would be like, a thief. 

But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Matthew 24:43

Why would Jesus compare his coming into our lives to a thief? Thieves intrude into the most personal and private areas of our lives when we least expect it. Jesus does the same thing. Just a thief enters our home; God enters our heart. Thieves take our dearest possessions away from us. Jesus actually takes things away from us too. Jesus takes away our sin. Jesus also takes away painful and difficult feelings from us; like guilt and shame. 

It is traditional to contemplate Jesus’ “second coming” during the first week of Advent. Part of preparing for Christmas is preparing for Jesus return. What if Jesus’ second coming is a very real and personal experience of Jesus entering your heart? When this happens Jesus will understand all of your feelings, whether you are paying attention to them or not.

We Can Feel Happy

The Good News is that you can feel deeply happy. Jesus is God’s unconditional love for you. So if God’s love enters your heart, then you will feel love, joy, and happiness. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Many thinkers and teachers of Emotional Intelligence argue that happiness is built in to us. Some have said that, “Happiness is your default setting.” They suggest that happiness is potentially always within reach. Perhaps this what the Psalmist refers to in Psalm 122,

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”  Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” 

Psalm 122:1, 7

It’s a vision of gladness and peace filling and reverberating off the walls in Jerusalem. That same gladness and peace can fill us up and reverberate within our heart. We can better deal with and care for others when we are tuned in and have a positive state of mind. The question is, how do experience the happiness and joy of God?

Keep Awake

The first and most basic thing we can do to experience happiness is to be aware of what we are feeling right now. The truth is you probably don’t feel happy all of the time. But in order to be happy the first step is to simply allow yourself to feel. 

Emotions and feelings are not bad things. They are powerful things, and they are gifts from God. Feelings are deep and colorful ways that we process reality and make sense of what is happening around us. Feelings can motivate us to take action in order to preserve life and thrive. So how do you feel?

One trick that I have learned to identify feelings is to think about different emoji faces. I run through different faces in my mind until I find a match that I can relate to. Then I name that feeling. Once I know that I am feeling I can take actionable steps to resolve it. If I am angry, then what is causing me to be angry? What can I do about it? I have found that God helps me take steps to resolve my feelings and experience joy. St. Paul encouraged the Romans to make the effort of being aware of their feelings too. He wrote: 

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 

Romans 13:11-12 

It is possible to be Caring During Christmas. You can feel a sense of happiness, peace, and security.  The first step in being able to care for others, is to care for yourself. That means being awake to what you feel. It means pausing periodically and naming your emotions. But what do you do when your feelings are very difficult. That’s the topic for next week.