A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 23 December
2012 by Roy Njuabe. The scripture readings that day were Isaiah 62:1–5, I
Corinthians 12:1–11 and John 2:1–11.
Introduction:
Pregnancy often comes with lots of joy,
love, but sometime pains. A pregnant woman can be happy but sometime emotionally
unstable. She often touches her tummy and feels how the baby moves; she will be
looking so closely of the changes on her body. Sometimes she will take the baby
dress and measure them on her tummy to see if it will fit the baby. My wife did
that as well. It was fun time at home as she would sing some beautiful sound
without meanings -- yeh yeh yeh, hey hey hey, baby baby baby etc. All these are
signs of joy that is in a pregnant woman.
The unborn child can feel the love,
they react when you are happy and also when you are sad. Doctors said the
unborn children also have emotions, they get angry or happy. They react to
voices and emotions. When my wife was pregnant, oh I miss those days. Each time
before I went out, or came back home, or went to bed, I would speak to then my
unborn child, Peniel and Mizpah. Sometime when I spoke, the baby reacted with a
move, it was so lovely. The unborn children can feel your love toward them.
The encounter between Mary and Elizabeth
expresses great love between an old woman and a young lady, love between an
unborn child and her mother, love between an unborn child with another lady.
Where there is love, the Spirit of God is present.
Have you ever met with someone you
truly love or some faithful servant of God? You feel a different atmosphere;
you can feel how humble and meek that person is.
In the gospel of Luke, we just read, it
is clear the Holy Spirit was present. Elizabeth
was in 6 month pregnancy at an old age. Her pregnancy was like a surprise to
her. However for Mary, her pregnancy was scary since she was still single, what
would people say of her? Oh that bad girl, who slept with her husband before married.
I guess if Mary was in our world today, she will not just bother about such
worries.
Elizabeth may have gone through all kinds of
insult as well. People may have call her all kinds of names: you barren woman,
you are a witch that`s why you couldn`t have a child, or better put it in
modern term -- “bad luck”.
For how long did Elizabeth wait for this glorious day to come?
Her entire life!
How long can you wait for God to
manifest His glory in your life? Some of us may give up after few days of waiting,
and then we will exclaim; “I can`t wait because God doesn`t hear my prayer”.
What
do we wait for?
In our lives, we all may have something
we are waiting for, sometime things that we need so badly. However, we as Elizabeth may be thinking
it is far from being possible. How can it happen?
We may have given up hope that anything
good will happen, that the impossible can become possible. Elizabeth had such feelings. She was at her menopause
age, according to natural law. At such age, it is impossible to have a child, the
womb cannot support pregnancy; nothing good can come out of that womb.
God
comes in when human give up.
However, our good God often comes in
such scenarios. He often comes in to proof people wrong when they thought he is
absent in their lives. What you think is impossible to man, it is possible with
God
We may be puzzle of the miracle that
happens in Elizabeth’s
life. However, it is not a miracle to God, to God it is something normal. As
children of God such miracle can happen in your life.
I may not be able to tell you when it
will happen because I am not Mayans who
predicted that the world will end soon, but what I am sure is that God will do
something new in your life someday.
How
can something good come out of Bethlehem?
God often used what people had rejected
to transform the world around them.
In the book of Micah it said, from a
small town of Bethlehem,
this very quotation was echo in the gospel of Matthew by the chief priests when
King Herod needed an answer of where Christ was born. How can something good
come out of Bethlehem
a small town, may be with very poor people, bad climate, etc.
How can Jesus, the son of an Almighty
God, the Alpha and the Omega be born in a small poor country? He was supposed
to be born at the king`s palace, not in a small town.
Can
something good come out of a poor country today?
In today`s world, such classification
do exist. We judge people based on which country they come from. If you are
from a small country and you want people to see your works, you have to do
three times better than those from big countries.
In my entire life, it is when I left my
country that I know that I am a black man. Before people were judge by the
colour of their skin, but today because of so many inter-cultural marriages,
colour is not so much of a problem but which country they come from. It is when
I left my country before I knew that to be a black person from Africa is a problem. When people knows that you are from
Africa they started treating you differently knowing that nothing good can come
out of you?
Martin
Luther said, “do not judge
a person by the colour of his skin but by the content of his heart”. Today I
will add another phrase to it, “Do not
judge a person by the country he comes from but by the content of his heart.”
Africa, that poor continent with war all the
time, together with the problems of famine and slavery, how can something good
come out of it? If we hear that Jesus was coming from Africa, I guess many
people may wonder why from Africa? Why not
from America or Europe?
Bethlehem, why Bethlehem,
a small town in Judea where Jesus was born?
People at that time had similar question, they believed that such a great king
could not be born in a small town.
Peace-making
program:
Sometimes in our peace-making program,
we often encounter people who thought that Africa
is still in the time of Tarzan, where people live in the forest with animal as
their parents. That Africans still eat and live with animals like tiger and
lions together in the same house. How can someone who lives with animals be
good, he must behave like an animal? They are not educated; all they know is
how to fight.
How can something good come out from a
place where people behave like animal and live on trees and in the forest? How
can something good come from a poor country?
Can
you speak English?
Some time when I speak in English
people are surprise and they will exclaim hay!!
“keui seq yingmahn ah”
Some people even asked my wife, how can
she get married to an African, someone from a poor continent. Some of her friends
even came up to me and asked if I may introduce a boyfriend to them, but their
request was for a boy from America.
Sometime I wonder why people think that it is only from big countries that you
can have a good partner. Oh no, people don`t even think to have a kind partner,
someone who is caring, loving, but their first thought is where the person comes
from. To such people, I often tell them if you want a boy from America, don`t
worry I will introduce you to a very special boy. He is from a country far
lower than America, He is
from Bethlehem,
but He is the son of the Almighty, He is Jesus Christ. He will transform you
and the world around you.
I
ask my wife:
Before I got married to my wife, I
asked her, ‘are you not afraid to marry an African?’ You live in a very
beautiful city but I came from one of the worst continents on earth? My wife
shocked me with her response when she said: “whether you are from the worst country on
earth, no matter what people think about you, what I care is the kindness of
your heart, that is what I see in you.” She echoes Martin Luther`s words “the
content of a person’s heart”.
She is the lady who makes me to believe
that not every person thinks bad about Africa.
There are people who believe that something good can come out of Africa.
There are people who believe that even though
Elizabeth is
old, she can still have a baby. There are people who believe that though Bethlehem is the smallest
or may be the worst town, someone great will come out of it.
Classroom
experience:
One day at my seminary, we took an exam
and after the teacher corrected the papers, she came to class and distributed
the papers to us. Before then she said, ‘there is one person in this class who
has full make : that is 100/100, if you have any question about this course ask
him.’ Everyone was waiting to hear who that person is, she said it is Roy. The important part
of this story is that, one male student stood and said: ‘Roy you have proven me wrong, I thought
Africans are not educated. Even as I see you at this seminary, I wonder how you
could study.’ He may be one among many who have such thought about people from
small countries.
Conclusion:
How often do we look at people from
small countries that they can`t do anything? How often do we judge people from
poor or small countries that they can`t do anything? It is human nature, but as
Christians let us hold this Divine spirit and learn from today`s text that even
from the smallest and poor country, God can raise up great people. From a
barren old woman, God can bring new life.
While people look at Africa as that
land nothing good comes out of it, God looks at Africa
as a blessed land. While people look at Africans like the people with no
knowledge, God looks at them as people with great potentials. While people
thought that Elizabeth
could not have a child, God gave her “a blessed child”.
How about you, what do you think? Can
God change your life? Do you have the hope that God can do miracles in your life?
God has proven to us through this text today that what we think is impossible
to men and women, it is possible with God.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, December 23, 2012
