Faith and doubt

Miracle on 34^th Street is one of the beloved Christmas classics of all time. It is a story about faith. While some people make faith as something to be easy and without struggle, most of the time in my experience faith is actually dirty, complex and mysterious. This is the type of faith that I observe in Miracle on 34^th Street.

Mother (Doris) and daughter (Susan) have experienced a past full of pain. We find our that Doris has a lot of resentment against her ex-husband and does not have a lot of trust and faith outside of what can be explained with common sense. This has been passed down to Susan as a way of learning from her experience.

Kris Kringle is a new hire at Macy’s as the store Santa Clause. He believes he is the one and only Santa Clause, and people think he is crazy. Fred takes Susan to see Santa and while in line Susan discusses the idea of Santa as silly and impossible. However, the girl in line after them does not speak English as she was just adopted from Denmark. And Santa starts to speak Dutch with the girl. This amazes Susan and gives her a little faith.

As Kris Kringle’s claim of being Santa becomes bigger he is put on trial. Fred who is also a lawyer, defends him. Kris finally has all charges dropped because the post office delivers thousands of Santa letters to him at the courthouse. And if a government organization believes it, it must be true.

Christmas finally comes and Susan experiences doubt because Santa could not deliver what she wanted, a house. This was the only way she would really believe that he is real. In life we experience doubt and dismay with what happens around us. And it is okay to doubt. But do not focus on the doubt, rather focus on even the little bit of faith that you do have.

Matthew 17:20 says “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”As Susan works through her doubt, Kris gives Fred directions somewhere. On the way Susan sees a house and jumps out of the car, saying “I do believe, Santa did get it for me.”

While faith does have obstacles there are times where we have breakthroughs like Susan did with the viewing of Santa speaking Dutch. We however do not always have the big miracle like Susan experiences here. So take faith one step at a time, and focus on what little faith you might have rather than the doubt. Pray for God to grow your faith and miracles really can happen.

Hope in A Christmas Story

This is a brief summary of yesterdays sermon at Heartland. Check out www.heartlandlpc.com for more about the church.

It is now December, which means the Christmas season has arrived. My favorite things about Christmas are egg nog, Christmas parties and Christmas movies. During the month of December in this article and at Heartland Community Church we will be looking at a different Christmas movie each week. One of my favorite Christmas movies and probably yours as well is A Christmas Story.

When I watch it I cannot help but see the story of hope. Ralphie, the main character in the story is a young blonde kid filled with hope. He has the hope that his parents are going to buy him a Red Ryder BB Gun. He brings his hopeful request to his mother. She responds, “You will shoot your eye out.” He even writes a school paper on his deepest desire for the toy. He receives a C+ on the paper and the teacher tells him, “You will shoot your eye out.”

As Ralphie lies in bed one night he is trying to figure out how he will make this dream come true. It comes to him to take the request to Santa. So Ralphie is now becoming anxious about telling Santa about the hope he has. He arrives at the mall and realizes he has a long way to wait in the line for Santa. This however does not destroy his hope. He waits… and waits… and the time arrives where Ralphie sits on Santa’s lap and he is speechless. He does not know what to say. Santa tries to get it out of him. Still nothing. Santa asks, “Would you like a football? Ralphie shakes his head yes in agreement. The elf puts Ralphie on the slide and as he starts to go down, Ralphie stops himself and starts to crawl up the slide. He yells “NO, I want a Red Ryder BB Gun.” Santa responds, “You will shoot your eye out kid.”

Ralphie’s mom, teacher and Santa are what I consider Killers of Hope. We all have them in our lives. We cannot let Killers of Hope get the best of us.

In Isaiah, the Israelites were going through a rough time, however held onto hope. They had hope that a Savior was coming into the world, that he would rescue and restore them to where they should be. God, the Father was looking to give them this longing but it was not yet the right time. But it would not be long…

Ralphie was defeated he had opened up all his gifts and his Father asked him if he had received everything he wanted. Ralphie responds, “kind of” but the disappointment was obvious. His Father tells him to go look behind the desk. Ralphie goes over, pulls out the box, unwraps it and it is the Red Ryder BB Gun. He is ecstatic and asks if he can go outside to use it.

The one person he never asks for the toy, his Father, is the one person who gives him the gift. His Father wants to give him the things to fulfill his hopes and dreams… Granted Ralphie does break his glasses and fulfills the “you will shoot your eye out.” Why is it that we can always go to God the Father with all our hopes and requests but it is usually the last place we go?