The Word became flesh in order to save us from our sins. This sermon explores why our sins are our main problem and how God solves the problem. Along the way, it demonstrates the height, width, and breadth of God’s love for us.
Sermon Text: John 1:1-18
How many of you decorate the outside of your house or yard with Christmas lights?
My family has never been big on decorating outside for Christmas. This year the extent of our decorations consisted of plugging inflatable Mickey and Minnie Mouses on our front porch. Mickey and Minnie are dressed up in matching Santa Claus outfits. They light up at night. Even doing that much was nearly too much trouble for me, because—I don’t know if it was the rain or the wind, but Mickey and Minnie kept falling on their faces. So I frequently had to go out and stand them back up. Too much trouble!
On the other end of the spectrum from me and my family is the family of Tim and Grace Gay, and their children, in LaGrangeville, New York. Last year, the family spent two months building a Christmas lights display at their house that involves—get this—601,736 lights. That’s something like 25 miles of lights. The display spans two acres. The light display is choreographed to 200 holiday songs, and you can tune into an FM frequency on your radio dial to hear it as you drive by. Choreographed lights set to one Coldplay song took 35 hours to program.
Their display last year set the Guinness Record for Most Lights on a Residential Property. But they shouldn’t get too comfortable with their success. They’ve been trading the record back and forth with a family in Australia for the past 15 years. But right now I’m proud to say the record belongs to the USA. Read the rest of this entry »