Descending into Glory
December 19, 2010
Phi 2:1-11
INTRODUCTION
The Production of Christmas
In 1980 the Crystal Cathedral was dedicated. In 1981 the beautiful living nativity, The Glory of Christmas premiered inside the first all-glass church.
The Cathedral seats 2,736 for church services-2,508 when holding the enormous Glory of Christmas set. Installing the production set takes a month of preparation-including lighting load-in, angel track installation and rigging, as well as set construction.
Eight angels fly throughout both productions. Some fly as high as 80-feet and can travel as fast as 25 miles per hour. More than 300 volunteers dedicate over 160 hours each to The Glory of Christmas as both cast members and volunteer ushers.
Animals play an integral role in the production's recreation of the ancient land. In The Glory of Christmas you will see three adult camels and a baby, six horses, a yak, a llama, a baby water buffalo and many sheep and goats.
The 2010 production has been cancelled due to the churches filing for Bankruptcy protection.
THE GLORY OF CHRISTMAS WILL BE DISCOVERED IN THE INCARNATION OR LOST IN THE HOLIDAY PRODUCTION.
I. When the Glory of Christmas becomes a production . . .
A. The show becomes more important than the message.
The story is biblically flawed in places, one such instance being when the 3 kings were portrayed as visiting the newborn Jesus in the manger. (It wasn't until 2 years later that they actually visited him, and this was in his home. I'm surprised the Crystal Cathedral allowed that to be shown.)
All around us our decorated homes, show pieces of the holiday season. We must ensure that message remains vital in all that we do otherwise we have just created our own private show.
We have to guard against becoming one of the new holiday classics.
IN 2006, Deck the Halls was released, it is the story of two neighbors have it out after one of them decorates his house for the holidays so brightly that it can be seen from space.
A Christmas goodwill to men message is tacked on in the end, but for those in the movie, the Christmas has become about the production not the message.
Appl: What will you do this week to ensure the message remains more important than the production?
B. Special effects become the centerpiece rather than the relationship with God.
Animals play an integral role in the production's recreation of the ancient land. In The Glory of Christmas you will see three adult camels and a baby, six horses, a yak, a llama, a baby water buffalo and many sheep and goats.
Eight angels fly throughout both productions. Some fly as high as 80-feet and can travel as fast as 25 miles per hour. More than 300 volunteers dedicate over 160 hours each to The Glory of Christmas as both cast members and volunteer ushers.
C. We mistakenly believe spending more money leads to more of the glory.
Kristina Oliver, who provides the live animals for the "Glory of Christmas" manger scene from her Hemet-based Oliver Livestock Co., said she has been trying to collect nearly $57,000 from the church for months.
And Juliet Noriega, who has designed costumes for the annual Christmas spectacular for 25 years, said she is owed more than $10,000. She complained:
If someone is going to put forth an effort, they should be paid.
II. When the Glory of Christmas is the Incarnation. . .
A. Our Response should lead us to greater awe.
Martin Luther stated that Jesus Birth declared God's love for sinners.
Theologian James R. Edwards retells the following true story to illustrate our need and Christ's response to our need. In August 1957 four climbers--two Italians and two Germans--were climbing the 6,000 foot near-vertical North Face in the Swiss Alps. The two German climbers disappeared and were never heard from again. The two Italian climbers, exhausted and dying, were stuck on two narrow ledges a thousand feet below the summit. The Swiss Alpine Club forbade rescue attempts in this area (it was just too dangerous), but a small group of Swiss climbers decided to launch a private rescue effort to save the Italians. So they carefully lowered a climber named Alfred Hellepart down the 6,000 foot North Face. They suspended Hellepart on a cable a fraction of an inch thick as they lowered him into the abyss.
Here's how Hellepart described the rescue in his own words:
As I was lowered down the summit ... my comrades on top grew further and further distant, until they disappeared from sight. At this moment I felt an indescribable aloneness. Then for the first time I peered down the abyss of the North Face of the Eiger. The terror of the sight robbed me of breath. ...The brooding blackness of the Face, falling away in almost endless expanse beneath me, made me look with awful longing to the thin cable disappearing about me in the mist. I was a tiny human being dangling in space between heaven and hell. The sole relief from terror was ...my mission to save the climber below.
That is the heart of the Gospel story. We were trapped, but in the person and presence of Jesus, God lowered himself into the abyss of our sin and suffering. In Jesus God became "a tiny human being dangling between heaven and hell." He did it to save the people trapped below--you and me. Thus, the gospel is much more radical than just another religion telling us how to be good in our own power. It tells us the story of God's risky, costly, sacrificial rescue effort on our behalf.
James R. Edwards, Is Jesus the Only Savior (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), pp. 160-161
1. The Divine Became Human
Phil 2:6-8
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
made himself nothing, made in human likeness.
2. Sovereign Became Servant
Phil 2:6-8
being in very nature God,
taking the very nature of a servant,
3. Eternal became Mortal
Phil 2:6-8
humbled himself
became obedient to death
B. Our Response should lead us to exultation.
Awe -> Exultation
For her 54th birthday, Shirley Dygert of Teague, Texas, decided she needed some more excitement in her life. So this grandmother of three signed up for her first lesson to leap out of a plane from roughly thirteen-thousand feet.
When the big day arrived, Shirley suited up for her jump and strapped herself to her instructor, Dave Hartsock, in order to do a tandem dive. After jumping from the plane, instructor and student pulled the rip cord. The rip cord worked properly, but the parachute became tangled and only opened partially. Of course skydivers also carry a reserve parachute for such emergencies. Unfortunately, the primary parachute had wrapped itself around the release point for the reserve parachute. As Dave Hartsock tried to untangle the two parachutes, he realized they were running out of time. Later, Shirley Dygert said, "I thought ... . this is how I'm going to die. I thought, God help us."
Spiraling toward the ground at a 40 mph, Hartsock gave Shirley a strange command: Lift up your feet. Although she didn't understand the request, she obeyed her instructor. Hartsock then rotated his body under hers in order to bear the impact of their landing. Dave Hartsock was going to be Shirley Dygert's cushion. "I could hardly believe it," Dygert said. "He broke my fall."
Shirley Dygert walked away from the impact relatively uninjured. Dave Hartsock survived the fall, but now, except for some movement in his right arm, he's paralyzed from the neck down. In an interview, Hartsock told CBS News, "People keep telling me that it was a heroic thing to do. In my opinion it was just the right thing to do. I mean, I was the one completely responsible for her safety."
Phil 2:9-11
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.
NIV
1. The Singers of the Praise
Bow of our knee -- the choice to be an active worshipper
The word "worship" occurs 188 times in the Bible. Over 95% of the time, it is used to translate one of four words1: The two most common mean this.
* (shachah) - make low, bow, prostrate, fall down, reverence, worship
* (proskune'oh) - kiss, fawn, crouch, prostrate, bow, reverence, honor
Bringing Yourself (coming/enteringin), Sacrifice/Offering, Cast crowns, Gifts, Holiness
2. The Tellers of the Story
Confession of his Lordship -- the unashamed choice to share what he has done and our allegiance to him.
Confession is owning up to something you know or believe, and telling it forthrightly to all who should hear it. In the Bible it refers to two things, namely (1) confessing your faith in Christ to the world, and (2) confessing your sins to God.
Lke 12:8-9 "Everyone who confesses me before men, the Son of man shall confess..."
Rom 10:9-10 "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart... you shall be saved"
1Tm 6:12 "[Timothy] made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses"
1Jn 4:15 "Everyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God"
C. Our Response should lead us to transformed lives
Awe -> Exultation ->Transformation
Phil 2:1-5
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 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:
In the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book in C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia, The two youngest Pevensie children, Lucy and Edmund, are staying with their odious cousin Eustace Scrubb while their older brother Peter is studying for his university entrance exams with Professor Kirke, and their older sister Susan is traveling through America with their parents. Edmund, Lucy, and Eustace are drawn into the Narnian world through a picture of a ship at sea. (The painting, hanging neglected in the guest bedroom that the Pevensie children were using, had been an unwanted present to Eustace's parents.) The three children land in the ocean near the pictured vessel, the titular Dawn Treader, and are taken aboard.
The Dawn Treader is the ship of Caspian X, King of Narnia, who was the key character in the previous book (Prince Caspian). Edmund and Lucy (along with Peter and Susan) helped him gain the throne from his evil uncle Miraz.
Three years have passed since then, peace has been established in Narnia, and Caspian has undertaken his oath to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia. Lucy and Edmund are delighted to be back in Narnia, but Eustace is less enthusiastic, as he has never been there before and had taunted his cousins with his belief that the country never existed.
Our lives should be the testimony, the confession of our allegiance to God because of our understanding of the story.
Have this Attitude: Humility, Obedience, Service
