Christmas Light to Destroy the Curse of Darkness
Pastor Dan Little
adfontes.djl@gmail.com
Twice, over this Christmas season, we have read through Luke’s narrative concerning the conception and birth of Jesus.
Today I want to focus just on Luke 2:10 & 11.
Luke 2:10 & 11
Luke 2:10 "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ESV
These two verses make up the core of the message the angel delivered to the shepherds, but in truth it is made to all of us.
“Shepherds, this child you are about to see is born unto you but not from you, His birth comes not by any human effort. He is not springing up from human procreativity. This child exists entirely by the will and plan of God.”
A child born entirely by the will and the action of God?
A second Adam
Nine months earlier this angel visited Mary, telling her she would conceive and bring forth a son.
“How is this possible?” Mary wanted to know. “Don’t you know that I am a virgin?”
The angel answers her with these words; Luke 1:35 The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy— the Son of God. ESV
So the answer to the HOW? question is, by the shear creative force of God’s Word spoken into Mary’s life (and womb). John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, ESV
Just as the Word of the Lord spoke light into existence, and as sure as the Word of the Lord set the whole created cosmos into place, so the Word of the Lord…
“You shall conceive and bring forth a son…”
planted God’s life in Mary’s womb.
God’s own life wrapped in a few cells of new human flesh, not the “progenerated” flesh of Adam the 1st, of Genesis, but of a the new-creature, a new Adam—Adamthe last , the One supplied by God , which new human attach itself to Mary’s uterus, which interrupted her monthly cycle during which time a fully human infant was formed around the very life of God.
Why all this process?
Hebrews 2:14-15 tell us why.
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, ESV
So back to Luke 2:10-11; the angel comes to the shepherd’s night camp to tell them; “This is the child that has just been born, BORN UNTO YOU THIS DAY, the Son of God, has become the son of man, given to you in one person. He lies wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger in Bethlehem.”
When the angels disappear back into the heavenly realms what do the shepherds say amongst themselves?
Luke 2:15 … "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see THIS THING that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." ESV
This thing! ??? —
They don’t know how to describe what has been revealed to them.
This thing—IS the salvation of God wrapped up in the flesh of Jesus.
Jesus is “the mystery” of God’s will appearing among us clothed in human flesh. (see Ephesians 1:9)
None of this was our idea. This is the salvation prepared for us entirely by the will and power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:8 But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"— ESV
God in the human Jesus has assumed our dishonor in Himself in order to destroy the curse of our empty-headed pride and the false-self that sin makes of us all.
Jesus has come not to destroy sinners, but to destroy the sin that brings every sinner down to death and hell.
God, through the birth of Christ, has embraced us at our worst. This is as true as when Jesus came to Lazarus grave four days after his death and said; “Open the tomb.”
“No Lord”, they said. “He is in a state of stinking decay.”
Well we know what happened at this place of stinking decay; Jesus totally reversed the death and decay process with His words and Lazarus came forth from the tomb still bound in his stinking grave clothes.
Jesus said to those standing around; “Get those clothes off him.”
Do you understand the Gospel?
Perfectly Holy Jesus has taken on our sinful life and lived it out to its embarrassing and ignoble and stinking end, risen in complete victory over our death and now stands outside our tomb—stands outside our FALSE-SELVES calling us to come out, telling us that we must be in fellowship with Him in order to be raised from the dead, and in fellowship with each other so we can continually be helping each other out of the stinking grave clothes of our former way of living.
His goal is to overcome every bit and every form of darkness in our lives, to flood His light upon our false-lives of pride and fear and the desire to control. These are all very deep sins—what the Scripture calls THE CURSE.
Jesus has come destroy the curse.
…. to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found.
Do you get it?
John 1:4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ESV
He wants to deliver us from every form of religious invention and give us the true religion of heaven—the salvation that comes from God, a salvation that is not from us or managed by our own efforts, but a salvation that saves us.
• The Gospel has nothing to do with that form of religion that says we are suffocating under God’s angry glare and we must try to appease Him.
• Nothing to do with the religion that says we will rise above the idea of needing God—rise by means of technology, or even by using godly principles separated away from any relationship with God.
• The Gospel has nothing to do with that form of religion that says we that God exists only to give us everything what we want. We just need to learn the secret of making him let down his milk—like when calves butt their heads against the milk factory known as mom as if to say, Hey! You exist to supply me with milk, now get with the program. (Here is a 17 second video.)
• Or, the religion that says salvation is a result of doing stuff for God as if we might earn a high place in heaven, or earn God’s admiration. It says we can’t BE Christian we must DO religion and the do, and do and do some more.
• None of those four religious postures are Christianity. They are all human inventions.
The Gospel says we are not under God, not over God, not merely getting from or giving to God, all taking place with no sense of fellowship with God.
The Gospel declares that through faith in Christ we are IN GOD. , fused through Christ’s flesh to the very nature of God.
We are delivered from fear, delivered from the false-self and the need to keep up appearances.
God has sent His Son to join us in our human nature that through Him we might be joined to the very nature of God.
We are living in a flood of filth and sin and brokenness—a cesspool of decay all around us, but fear not, by the gracious undertaking of God, we are in Christ as surely as Noah and his family were in the ark which bore them all safely through the flood.
We are raised with Christ healed and whole, and God is sharing his glorious life with us!
Jude 24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. ESV
Simeon said, Lord, I have seen YOUR SALVATION.
Have you seen this salvation? Are you living in God.
Not under God, not over God. None of that! Not just to get from God (though He delights to supply for your true needs), not giving to God as if you have no value unless you are working, but IN GOD through Christ—loved and cared for.
Have you seen the Savior who says to you and all your family and friends;
Matthew 11:29 Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. 30 Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly." (MsgB)
