The Gift with a Cost
Isaiah 53:1-12
Christmas has become the #1 self-focused consumer day in America. It’s so interesting that Good Friday leads into Easter and Black Friday leads us into the Christmas holidays. The church needs to lead a movement of conspiracy to reclaim Christmas from consumerism. and transform this Hallmark, gift crazed image from holly and mistletoe to the reign of the Messiah on earth. Too often we have become insulated by Santa Claus, a white Christmas, family gatherings and exchanging gifts from the heart of God and what’s going on in the world.
Every 4 seconds a child dies from a hunger related cause in the world. Since we started this service, over 415 children have died. What’s amazing is that just the grain we use for grain alcohol, we could feed the world 3 times over. Most people are looking for a jolly, feel good Christmas with a Santa Claus Jesus and 1/4 of the world is just hoping for their next meal. In Africa today, 5,500 kids die every day under the age of five of AIDS. 5,500 men and women will die of AIDS today. We have rampant unemployment, a skyrocketing murder rate, drugs poisoning our society and killing our youth, a public school system which is failing our children and 1/3 of all student will drop out. There are more wars going on right now than ever before in history. This is the world in which the Savior is born.
This time of year, we get excited and touched by Baby Jesus in a cradle but you can’t separate the cradle from the cross. This gift of Jesus comes with a sacrificial cost. A lot of us understand the cradle but we fail to connect the cradle with the cross. Jesus was born so that he might be able to die for our sins. Many of us struggle with the cross at Christmas. The cross is the center of the Christian message of faith. “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Most people get the baby Jesus of the cradle but they don’t get the Messiah of the cross. Why?
Because God delivers this gift in the ordinary. The gift of God is rooted in the ordinary. Verse 2: “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” Is 53:2 Nowhere does this sound like a Messiah or a world leader who was going to change the course of history. When we’re kids we establish a pecking order. Who’s cool and who’s not? Who’s the nerd and who’s the jock? Who’s in and who’s out? Where do you put Jesus in this pecking order? Jesus was assigned to the place of low standing. This is why most people miss the real Messiah. They’re looking for that suave, debonair, good looking, powerful, educated individual who changes a room of people when he walks into it and so they’re missing the true gift of God.
Jesus came from Nazareth which led many to say he can’t be the Messiah because nothing good could ever come out of Nazareth. You see, Nazareth was at the bottom of the pecking order. It was a no good, nothing hamlet filled with uneducated, ill-informed people. That’s like saying nothing good could ever come from Westwego. Or nothing good could ever come out of the Fischer projects. You remember in Luke it talks about the birth of Jesus and Mary in her humble state. The word humble in Greek means low in situation, poor and depressed. So Jesus came from a poor working class background. He lacked formal education and he did not have the credentials or lineage to be the Messiah. Jesus was not the type of person you would be drawn to physically but rather may very well have been someone you turn away from according to Isaiah. He wasn’t in People Magazines 50 Most Beautiful People list or on anybody’s yearbook list of most like to do anything.
When you think about God’s picture of influential or beautiful, Mother Theresa may come to mind. But when you look at her, she is anything but appealing or attention grabbing. She is small in stature, wrinkled and shriveled up and looked years older than she really was. And yet, she was one of the most powerful and influential ambassadors of God in our day. What does this say about what God’s values as influential or beautiful. Jesus said, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you to be my witnesses.” The power that Jesus is taking about is not one of position, wealth or prestige, it’s the power of Godly influence. The world misses Jesus because they’re looking for the elaborate, wealthy, beautiful and extraordinary when it comes to the Messiah. Here’s the problem: most of us are very ordinary! God’s gift comes to us in the ordinary because Jesus comes to us as we are, to demonstrate to us what God has created us to become. That’s why most people miss Jesus because they’re looking for the extraordinary but Jesus reaches out to us as one of us right where we are.
Second, the gift is experienced in pain and suffering. Most people at Christmas are dealing with the Messiah of their imagination and miss the true gift of Christmas which is mired in pain and suffering. Verse 4 reads, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.” From the very beginning of his life, Jesus is mired in pain and suffering. He’s forced to ride his last days before birth in his mother’s womb on the back of a donkey for several days over rocky, difficult terrain. He’s born not in a sterile birthing ward of a hospital but in a filthy, germ and rodent infested barn. He’s then hunted down by Herod who’s killing every child under the age of 2 in the hopes of killing the Messiah and is forced to live like a nomad in a foreign land until it’s safe again to return. And that’s just in the first couple of years! Throughout his life, Jesus is mired in pain and suffering. In fact, he embraces it as part of his mission. You and I on the other hand have a low tolerance of pain and a high avoidance of suffering. In fact most of us try to minimize our risk and are pursuing a life of comfort. That’s why I think God allows these type of economic downturns to happen to move us out of our comfort zone. Transformation rarely happens in a life of comfort. We are totally missing it!
Paul said, “I want to know the power of the resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering…”Phil 3:!0 Transformation happens in pain and suffering. Resurrection happens out of pain and suffering. Phil 1:29 says, “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him….” The Son of God would not be exempt or insulated from pain, suffering or death. He would experience the injustice and unfairness of life in its extremes beginning at the very moment of his birth and until he was executed 30 years later on the cross as a criminal of the state. Life is not fair. It’s hard, unjust and difficult and faith does not exempt us from pain and suffering. Dung happens. But we also know that many times when we join God’s team and commit to His mission, we may very well experience more pain and suffering because of that. Why would we think any different looking at Jesus’ life? Most of us are missing the Messiah of Christmas because the gift is experienced in pain and suffering.
Not only is the gift seen in the ordinary and experienced in pain and suffering but third, the gift is experienced in sacrifice. Verse 5 reads, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” What is so unfair is that Jesus suffers for all of our wrongdoing, not for what He did. He takes our transgressions, our sinful thoughts, our wrong deeds, our injustices, our judgment upon other people and puts it all of this upon himself. Verse 10 says, Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…” Some people have great difficulty accepting that God would allow that, that it was His will for Christ to suffer. What we need to understand is that this was not God’s design for Jesus to just die on the cross but rather it was our sins for which Jesus had to die. This is difficult for us to grasp sometimes because we cannot understand the hideous nature of our own sin. Imagine the most vile, disgusting, foul smelling fluids of human waste infected with disease and decayed flesh, viruses and bacteria mixed in with decaying matter. Now picture yourself being submerged in it, drinking it, breathing it, tasting it, smelling it and it wouldn’t even come close to what it was like for the Holy Son of God who was sinless being submerged in the filth and death of sin resulting in separation from God. At the moment He became completely mired in our sin.
Here’s the thing with sin: we minimize our own sin and maximize the sin we see in other people’s lives. But sin is sin is sin in the eyes of God. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a white lie or a mass murderer like Hitler. We want to apply the same totem pole/pecking order judgments we use in every day life when it comes to looking at sin. And that’s not the way God sees things. And so what happens is that during Christmas we seek a feel good place that fits our ideal of Christmas rather than connect with the heart of God which gave his son to be born into a world filled with pain and suffering. Jesus came into a world so evil and offensive to God, including my life and my sins, that nothing less than the torture and death of God’s son on the cross is sufficient. God didn’t create this to be. It was our sin and the evil of this world which put Jesus on the cross. Nothing but the death of God’s son on the cross can save me from death and destruction. “While we were enemies of God, Christ died for us.” Enemy? We may believe in God but by our very attitudes and actions, our lives are moving and working against the purposes of God. At the very least, we are standing on the sidelines. Murder, drugs, our abuse and indifference to the environment, hunger, poverty are all an abomination to God and our indifference to these ills of society are an abomination to Him as well because we are God’s people, His chosen instruments of salvation and healing for the world!
We have to understand that it takes a radical solution, Jesus on the cross, to solve a radical problem. And this comes with a great price tag, a great sacrifice. It is free but we treat it as if it is cheap. Too often we want God to do and give us what we desire rather than what we really need. That’s what James and John said to Jesus when they came to him and said, Jesus, we want you to do whatever we ask.” We have made Jesus a Santa Claus Jesus when instead we should be going to Jesus and asking what he wants. Jesus wants us to join Him in His mission by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. In other words, lose your life so that you might find life in God.
Richard Myers tells the story of being a reservist and being called back to active duty in Fort Monmouth, NJ, canceling his Christmas plans with his family in IN. Feeling low, he turned ont eh radio and heard an appeal from the Post Office for volunteers to answer letters sent to Santa. He went and poured over the letters, choosing four and bough the requested gifts. His first was a family in Harlem, a wife who had written the letter on behalf of her children and her husband a dischared serviceman. They reluctantly accepted the gift and he went on his way. The next was from Kathleen whom he found living in a very large, luxurious brownstone. He explained that he was Santa’s helper and assured her that Santa wanted her to know that she would not be forgotten. Her mother thanked Richard and said, Thank you. We can give her toys but we cannot give her the joy of this experience. The third was William who had written fform Spanish Harlem. He couldn’t find the address but ended up metting a wingle mother with five children and gave her enough money to buy presents for each. The fourth letter was from Lucille, a young mother who wrote that she was separated from her husband and hoped that Santa would help bring gifts to her children. When Richard knocked on the door, he was surprised to see a man answer. It seems they had gotten back together and they invited him in and had a wonderful conversation as he shared his experiences of the day. And then he writes, “All day I had traveled about on buses and the subway. My feet were soaked from the snowy streets. There had been no spectacular experiences. In fact, several had been awkward. There had been only one real case of need. But for one whole day, I hadn’t thought of myself and had enjoyed myself thoroughly. When I went to bed that night, there was a glow inside me because deep down, I had found Christmas by giving it away.”
