Truly He Taught Us to Love One Another | Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

1:29 How old were you? What were you doing? For me, it was 1967, Christmas 1967. I was three and a half years old. And I may not actually remember it. I think I remember seeing the video of it. Because that year, 1967, my mom and dad bought a Super 8mm Kodak camera. This was made silent films. And they filmed Christmas that year. And I probably watched it when I was five or six or seven years old. Now, it had been years since I've seen these films. But this year, I broke out the films and I looked at them again. So this was also the year. My mom and dad, we were living in Seattle, Washington. My little sister, Dina, was two years old. I was three and a half. Dad worked for the Boeing Company building airplanes. My mom worked for the Traveler's Insurance Company. And we lived just up the street from the Puget Sound. And that year, 1967, was also the year when Jim Neighbors recorded Oh Holy Night. Now, you may remember Jim Neighbors was Gomer Pyle in TV, a sitcom that was very popular in 1967. But he recorded a Christmas album, and one of those songs was Oh Holy Night.

2:26 So since the video was silent, I added a little bit of Jim Neighbors, Gomer Pyle, singing Oh Holy Night. And as you're watching this, if you're a baby boomer or an older X-er, you might recognize some of these toys. Take a look. abo Only he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his God. It says Joe. My middle name is Joseph. There's my little sister, Dina. Man, it was magical. Oh, she was so cute. Well, looking back at that, you know, I'm pretty confident at three and a half that if you were to ask me the real meaning of Christmas, my answer would have been presents. Presents, and maybe I might have said the love of my parents.

3:20 But I didn't really know anything about Jesus. Then our family didn't go to Christmas Eve candlelight services. We didn't go to church. I didn't understand that there was something more. Now, you're joining us for Worship for Candlelight Christmas Eve. You're joining us maybe from one of our locations. You might be joining us from a hospital room or a hotel room somewhere. Maybe you're joining us from your living room at home. Maybe from a prison. But the reason you tuned in, I think, is because you think there must be something more. I'm certain there's something more, and I'm curious what it is. Now, many of you know the something more, of course, is the birth of Jesus, right? We've come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. But why? What difference does that make? What does that actually mean? So what we're going to do today is we're going to look at the meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus, and we're going to ask how it affects our lives today. And every generation asks that. Every year we ask that question again. So I think back, we've been looking at the Christmas story this month through the lens of this beautiful Christmas carol, O Holy Night.

4:15 It's one of the most loved Christmas carols of all time. It was written in 1847. It was written by a man named Placide Capot, who was a Frenchman in southern France. And his priest said, would you write a poem for our Christmas service? and for the midnight service in particular, for Candlelight Christmas Eve. And so he did. He wrote the poem. He asked a friend of his to set it to music. And as he was writing it, he was asking the question, what is the meaning of Christmas for us? What is the significance of the birth of this baby for us in Southern France in 1847? Now, this was a tumultuous time in 1847 as he was writing this hymn. There was upheavals across France. It was on the edge, the precipice of a revolution. And so all that came into play in terms of how he wrote the hymn. Now, I wanna remind you, he understood that the birth was not just an ordinary birth, it was the birth of a king. So this is what we see when we read the story in the Gospel of Luke of the angel showing up to speak to the night shift shepherds in the hillside of Bethlehem.

5:11 He says, behold, I bring you good news of great joy for all people, for all people. For unto you this day in the city of David is born a savior who is Christ the Lord. All right, and then he goes on to talk about how this child was born in a stable and how this child was laid in a manger, an animal's feeding trough. I mean, a very humble birth. But this idea, these titles, Savior and Christ and Lord, very important titles. So savior was a term that was used in the Old Testament of God. God was the savior, but also certain kings could be saviors. In the time that Jesus was born, Augustus Caesar was known as the savior of the Roman Empire. And so he was a savior. Jesus was said to be the savior, the savior, to save us, to rescue us, to deliver us. from ourselves, from our sin, from hopelessness and despair, from a world of darkness, all of this. He came to save us from this. He is Christ the Lord. Christ is a, it's shorthand. In Hebrew, it's Messiah, and it means anointed one. But it really, the term was used primarily of kings.

6:09 So once more, it's pointing to Jesus as the Savior, and he's the king. And then finally, we come to Lord. And Lord is a title that was used of Augustus Caesar. It was used of King Herod the Great. It was used of any king. In this case, it was used of God. It's the highest authority in a given realm. And Jesus was said to be the Lord. He is the Savior, the deliverer, the rescuer. He is the King, the anointed one, and he is the Lord. And so that's whose birth we're celebrating. We're celebrating not just a baby and a sweet story, but that when God came to us in the flesh to show us who he is and his will for our lives, he came to us in Jesus. And his birth was humble, representing the humility of God in coming to us. And when we look at him, we see something profound and deep about life and about who God is and who God calls us to be. So I love what Placide Capote says in the hymn. He says, the king of kings lay thus in lowly manger in all our trials, born to be our friend. He knows our need to our weakness.

7:05 He's no stranger. Behold your king before him, lowly bend. I love these lines. Jesus, our king, was born in a manger, laid to rest that first night in an animal's feeding trough. And the night shift shepherds were the ones invited to come to see him, all of this points to his lowliness, to the fact that he descended to be among us, to be like us, to care for us. I love the fact that when we look at Jesus, we find that he is our friend. He was born to be our friend. I don't know your name. I know some of your names, but I may not know your name, but he knows your name. He came to befriend you. He came so that he was not a stranger to your weakness, but understands your weakness and understands your needs and cares for you. I mean, this is the power of the story that God came to us. I love the fact that in the Hebrew Bible, we find this passage of scripture in Matthew's gospel, the telling of the Christmas story. After Matthew tells about the birth of the Savior, he says this, now all this took place so that what the Lord had spoken to the prophet would be fulfilled. Look, a virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel. Emmanuel is Hebrew for God is with us.

8:10 You are not alone, never alone. He's always with you. That's part of what we see and celebrate at Christmas. Now, this week I was thinking about this classic Christmas film. I don't know if you've seen it. You probably have. 1990, it came out the same year Church of the Resurrection was born, Home Alone. And in Home Alone, the story is that Kevin McAllister, played by Macaulay Culkin, Kevin McAllister was accidentally left behind as his family took a vacation. They were going to France and they miscounted the numbers and he was still asleep. And they ended up in Paris. And when they were finally in the Paris airport, they look around and they see, where's Kevin? He was left back home and they can't reach him by telephone. And so Kevin wakes up and he is home alone. And they can't get back for several days. And so he's home alone, no contact with his parents. And in the middle of all that, burglars try to break into the house. It's just a fun, fun film. If you haven't seen it, you probably wanna watch it.

9:02 But most of you probably seen it. The film though, it has this moment, finally Christmas Eve. and Kevin, he's feeling lonely. His family's gone. He's feeling all alone, home alone. And he's walking on the streets and he comes to a church and he hears this song and it leads him to come inside and to discover that he's really not alone. Take a look. To be there is hope that it's worth, For thrill of hope, how dearly dwell rejoices, For younger grace, a new and far less more, Fall on your knees, all feet. That choir was singing, O Holy Night.

9:58 And he hears the sound of that song. And what it's singing about is the birth of the Savior. And he's drawn to go inside the church. I mean, just like you have been joining for Candlelight Christmas Eve. And what he discovers in the midst of that is that there is one who was born who's with him all the time. He's never home alone. It may feel like it, but Christ is with him all the time. That's part of the power of the story. It's the incarnation. It's God coming to us. When I go to visit people in the hospital or I go and make pastoral calls or I see people who are near death. When I go, one of the things I tell them is, I came to be a visible reminder that you are not alone. I came to put flesh on the love of God, just like Jesus did. Jesus came to put flesh on God, to incarnate God to say, you are not alone. And I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. I see this in people who care for others in the name of Christ. A year and a half ago, LaVon's mom was dying. I was with her that day and the rest of the family came in.

10:51 And while I was sitting with her, One of her dear friends from the church, actually two of them, showed up. And not realizing this was the infer, she would pass in just a few hours. They walked in and they brought a flower to her. And they showed up and this is what they were saying, is we love you and you're not alone. And we're here and God is with you and it's gonna be okay. Like there are times that we need someone to put flesh on the love of God. That's what Jesus did. And that's what we do on behalf of Jesus. As his followers, we go about embodying or incarnating God's love to say, you are never really home alone. Some of you watching this are lonely right now. Some of you feel alone. I tell you, you are not alone. Christ is with you. That's what we celebrate at the birth of the Savior. All right, I wanna remind you that in the New Testament, in Jesus' thinking, God's strategy for changing the world involved first him coming to incarnate God's love and to show us the way and that God is and what God's will is for our lives.

11:53 But then it was to call us as his followers to continue to do the work that he had done when he was here. So Jesus, to those who accept him and accept his love, he shows us the way, he helps us to know his will, he suffers and dies for us, he rises from the dead to say that evil, hate, sin, and death never have the final word. And then he calls us to follow him, to do his will. I wanna remind you, when we get ready to light the candles in a few moments, Jesus says, when we light the Christ candle, we always remember, Jesus said, I am the light of the world. And then we take that Christ light and we pass it to someone else. I take it and I pass it to someone else. And I remind you that Jesus said, now you are the light of the world. So he turned to his disciples. He said, I'm the light of the world. Now you are the light of the world. You're to take the light I have, and you're going to take it out of the world to bring darkness, you know, to push back the darkness, to be the light for the world. This is what we're called to do. This is what it means to be a follower of Christ. And this is God's great strategy in sending Jesus.

12:48 You are his strategic plan to push back the darkness in the world. You're his strategic plan to bring light and love into the world. I'm reminded of what Jesus said. At the last supper, he said, I give you a new commandment. Love each other just as I have loved you. So you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples when you love each other. I want you to catch this. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of a child who grew up to be a man, our King, our Savior, our Lord. who said to us, listen, there's just one thing. Actually, there's two. The first is love God. Let God love you and love God. And the second is love your neighbor. Love your neighbor, love your enemy, right? And he tells us what love looks like. It's to see the person who's in need and to care for them. It's to bless others. It's to encourage them. This is what we're called to do, to demonstrate his selfless, sacrificial love to the people around us, to pay attention and to notice when there's somebody who's in need of that love.

13:44 So much of the world's suffering today is because we forget that commandment. When I look at our country, when I look at the world, it feels like at a very high level, people sometimes forget that. It seems like we've lost a sense of empathy or compassion or concern for our neighbor. But when we remember to do this, we find healing and hope and joy and life. And the beautiful thing, all of these 3 billion people who claim to follow Jesus in the world, when we do this, the world has changed. When you do this in your sphere of influence, the world has changed. This last week, I heard a story. This was one of my friends who was describing how she and her friends had gone to see a woman who had dementia. They had worked together for a long time and early onset dementia. And so when they go to see her, you know, they brought lunch and it was clear she probably did not remember their names, but she knew she knew them.

14:37 And so she was happy that they were there. And they put the food out in front of her and she didn't know, you know, to put the food on the plate. So they prepared her plate for her. And then they sat and they talked. And at one point she was looking down, tears welling up in her eyes. And a sense of sadness, you know, that she knew these people, but she couldn't place them. She couldn't communicate with them. That there was something lost for her. And then one of them said, oh, tell us about when you were a kid and it was Christmas time. And all of a sudden she lit up and she began to talk in fragmented sentences about her growing up years as long as she could. And what I saw in that, I saw a picture of them together. And what I saw in that was four people who were demonstrating love to their friend who couldn't remember who they were anymore. And she was demonstrating love to them in the only way she could, by her smile and her eyes. There's something beautiful about that.

15:31 You see, this is the kind of ordinary thing that people have a chance to do when we're demonstrating the love that Jesus called us to do. But we have to pay attention. We have to think. we have to be mindful of the fact that there are people around us who are in need of that kind of love. I spoke this week to Abby. Now, Abby and her husband are in their early 20s. They are in their 20s. They are a part of our small group at our Brookside location. And in that small group, it's a small group for young couples without kids. And they began serving recently at Restart. So Restart is a homeless ministry here in Kansas City. And they started serving there. And I talked to her and she had shared some of her experience there. I wanted to share a little bit of this with you. Since August, they've been going once a month to serve the homeless. And this is what she said. She said, I learned early on that serving is one of the simplest ways I could show love to God. Over the years, I've learned that when my focus shifts off myself and onto others, my anxiety is quiet and my faith deepens.

16:25 We serve at Restart every month to be a consistent representation of God's love as they seek to restore dignity and remind people that they are seen, valued, and loved. When we serve, we're getting just as much as we give. And she said, I've learned that you can't give love away. It always finds its way back, often bigger and deeper than before. And this takes me back to O Holy Night. So you get to the third verse, and in the third verse, you read these words, or you sing these words. Truly he called us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Truly he called us to love one another. His law is love, his gospel is peace. Now, this kind of love is often, as I've described, caring for other people, ministering to them. Sometimes it gets a little closer to home. It has to do with the relationships that we're in and our families and what it looks like to love people when we've been alienated from one another.

17:18 And that takes us back to Home Alone. So in Home Alone, that night on Christmas Eve, when Kevin is sitting there in the church, he looks over and there is his next door neighbor. They refer to him as Old Man Marley. And the kids in the neighborhood, they were scared of him. And he sees him over there. He's frightened, but Old Man Marley comes over, wishes him Merry Christmas. and sits down next to him and then begins to describe while he's there, why he's there before the service begins. And what we find is that it's not only Kevin who's home alone, it's also old man Marley. Take a look. You want to know the real reason why I'm here right now? Sure. I came to hear my granddaughter sing, and I can't come and hear her tonight. You have plans? No. I'm not welcome. At church? Oh, you're always welcome at church. I'm not welcome with my son.

18:13 Years back, before you and your family moved on the block, I had an argument with my son. How old is he? Well, he's grown up. He lost our tempers. And I said I didn't care to see him anymore. He said the same. We haven't spoken to each other since. If you miss him, why don't you call him? I'm afraid if I call him, he won't talk to me. How do you know? I don't know. I'm just afraid he won't. Just give it a shot for your granddaughter anyway. You know, both of these people feel like they're home alone. Both of these people feel estranged from their families.

18:57 And so several of you this week ended up sending me little video clips related to home alone. You knew I was preaching on this. And in those video clips, the idea was that Marley was a Christ figure for Kevin. But I'll tell you, in this clip, it feels like to me, Kevin is a Christ figure for Marley. He's there and he's asking the right question. And here's a kid and he's saying, you know, it's old man Marley. Why don't you just call him? Why don't you just call him? I recognize there are some of you who are watching this sermon right now who are estranged from someone in your life, a family member, a friend, a former coworker, a former neighbor. And here's the question. Why don't you just call them? Or why don't you reach out? Maybe it's a text to say, I care about you. I'm sorry. Or I love you. or I hope we can connect, right? But you have an opportunity to incarnate or to put flesh on the love of Christ towards someone you're estranged from, if you're willing.

19:54 That's not always easy. May not be ready, may not be the right time for you, but I just want to encourage you to think about, truly he called us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Maybe that's for you right now in some relationship that you have that's estranged. All right. So this leads me to two lines that are the climactic lines in the entire Christmas carol, O Holy Night. And so I want to tell you a little bit of the history. In 1855, a man named John Sullivan Dwight, who lived in Boston, heard of this song. And there he is. John Sullivan Dwight heard of this song. He was America's foremost music critic. He was also a sometime Unitarian minister. He was very engaged in abolitionist activities. He was strongly anti-slavery. And he heard this song, O Holy Night, as it was in the French. And when he heard it and he saw in particular the third verse, it touched him.

20:51 The third verse was this. The Redeemer, that is Jesus, has broken every bond. The earth is free and heaven is open. He sees a brother where there was only a slave. Love unites those whom iron had chained. Now, Capoe in 1847, he was an abolitionist. So slavery was abolished in France, but not in the French colonies where there was still slavery practiced. And he hoped that the king would release, you know, would end the practice of slavery in the French colonies. That's why he wrote these words. He saw the implications of Jesus' birth and him as king, Messiah, Lord, as pointing to the fact that God wanted to, through Jesus, release people from their chains. He didn't want people to be oppressed. So when these lines were translated in English by Dwight, this is what he translated. He said, truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother and in his name, all oppression shall cease. Now he translated this just after the New England Immigrant Aid Company was formed in Boston to try to convince people in New England to move to Kansas of all places. And they were trying to convince people to move to Kansas because Kansas, according to the the federal government. Kansas now, according to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, was going to decide whether it would enter the Union as a slave state or a free state, depending on what the people voted. So those who were pro-slavery were trying to get people who were pro-slavery to move to Kansas. Those in the Northeast who were anti-slavery were trying to get people to move to Kansas and claim it as a free state. They were called free staters to claim Kansas as a free state. So they were trying to convince people to do this, and that's what the New England Immigrant Aid Company was formed to do. But they found it hard to get people to uproot their entire family, to load up a wagon, and to travel 1,200 miles for about three months to make their way to a place they'd never been to before. The only people they could find, or most of the people they found, who were willing to do that, were Christians. They were followers of Jesus. And so they found Methodists who were willing to do this. They found Congregationalists. They found Unitarians who were willing to make that trek to uproot their lives to be able to do this thing that they were calling them to do.

23:00 So when Dwight heard this song and he translated it, what he hoped was that this song would stir the hearts of people so that when they came to this verse, they would find themselves saying, Christ was about this. I wanna be about this. Let me remind you what Jesus said in his very first sermon in Luke's gospel. He's in his hometown of Nazareth and he takes the gospel or he takes the book of Isaiah and he reads these words and he says, these words are fulfilled in me today. Listen to these. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, Jesus said, because the Lord has anointed me. There's that word Messiah or Christ. he has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed. I want us to think about that. This is what he saw his work as. And then he said, this has been fulfilled in me. Now, for his disciples, he said, now you go do the things that I came to do. Remember, we're a strategic plan. So I think about that as Jesus followers in 2025. We too are called to bring good news to the poor.

23:58 We're called to liberate the oppressed. What does that look like? How do we do it? Well, we do it in some small ways every day. And we do it by speaking up and standing up for what we know is right. And for caring for people and having empathy and compassion. We do it by going to Africa, but we do it by working here in the city. We do it by caring for our neighbors who are in need. All of these are ways we live out this calling of Jesus on our lives. That leads me to ask this question. Oh, by the way, let me just show you. Here's a couple of pictures of those who, you know, who went with their wagons. Look at this family. They uprooted everything to come to Kansas to be able to settle. These are whole peoples coming through the mountains in the Northeast and coming to Kansas and other parts West in order to claim Kansas as a free state. I want you to imagine uprooting everything in order to do this. And so this led me to ask this question. In 2025 and 2026, as Jesus followers, what would we be willing to do?

24:54 What are we willing to do? How much are we willing to sacrifice in order to do the things that Jesus did and what he calls us to do, in order to truly love one another, in order to see that oppression has ceased, in order to break the bonds in people's lives. What are you willing to do? By the way, these folks to come to Kansas, they settled in Lawrence, which was a town formed by the New England Immigrant Aid Company. But they were coming to Kansas. You know how they came to Kansas? They came, of course, across the Santa Fe and the Oregon trails. And I thought I might just show you where those trails went through. This is in the southern part of Johnson County, which is where we're located right now. I want you to notice the trails on this map. This is the Santa Fe and Oregon Trail right here. And I want you to notice it passes right across this red box. You know what that red box is right there? That's Church of the Resurrection's Leawood location.

25:49 170 years ago, there were people in wagons crossing this, Methodists and Congregationalists and others who are crossing this territory right here where I'm standing in order to serve Christ, giving up everything in order to claim Kansas as a free state on their way to Lawrence. And you know those folks went on to Manhattan. They formed a Methodist college there, Blumont College, which became Kansas State University. They formed a college just south of Lawrence, Baker University, United Methodist College. You know why they did this? To prepare young people to change the world. All right, listen, my favorite part of Candlelight Christmas Eve is not the passing of the candlelight. As much as I love that, it's the offering. Now, you might expect that from a pastor, but generally, I don't love the offering most in our services. In fact, that's one of the things I love the least. It's okay. I'm fine with it. I love the offertory. But when it comes to Candlelight Christmas Eve, the reason why I love it is we give away the entire offering. Everything you give is going towards benefiting children and families living in poverty. In the last 17 years, you've given $24 million to change the world.

26:51 There are 24 projects that we're giving towards this year. Half of the money stays in the Kansas City area. It benefits low-income families right here within 30 minutes of where I'm standing. And half of it goes to the developing world, to some of the poorest countries in the world. And in the last 17 years, you've had a chance to buy mobile bookmobiles that, you know, provide books, 60,000 books a year for children who are in need, you know, who can't afford to buy these books themselves. You provided a mobile dental clinic that sees 2,700 children a year with dental cleaning and tooth decay, all these things that they're taking care of. You've provided a mobile, basically a grocery store. It provides free food for people who are in need in food deserts, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meat products. And in the developing world, you've drilled 215 boreholes in 215 villages so they have clean drinking water. You've built schools and medical clinics, and you've done so much to help thousands of people. And you have a chance to do that again now. So we talk about, you know, seeing oppression cease and breaking the bonds and bringing good news to the poor. The offering is one of the ways we do that this year. And so I want you to hear just a little bit about two projects that you're going to be benefiting, two of the 24 through this year's offering. Take a listen. When we started 10 years ago, we started because of a call to action by the mayor in Kansas City, Kansas. And so in the Kansas City, Kansas public schools, they identified 1,400 students who are experiencing homelessness. Avenue of Life was asked to lead this effort to provide safe stable housing for these kids and so we got together about 40 50 other organizations both non-profit for-profit over the first three years we saw that that 1400 was reduced to 700 in just three years so sophia came to avenue of life miss merce began to work with her we brought her food clothing hygiene all the needs all the school stuff she needed but what was core is that for her in that process when when we found her a place where she could day she turned to Ms. Merceman and she said you know this is one of the first times I can remember where I don't feel alone. She moved on she graduated high school and she started her own family and went to nursing school so it's a great success.

28:56 Malawi is ranked as the sixth poorest country in the world. 83% of rural Malawians live in darkness, approximately 30% of Malawians don't have access to clean water, and 22% of Malawians are currently facing acute food insecurity. Solar lights, clean water boreholes, and permaculture overcome each of these obstacles. We got to see the impact from our Christmas Eve offerings several places in Malawi and it is God at work, it's Jesus at work taking the people and lifting them out of poverty. The dollars that people give at Christmas Eve that go to Malawi are giving these people opportunities to eat, to drink clean water, to have solar lights so that they can continue their education and our funding is allowing that to happen.

29:57 Is that not awesome? You have a chance to change the world for thousands of people through our Christmas Eve offering to live out the gospel. And remember, you are God's strategic plan. You are Jesus' plan for changing the world. So how do we do that? How do we give $24 million over the last 17 years? Here's how. We challenge our church members to, we say to them, would you consider giving an amount equal to what you spent on your entire family for Christmas in this Christmas Eve offering? You know, most of our kids, they don't need anything. Our grandchildren don't need anything. So we say, what would happen if you did this? And that usually leads us to simplify our Christmas giving a little bit. And this is what Levon and I do every year. We add up everything we spent for each other, our children, our granddaughter, our family, the rest of our family. And we add a little bit to that and we give that amount in the Christmas Eve offering. And not everybody can afford to do that. Some people give many times what they spend on their family for Christmas. But you can do something. Everybody can do something.

30:49 And so what happens is our members say, I'm going to do more than I probably ordinarily would. I'm gonna do something special to benefit somebody, a real human being, or maybe multiple human beings who are gonna be impacted by the Christmas Eve offering. So I wanna encourage you to be thinking about that. We'll take the offering in a few minutes. There are two other invitations I wanna give you today. So one of those is to embrace Christ, right? If Jesus was born to save us from ourselves and from our sin, if he came to befriend us, to care for us, part of what we have to do is accept that, right, and so I wanna invite you during the prayer in just a moment to say the simple prayer, yes. Yes, Lord, I accept your love. I accept your light. I accept you as my savior. I wanna follow you as my Lord. I'd love for you to do that today. I wanna invite you to do that during our prayer. And there's one last invitation I wanna give to you. And that is to remember the call of Jesus to love one another. This is what he asks of us.

31:43 And so when you wake up in the morning, Lord, help me to pay attention. Help me to see who needs love, care, compassion, empathy, concern. Help me to do that today, every day. I pray that every morning. Lord, use me today. What would happen if you prayed that every day? Lord, here I am. Help me to pay attention. Use me to spread love and light in this world. How would the world be changed? Your world be changed because of that. And one last little piece of that is if you have anyone in your life that you're alienated from, somebody that you haven't talked to in a long time, I wonder if tomorrow would be the perfect day or maybe today would be the perfect day to reach out and say, I'm sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Or can we connect? All right, that leads me to the closing of Home Alone. Now, I'm gonna give you a spoiler alert, but here's the thing. The movie's been out for 35 years, so if you haven't watched it at this point, you're probably not gonna watch it.

32:34 So I just want you to see what happens at the very end. So on Christmas Day, Kevin's family arrives back from France, and they're all reunited, and there's joy there. And then Kevin is walking towards the window to see old man Marley's house next door, and he sees what happened in his family as old man Marley took his advice. Take a look. Thank you. Kevin was a Christ figure for old man Marley. And that's what we're called to be for each other.

33:33 To bear his love to other people, to bear his light, and then to be willing to say, I'm sorry, or I care about you, or can we connect? Here's what we find in this beautiful hymn. Truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace. chains shall he break for the slave is our brother and in his name all oppression shall cease would you pray with me I'd like to invite you just to whisper this prayer under your breath if it feels comfortable for you Jesus, I need you, and I accept your love, your forgiveness, and your grace. Help me to follow you. Give me eyes to see.

34:29 people who need love. Give me the courage to reach out in love. and help me to be a part of breaking the chains and ending oppression.

34:54 Lord, I thank you for all the people who are in this room, everyone who's watching on TV, online, at all of our locations. You know their names. You know their stories. You love them. I pray that Christmas might be real for them this year and that you would use us to bring light into a world of darkness. In Jesus' name, amen. My name is Scott Krostek and I'm one of the pastors on staff here at Church of the Resurrection and I want to say thank you for watching this weekend's message.