Sermon for CATM – Advent 4 – December 20, 2009 – One Dangerous Baby
Let’s all stand to read today’s Advent Scripture reading. [Luke 2:1-20]
It’s funny the responses that people have to Christmas, to the story of the birth of Christ. My wife Barbara was telling me the other night that at her school there’s a committee made up of teachers that put together a “Days of Significance” program for the school announcements.
So during the school announcements first thing in the morning, they make mention of the diverse cultural celebrations including the special days of different religions.
So they mention all the Muslim and Sikh and Wiccan and other holidays, with a good amount of detail as to the religious significance of each holiday.
The one thing the committee refuses to do is say anything about the Christian faith. So they speak of Christmas in only its secular and non-Christian expressions.
There is one Muslim woman on the committee who is really very open to representing all religions equally and likely scratches her head at this blatant exclusion of the Christian faith tradition from the “Days of Significance” at the school.
The two other teachers on the committee are adamant that the Christian faith be excluded because they feel it is overexposed, and essentially bad.
Funny response people have to Christmas, and to Christian faith. But you know, Jesus has always stimulated controversy, has always offended people’s ideas about God and has always evoked strong or strange responses.
In this situation I’ve just described, the people controlling what school children learn and think are reacting a very gut level because, despite all they may have heard about Jesus and His teachings, they dislike Christian faith and feel it their duty to keep children ignorant about it, thinking they are doing everyone a service.
Now, you wouldn’t think a baby could cause so much controversy. You wouldn’t think a helpless infant would raise the ire of people.
You wouldn’t think that people would work so hard to keep hidden the knowledge of just Who it as who lay there in the manger 2000 years ago. What would be the point of keeping this all under wraps?
A moment ago we read together the story of the birth of Jesus.
I love this story, its simplicity, its innocence, its simple beauty. I also love it because I love understatement.
I was trained as a jazz musician and composer and one of the things teachers harping on was the idea that ‘less is more’; that you say more musically when you keep it very simple.
The Birth of Christ, or the Nativity is the grandest understatement of all time. Why do I say that? Well, at one level what occurs in the manger is what has happened at some point in the life of every human being. We were born. Anyone here that doesn’t apply to? No, of course not.
Peel that back just a layer or two and you get the true story, the story that hints at ‘why’ all this controversy and strong feeling, pro and con, about Christmas.
We’ve read the key Scripture for this Advent service and refamiliarized ourselves with it, so let’s look at two other passages that reveal what was going on at the seemingly simple scene in the manger. We’ll consider a key passage, which is about Jesus, and then back up a couple of verses to get the context:
John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This is another telling of the Nativity,
but different of course from the Nativity passage we just read. This is what is really going on in the understated events in the manger. Now we’re peeling back
the onion. “The Word” here in the koine or ancient Greek is “Logos". And what the word “Word” means is at the heart of the matter. Are you ready?
The Word, or Logos means the communication, the sayings and the moral teachings of God. It means the personal wisdom and power in union with God, it means God’s minister or agent in the creation of and the governing of the universe, the cause of all the world’s life both physical and ethical.
It means the self-revelation of God. In describing Jesus as the word, St. John’s gospel presents Jesus not only as the One Who gives God’s Word to humans, He IS the Word given to humans. He is the true word─ultimate reality revealed in a Person. The Logos is God.
And, John states, the Word became flesh. The Logos of God, which previously existed somewhere humanly indefinable, un-enfleshed, un-embodied, much as God the Father is…actually put on or clothed Himself in human skin.
He bound Himself to human bones, acquired a liver and kidneys, a spleen and a nervous system, digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems, a muscle and skeletal system. Not to mention all the complex emotions that define what it means to be human.
God’s whole and complete person was given birth on that starry, starry night in Bethlehem in the infant Jesus.
Colossians 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form NIV, Colossians 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. KJV
Pause [Put John 1:14 back up on screen]
That is why the Nativity is the grandest understatement of all time.
Now, backing up a bit and putting the verse we’ve been looking at into context, we’ll perhaps see a reason that a “Days of Significance” committee in the Toronto District School Board, and the media and most popular entertainment distain anything to do with Jesus.
John 1: 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This is why Jesus is controversial. This is why people make fictional movies whose purpose is to discredit Christian faith. This is why Richard Dawkins is a popular writer.
This is why such an effort is made in our educational system to convince students that the Christian faith is just one of many in a grab-bag of faiths. This is why I was raised with a complete ignorance of God in an atheistic household.
The truth is that the child born in the manger 2000 years ago made the universe we live in.
But when that child came to us, when the Logos, the Word came to earth as a helpless infant, and when that child grew to manhood, very, very few would recognize Him. By and the large, the world wouldn’t even notice, and when it did finally, it chose to kill Him.
This is not a sweet and cuddly Christmas message. If you came for that, I understand, and I’m sorry to disappoint you. I mean that…because there is great sweetness in the story of the Incarnation of God, the story of the Christ event.
Maybe we can move there for a moment if you’ll follow me, but I’ll warn you in advance that in this next passage there is perhaps an even bigger challenge to us personally, and maybe even something that hints at why else the “Days of Significance” committee doesn’t like us.
Let’s stand and stretch and read this together:
Phil 2: 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Let’s break this down a bit, shall we? 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
This is another take on the Incarnation. This too reveals the glorious understatement of the Nativity. Jesus, possessing in Himself the fullness of the attributes which make God God, did not cling to or seize hold of for Himself His equality with God the Father.
To do that would have preempted or prevented the Incarnation. Jesus let go of some aspects of what it means to be God…even just to be born in one manger in one town in one country is to limit divine omnipresence or the ability to be everywhere at the same time.
He let go of some of His attributes of divinity, but of course He remained fully God. [I might give up what remains of my hair, but I’m still Matthew; I might cease to play piano, but I’m still me]
John then says that Jesus made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. The word ‘nothing’ really is more of a comparing word.
Compared to being God in all His limitless glory, Jesus limited himself in some ways. He took on our nature, the human nature of a servant, or one is who devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests.
And he was made in human likeness. Like you. Like me. Amazing! And all this is us standing at another vantage point, looking at the baby in the manger. From where we stand now, how do YOU feel about the baby in the manger? I’m asking.
Now the passage goes on to say that Jesus’ humility led Him to the cross where He died. But that’s another part of the Christ event, and we’ll be looking at that in some good detail as Easter approaches in the New Year.
This birth that we’ve been journeying toward this season is the beginning of what would be a life given in service to humanity.
And that’s how this passage starts, if you don’t mind us backing up a bit, so we can get an idea of why the Apostle Paul is writing all this. The passage starts this way:
Phil 2: 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Jesus lives His life in service to humanity, and then He calls His people, that’s us, Church; that’s everyone who names the name of Jesus as Lord and Saviour, He calls his people to do the same.
To not look out just for ourselves; to look out for the interests of others. Our attitude needs to reflect that of Jesus, and we’ve just looked at the kind of beautiful humility that our Saviour possessed.
Now when I was talking earlier about the committee for the “Days of Significance” at my wife’s school, I made it clear that they are pretty contemptuous of Christian faith.
And we looked at some of the reasons why found in St. john’s gospel. The claims of the Christian faith and the claims of Jesus are absolute. There is no way to God but through Jesus. There is no way to heaven, God’s home, but through Jesus’ sacrifice. Jesus said He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
This is what Christians believe. And it’s offensive to some. Galatians 5:11 says that the cross of Jesus is an offence, so we shouldn’t be surprised by this.
But…but. The OTHER reason that so many openly reject Christian faith might have something to do with the fact that we, followers of Christ, are named after Christ.
We call ourselves Christians, or Christ followers (I prefer that one actually). We profess to follow the One who is Love, the One who lived a life of stunning generosity of spirit and selflessness. But overall has the church really truly¸ followed the example of Jesus’ life?
When I look at the whole history of the church, as much as I know about it, and I am a bit of a nerd so I do know some, I actually do see a balance.
I do see a lot of beauty and humility and self-sacrifice and holy and honourable living. I do see, from my vantage point, a spiritual family that I am deeply happy and grateful to be part of. That’s why I love the church of Jesus.
But I do also see compromise. I do see arrogance. I do see selfishness. I do see things that show that the church, meaning the body of Christ of course, has not always followed the example and the teachings of Jesus.
We have not always turned the other cheek. We have not always loved our enemies. In fact as a whole we have often rationalized hating our enemies, or killing our enemies in war despite the clear teaching of Jesus.
We have historically sought the acceptance of the secular state and that has caused us to become like them, to be used by them, instead of being a transformative, holy, healing and loving presence, the fragrance of Jesus, to them.
I see it as I look back in history, but the problem isn’t just out there. I see the problem in me. I see it in my sinfulness. My selfish acts. My choices to put myself first.
My choices that add up, it seems sometimes, to a life that struggles to follow Jesus faithfully. In all the ways I fail to be who Christ has called and enabled me to be, I see reasons why others looking in might have a hard time taking the Jesus I confess seriously.
And so maybe in some way my choices have something to do with Jesus not being given a hearing by others. Maybe people never really get close enough to the gospel to get offended by it, because something they see in…Christians…just turns them right off. Maybe.
May it never be, though, church. May the witness of our lives say something different. May the One who became incarnate in the flesh in the greatest act of humility and understatement EVER, become incarnate in us.
I think that’s actually the slightly hidden point of the Christmas story. God entered human flesh once in order to enter human flesh millions of times over IN US.
Jesus came as a baby, grew up to be a man who lived in real time and who lived and taught through word and deed, and then laid down His precious life on the cross, to win for Himself a people, you, me, the Church, who would be LIKE Him.
And being LIKE Him in character and transparency and simplicity and beauty, our lives might testify to His saving greatness.
We might testify in words spoken at the right time, and really our actions mostly. Acts of love, of kindness, of unselfishness, of charity, of graciousness and hospitality and practical love of all humanity.
So this Christmas, the one coming in 5 days, let’s turn our lives to Jesus, to the Humble One, who though being Very God of Very God, chose, because of His great love for you and me, to become a little baby in a manger.
And as we celebrate communion now, let us respond in faith and love and humble praise to the Child Mary gave birth to that starry night.
This is Christmas: not the tinsel, not the giving and receiving, not even the carols, but the humble heart that receives anew the wondrous gift, the Christ. Amen.
