The Surprise of Christmas
Matthew 3:1-12
What are your expectations of Christmas this year? There is no season of the year so full of nostalgia and ripe with expectation than Christmas. It takes a Scrooge, with a heart of stone, not to become excited about the approach of this joyous occasion. We can build up such impossible hopes and dreams that it can’t possibly fulfill them. That is one reason people often feel depressed when Christmas is over. When you think about it, the thing that really makes Christmas for us is not what we expect but what we don’t expect. The most memorable Christmas’ are those when something unexpected happened. Christmas isn’t about what we expect; it’s about what we don’t expect. We see this in the Christmas story. Zechariah and Elizabeth didn’t expect to have a baby in their old age. Mary didn’t expect to become the mother of the Son of God. Joseph didn’t expect his young bride to be to become pregnant. Herod didn’t expect to be disturbed by news of the Messiah. The shepherds didn’t expect to see angels in their fields. The Magi didn’t expect to find the Savior of the world born in a manger in a poor little country village like Bethlehem. God surprised everybody that first Christmas. And Jesus kept surprising people. He was a Messiah who ate with sinners and hung out with common folk rather than the power brokers of his day. He came not to be seated on a throne or live in a palace but to die on a cross. He turned the world upside down with his teachings when he said things like, the meek shall inherit the earth, the first shall be last and the last first and love your enemies.
The real surprise of Christmas is not just how the Christmas story unfolds but who Jesus is and what he came to do. It’s one reason people have such a difficult time understanding the real Jesus. Kevin DeYoung writes, The greatness of God is most clearly displayed in his Son. And the glory of the gospel is only made evident in his Son. That's why Jesus' question to his disciples is so important: "Who do you say that I am?" The question is doubly crucial in our day, because no one is as popular in the U.S. as Jesus—and not every Jesus is the real Jesus…
Too often, our understanding of the messiah and our expectations are rooted in our life circumstances, our problems, struggles and difficulties, more than they are in the very words of Jesus and who He revealed himself to be. As a result, we want a personal Messiah rather than a Messiah for all. “Author Jeanne Zornes writes, “As a new Christian, I presumed Jesus’ main job was taking care of me. He led me to a job, to roommates to share apartment costs and a car that ran. But after awhile, my tastes got fussier. Like the Israelites waking up to manna every morning, I was tired of the same old, same old. I wanted a home with more privacy, a more interesting yet less stressful job and a shinier new car. My list continued to grow. I wanted Jesus to perk me up when I was down, remove my difficulties and make a living a whole lot easier. When those things didn't come, I felt as if Jesus had walked away from me. What I didn’t realize was that He had put loving distance between us, just as he did with the crowd that night knowing that they wanted to force him to be king. For me and for them, it took a stormy night to point out why those expectations were off base.”
Kevin DeYoung writes “And then there's Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. Not just another prophet. Not just another Rabbi. Not just another wonder-worker. He was the one they had been waiting for: the Son of David and Abraham's chosen seed; the one to deliver us from captivity; the goal of the Mosaic law; Yahweh in the flesh; the one to establish God's reign and rule; the one to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, freedom to the prisoners and proclaim Good News to the poor; the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.”
In Jesus’ day, there was a widespread hope and yearning for the coming of the Messiah and a gross misunderstanding of the purpose and mission of the Messiah. Reza Aslan writes in his book “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth”: “The Jews of Jesus’ time had conflicting views about the role and function of the messiah….Some believed the messiah would be a restorative figure who would return the Jews to their previous position of power and influence. Others viewed the messiah in more apocalyptic terms, as someone who would annihilate the present world and build a new more just world upon its ruins. There were those who thought the messiah would be a king and those who thought he’d be a (high) priest” who would correct the corruption and false worship occurring in the Temple. So which Jesus are you expecting this Christmas and what are you expecting him to do?
There are three things we learn from our Scripture today. First, John the Baptist in the prophetic tradition calls people to repentance. He is preaching in the spirit and style of Elijah in the same area where Elijah had ministered in the wilderness of Judea. Like Elijah, he wore garments of camel hair with a leather belt around his waist. John’s father was serving as a priest in the Temple when an angel of the Lord told him what to name his son, that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth and his son’s purpose was to “go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him.” From this place, John called people to repentance and then immersed them to cleanse them of their sins. All this was to fulfill Isaiah 40:2 ands Malachi 3:1 and the prophetic promises of the Old Testament regarding the coming of the Messiah. Second, John calls the leaders to judgment. John chose the wilderness because it was far from Jerusalem and the Temple which was deemed corrupt. The Romans had appointed their own High Priest of the Temple, a man they thought they would work with and control. Thus, by the time of John the Baptist many in Israel believe the Temple leadership was corrupt because of their close association with the Romans. So John scolds the Pharisees and Sadducees in our Scripture today, starting with the words: “You brood of vipers…” and then shares his mission to prepare the way
Third, even John misunderstands Jesus’ mission and ministry. John shares his expectation that the Messiah “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Jesus was not the kind of messiah the general populace expected nor the ruling Jewish elite wanted and neither was he the kind of Messiah John was expecting and preaching about either. Frederich Buechner: “Where John preached grim justice and pictured God as a steely eyed thresher of grain, Jesus preached forgiving love and pictured God as the host of a marvelous party or a father who cannot bring himself to throw his children out even when they spit in his eye. Where John said people had better save their skins before it was too late, Jesus said it was God who saved their skins and even if you blew your whole bankroll on wild living like the prodigal son, it wasn’t too late. Where John ate locusts and honey in the wilderness with the church crowd, Jesus ate what he felt like in Jerusalem with as sleazy a bunch as you could find.” Peculiar Treasures After Jesus’ baptism and John’s imprisonment, it must have been clear that John was not the Messiah but the forerunner of the Messiah. Jesus makes it clear that he did not come to preach damnation and judgment but to save, and bring justice to the downtrodden of society and to establish the kingdom of God that was open to anyone, not just the religious. In Jesus’ own words and actions, he didn't come for the righteous and religiously faithful but for the poor and lowly, the outcast and for sinners. Thus, “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor.”
This Christmas, what are the expectations you have placed on the coming Messiah? Who he should be and what we expect him to do? A couple of years ago on America’s Funniest Home Videos, a young boy was shown on Christmas morning. He came down to see a large present beside the tree and ran over to tear it open to see what was inside. The paper went flying and suddenly he broke into a dance and jumped around the room saying, “Wow it’s just what I wanted. Wow, it’s just what I needed. Wow...”Then after looking at it again he says with a puzzled look on his face, “What is it?” On that first Christmas, the angels announced the birth of a new child. The heavens were opened and all the company of heaven broke into praise. Shepherds went racing to Bethlehem to see what it was all about. And for 2000 years we have been jumping up and down saying, ?Wow, it’s just what I wanted. It’s exactly what I needed But in the next breath we look again inside the stable and ask, “What is it?” For we are puzzled and surprised by God’s gift. This Christmas may we look for the unexpected for that is where God shows up and where you will encounter the Messiah. That’s what we ought to be looking for, what we don’t expect, because that’s the way God is. God is a God of surprises.
The brand new pastor and his wife were assigned to their first church in Brooklyn and were to reopen it. They arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw the church, it was run down and needed a lot of work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, and on Dec. 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished.?On the 19th, a terrible driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days. After the rain stopped, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit.?He cleaned up the mess on the floor and decided to postpone the Christmas Eve service. But on the way home, he noticed that a local business was having a garage sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to church.??
As he did, it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus that would arrive 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder and hung the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area perfectly.?Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?" The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were her initials! She had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The woman explained when the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week but he was captured, sent to prison and she never saw him or her home again.?The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth but she told him to keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home, which was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.
On Christmas Eve, the church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, when everyone had left, one older man from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the pews and stare. The pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving.?The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall. The pastor explained and then the man said it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and wondered how there could be two tablecloths so much alike.?He told the pastor when the Nazis came he forced his wife to flee for her safety and he was supposed to follow her, but was arrested and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again.?The pastor then asked if he would allow him to take the man for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island, to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and that day, he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine as this husband and wife embraced each other of the first time 35 years.
In the coming of the Christ child and in this season of Christmas, may you look for the unexpected. Because that is what Christmas is all about, God doing the unexpected and that is where you will find Jesus. Amen
