I wonder what you are hungry for at Christmas? I wonder what you’re not hungry for? I’ve got some options for you for your Christmas dinner. I want you to shout out “hungry” for the one that you would choose for your Christmas dinner. You are only allowed to choose one on each slide.
Turkey or Beef
Yorkshire pudding or roast potatoes
Parsnips or Sprouts
Bread sauce or gravy
Christmas pudding or Trifle
I wonder if thinking and talking about these possibilities has left you feeling a bit hungry? Thinking about food can often do that, can’t it. Even when I was sat in my study, pulling together the pictures for this, I started feeling a bit peckish.
This morning we’re thinking particularly about Mary, Jesus’ mother, and her story. A normal young woman who was pulled into the centre of the biggest event in history. Her humility and love of God have been an inspiration to generations of Christians ever since. One of the things that is amazing about her is how well she understood God’s ways, which are so brilliantly expressed in the song that she sang when she met with her cousin Elizabeth. She sings of how God’s ways are different to the world’s ways.
She praises God for doing great things for someone like her, a normal, lowly servant.
What does lowly mean? – Synonyms and opposites.
She then goes on to sing about how God takes down the powerful from their thrones, lifts up the lowly – there’s that word again, sends the rich away empty, but …. fills the hungry with good things.
God’s upside down kingdom, with values so different to the world’s values.
God fills the hungry with good things.
If we look ahead from Christmas, we see Jesus, when he was all grown up, picking this idea up and running with it.
One day, he was out in the country side, teaching and healing people, and so many people had heard of him, that they all came out to listen to him and see what he was doing. They were so caught up in listening to him that they listened for hours, much longer than they had intended, and they hadn’t brought food for the length of time they stayed. Jesus’ friends and followers realised this, and suggested that Jesus send them away to buy food.
Jesus suggests that they should feed the crowd, and they start doing the sums in their heads to work out how much it would cost, and realise they could never afford it, and anyway there wasn’t anywhere to buy that much food. So what happened next?
A small boy gave up his packed lunch, and Jesus filled the hungry with good things. Thousands of people were fed that day, and there were even left overs!
That night, Jesus and his disciples crossed over the lake, and the next day the crowd came looking for him. He continued to teach them, and he said to them,
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
You see, Jesus wasn’t just about filling up the hungry bellies with good things, he came to fill hungry hearts with his life and love.
Jesus fills the hungry with good things. That’s what Mary sang, and that’s what I believe Jesus still does today.
There are two things that I’d like us to take away with us this morning, and to think about more over this Christmas time.
The first is the part we have to play in this. That little boy bought his packed lunch and offered it to Jesus. We know that there are those in our communities who will be hungry this Christmas. Those who don’t have enough to eat physically, those who are lonely or grieving. I know that many of us having given towards CAP hampers, donated to the community fridge, invited people round to lunch to our part in Jesus’ ongoing work to fill the hungry with good things. Let’s continue to look for opportunities to do that, to be part of God’s work in the world.
The second thing is to be honest with God about the things that we are hungry for. We started off thinking about we would be hungry for at Christmas dinner. I wonder what else you are hungry for this Christmas? I wonder what your heart is hungry for, what your spirit is hungry for? God wants to fill those hungers with good things. You might think you’re not important enough, too young, too lowly, but you’re not – God loves you and wants to fill you with good things.
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