One Christmas, a mother listened
as her 4-year-old daughter sang one of the carols. The mother was a little surprised when she
heard her daughter sing: “While shepherds washed their socks by night.” I mean who knows, shepherds had to do
something to pass the time as they were watching their flocks at night.
Christmas calls to mind a
question which has haunted human beings since the beginning of time – “Am I
alone in this universe?” Christmas
dares to shout forth an answer: “No, you are not alone.”
Christmas announces glorious news,
God, out of love for His creation, entered our history, our life adventure, our
journey, to be near us, among us, one of us and one with us. God slipped into
our time zone and has never left it.
Why did God enter the world as
Jesus? It was out of love for His
creation, out of love for humanity. If
God had wanted to relate to trees, he would have become a tree; if God had
wanted to relate to birds, he would have become a bird; if God had wanted to
relate to computers, he would have become a computer; but God wanted to relate
to and communicate with and bring salvation to human beings, so God became one
of us. We could not rise to God, so God
stooped down to come to us.
Christmas declares that an
eternal light has broken into the darkness of the world. The Gospel writer John says: “In Christ
was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the
darkness did not overcome it.” In
Jesus, God has made his character, his heart, his mind, his voice, his will, his
nature known to the world.
Christmas is about a young Jewish
peasant couple, Mary and Joseph, who experience the miraculous in their life. She is with child, an angel reveals, a child
conceived by the Holy Spirit. The
prophet Isaiah says: “The Lord
himself will give you a sign: The virgin
will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Christmas is about the unique
nature of Jesus. It announces that Jesus
is truly God, very God, fully God. In
the Gospel of John we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and lived among us
and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace
and truth.” The letter of Colossians
says it succinctly: “In Jesus Christ, the fullness of God was pleased to
dwell.” The Letter of Hebrews states:
“In these last days God has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of
all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the
exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful
word.”
Born in Bethlehem , Jesus' is God’s revelation, God’s
incarnation, God’s anointed one, Immanuel, God is one with us. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible
God.
But paradoxically Christmas also
declares the exact opposite, Jesus was a human being. Jesus was truly human, very human, fully
human. The sovereign God entered the
world as a helpless baby. The letter of
Hebrews says: “Since God’s children share flesh and blood, Jesus likewise
shared the same things. For we do not
have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have
one who in every respect was tested as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus was human, born of a woman like you and
I are born. He experienced the joys and
sorrows of life, yet he was without sin.
Christmas declares this unique, one of a kind birth. No other world religions speak of incarnation
in their faith.
Christians declare this truth: in
Jesus of Nazareth, God and humanity, the divine and human are united in one
personal existence. This truth is a
mystery. Ultimately, comprehending it
lies beyond our mind's ability to fully grasp it. Rather the truth lies in God’s revealing it to
our minds and hearts. We then can accept
it by faith or reject it.
Yes, for some today it’s a
scandalous claim. Jews consider it
blasphemy and idolatry, an offense to God because God is Spirit, not flesh and
blood and because we are to worship God alone, not human beings. For others Christmas is a fairytale, with
angels, animals, shepherds and kings, like the brothers’ Grimm fairy tales, Snow
White, Rapunzel, the Frog Prince. For
others it’s about Santa Claus and getting and giving gifts. Some see the Christmas story of a peasant
family giving birth as a metaphor for poor people all over the world giving
birth in humble circumstances. Some see
Christmas as a time for family reunions and food and celebrations and
traditions. The one thing they all have
in common is that these understandings have nothing to do with Jesus’ birth.
The Christian faith announces
that Christmas is founded upon a historical event. It is based upon a unique and humble birth of
Jesus, a baby born in Bethlehem, in a world of Caesar's and Herod’s and Pilates,
and a Jewish people under subjugation by the Roman Empire.
Why did God enter into the world
in Jesus? To fulfill the prophecies of a
coming Messiah from Jewish prophets like Micah, Zechariah and Isaiah: “For
unto us a child has been born, a son given to us, authority rests upon his
shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace, and this coming messiah, God's anointed one, would bring
salvation from our sins and establish his kingdom with justice and
righteousness forevermore.”
The distinguished 5th century Church Father St. Augustine
said: “God became a man for this purpose.
Since you, a human being could not reach God, but you can reach other
humans, God became a human so that following a human, something you are able to
do, you might reach God.”
I recall when Police Chief
Charles Moose, back in 2003, first made national news when he was police chief
in Portland , Oregon Sandy ,
went house hunting. They could have afforded to live in any of the city's best
neighborhoods. Instead, they bought an 83-year-old wood-frame house in the King
neighborhood, which had one of the highest crime rates in Portland . Chief Moose, who was 41 at the time,
was the country's only police chief to live in a crime plagued dangerous
neighborhood.
With his move to the King
neighborhood, Chief Moose was hoping to get people feeling better about their
community, to improve their quality of life and build trust with the police. He said: "If someone can say, 'I live
in the same neighborhood as the chief' instead of ‘I live in the neighborhood
where the shooting happened or in a high crime area, "I will have achieved
my goal."
The chief moved into the King
neighborhood. God in Jesus moved into
our neighborhood. That's the Christmas
message. That is the greatest compliment that God could possibly pay us. This is the good news of Immanuel, God with
us.
Christmas declares that God is at
work everywhere in the midst of the world’s darkness and in the most reluctant
and hardened of hearts. God is on the
premises and suffers with those who suffer and judges those who perpetrate evil. God in Jesus seeks those in whom love can be
born and peace can be won. God came to
redeem the world and to reach out and find us and being found sends us out to
let Christ’s love shine in us as light against the darkness and hope against
hopelessness. The incarnation confronts
us with the truth about who Jesus is and challenges us to become who God
created us to be. God has spoken by His
son.
What is our response? Some of course dismiss Christmas, “Bah, humbug.” Other people approach Christmas with the mind,
with the intellect and critically analyze its message. That is certainly one response and is not
without merit. Some find this approach
quite helpful. Some have met Jesus on
the intellectual path. Another approach
is that of awe and wonder and mystery, where we receive the message of
Christmas in humility on our knees. Some
have received the message through Christmas music, like carols like: “Oh come let us adore him, Oh come let us
adore him” and “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive
her king.”
What will your response be to the
Christmas story this year? Amen.
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