Title: How to See a Star
Text: Luke 2:8-14
MP: Only the humble can see the amazing peace of Christ
FCF: We are prone to miss out on the Star (Christ) if our hearts aren’t open to seeing him.
Outline:
Black Hole (How could you miss it?)
My problem with the Gospel narratives: How could you miss it? A Star? An angelic Choir? This was supposed to be god news for all people. And yet, Jesus remained an obscure child.
Answer: You only see what you’re expecting to see. We always expect stars to give light. But a black hole traps all the light it gives off. The only way you can ‘see’ a black hole is notice how it affects everything around it. You can see its effects, but you can’t see it. Jesus the same. I often complain that I have a hard time seeing ‘the one who is the image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15)
So, how do we see him? We can see what he has done in our lives and the lives of those around us, but only if our hearts are prepared to see him. I want to suggest three ways in particular:
Be Humble
a. Priests pre-coceived notions
b. Trillion Dollar Bet? Sholes’ formula doesn’t see it all
Be Faithful
c. The shepherds were in their fields – you in church?
Be Open
d. A Baby? That’s what’s supposed to deliver us?
e. Time’s unexpected choice – You
f. YouTube / Google
g. Even if…
Do you know what a black hole is? Imagine a star like our sun – or maybe even 10 – 1000x bigger. All of the power, energy, and gravity – but wrapped up in a small ball no more than a mile or two across. There is simply so much mass, so much gravity, that nothing can overcome it. Not the strongest spaceships we can build, not even another star, not even light itself can escape if it gets caught up in the event horizon of a black hole.
And yet, for all of its power, as late as the 1990s, there were still scientists who weren’t convinced they even existed. After all, if you can’t see it, they say, it’s not really science. But because not even light itself can escape, there is literally nothing to see. You can’t observe a black hole directly – you can only tell of its existence by the effects it has on things around it. Scientists didn’t “see” the first black hole until they found one star literally being eaten alive by something else they couldn’t see.
Even our entire Milky Way galaxy is orbiting around what many scientists now think is a massive black hole. There’s no light emanating from the core, but there is still some force so powerful that our math says it must be an object too massive to support its own weight. That’s the definition of a black hole.
You’d think we would not be able to miss something so powerful. I mean, the very thing that our entire galaxy revolves around, and yet we just can’t see it.
That’s helped me with a question that I’ve long had about the Christmas stories we have in Luke in Matthew. Think about this for a second. We have some super star so intriguing that it draws high court officials from thousands of miles away. We have a “bright heavenly host shining round about them,” and stalwart shepherds out in the field are pulled away from their own livelihoods just to go see this thing they heard about.
And yet, most people didn’t even notice it. How could they miss it?
After all, did the king see this star? No – he had to have some “dirty foreigners” tell him (and make no mistake, that’s what he would have thought these wise men were). And did the chief priests and scribes and the religious establishment see him? No – they had to rely on the questions of a co-opted, collaborator king.
For a message that was supposed to be a message of peace for all nations, God sure had a funny way of broadcasting it. For good news that was for all nations, it seemed that a lot of people just didn’t get the memo.
So, why then do we have such a hard time seeing the message – the real star of Christmas?
It’s because we’re wired only to see the things we expect to see. Right this very minute, you are only able to see a small fraction of the spectrum – the visible portion. We only expect to see colors from blue to red. We have to been specially prepared to see ultraviolet or infrared. We can only discern those other things through their effects – like a black hole.
Colossians 1.15 says of Jesus that he is the image of the invisible God. It’s an interesting way to think about it.
But if you’re here this morning, I suspect you would like to see God. You want to know what it means to see this peace that he supposedly brings. Wouldn’t you like to see and hear and know what is the length and width and breadth of the love of God?
Well, if you’ll come with me this morning, I want to suggest three things from this passage that will put you in the shepherd’s camp – the one who could see. I don’t want you to miss him, but you’ll need to be prepared.
I wish I could put you in a time machine or give you some fancy goggles to see. But if you are going to see him, you need to see with your heart – so it’s your heart that you’ll need to prepare.
Be Humble
The first way not to miss him is to be humble.
Last week, I was trying to point this out in Mary. She was a humble little handmaiden – probably just a girl we would have thought was your typical unwed teen mother.
This week, we see it in simple shepherds. They didn’t have fancy clothes and fast cars. They were simple blue-collar workers. But God loved them. And so, when the birth announcements went out, he made sure they go theirs first.
You’d think the Chief Priests would have been the ones that got it first. And, maybe in a sense they did – after all, they had the prophecies. They even knew they were supposed to be looking in Bethlehem: a sleepy suburb five miles south of Jerusalem.
But you know, it may have that same scripture that blinded them in the first place. They were so confident – cocky even – in how well they knew their scriptures that they couldn’t even conceive of a God who wouldn’t arrive in they way they assumed he would.
This week, I learned about a financial scientist named Myron Sholes. In the early 1970s, he and some colleagues figured out how to price stock options. He also figured out the implication of his own formula – that if you could just diversify into enough investments – you could in theory, eliminate risk. Myron Sholes’ formula was so powerful that it earned him a Nobel Prize in 1997. It also got him a job on what Wall Street called ‘The Dream Team’ in 1994.
This company called Long Term Market Capital put together 12 of the most respected names in finance, and proceeded to pull in $3 billion worth of capital in a fund so exclusive and so secret that even investors weren’t allowed to know what the fund was doing. They simply had to accept on faith that Sholes and Merton and these other guys knew what they were doing. And they did – in droves.
In fact, for three years, they were pulling in nearly 40% returns annually. It was going great.
But there was a problem with Sholes’ formula. You see, it did a great job of predicting prices based on past performance. But if you have ever even thought about a stock or a bond or a mutual fund, I know you this warning: “Past Performance is no guarantee of future results.”
Well, Sholes hadn’t counted on Thailand’s currency going belly up. They hadn’t counted on Russia just saying, ‘No, we’re aren’t going to pay our debts today.’ They simply couldn’t account for everything. And so, by 1998, somehow, $3 billion capital was now supporting – get this - $1.25 trillion worth of risk.
Just to put that in perspective, if the federal government were to have paid that debt, they would be done for the year. Nothing else.
Thankfully, they got bailed out and bought out with nothing more than questions of why the Federal Reserve was stepping in on a private business. That could have created a depression that made the 30s look a banner decade.
But the point is this they were so cocky – so confident in their own understanding of how the world worked that they never thought history could surprise them. A little bit of humility would have gone a long way.
Be Faithful
These shepherds – they were dirty, lower-class workers stuck on the graveyard shift. They didn’t see most of society – they had to be sleeping when everybody else was awake. But lucky for them, the reverse was true as well. When everyone was sleeping, they got the ultimate present – A telegram straight from God himself.
Glory to God in the highest, and peace on those in whom he pleasures.
Guess what guys. He likes you. He loves you. He takes pleasure in you! Why? Because he does. It probably doesn’t hurt that you’re in face day and night, even if you’re babbling stupid prayers and totally messing up the theology. If nothing else, I probably make laugh with some of the ideas I come up with.
But God appreciates your faithfulness. I know it may comes a shock to some of you, but God can even choose to reveal himself in a church. Maybe through a pastor, more likely through your interaction with each other and his word. If you’re faithful to be here, he can deliver all sorts of good news. But you have to listen.
And that brings me to my last point.
Be Open
Imagine you’re a shepherd for minute. You just heard this message about peace for all nations, goodwill to men. Everything is going to change. And now, guys, the angels say – I’m even going to give you sign. There’s this baby wrapped in swaddling clothes – that’s 1st century Huggies. And, he might be crying, he might be spittin’ up. Guarantee you Mary ain’t sleeping. But he’s your sign.
Ok. A baby? Yup. That’s your sign.
But remember, if you’re humble, if you’re faithful – that’s all you need to be open. After all, its cockiness that keeps you locked into your own way of seeing things. It’s being open to God – believing that he’s in charge and he really knows what’s needed – that let’s you see.
If he says you need this baby, you need this baby.
Time magazine has been taking some heat this year for its Man of the Year. In case you haven’t heard, they’re Man of the Year is ‘You’ – so be sure to go update your resume. It was a totally unexpected, if somewhat lame, choice.
In their write-up, they were focusing a lot on YouTube. It was a startup in a garage, whose core business is broadcasting all sorts of important messages. For instance, public service announcement films about the danger of mixing Mentos and Diet Coke. (You need to see it to believe it). And somehow, this business was worth $1.65 billion this year to Google.
Wouldn’t you have loved to have been the venture capitalist to invest in them? Or how about being on the ground floor with Google? Imagine being the one who had discovered those guys while they were still in their garage. (Marketplace Money guy who had the chance – but he steered clear!)
But guess what. Even you could see the opportunity, it would have money, and that wouldn’t have been for all men. Instead, we can have peace – good favor from God himself. That’s even bigger than YouTube, Google, even bigger than a black hole. God doesn’t trap light, he’s the author of it! And we have the chance to get in on the ground floor of his love, if only we have the eyes to see it.
He wants to give you peace; He wants to give you life; You are already a star in his eyes, if only you can see the real star of Bethlehem – the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Long Branch Baptist Church
Halfway, Virginia; est. 1786
Christmas Eve Sunday, December 24th, 2006
Enter to Worship
Prelude David Witt
Meditation Col 1.13 – 18
Invocation
*Opening Hymn #91
“The First Noel”
Welcome & Announcements
Morning Prayer
*Hymn #86
“It Came upon the Midnight Clear”
*Advent Litany [See Right]
*Hymn #87
“Angels from the Realms of Glory”
Offertory Mr. Witt
*Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow / Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise him above, ye heavenly host / Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
*Scripture Luke 2:8-14
Sermon
“How to See a Star”
Invitation Hymn #85
“O Little Town of Bethlehem”
*Benediction
*Congregational Response
May the grace of Christ our Savior / And the Father’s boundless love
With the Holy Spirit’s favor / Rest upon us from above. Amen.
* Congregation, please stand.
Depart To Serve
Advent Litany
Light and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Grace and peace be unto you!
Why do we light this candle?
We light this candle because He brings peace and because He is peace.
Remember that at one time, you were a stranger to Christ, hostile and separated from the covenant, having no hope.
But he who is our peace has made us one – by breaking down the walls of hostility, making us one, and reconciling us to God through the cross, thus killing the hostility between us.
V The Candle of Peace is Lit
The Lord delivered this to us through the prophets:
But you, O Bethlehem, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. Luke 2:8-20 (ESV)
