Have you bought your ticket? The Return of the King, the final episode in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is coming out in 10 days. Probably I should have asked who has seen the Fellowship of the rings and the two towers, and then I would know who the Tolkien fans are.
Though Tolkien, had not written Lord of the Rings as a predominately Christian allegory as C.S. Lewis did with the Chronicles of Narnia, being a Christian, he had to be greatly influenced by the Scripture and one can draw references throughout the film, a classic account of good verses evil. If you are looking for an opportunity to invest and invite people to know Jesus Christ, Lord of the Rings is a great conversation starter at the water cooler or coffee pot. The Christmas season is a time when people are open to the discussion of the spiritual, and what a better time to be prepared to share those truths about Jesus Christ by building a bridge through our conversations.
The king in the Ring Trilogy is Aragorn, heir of Isidur, whose origins come from distant past.
In the book of Micah, a small Old Testament account from the prophet, we read, 2But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past. 3The people of Israel will be abandoned to their enemies until the time when the woman in labor gives birth to her son. Then at last his fellow countrymen will return from exile to their own land. 4And he will stand to lead his flock with the Lord’s strength, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. Then his people will live there undisturbed, for he will be highly honored all around the world. 5And he will be the source of our peace. (Micah 5:2-5a).
Christmas celebrates the birth of that child, Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, whose origins are from the distant past.
It is interesting, watching the Lord of the Rings, the parallel that can be drawn from Aragorn and Christ. Aragorn will lead his people; people like Gondor much as the prophet Micah says Christ will lead His flock with the strength and name of the Lord, Christ Himself being the Son of God.
In the process, Aragorn faces a great many struggles and we who know Jesus Christ are aware of the struggles He faced and the crucifixion he bore to take away the sins of the world.
This Christmas as the world embraces in the theater “The Return of the King”, I want us to ready to talk about the real King, Jesus Christ who is one day returning for His people. If you have watched the first two films in the trilogy, you would know Aragorn does not typify what you might expect a king to be, and Jesus Himself did not as well.
Lets move from the fantasy of the film to the reality of Christ, from the writings of Tolkien to the inspired words of God, Spirit breathed, held timeless through the ages setting a historical account that is as much contemporary today.
Prophetically, Micah identifies the location of the birth of Christ, Bethlehem, a prophecy given about 700 years before His birth as recorded in Luke 2, 4And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5He took with him Mary, his fiancé, who was obviously pregnant by this time.
6And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn.
Some would say, coincidence, and by itself, it would easily be written off as such, but this is just one of hundreds pertaining to the life of Christ that was prophesied and fulfilled, so it is no coincidence, it is a God incidence to draw our hearts and minds to the reality of Christ, to reinforce the truth so it cannot be taken away from you.
13Then Isaiah said, "Listen well, you royal family of David! You aren’t satisfied to exhaust my patience. You exhaust the patience of God as well! 14All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign. Look! The virgin [1] will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel--`God is with us.’ 15By the time this child is old enough to eat curds and honey, he will know enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong. (Isaiah 7:13-15). I am getting ahead of myself because next week I want to speak of the prophesied King. Here we find the foretelling of a virgin birth, which the New Testament 770 years later writes of the fulfillment in Christ.
How do I deal with this information, how do I apply it to my life, how do I share it with others? Jesus Christ is not from the imagination of a writer; He is not part of ancient mythology or just a good person who became a legend inflamed by stories that expanded with time. Jesus Christ is from the distant past, He is part of the triune make-up of God, who stood at the beginning of our time and brought us into existence. He watched as His creation instead of embracing the Creator, joined forces with all that is evil and choose a different path, one filled with selfishness and contempt. Angered by this lack of regard for what is right, He flooded the earth after allowing a time for people to inquire of Noah and reject the warnings the boat builder gave. On and on history went, some people listened, most did not, entwined in their wrongdoing, captivated by themselves. Then finally God decided to make a bridge to bring the distant past to the present future and He did it in an unassuming way, the birth of a Savior, the King has come back to mankind to restore relationships, heal what was wounded, renew what man had walked away from. I say He came to the present future because He has not stopped in his renewal, it is as available today as it was 2,000 years ago when He came back from that time when He walked in the cool of the garden with Adam and Eve.
If Christmas is anything, it is about restoration; about giving a gift that one did not expect at a price one could not afford to pay to someone who really did not deserve to receive it. In Lord of the Rings, reluctantly Aragorn assumes his role in life, much like many of us who offer alternatives rather than take risks. But Jesus Christ was not like that. He willfully came to this earth, to bring restoration to that which He created but had turned its back on Him. And He still waits for more to embrace the Truth.
He came as a child because we can relate more to someone who has gone through what we go through. I can’t relate to someone like Bill Gates. I race my check to the bank each week so I can pay bills, I rummage through the kitchen to see what might be in the cupboards to eat because I can’t always afford to eat out. That’s why I can connect with God, because Jesus did not come as Bill Gates, He came more in a manner we can all relate to, from the wealthiest to the poorest. He arrived into this world in poverty, His parents didn’t have the money to bribe the innkeeper for a place in the house. They stayed in Bethlehem for about two years, perhaps they had the money to get there and not enough to get home. It was about two years before the magi arrived and the gifts they brought were probably used to finance their Mary, Joseph and Jesus exodus into Egypt so King Herod would not kill the baby as he did to all the other male babies in Bethlehem. The Gospels hold account of the travels, the travails, the challenges, the sacrifices Christ made, the Messiah, who came to save His people from their wrong doing and to reestablish relationships with mankind.
Malcolm Muggeridge, brilliant twentieth-century journalist, said these words about himself: "I may, I suppose, regard myself or pass for being a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets—that’s fame. I can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue—that’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions—that’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time—that’s fulfillment. Yet, I say to you—and I beg you to believe me—multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing—less than nothing, a positive impediment—measured against one draft of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are."
That draft of living water is available today, for you, for your friends, for strangers, all because in an obscure village called Bethlehem, a Child was born, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Invitation…altar
