You’ve probably heard it a few times in the past weeks.
In just 8 lines, Clement Clarke Moore sets the picturesque scene for one of America’s most beloved poems; “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” he called it. It actually set the course for many of our views and traditions about Santa in the US. It was published anonymously at first, in the Troy, NY Sentinel, Dec. 23, 1823. Who doesn’t see the mental picture as the lines spell it out on the canvas of the imagination?
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap…
The scene that Paul sets isn’t nearly as nostalgic and merry, as he writes the 2nd chapter of Ephesians here. But the literary set up of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” is very similar.
Ephesians 2:1-6 (NIV)
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
You, being dead in your transgressions and sins, all of us, gratifying the cravings of our flesh, being objects of wrath…God, being rich in mercy, made us alive, raised us up, seated us with Him!
This is so much more than just a poem about a family settling in for a night’s sleep and Santa Claus interrupting it! This is the story of how our entire futures were turned around, and how your life can be completely turned around today!
Peace on earth, good will toward men!
We’ve been looking at different aspects of that this month – the way that Jesus removed the barriers between people. We looked last week at the way that Jesus becoming a man made for peace between Him and us. Today, we really get to the essence of Eph 2. This whole thing really is about peace on earth – the peace that was announced that night Jesus was born!
Peace on earth. It’s hard to envision what that looks like, isn’t it? If it was defined as just “the absence of war,” we really would have no good point of reference. Of the past 3,400 years, there has been an absence of wars for just 268 – only about 8% of recorded history.
If we tried to define peace on earth as the absence of stress in life, that would be hard to picture too, wouldn’t it? Peace on earth doesn’t come with Christmas break. Most parents would attest to that!
When God sends an army of angels to announce glory to God, and peace on earth, that peace is much bigger than the usual ideas people have about peace. It’s the peace that we have with God through His Son Jesus Christ. Are you tuned in? Peace on earth is really about God’s plan for peace with God!
What? You and God are good? You don’t have any issues with God? That’s wise of you, but there are some issues to consider…
Let’s run over Eph 2 one more time…
(Ephesians 2:1-19)
…you were dead in your transgressions and sins…
we were by nature objects of wrath…
we were dead in transgressions…
you…were far away…
foreigners and aliens…
These are all past tense; all before Christ was in the lives of these believers. What about you?
We need to be at peace with God. We need to be “reconciled.”
1. Reconciliation
Let’s make sure we’re together here.
After Christmas this year, when you sit down with your records and the bank’s records and begin to make sure they agree, we call that “reconciling” the books. That means, we go over them to make sure that there’s no disagreement between them. Reconcile means “To make friendly again.” Where there’s disagreement, you things get straightened out.
Remember “Home Alone,” where old man Marley who lived next door talks about having an argument with his son? Things were said, and a relationship was put on ice for years. I’m afraid that kind of situation is too true-to-life for some families. And then, at the very end, he and his son, who haven’t spoken for a long time, are hugging each other. Reconciled.
Some of you have long-standing problems with another person that need to be worked out. You had a disagreement. Someone turned hostile toward the other. Things were said that shouldn’t have been said. Or, things were left unsaid that needed to be said. And, maybe for a long time, your relationship with someone has been strained or completely cut off. You’re not at peace. You need to be reconciled. You need for things to be “made friendly again” between you.
Our story of being at peace with God is very much a story of reconciliation, because our actions to God were hostile toward Him. We needed to be made friendly again with God. And God took action to do that.
2 Corinthians 5:17-20
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
The Cotton Patch Gospel translates v19 “God was in Christ hugging the world to Himself…”
I couldn’t think of a better way to illustrate this today than to have everyone get up and give someone a hug. I know that for some of you, that’s not overly comfortable. If you just can’t take a hug, just decline it. But for the rest of you, I want you to find someone and give them a hug. And I want to challenge you, if you need to be reconciled with someone, to make that the person you hug. Let’s go!
(pause for hugs here)
God was, in Christ, hugging the world to Himself. Peace on earth. Peace with God – the kind where God takes those who have wronged Him, and He hugs them to Himself.
Romans 5:9-11
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
2. Access
Another part of this peace is called “access.”
v18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
This means “the right to enter.” It’s the same word used in…
Ephesians 3:12
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Romans 5:1-2
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Having access to God may not seem like such a big deal. It ought to.
Would you be impressed if I told you that I have met, in person, Ronald Reagan, George H Bush, and George H W Bush, all 3? Maybe. After all, most people don’t have access to the President, do they? I won’t tell you that, because it’s not true, but it sure would be impressive.
One does not just wander into the President’s office. Only a few people have access to such a person. It takes special clearance. Very few people can do that.
Not just anyone can crawl around at the President’s feet under the Resolute desk. But if you were the son of the President, you could get away with that.
Why are kids excited about getting to visit with Santa? Simple – that’s the connection. That’s the big Kahuna, right? Access to the Big Guy is a big deal!
We need to understand the concept of having access to God in that light – only times a million! One doesn’t just barge into a King’s throne room, but we’ve been given access and an open invitation to come before God’s throne at any time.
Remember how the temple had limits of who could go where? We looked 2 weeks ago at the layout and talked about the innermost part – the Most Holy Place. No one went in there, except once a year, and then it was only the High Priest. It was off limits to everyone else, all the time. No one dared to go there.
When Jesus breathed His last on the cross, the gospels tell us it was at that moment that the curtain in the temple was ripped from top to bottom. For centuries before, every day, that curtain kept everyone out of the innermost sanctuary – the Holy of Holies. It was there, previously, that God promised His presence would be among His people. But when Jesus gave His life for us, God Himself tore apart that barrier. It was like God was saying, “Now, everyone can have access to Me.”
But I also think, when the Son of God was miraculously born as a little baby boy to a virgin, that was another moment God was saying you can have access to Him. When angels announced His birth to common shepherds, and told them that they had good news of great joy which will be to all people, that was God saying we can all have access to Him. When magi came from the East, and worshiped Him, it was another way we can see God saying that all of us have access to Him.
“…through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit”
3. Belonging
There are a lot of places where I just don’t feel like I fit in or belong. I have to say that most of them I end up in because I love my wife, and she wants me along. One of those places is Crimson Ridge, just down the street over here. If you’ve never been in it, it’s a place for ladies in particular. There’s a florist shop on the lower level, and a Godiva chocolate shop in the back. There are entire rooms sectioned for purses! Guys, there’s no fishing section, in case you were wondering. If I’ve been good, and it has been a good year, I will have been in Crimson Ridge only 2-3 times the whole year. Each time I’m in there, I must get the same lost and glazed look about me. Employees begin to ask me if I need help. Well, no, actually, they look at me and tell me I look like I need help, and they offer me a beer! I thank them and just explain I’m either waiting on or looking for my wife. Everything about me must cry out that I don’t belong there.
Now, that’s not so bad. I’m not really supposed to belong there. All I need to do is go somewhere else. But what about the places in life where you’re supposed to belong, but you don’t? What about the people you want to belong with, but they don’t let you?
I look back over the Christmas story and I see how much the birth of Jesus cries out that people of all sorts can belong. Matthew lists the name of a foreign slave woman and of a former prostitute in the family line of Jesus. Common shepherds are invited to be some of the first visitors to the God-man. Shepherds belong. Magi from the East, probably respected men of their country, are guided by God so that they can find Him too. Magi belong. Devout older people in the temple are there when Jesus is presented, and they too belong. The fact is, the person in the Christmas story who’s most treated like He doesn’t belong – is Jesus! He came to give people who were outcasts a place of belonging with God.
Paul writes in Eph 2:
12-13 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household
Do you see it? You were separate, excluded, without hope, without God. You were far away. You were foreigners and aliens. But now, you belong. Now, you’re a member. That’s called being at peace with God!
I want to help us all see this morning that this message is the very essence of the gospel: Jesus died so that you can belong! You belong in this place! You belong among these people! There is a place for you here. CCC, we need to go out of our way to convey this message!
Running around this community are thousands of people who, for various reasons are convinced that being in this place, and being around Christ-followers, is not a place where they belong. Some have been looked down on rather than loved. Some assume that they have to dress a certain way before they would be welcomed here. Some think that they can’t come here unless they’re invited. Some just figure that being around “people like you” would be very uncomfortable because they would feel so out of place. Some are sure that, surrounded by church people, they would be harshly judged. Some assume that they can’t be a part of any of this until they get their act together first.
Those walls, whether we built them or not, have got to be broken down if people who aren’t here today will ever even think of being here in the future. What do we do?
I’m glad you asked that!
1. Thank God for what I have through the cross!
This is no small thing! This Christmas, make giving thanks a major part of your celebrating. Don’t allow the crush to overwhelm the crèche.
2. Check my own attitude and make sure that I am convinced that this is just as much for every other person as it is for me.
One thing in our favor is that many of us are engaged in giving this time of year. That’s great, because it requires getting my eyes off of me and onto someone else’s needs. That’s exactly what we need to be doing in our relationship to the Church. Do you deserve Jesus more than someone else? If not, then what will you do about the person who doesn’t know Him yet? What sacrifices might you make for the sake of someone else having this wonderful gift?
3. Learn to look at the Church from the perspective of someone outside it.
Until we begin to do this on a regular basis, we who are on the inside of the Church will understand less and less how to reach out to people who don’t know Jesus yet. This doesn’t mean we compromise anything that matters, but it does mean that we become all things to all men so that by all means we may win some. Let’s let them know that Jesus came to die on the cross so that we all could be reconciled to God, have access to God, and have a place of belonging.
Church, let’s fulfill our role as Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us: be reconciled to God.
Conclusion:
Real peace on earth can be found only in being at peace with God. Some 2000 years ago when the angels announced “Peace on earth, good will toward men,” that’s really what it was all about. God was giving His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.
