Ashley Stirman 12-24-25

Ashley Sturman I am one of the student ministers here at Highland and it is good to be gathered with you together in worship this evening. I know that some of you have traveled from near and far to be here. Maybe you came in from last minute Christmas shopping and you're sitting here mentally calculating how many hours of sleep you're going to get tonight after your kids go to bed, from the time they wake you up tomorrow morning, or planning meals or mentally packing a suitcase. And so as we are sitting here in the midst of a very busy season, I would like to invite you into a brief moment of quiet. If you would put both feet on the floor and if you are holding something in your hands besides a small human, if you would put that down and close your eyes.

Notice your breath and can you feel in your body where you are carrying your stress. You might need to relax your shoulders or unclench your hands or your jaw.

Just for a moment. Let's breathe in the peace of Christ together.

God, Father, Son and Spirit, meet us here in this brief moment of rest. We know the breath in our lungs is a gift from you. As our attention is divided and commandeered. This season draw our eyes to see you, our ears to hear your voice and hands to serve our neighbors. Amen.

I am grateful to be here with you this evening. It's been several years since I've been able to gather with my actual family and my church family on Christmas Eve and I love this time of year. Christmas is my favorite season. I used to be a proud purist and insist on waiting until after Thanksgiving to decorate my house or to begin listening to Christmas music. And 2020 and Covid changed that.

There's simply not enough time in my opinion to you have all of Christmas culture in just 30 days. So now I start whenever I would like to and I'm curious for you when you consider the start of Christmas season to be. And I don't necessarily mean the date or the time, but if there is an item or a song or a moment that for you marks the beginning of the Christmas season. So another way to put it would be to say it is not Christmas until blank. For me it is not Christmas until I hear an album that my dad owned growing up.

It is an album by a all male choir called Vocal Majority and they released a Christmas album in 2000 and we would play that when we were in the car on the way to our grandparents houses. And so still to this day if I hear any of the songs from that album, I am transported back in time. I'm sitting in the back seat all bundled up. I am vibrating with anticipation for arriving and seeing my family and my cousins, of giving and receiving presents. And my brother and I knew when we heard those songs that Christmas was coming, and we grew all the more impatient.

I wonder what signs you look for each year to know that Christmas is coming. Whether that is a change in weather, whether that's stockings on a mantle, your grandmother's Christmas cookies. We all look for signs each year and wait, an expectation for Christmas to arrive. And it will not get here any faster than time is capable of moving, no matter how many Advent calendars or countdown chains or elves on shelves that you employ. One reason I love Advent is that it invites us into this season of waiting in 2025.

We're not very accustomed to waiting in a world with same day delivery, instant downloads, and the world ready at our fingertips in any moment of boredom. Waiting does not happen by chance. It is a discipline. It is an act of resistance not to pull your phone out when you are waiting in line, but instead to be fully present where your feet are. And it can feel really isolating when everyone around you is looking down and you are the only one that is truly sitting in the waiting.

But in Advent, we experience the discipline of waiting together, and this is certainly not a new practice for the people of God. Scripture speaks of seasons, sometimes in decades, sometimes in centuries, where God's people are waiting in expectation for God to move and desperately looking for a sign. Here in Isaiah 9, Israel has been waiting for a king for 300 years. A very short, drastically oversimplified Ashley summary of the Old Testament is that God's people fall into trouble. God saves God's people.

They forget that God saved them, they fall into more trouble, God saves them again, and so on and so forth. And we have this cycle and eventually they get tired of falling into trouble. So they ask God to give them a king. And God grants them that. They have a series of kings, some of them good, some of them incompetent, some of them really not good.

And one of the good kings was a man named David. And during the time that David was king, God makes a covenant with him.

Included in this covenant is a promise that long after David has died, God will raise up a king from David's family line. And this king will build a house in God's name and rule on the throne forever. And 300 years go by from this covenant to Isaiah 9. For 300 years, kings have come and gone, but none who sit on the throne forever. And the people of God are anxious for a sign.

And different moments in scripture speak to the different things to look for to know that this future king has arrived. You just heard the list of those things. They will see a great light. People will rejoice in the presence of this king. The rod of oppression and the yoke that binds them will be shattered.

Every boot from battle and garment dipped in blood will be burned, meaning there will be no more war. And these are all really great signs. If you are God's people and you are looking for a king to reign on the throne forever, these are great signs to be looking for. But then we come to verse six. For to us a child is born.

To us a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders. If this were a movie, this would be. There would be a record scratch. And maybe this is the youth minister in me.

But I imagine this scene to be something like out of a despicable Me movie where hang with me here, Gru is a prophet and he is reading the prophecy to all of the minions. And as he is reading each of these signs, each of these lines, the minions are growing more and more excited. All of the things great light, great joy. No more wars. They are high fiving, they're cheering, they're jumping.

And then we get to this part in a confused silence settles over the crowd. How is a child going to fulfill the covenant that God has made with us? How is it possible that a child can shatter the yoke of oppression and end wars for all of God's people? For those of us that have grown up knowing this story, it is really easy to skim past the shock of this moment. The scandal that is fullness of God in Helpless Babe.

For the people of God who have been waiting for centuries on a king to save them, I'm not so sure a baby was the sign they wanted to look for. They didn't live in 2025 in a time of impatience and instant gratification, but in a time of power and might. Power was the currency of the day. A time where riches, political favors, military strength and family lineage all determined your lot in life as someone who either had power or was powerless. Lives were lost and wars were fought over acquiring and keeping power.

The people of God are waiting for a king who will rise up to defend them, take over the nations around them that have attacked them, destroyed their lands and their livelihoods. I imagine they are looking for a sign of someone with greater power than they have ever seen or can imagine. Maybe Grow confused or disappointed when the scriptures point to a child.

I wonder if you know what it's like to be confused or disappointed when waiting for a sign from God. For us in 2025, speed is the currency of the day. So we look for signs of a God that moves quickly and acts immediately. I wonder if you remember how it feels to be waiting so desperately and so faithfully only for the bottom to fall out beneath you. Anyway, the relationship still failed.

The doctors didn't catch the cancer in time. They hired someone else. The test this month was negative again. You weren't accepted into the program. There's one fewer chair this year at your holiday gathering.

I wonder if your confusion or disappointment has turned to anger and you've said to God, where are you? Why are you not acting? Or maybe you've turned your back because you just can't do it and walked away.

The people of God did not receive the sign they were waiting and hoping and longing for. The sign of the coming king was not found in power and might, but in peace and meekness. The sign of the coming king was not found in supernatural strength and force, but in flesh that wounds and blood that spills. They have been waiting for centuries to be redeemed and redemption comes wrapped in cloth, unable to sit up or speak or feed himself. The people of God did not receive the sign they were looking for.

They received the presence of God. The promised king was not found on a throne, but in a manger. And his name is Emmanuel. God with us, and this changes everything.

I don't know what sign you were looking for to know whether or not God is with you. As a minister here, I have the privilege of walking alongside many of you. And I know that many of us are in a really hard season right now. And I don't know where you have needed to see or hear good news, but I do know this. Our king's name has not changed.

Emmanuel. God with us for centuries before Jesus, the people of God searched high and low for a sign of their deliverance. But they were never abandoned, never forsaken. The Bible is full of stories of God's people, of God faithfully pursuing God's people, even when God's people couldn't see it or feel it. And in the time since Jesus's birth, death and resurrection, we too have looked for signs that God is still near, that we are not alone and we have not been abandoned.

One of the last earthly acts that Jesus did was share a meal with his friends. At that meal, he handed them bread and Said, take this and eat it. This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me. He handed them wine and said, this is the cup of the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.

And for centuries since that night. The people of God have gathered around this table as a reminder that God is near. If you have been looking for a sign that God is with you, come to this table tonight and remember that Christ has died. Or, excuse me, Christ was born. Christ has died.

And Christ will come again. Take the bread and remember the body of a baby born for you. Take the juice and remember the blood of a king who died for you. We need look no further for the sign of our deliverance. Because it is here at this table.

In these elements, we receive the presence of God. During our Advent season, we are receiving communion at stations around the room. Hosted by different Highland members. Tonight you will receive communion from our elders. And if you are serving communion tonight, I would like to invite you to your station.

After I pray, I will invite you to go to the table that is in front of your section. Just some logistics to help with traffic. If you will exit out the left side of your row. And come back into your row to through the right side. You will come to the front.

You can take communion. Place your cups in the trash receptacles and then return to your seat. If you are not able to go to the tables, please raise your hand and we will serve you in your seat. Pray with me, God of Signs. Too slow for our patience, too underwhelming for our ego.

And too wonderful for our comprehension. Meet us here at this table and remind us that your presence has never wavered. You are Emmanuel, God with us as we take this bread and drink this cup. May it be a sign to our souls that you are with us, King Jesus. We love you and we trust you.

And it is in your name that we pray. Amen. You may now go to the tables and receive communion.