There is a phrase that you hear more and more this time of year, as we get closer and closer to Christmas. The phrase is ‘the true meaning of Christmas.’ Mostly you hear it used with an unhappy tone as people are missing out on ‘the true meaning of Christmas.’ I’m one of these people who like to be precise about words, so I often try to think just what it is that people mean when they talk about ‘the true meaning of Christmas.’
Mostly the phrase is used to say they don’t like some of the things that are happening. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off isn’t part of the true meaning of Christmas, although this season can get you doing just that with all the expectations for shopping and decorating and cooking and gatherings. We can get caught up in those things, but to a degree we fight them because we know they aren’t the true meaning of Christmas.
Often the phrase is used to say we don’t like Christmas being so commercialized and secularized, where the guest of honor is forgotten at his own birthday party.
It’s usually not said so clearly, but I think that often when people talk about the ‘true meaning of Christmas,’ they are being nostalgic for warm family times together, when the problems of the world can be shut out for at least one day, when we can meet all our needs and desires for nice presents and good food and family closeness, a warm and cozy church service with joyful music, a break from work and school, fresh snow on the ground and a warm fire in the fireplace. And since, in the real world, it’s often difficult to pull off that perfect Christmas, we are often left feeling nostalgic for that dream of ‘a real Christmas.’
But is that really why Jesus came, warm, family times together, at home and at church, with the doors shut, and all the goodies for us?
The Old Testament lesson for today gives a different picture of why Jesus came. Go ahead and have a wonderful family Christmas together. But this is the time of year when we may be most aware of the conflicting priorities that pull us, so it is a good time to talk about our priorities.
Our text is Isaiah 61:1-4. It is printed out for you in your bulletin. It is very significant as a statement of why Jesus came because this is the text that Jesus used in his hometown synagogue explain to his neighbors what God had called him to do. Listen as I read it to you.
“1 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.”
At home we easily spend all of our focus on our families. In church we all to easily spend all our focus on ourselves, just plain keeping the institution going.
But open your bulletins and follow along with me. I’m going to read the first two verses again and stop each time the passage lists a type of person who should be our focus, the types of persons to whom Jesus was called, the types of persons that he calls us to focus on as well. And when I stop, you call out where the focus should be.
“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;”
It almost sounds strange, doesn’t it? We may not be used to thinking like that. Can you imagine a church that had its primary focus on people who were oppressed, brokenhearted, captives, prisoners, and mourners? Isn’t that strange?
Why should we make them our focus? And what happens when we do?
For the why, let’s look at a couple of the categories. Isaiah said God had called him to bring good news to the oppressed, only in the New Testament it is translated as ‘the poor,’ but the Hebrew word that Isaiah used and the Greek word used to report what Jesus said aren’t all that different. It means, those who are on the bottom. And Jesus agreed that his call was the same as Isaiah’s.
When John the Baptist was in prison and starting to have doubts whether Jesus was the Messiah or not, he sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus. And Jesus answered him by saying, in Luke 7:22, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” For Jesus, this was the proof of his identity as Son and servant of God.
When a rich tax collector, Zacchaeus, decided to follow Jesus, he promised not to cheat anyone again and he gave half his money away to the poor. That’s good news to the poor.
When the angels just had to announce to someone that the Son of God had been born on earth, they went to the poor shepherds, who had been sleeping outside, who had no money or political power. That’s good news to the poor.
In the Epistle of James, late in the New Testament, James warned very strongly that if a rich man and a poor man both visited in church one day, there should never be any hint of favoritism to the rich man or prejudice against the poor man. In fact he went further to say that God had chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith and warned them that often it is the rich who have oppressed the poor. That’s good news for the poor.
And in Jesus’ day, as often happens today, many people had the idea that if someone was wealthy then that meant that God was more pleased with them, and that if someone was poor, then that meant that God was displeased with them. So that meant that poor people were farther from God than rich people.
Do you remember in Fiddler on the Roof, when Tevye is dreaming about if he was a rich man? He dreamed of having a house so big that there could be one staircase for going upstairs and another staircase for going back down and then a third staircase just for show. But then he got more serious toward the end of the song. He dreamed that being rich would mean he would have more leisure time so that he could study God’s word. He would have time to discuss it with others. Poor people often don’t have as much education and time and social graces to have prominent places in the church.
But Jesus turned that all upside down and gave an extra welcome to the oppressed and the poor. And huge crowds of the poor came and they just soaked up his words of hope. These are the same crowds who had avoided the Pharisees, who were often more prosperous and held themselves above the poor. The good news that Jesus died for our sins and God’s loving arms are reaching out to us has often not been spoken with full conviction to the poor. But when it is, they have been quick to respond.
A church that follows Jesus’ calling to love the poor will never be an empty church. And I don’t mean to take up a collection and send a check, or to give away cast off clothing. I mean to invite, to welcome, to accept, and to love them. In God’s eyes we are all poor. That’s where we are called to focus.
The second focus in our text is to bind up the brokenhearted. And there are brokenhearted people all around us. There is never a shortage of broken hearts. And I don’t mean just the people in sad country music songs. I mean hearts that are broken because a marriage has failed. Eventually that will mean nearly half of our marriages. I mean hearts that are broken because of death of a dearly loved family member. How many of us have lost a loved one in the last year? I mean hearts that are broken by scars carried through life after a child’s heart is broken by a violent parent. I mean people who have had disabilities that kept them from participating in normal life and never learned to cope with that. I mean people who may have it outwardly all together but are painfully aware of their sins and failings and care deeply about it.
They have deep and painful wounds inside of them. They may not be the most pleasant to be around. They may be distant. They may be irritable. They may be just plain obnoxious. Don’t we all get that way sometimes on our painful days? But Jesus calls us to bind up their wounds, to help clean out the infection by patiently and lovingly listening so that they can talk it out, by sharing with them what God has done for us so that God’s word can be an antibiotic to clean the wounds, by just covering over their wounds for a while, not paying any attention to their troublesome habits so that they have a safe space to heal up, by being splints for a broken bone, someone they can lean on until the healing is complete.
Sometimes in the church we get so busy keeping the programs going that there isn’t any time left for the people. But when we do that they don’t get healed. And we never get to see God’s healing hand at work. Healing broken hearts is one of the most meaningful and fulfilling things that can happen in the church.
Well, the third focus was to proclaim liberty to the captives. In a small town, how many people are held down because their families had a bad reputation? How many individuals are held down because they made a mistake once and people hold it against them for the rest of their lives? How many people are held down because their skin is the wrong color or they were born in a different country? How many are captives because they once went through a financial disaster, a failed business or personal bankruptcy, and people hold it against them? Those weights can be so heavy. The injustice can cause so much anger. And when people are so judgmental it can be easy for the victims to feel that God is judgmental too.
And Jesus calls us to set them free, to forget about any chains that seem to hold them back, to love them, to accept them.
Now, I want you to look at our text once more, in your bulletin. In its original writing, it was Isaiah speaking to the people of Israel after their nation had suffered invasion and massive destruction. The people were hurting, but the cities were also demolished. The Lord had called Isaiah to bring healing to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, and so on. They were the focus.
Now look at verse 4, where it talks about the ruined cities being rebuilt. It’s not Isaiah who will rebuild them. Isaiah couldn’t do that alone. Who will be the builders? You may need to read all four verses to see it.
It’s the people who were once the oppressed, brokenhearted, captives, and so on, who will rebuild God’s nation. The early church, the ones who first shook the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, were predominantly poor and broken people, poor fishermen, rejected tax collectors, and so on. Our Methodist movement really took off when John Wesley broke away from preaching in the churches and went out to the rough coal miners as they came home from work deep in the mines. They responded. He recognized the leaders. He trained them to lead small groups, to care for each other, to reach out to their neighbors, and the Methodist movement changed England.
Why did Jesus come? What was his calling? He came to bring good news of forgiveness, of hope, of love.
And our family will be home together on Christmas to celebrate that good news.
But for the other 364 days of the year, let’s not lose sight of why God has called us together. We are here to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. And when we do, they will respond with hearts overflowing with the grace of God and all the gifts that God has put inside of them. And together, by God’s grace, we’ll build something wonderful. AMEN
