Anybody here have selective hearing or seeing? Sure, we all do. Every second, our brain is bombarded with sensory data from all five senses. You just sat down, but already your brain has probably stopped consciously focusing on the feel of the seat. You're probably not thinking about the temperature of the room, although you probably did at one point this morning. There are all kinds of sounds that you're not focusing on right now - the faint hum of lights, somebody shifting beside you. Our brains would go crazy if they had to process every piece of data that our bodies sensed.

One day a lady criticized D. L. Moody for his methods of evangelism in attempting to win people to the Lord. Moody's reply was "I agree with you. I don't like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?" The lady replied, "I don't do it." Moody retorted, "Then I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it."

Humans are always declaring their freedom, wishing for more "space," announcing that they belong only to "themselves." We want to be free from the enslavement of the kitchen, or from confinement of a job we don't like.

In his book, This Sunrise of Wonder, Michael Mayne writes this to his grandchildren: "If I could have waved a fairy grandfather's wand at your birth and wished upon you just one gift it would not have been beauty or riches or a long life: It would have been the gift of wonder." (Michael Mayne, This Sunrise of Wonder, p. 11) He goes on to suggest that they set their sights not on success, but on wonder. They should live with a sense of awe. Maybe that's part of what's going on at the Mount of Transfiguration. In this glimpse of glory, Jesus is trying to give the disciples the gift of wonder, a sense of awe.

Of the 7 deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savour to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

There was a mother mouse who decided to teach her children about the world. So she gathered all of her little mice and set out for a walk. They walked down the hall and turned to the right. Then they went down the hall and took another right. And suddenly they found themselves in front of the family cat dozing in the sunlight. The mother mouse was scared. But she didn't want to give in to her fright. So, she signalled to the children to be very quiet and to follow as she began to tip toe quietly and slowly past the sleeping cat. Just as she was about to get past the cat, the cat's eyes popped open and raised its paw.

One Sunday as they drove home from church, a little girl turned to her mother and said, "Mommy, there's something about the preacher's message this morning that I don't understand." The mother said, "Oh? What is it?" The little girl replied, "Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. He said God is so big that He could hold the whole world in His hand. Is that true?" The mother replied, "Yes, that's true, honey." "But Mommy, he also said that God comes to live inside of us when we believe in Jesus as our Saviour. Is that true, too?" Again, the mother assured the little girl that what the pastor had said was true. With a puzzled look on her face the little girl then asked, "If God is bigger than us and He lives in us, wouldn't He show through?"

Christianity began as a working man's religion. No, that is not the gospel according to Marx; it is the Gospel According to Matthew. Matthew tells us that immediately after Jesus began a public preaching ministry, he took four fishermen as his apprentices. He was walking by the Sea of Galilee and spied Andrew and Peter casting their nets. He called them to follow him, promising to make them fishers of men. In Matthew's Gospel, then, linked tightly together are Jesus' ringing pronouncement, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and his invitation to the fishermen, "Follow me."

Everyone knows that the best form of advertising ever invented and the one that is still most successful is word-of-mouth - people telling other people. About sixty years ago there used to be an automobile named the Packard. Packard was the last car manufacturer to get into advertising. It didn't happen until old man Packard died, because whenever he was approached to buy some advertising for his cars he always said, "Don't need any; just ask the man who owns one." After his death, "Ask the man who owns one" became the Packard slogan.

Those who are baptized do not need to strive after a new life. They have already attained new life through dying with Christ. But they do need to nurture that new life so it can grow and mature. That's what church is for. That's what Bible study is for. That's what prayer is for. It is like the Parable of the Sower. Many of those seeds sprouted up, but only a few grew into maturity. The rest withered and died.

Many years ago a pastor in Glasgow, Scotland named George McLeod chanced to look up at the stained-glass windows over the chancel of the sanctuary. The phrase, "Glory to God in the highest" was carved in the glass. As he looked he noticed that a pane of glass was broken and missing, the pane on which the letter "e" in the word "highest" was carved. Suddenly he found himself seeing the words that were now there, "Glory to God in the High St." High Street was a nearby avenue. It struck McLeod that the only way to glorify God IS to glorify him in the High St. The only way to truly glorify God is to glorify him where we live, work and play. Certainly John did that. He did it in his preaching. He did it in his life.

My copy of the Bible entitles this sub-section of Scripture, "The Flight into Egypt." Cruel Herod the king had been threatened by the birth of Jesus, apparently fearing that Jesus would become a competitor for his own crown. Since that was an intolerable possibility to him, and since he could not be sure which baby boy was Jesus, he ordered that all the male children in and around Bethlehem who were two-years old or under be killed. Thus it was that an angel of the Lord directed Joseph to take Jesus and Mary and to "flee to Egypt."

Some gifts you can give this Christmas are beyond monetary value: Mend a quarrel, dismiss suspicion, tell someone, "I love you." Give something away anonymously. Forgive someone who has treated you wrong. Turn away wrath with a soft answer. Visit someone in a nursing home. Apologize if you were wrong. Be especially kind to someone with whom you work. Give as God gave to you in Christ, without obligation, or announcement, or reservation, or hypocrisy. 

G. K. Chesterton, the noted British poet and theologian, was a brilliant man who could think deep thoughts and express them well. However, he was also extremely absent-minded and over the years he became rather notorious for getting lost. He would just absolutely forget where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing. On one such occasion, he sent a telegram to his wife which carried these words: "Honey, seems I'm lost again. Presently, I am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" As only a spouse could say it, she telegraphed back a one-word reply "HOME!"

I don't know where life may be defeating you this Advent. I don't know how Jesus may be disappointing you this Advent. But I would suggest to you this Advent that any disillusionment you feel may not necessarily be a bad thing. For what is disillusionment if not, literally, the loss of an illusion? And, in the long run, it is never a bad thing to lose the lies we have mistaken for the truth.

Here is a version of the 23rd Psalm that ought to be mandatory reading each day of Advent, and a unison reading each Advent Sunday.

Here, in my judgment, is one of the subtlest temptations that faces any Christian in any era: If we are not careful, we can get diverted here from what Christ has called us to do in this present age. This happened in Thessalonica not twenty years after Jesus died, and Saint Paul met the issue head on. Some of the people there got so caught up in expecting and predicting the imminent return of the Lord that they had ceased to do any work and degenerated into idle busybodies who prattled only about the future (2 Thessalonians 3:11). Paul rebuked this tendency to let an over-interest in "the last things" divert us from faithfulness to "the first things."

If there is one belief that the men and women of our world need today it is the belief in the resurrection. Why? Because it is the effective antidote to the infectious disease of materialism.

One time a blind man was invited to attend the wedding of a friend. The couple had chosen to be married in a village church that was known for its picturesque qualities. As the couple left the chapel, the mother of the groom said to the blind man, "What a pity that you couldn't see the chapel. It really is so lovely. And such a pretty garden." She later repeated this to some mutual friends at the reception.