This world may not in the least suspect it needs a savior, but Christ comes as he came to Mary herself, wanting to stretch us physically, emotionally, and socially. Christ comes with the pronouncement of great sacrifice and pregnant impossibilities, yet when the humble and foolish give everything to receive him, they find themselves the wisest. So it’s fitting that we end 2015 and begin the New Year with a call to live a worshipful life.
In this age of the saturated self, time and space are drowning in voices, noises, and insistent demands – all clamoring for our attention. We might feel at times as if we are suffocating or simply being squished by blind forces that have no consideration or compassion, and we wonder if we can survive. “Is God really with me? Does He care about me?” This Season in particular can magnify those emotions. That is why I think it powerfully poignant that the first title Jesus is given is “Emmanuel,” God with us.
Over and over again the carol goes, “The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head.” Unfortunately singing this over and over may do a disservice to us; it can cause us to focus on the Baby Jesus and ignore the fundamental truth that Jesus isn't just a sweet seven-pound, five-ounce baby. The key truth of Away in a Manger is that Jesus is Lord.
This Season reminds us that God is in the midst of what we often categorise as common, ordinary and secular, and that segregating our world into “secular” and “sacred” limits opportunities for us to see Jesus at work in our daily lives. Charles Spurgeon said, “To a man who lives unto God nothing is secular, everything is sacred… The sacred has absorbed the secular.” Join us this Sunday as we consider that night, two thousand years ago, when God sent Jesus to make sacred what was considered profane, secular and common.
In the face of the bad news of our world, the good news of God should resonate in our hearts and minds as we enter the Christmas season: God is with us, God is pleased with us, and God loves us! Jesus inaugurates the reign of good news even in the face of bad news. All are invited to share in this good news. The good news of God’s reign exists even in the midst of crisis. The good news of God’s reign offers hope that Immanuel has arrived in Jesus. And even when the news is overwhelmingly bad, the promise resounds: “In the world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16.33). This is indeed good news.
God’s big idea is simply to be with us, but the first two people, Adam and Eve, chose a different vision. But God had a plan from the very beginning to get us back. As we have been journeying through The Story, it has looked bleak in the lower story, but God has never taken his eyes off of us or veered from his plan in the upper story. In the Old Testament he established a brand new nation called Israel, and from Israel came the solution, Jesus Christ. Jesus bore all of our sins and overcame death. To those who choose the gift, they will receive the forgiveness of their sins, once and for all. With that, the separation we have experienced from God because of the sin we were born with will be reconciled. After Jesus ascended to the father, he started a brand new movement with new believers called “the church.” The church is to spread the good news that God is about to make things new. There will be a new city, with a new garden in the centre where God will dwell once again. The only remaining question is, “will you be there?”
In the Lower Story there is chaos, confusion, struggles, sickness, and imprisonments. Sometimes we feel like that is all there is. As Christians we realise that above all that there is an Upper Story. God has a plan before time that will continue, and He uses the Upper Story to direct the Lower Story. Everything in the Lower Story is fitting into a perfect plan. We may not understand it, but like Paul, we can say this is for God’s glory, and it’s ultimately going to work out for good. While we’re challenged and occasionally discouraged, we do not despair. We don’t give up. We hang in there. We hold on.
In the first four books of the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - we learn that Jesus’ objective is very clear: he is going to represent us. He who knew no sin became our sin that we might become his righteousness. On the day the sinless Jesus died on the cross, all of the sins of humanity - past, present, and future - were placed on him. God then took Jesus’ sacrifice as full payment for our sins. Those who reach out and grab the free gift by faith are forgiven of their sins and they enter into the eternal relationship with the living God he has been wanting with us all along.
Now the question is, who is going to take the message of Jesus and what he has done to the world?