God to the Rescue
April 7, 2001
We’ve celebrated the meal that Jesus left us to remind us of Him and His work on earth, as well as the work that followed from His ascension to heaven. We celebrated Jesus, and each time we do, we celebrate some different facet of our Saviour. We’ve just seen the (children’s) play about the Good Samaritan, which says so much to us, about the work of our Saviour!
I’d like to share a story that speaks rather eloquently about what we celebrated in the Lord’s Supper last evening.
“Grandpa walked into the family room and found his little grandson, Jeffy, standing up in his playpen, crying.
“He looked so pitiful, standing there in his little baseball T-shirt and diaper. His face was red and tear-stained from crying. When Jeffy saw his grandpa, his face lit up in a way that smote the old man’s heart. He immediately reached up his chubby little hands in supplication.
“Out Papa, out!”
“What grandpa could resist such a plea? Not this one! He walked over to the playpen and reached down to lift his little buddy out of captivity and distress.
“Just then, however, Law and Order stepped into the room.
“Jeffy’s mother walked out of the kitchen with a dishtowel in her hand and spoke sternly. “No, Jeffy! You are being punished. You have to stay in bed! Leave him right there, Dad.”
“Oh, fine. Now what’s a grandpa to do? His grandson’s tears and reaching little hands tugged mightily at his heart- but he didn’t want to interfere with a mother’s discipline either.
“He couldn’t stand staying in the same room with the boy, reading his newspaper and pretending to be aloof. Nor could he turn around and walk out the door without feeling like a betrayer to his little pal. What could he do?
“Love found a way.
“Since Grandpa couldn’t take Jeffy out of the playpen, he climbed in with him. “If you’re in the playpen, Buddy, I’m in the playpen. What’s your sentence? How long are you in for?” And finding a big, jolly grandpa suddenly filling his little prison cell, the little boy found comfort even in his captivity.”
What Jeffy’s grandpa did is a picture of what Jesus did for us. As much as God would have liked to have picked us up and drawn us close, because of His holiness, he could not.
Habakkuk writes, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong” (Habakkuk 1.13).
David declared, “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell” (Ps. 5.4). This could be said as “Those who do what is wrong can’t live where you are”. Evil has no home with God. Evil could never stay with Him, lodge with Him, and be near to Him.
Isaiah captures a lot of the human situation in his words in:
Isa. 59.2.
Yet, as we considered when we last took the Lord’s Supper, about a month ago, “God so loved the world.” He had compassion for us. He yearned for us. What was a holy God to do? And, the message of the play must not be lost on us, either. The Good Samaritan ‘climbed into the playpen’ with the man who had been beaten and robbed and did what no one else ‘could’ do, for various reasons. He did what was necessary for the saving of this precious human life! The Samaritan- the most unexpected helper- was much like God- the most unexpected helper- in the drama of our lives!
Because God’s love was so great, he sent His son to ‘climb into the playpen’ with us. We couldn’t live with God, so God came to live with us. Jesus couldn’t bring us to His house, so He came to our house. John writes:
John 1.14-
Jesus pitched His tent among us. And the story of the entire work of God that we see between the celebration of the birth of Jesus and the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus is about the only way He could bring us home to Himself. The only way was for Him to become a man and then come and save us!
Oftentimes when a big project is about to begin, there is an official groundbreaking. Officials gather with hard hats and someone who may never have handled a shovel before, has to dig the smallest bit of dirt to officially begin the project. This is met with all sorts of fanfare and celebration, and some sort of champagne reception follows, normally.
There was a groundbreaking for God’s greatest work, too, but it didn’t begin with public officials wearing ties and hard hats and smiling into TV cameras. It didn’t begin with ribbon cutting or handshakes or speeches in front of the media. In fact, construction of the ’new and living way’ began in the middle of the night, in a little stable behind a busy hotel. It began with the moans of a Jewish girl in the pangs of birth… and the tiny cry of an infant.
That night the ground was broken. A highway that would be traveled by millions, stretching through time and space into the golden lands of heaven, began that night. Mary cradled the Way, the Truth, and the Life in her arms, a few shepherd looked on with wondering eyes, and Joseph whispered, “Emmanuel… God with us!”
Even His name pointed to His unique place in God’s scheme of things. The name Jesus is Yeshua in Hebrew, often translated as “Joshua.” It means, “God saves.” It could be translated “God to the rescue.” The baby Mary carried was not only God’s Son, but also the world’s Saviour. He came as Jesus… “God to the rescue.” Jesus was a common name at the time, just like Mike or John or Jennifer would be today. Many boys were named Jesus. But this Jesus wasn’t like the others; this Jesus would truly live up to His name. His name was not only a declaration of the fact that “God saves,” this was God Himself doing the saving! He would save His people.
So, in the Christmas message we see the shadow of the cross, the beginning of this journey toward death on the cross and resurrection. It’s all one story. The reason Jesus came as a baby was to die as a man on a cross. To make a way where there was no way!
We celebrated this message, in the Lord’s Supper, and declared it, again, in the children’s play today. This is the salvation that Simeon declared when he held Jesus, the baby: Lk. 2.28-32. And that salvation was so rich in his eyes! It gave him “peace,” it showered him with “light,” and it set his mind on “glory”! Have you stopped to think about how rich is our salvation in Jesus? It’s something to think about over this next week, in particular! Whole libraries could be written to expound the subject, but let’s consider just three of these riches:
1. He saved us from our sins
1 Jn. 3.5- One of the reasons Christ came was so that you and I wouldn’t have to carry around the weight and grief of our sin all of our lives. He came to release me from the sin of my past, my shame, and the chains of sins and habits and addictions that keep me hurting people and hurting myself over and over again. He wanted me to know the joy and blessing of being released form that crushing load of sin. I richly deserved God’s judgment, but Jesus took my judgment upon His own shoulders. Simeon saw all that in the infant he held!
2. He came to destroy the works of the enemy
John wrote- 1 Jn. 3.8- Jesus came to destroy, or undo, the works of the enemy. Because He came, there can now be a different outlook for my life. Satan’s desire for me will not be accomplished!
Martin Luther wrote:
The prince of darkness grim
We tremble not for him,
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him!
And what is that word? The Word is Jesus- God to the rescue!
God did not want Satan, the enemy of my life, to destroy, thwart, or abort His purpose, plans, and desires for me. So He sent His Son, not only to release me from my sin, but also to rescue me from this designed, orchestrated plan of the enemy to destroy my life, home, and family.
3. He came to reveal the Father
1 Jn. 4.9- Jesus came to let us know how much God loves us. I can only rejoice in the fact that Jesus came to make sure we really knew how God feels toward you and me. When you read the Gospels, every time you see the Lord reaching out to help, bless, heal, comfort, or deliver someone, you’re seeing the very heart of God. God loves people. His heart is deeply concerned for men and women and children.
A pastor from a bygone age, named Arthur John Gossip, wrote:
The wonderful thing about Christ is that as people looked at Him, followed Him, and watched Him, it became apparent to them that this is what God must be like. They concluded that if there is a God at all, then He must have Christ’s eyes, Christ’s ways, Christ’s ever-helpful hands, Christ’s character…Stand upon Calvary and know that if today he loves like that, he always loves like that. Even when our hearts become hot and suspicious of Him or soured and bad-tempered toward Him for His ordering of our lives and crossing our wishes, He still loves us. To be God means always to stoop lower by far than any man could stoop, to bear what never a human heart would dream of bearing, to give Oneself with an abandon of unselfishness that leaves us staring in slack-jawed wonder. His love is a hugeness beyond all human reckoning. It is an everlasting Calvary.
God so loved that He gave. That’s what happened when Jesus was born. It was a gift of love. And that’s what happened when Jesus died and rose again!
Let us conclude today by recalling what an old preacher said more than a century ago. The Reverend Edward Payson told his flock:
There is more of God- more of His essential glory displayed in bringing one sinner to repentance and forgiving his sins- than in all the wonders of creation. In this great work, men and angels may see the very heart of God.
From this work, angels themselves have probably learned more of God’s moral character than they had ever been able to discover before. They knew that God was wise and powerful, for they had seen Him create a world. They knew He was good, for He had made them perfectly holy and happy. They knew He was just, for they had seen Him cast down their own rebellious associates from heaven to hell for their sins. But until they saw Him give repentance and forgiveness of sins through Christ, they did not know that He was merciful; they did not know that he could pardon a sinner.
And O! What an hour it was in heaven when this great truth was first made known, when the first repentant sinner was pardoned! Then a new song burst from the mouths of heaven’s angels. And with indescribable emotions of wonder, love, and praise, they began to sing, their voices swelled to a higher pitch, and they experienced joys unfelt before.
O how did the joyful sound, “His love endures forever,” spread from choir to choir, echo through the high arches of heaven, and thrill through every enraptured angelic breast! And how they cried, with one voice, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to mean on whom his favor rests”!
