Exhortation, Third Sunday in Adent

This morning I want to address the students in the congregation ?Enot merely the college students but all other students we well. During the Christmas holidays, you will probably spend much more of your time at home than you have over the past few months. This could be a great way to relax at the end of the term and get ready for the next, but it could also be a time of frustration and turmoil for you and your parents. Which it will be depends almost entirely on you.

You could go home and act like you are still at school. You could ignore your parents, get out of the house at every opportunity, refuse to let your parents know what you are doing and when, live life as independently as you do at school. The only difference during the holidays would be that you sleep til noon every day. Or, you can use the holidays as an opportunity to spend time with your parents, tell them how school is going, find out how their lives have been for the past several months. You could spend the holidays recognizing that you are living in their home and need to respect the way they live their lives. In other words, you can be courteous or discourteous; you can honor your parents, or you can show disrespect.

Perhaps the key issue has to do with chores: Are you going to go into chore-avoidance mode as soon as you get home, keeping a step ahead of your folks and disappearing at just the right time so you don?t have to do anything around the house? Or are you going to make yourself available, and look for ways to help your parents during the busy holiday season?

In our sermon text, Jesus talks a great deal about His relationship to the Father, and emphasizes that He has come to do all that the Father has shown Him. Jesus is the perfect Son, who comes to do His Father?s will. Wouldn?t it be a terrible irony if you went home to celebrate Jesus?Ebirthday, and spent the whole time dishonoring your own parents?