A friend of mine who is a psychologist told me once that he has found the perfect formula for getting through Christmas. He says, “You just put your mind in neutral... and go where you are shoved!” Of course, he was just kidding around... but we know full well what he was talking about. The Christmas rush, the hectic pace, the heavy traffic, the long lines, the frayed nerves, the bills, the deadlines, the pressures... all combine to cause some people to give up and give in and just stonewall through the season. “They just put their minds in neutral and go where they are shoved...”

But please don’t let that happen to you. Don’t just endure the season. Enjoy it. Relish it. Savor it. Celebrate it. Learn from it. Share the joy of Christmas with others. Listen to what Christmas is saying... Christmas has so much to teach us.

Take Mary and Isaiah for example... There is so much to learn from them. Isaiah lived in tough times. His people Israel were under attack and they had gotten away from God. So far away that Isaiah knew that they needed a Savior. That was the only hope now. He also knew that they needed a prophet to call them back to covenant faith -, and to give them hope. He saw the need. He heard the call and he responded, “Here am I, Lord, send me.” Isaiah is the symbol for faith and hope.

We see it even more dramatically in Mary. Mary has so much to teach us about real faith... and real hope. When we see her so beautifully portrayed in Christmas pageants and on Christmas cards and in Nativity scenes... she looks so serene and lovely.., and the whole matter appears too simple and easy. But, think realistically about it for a moment. Consider realistically what Mary went through. It must have been incredibly difficult.

The whisperings behind her back The pointed fingers, the false accusations. The raised eyebrows, the questions. The gossip, the criticism.

The family pressures, the crude jokes. The cruel laughter.

The poverty, the heavy taxes.

Not even to mention the long hard journey mandated at a time when an expectant mother shouldn’t have had to travel anywhere except to the nearest hospital. Then add to that...

The birth in a stable... with no doctor, no midwife, no medicine and no anesthetic... nothing but faith and hope in God!

She was just a teenaged girl... from a poor family who lived in an obscure village in a tiny nation which itself was under subjection to a despised foreign power. Then one day out of the blue, an angel came to her with a message from the Lord: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold you will conceive and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great. He will be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world....” And all this was going to happen without her ever having been with any man.

Now, be honest. Would you have believed that? The remarkable thing is that Mary did! That’s real faith and real hope, isn’t it? She was willing to hear God’s word, obey His will, and entrust the future into His hands... even though it put her in an awkward, difficult, complicated situation. How would she explain this? How would she communicate this to her parents? How would she tell Joseph?

They were legally engaged. They had not yet consummated their marriage, but they were considered “good as married” and in those days when you became formally engaged as they were, the only way you could be separated was through divorce. How could she tell Joseph and how would he handle it? And what would the neighbors say?

It was a tough situation for Mary and under similar circumstances, most of us would have asked the Lord to find someone else to do this job. But not Mary. Her answer to the angel was a model of real faith and real hope. Like Isaiah before her, she said, “Here am I. I am the Lord’s servant,” she said. “Let it be to me according to your word.” Here in Mary and Isaiah we see powerful portraits Christian hope painted with three bold strokes. Here they are.

I. First of all, Mary and Isaiah were persons of great hope because they heard God's voice.

They were tuned in to God. They were listening with the ears of faith... and thus were able to hear God’s message and respond. I’m convinced that God is speaking loud and clear today... but sadly so few people are “tuned in” to hear Him. So many of us get so caught up in the hectic pace of living that we stop listening. We are so inundated by words and voices and talk and appeals in our noisy world... that we pull back into a hard shell.., and stonewall our way through life. Too many of us throw in the towel, retreat from the struggle, and give in to the sin of the closed mind. We don’t want our thought—world disturbed by new ideas... so we tune out. We have ears, but we will not listen and we do not hear.

In the year 1870 the Methodists in Indiana held their Annual Conference on the campus of a local college. The president of that college addressed the assembled Methodists and he said: “I think we are living in such an exciting age. I think we are going to see things happen in our lifetime that right now are just unbelievable.” The presiding bishop was intrigued by the college president’s remarks. The bishop interrupted him and said, “What do you see? What specifically are you talking about? What kind of new things do you mean?” And the president of the college said, “Well, all kinds of things, Bishop. I believe we’re coming into a time of great inventions. This is the year 1870 and I believe for example that one day soon we will be able to fly through the air like birds!” “You what?” said the bishop. “You believe that one day we will be able to fly?” “Yes, sir, I do,” said the college president. And then the bishop expounded Why, that is heresy, sir. Just plain heresy. The Bible says that flight is reserved for the angels and the angels alone. Enough of that drivel. We will have no more such talk here. Flying! What a ridiculous idea!” And do you know what? When the conference was over, that same bishop whose last name was Wright, went home to his wife and to his two small sons... whose names just happened to be — Wilbur and Orville! The bishop had tuned out. He wasn’t listening. Now, put that over against this:

Some years ago, our family gathered in Memphis at Christmas for a family reunion. A month or so before Christmas that year, my sister, Susie, had given birth to her third child... a beautiful baby girl named Julie. Most of us were seeing Julie for the first time, so there was a lot of excitement about this new addition to our family.

Toward evening, we put the bassinette in the back bedroom of the house and put the baby to bed. All the travel and excitement had tired her out. She fell asleep almost immediately. We had our Christmas dinner and afterwards we exchanged gifts. Then people got involved in a variety of activities. Some were talking and visiting, others were playing electronic games, some were singing carols, and still others were watching a football game on television.

There was a lot of noise and happy Christmas confusion. In the midst of all the chaos, I noticed my sister quietly slip out of the room. Where do you think she was going? She was going to check on the baby. She had heard the baby cry out.

Isn’t that something? In all the commotion, no one else heard the baby, but she did... and you know why, don’t you? Because she was tuned in to hear the baby. She was listening for the baby. Her ears were trained to hear her baby’s cry. That was her number one priority.

In the same way, Mary was tuned in to hear God. Listen! One of the great questions of Christmas is this one...

Can you hear the baby?

Are you tuned in to hear God?

Above all the chaos, can you hear God?

Is that a priority for you?

Or, have you closed your mind and shut the voice of God out of your life?

Mary’s hope and Isaiah’s hope were great, first of all, because they heard God’s voice.

II. Second, Mary and Isaiah were persons of great hope because they obeyed God's will.

In the original New Testament Greek, the word for faith is pistis, and it literally means “believing obedience”... believing in God so much that we commit ourselves body, mind, and soul to the doing of His will come what may.

In one Peanuts cartoon, Linus, the statistician for Charlie Brown’s baseball team, brings Charlie Brown his final report. “I’ve compiled the statistics on our baseball team for this last season.” Linus says. “In 12 games we ALMOST scored a run. In 9 games the other team ALMOST didn’t score before the first out. In right field Lucy ALMOST caught 3 balls, and once ALMOST made the right play.” And then Linus says, “Charlie Brown, we led the league in ALMOST.”

That’s the way many people are with regard to obeying God’s will. They lead the league in “Almost.” They almost obey God’s will, but not quite.

Many years ago when the great missionary David Livingstone was serving in Africa, he sent an appeal to England for more workers to come help him with his mission work on that continent. An answer came back from England, “We would like to send more workers to help you, but first we must ask, is there a good road to the outpost?” David Livingstone wrote back these words: “If you are offering to send workers who will come only if the road is easy, I can’t use them. Tell them to stay home.”

Mary’s hope and Isaiah’s hope were not tentative or conditional. No, in both cases, it was total and complete obedience to God no matter how rough the road may be. Mary’s hope and Isaiah’s hope were great because they heard God’s voice and they obeyed God’s will.

III. Third and finally, Mary and Isaiah were persons of great hope because they trusted God's power.

Each of them took it one step at a time, one day at a time, and trusted God for the future.

Some years ago, there was a captain on a Mississippi riverboat. He had been on that job for over 35 years. One day a passenger said to him, “After all these years of navigating the river, I guess you know by now where all the rocks and sandbars are.” He answered, “No, but I know where the deep water is!” That’s what Mary said in effect, isn’t it? I know where the deep water is. I know there are some rocky places out there, but I trust God to bring me through this.

I heard Terry Anderson say that a few years ago. Terry Anderson had just been released after having been held hostage for 6 ½ years in a foreign land. He was serving as a Chief Middle East Correspondent for the Associated Press when he was kidnapped in Beirut on March 16, 1985... and he was held captive until his release December 4, 1991. He had been a hostage for almost seven years. It was an incredibly difficult ordeal. but Terry Anderson came through it all with amazing strength.

Since his release, he had been interviewed a number of times... and his answers and responses have been inspirational. Let me remind you of three of his most powerful comments.

1. First, when he was asked what had enabled him to survive this awful experience, he answered without hesitation, “My faith, my companions, and my stubbornness.” (Which is another way of saying, trust in God.)

2. Second, one reporter said, “Terry, you have said that you don’t hate your captors. Can you help us to understand that?” Terry Anderson replied, “It’s really very simple. I’m a Christian. The Scriptures teach us to forgive. I don’t hate anybody.”

3. And the third, he was asked, “Terry, did you ever lose hope?” Terry Anderson said, “Hard question... Of course, I had some blue moments, moments of despair, but fortunately, right after I became a hostage, one of the first things that fell into my hands was a Bible. Over the last 6 ½ years as a captive, I have spent a lot of time with the Bible... and that helped me so much because it’s about hope; it’s about trust in God, and that’s what gave me the strength to make it through each day.” And then Terry Anderson said, “You do what you have to do. Faith helps you to do what you have to do. I spent a lot of time with the Bible and it reminded me to do the best I could each day... and to trust God for the future.”

That’s great Christian hope, isn’t it? It’s the kind of hope Mary and Isaiah had. It’s the kind of hope we need... Christian hope that enables us to hear God’s voice, to obey God’s will, to trust God’s power.