It was a few days before Christmas, 1973. Very early in the morning – about 4:30, or 5:00 am, still dark – and I was behind the wheel of an old (even then it was old) Chevy Nova on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Eastbound. I had one eye on the road and one on the gas gauge, wondering how far I could get before we had to stop again. Can we make it all the way?  See, this was the year of the first gas shortages. Remember those days? “Odds and evens”, lines two blocks long at the gas stations…“Sorry, we just ran out!” 

In the car with me were three other South Jersey college students, only one of whom I knew. All three of them were fast asleep, even the guy who promised to stay awake with me and who said he was going to talk to me so I could stay awake.  I felt like Jesus … (couldn’t you even watch with me for one hour?) 

Every ten minutes or so I would open my window so the rush of cold air could wash out some of the encroaching cobwebs (yes, back then, kids, it was actually cold in the winter!)  Until the sleepers would complain… “What’s wrong with you? It’s freezing in here!”  

It’s funny how your mind chooses certain memories over others. Like this 1973 trip.  It was my first trip home after my first semester in college, so it was a significant event in my life. But I really don’t actually remember too much about it – I don’t remember leaving, I don’t remember who was in the car, just blurred faces.  Can’t even remember if they were male or female. Don’t know whose car it was (it certainly wasn’t mine!) But I can vividly remember getting close to Philadelphia. 

I remember the signs, “Philadelphia 60 miles”.  One more hour…(well, 50 minutes? Don’t tell my dad!) “Philadelphia 30 miles”. “Philadelphia 9 miles.”  And I can remember boathouse row along the Schuylkill river, because that’s when I really knew, “I’m home!”  It was beautiful. 

Mostly, though, I remember those signs.  They are what kept me going, you know? When I saw those signs, I knew I was making progress.  When I saw the signs, I knew that I was going in the right direction.  The signs not only told me where I was going, but they told me where I was.  You might say that they oriented me. 

There are a lot of different ways that signs do a similar thing in a ‘bigger picture’ kind of way.  Not necessarily ‘billboard’ type signs, but signs that we learn to read in interpreting situations, relationships, or other people. 

Do you remember the first person that you really ‘fell for’? 

I can, for me that is kind of simple. Dianna is the only girl I ever dated! I’ve known her since the seventh grade, although suddenly, about the end of our junior year in High School, I started looking at her in quite a different way.  ‘Looking at her’ is an understatement!  I studied her… not in a stalker kind of way(!), but I was looking for signs!  Was that a wink?  She just put her hand on my shoulder, what does that mean?  Was she happy that I called tonight?  Let me think about what she said… look for the signs.  Signs of acceptance, signs of joy, signs of annoyance (hey, it was possible!) 

We do the same thing in all areas of life, don’t we?  From judging the weather, knowing when to plant flower bulbs… picking up on the ‘climate’ at work, or the stock market.  Diplomatic relations between nations are apparently built on a foundation of discerning ‘signs’ – how often do we read about various government agencies  “sending a signal” about this or that?  You don’t come right out and say anything, you ‘send messages’ and signals…signs… and you hope that someone is paying attention. 

Jesus, in Matthew 16, says, ⁴A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. We might get the feeling that Jesus wasn’t big on giving signs.  But, just before that, Jesus told the people that their problem is that while they’re pretty good at guessing the weather by looking at the sky, they don’t know how to read the signs of the times. So, we see that the door isn’t completely shut. 

A couple of weeks ago we talked about the second coming of Christ, one of the important doctrines of the faith that we are supposed to be remembering during the Advent season.  And in Matthew 24, when Jesus talked about his return, he reminded people that just as we see the trees budding and we know that spring is near, that when we see the things happening that he warned us about, we can know for certain that his coming is getting close.  In other words, he tells us to ‘keep our eyes open’, because there are going to be signs.  Watch for them! But these are signs that can be missed.  And that’s true for pretty much any kind of sign, isn’t it? 

In hindsight, most signs seem so obvious, we wonder how anyone could have missed them.  We read some of the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah, like Isaiah 53, for example, or Psalm 22, or the Micah passage[1] that predicts the actual city of Jesus’ birth, and we wonder how anyone could have doubted.  Even if they weren’t prepared for his coming, at the very least, once he had arrived, you’d think that it would have been pretty hard to miss that he was the Chosen One!  But, they did miss it. 

And we still do, don’t we? Miss signs?

The Gospel of John is very different in composition from the other Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).  In fact, the first three Gospels are called the “Synoptics”; a word that means ‘the same’, because they are so similar in content, chronology, and material covered.  But John’s Gospel stands alone. 

John is very clear as to why this is; his purpose isn’t to write a chronological history of Jesus, his purpose is to give us enough evidence to help us understand – believe – that Jesus is the Son of God.  And so of all the material that John knew about, both from personal experience as well as other written and oral traditions, he carefully chose what he shared; all to build his case.  There are a number of different ways that you can break down the Gospel of John, or outline it, but the most obvious way is to look at the miracle stories in it. 

There are seven miracle stories in the Gospel of John.  And while there is a perfectly good Greek word for ‘miracle’, John chooses not to use it. Instead, he refers to these acts as “Signs” (siemeon). John chose seven miracles to help us understand who Jesus is. (The number seven, being considered the ‘perfect number’ in the ancient world, is a sign in and of itself.)  There are lots of interesting studies about this, showing the possible significance of each sign – demonstrating Jesus’ authority over nature, disease, the spiritual world, and ultimately, over death itself in the final sign (the Resurrection). 

John’s purpose, as I said, is pretty clear:  at the end of Chapter 20 he writes this:

³⁰ The disciples saw Jesus do many other [miraculous] signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name. 

The signs are there… look at see.  Believe!  Find life! But not everybody gets it, do they?

In the Gospel of Luke, in one of the most well known Christmas passages, the angel’s announcement to the shepherds … remember these words from the KJV?  

“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy for which will be for all the people: For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign unto you.  You will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.”  

Jesus, the angels, Paul, all remind us: Take a look at the signs… see how it all adds up. And you’ll know whether you are on the right road.  You’ll know where you are… and where you are going. 

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Not all signs are in the past, either.  I think we need to be very careful about attributing things to God that may not necessarily come from God, but on the other hand, I am a believer in present day signs.  I believe that God is still active in this world, don’t you?  When you’re contemplating a decision about something momentous, and you’ve been praying about it; and suddenly the phone rings, and it is someone with information, or encouragement, or an offer that’s the key to everything… well, couldn’t that be considered a sign?  I think so. 

I think I saw a sign just last week. One that has humbled and awed me, and I still can’t quite get my head around it completely. 

I received a phone call a week ago Thursday night during the dress rehearsal for A Midnight Clear.  My phone was sitting on the piano, and I saw it light up, and the name HeyYoung came up on the screen.  At 9:15 on a Thursday night, I knew this couldn’t be good… 

“There is a family over at Jefferson hospital”, she said, “a woman is dying”.  They need a pastor. She couldn’t go because Gary wasn’t home… “Sure, I’ll go.”  Immediately after the rehearsal ended, I called the family back, and said I’d be there as soon as I could. 

I walked into that Intensive Care room about 10 PM, and saw some folks that I hadn’t seen for awhile. Folks that had been part of our community until they moved to Delaware a few years ago.  Eleanor and Dick Leuliette. Eleanor’s sister, Ginny Soboleweski, and her husband Paul. Ginny was the patient.  She had suffered a massive stroke earlier that day, and her prospects were very grim.  She was on life support, including a ventilator.  I’ll not go into detail here, but just to convey the point that due to pressure on her brain stem, and some other very serious complications, she was ‘gone’.  There was virtually no brain functioning.  The family was simply waiting for that to end.  It was a very sad scene. 

We prayed together, and talked a little bit.  And I had this thought, “I wish I had brought my anointing oil.”  And I put my hand in my jacket pocket, and realized that I actually had brought it. So, I explained a little bit about the meaning of anointing from James 5, and asked if they would like for Ginny to be anointed. “Of course”, they said.  So, we gathered around her bedside, laid hands on her, and anointed her. 

What we thought we were doing – let me be totally honest with you – was committing her spirit to the Lord.  Everything we had heard from every doctor indicated that her physical life was over.  When we finished that prayer, we left together. 

The next morning, we wrote on the church calendar a date for her memorial service.  December 23^rd.   But look at this calendar.  I’ve made a copy of the page to keep. Because we had to cross it out… because Ginny began moving her arms and legs on Friday… again they took her to surgery.  And she woke up!  She began writing notes, asking questions.  “What happened to my head?”   (She still had the ventilator in, and couldn’t speak.) 

Last Sunday I stopped in again… she was alone, it was evening.  She had been asleep.  I stood by her bedside, and she opened her eyes.  I said, “Do you recognize me?”  (She hadn’t actually seen me in over two years!)  “Pastor Steve”, she said… 

I am not one to use the word ‘miracle’ lightly.  Her neurologists are calling this a ‘one in a million’ circumstance.  Which sounds like a pretty good definition of a miracle, I think.  She’s now in Magee rehab center, and has some difficulties, but is doing quite well, considering. 

And I wonder if John would have called this a ‘sign’?  And if it is a sign, can we understand it?

My feeling is that this sign is too easy to misinterpret.  I don’t think that this is necessarily a sign of God’s ability to heal. You know, a sign that says that we need to ask God for greater things, and we need to have a little more faith.  (That all may be true, but I’ve seen too many hurting people and have performed too many funerals that from my limited perspective seem to be ‘out of their time’, to make very many general statements about that).  And the reason I had the oil in my pocket that night was because I had brought it to anoint Tom Langshaw at Virtua Hospital exactly one week earlier. 

The proper interpretation of this sign, I think, isn’t about having “more faith and look what God can do for us” – in fact, it may be quite the opposite.  Let me remind you again, that of the three of us who prayed that night for Ginny’s healing, not one of us, truth be told, was praying for her physical healing.  In fact, if I remember my words that night, I believe said something like this: “Lord, we know that there are many types of healing. And we commit Ginny into your care, and we ask for you to care for her, and grant her ultimate healing.”  I prayed a similar prayer for Tom – and I believe that God answered both of them. Tom went to be with the Lord that very night. Ginny woke up, still on earth. 

I think this sign simply points to the reality of a living God in the midst of a dark world.  In a world full of hopelessness, and despair, we’re reminded: God is still here! In a world where people are grasping for meaning… this is a reminder that God can and will someday break in with a power and clarity that is completely unexpected!  And truly wonderful! In a way that is greater than even our wildest dreams! This is a sign that says, ‘Friends, my children…Don’t give up hope… yes, there is darkness in this world… but the light has come’.  It is not yet shining in all it’s brilliance, but it will someday.  And soon. The darkness is there, but it is leaking. It is ‘leaking light’. 

This is a sign, then, that is similar to the sign of the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. A sign that lifts our eyes to the mysteries of the heavens, to the hope of Eternity.  Like all true signs, it calls us to trust, to believe. To persevere. To endure.  To be faithful, no matter what we’re facing. Until the very end. 

And it is a sign that reminds us that the end will be good. That all is under control.  That there is a plan. And one of the most beautiful, powerful steps in that Plan happened on the night we are celebrating tonight.  The night that God came near. 

God is with us.  Emmanuel has come. And when we realize that… when that knowledge makes up the foundation of our lives, things change.  Priorities shift.  The significance of Christmas deepens, even as the gifts, the parties…the music, the lights, the decorations, and all the rest, just seem to fade to insignificance in comparison to the reality of God who is with us, not only at Christmas, but every day, and forever. 

Lift up your heads… Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come.