Most likely every one of us who have come together on this special morning have, in the past several days caught at least a glimpse of a familiar scene… that is, THE NATIVITY SCENE… some form of representing the birth of Jesus, God the Son… the savior of all creation.
- Perhaps in your neighborhood, on a church lawn, on a Christmas card, on a television ad… or maybe in your home.
- Like any representation … sometimes the picture can get a little mixed up.
· Our 2 year old son Travis… was telling us the story with a set of characters. Was surprisingly correct until… picks up the shepherd and flies… “superman.”
· Kindergarten class asks to draw the Christmas scene…one kid perfect… except one short fat man.
“Jimmy, that isn’t Santa Claus is it ?”… Of course not… it’s “Round John Virgin.”
But perhaps the greater challenge is simply not having time to stop and look… If you’re like me perhaps its a scene that is often given just a glance.
> This morning I want to invite you to spend some moments with me in which we can stop a bit… and stare a bit.
We must understand that what we see are TIMELESS TRUTHS of a TIMELESS EVENT.
This scene changed human history forever. …literally dividing our dating of human life..
2,000 years later …year after year… our major news magazines feature cover stories about this figure.
No one has ever touched the world like Jesus Christ. No one has ever reformed human history with such radical and lasting power.
And from the beginning there have been men who have tried with all their power to silence him….which leaves historians amazed at hw one born in such obscurity could be ever increasing in influence.
How could this little scene known as the “nativity scene” change the world forever ?
Because it represents not only God who acts IN history.. but is OVER history.
The divine drama is still in progress.
The scene we see is timeless in it’s truth about God’s relationship to us.
So what do we see in Christmas ?…. in this Divine Drama ?
> There are many elements… each rich in meaning. Let use the zoom lenses of our minds to focus on just a few. (Each of which were a part of the account which was read at the start of our worship this morning… and likely familiar to most.)
Let’s begin with…
1. The Wise Men and Star
Look closely at these travelers. They are not kings but rather.. …. Magi…a tribe of Medians frm the Persian Empire in the East. Wise Men…served as counselors/advisors to the king…men of wisdom, skilled in philosophy, medicine and the natural sciences.
They aren’t those familiar with what God has made known of Himself to the people of Israel whom He had chosen….. In fact they represent those farthest away.
> But they were willing to look beyond themselves… They were willing to truly seek…. And they were willing to find. They were true seekers.
And to such seekers a star arises that they recognize as a source of guidance.
> God provides guidance for those who truly seek Him.
My friend Shourie in India. Successful engineering student… wandered out into the desert from his campus and spoke his heart. “God if you are the unknowable god or countless gods my people fear.. then it does me no good to know you. But if you really exist and I can know you… I want to know you.” Given a vision of a cross… but had no idea what it meant. Went back to the campus and shared his vision with a friend who suggested that a Christian student they knew might know… and there he learned of what the cross he’d been shown meant. He was too honest for religious ritual… wanted to know… wanted relationship… and God heard.
> God provides guidance for those who seek Him.
And most often it involves people in that process.
Perhaps you found that personal relationship years ago. Can you think what your life would be like… who would you be….. what you would be doing, had it not been for some form of guidance God used in your life.
But perhaps you feel a lot more like one still seeking than one who’s found. Perhaps you even sense you’ve been wandering in spiritual circles…. Finding principles but not the real relationship you long for.
> Let me encourage you… chances are God may have already provided you with a source
of guidance.
Maybe sitting next to you even now.
> God provides guidance for those who seek Him.
(2. The Stable)
Now refocus your zoom lens a little bit and look at the stable itself, the rough-hewn hut that stablemakers always construct in a quaint, Christmasy style. Have you got the stable in focus? I can assure you the stable that Jesus was born in was anything but quaint. It was just like a thousand other stables, crowded with smelly animals, dark, damp, and rodent-infested. It was an all-around rotten place to birth a baby. Which makes a thinking person ask, “If God could commandeer a star to serve as a travel guide, why couldn’t He commandeer a suite at the Bethlehem Hilton or at least a private room in the local hospital? The star is a much bigger feat than a suite would be.” The answer is that
Why ? To provide a quaint picture for artists and Hallmark ?
No… To state something essential to our lives..
> God enters and lives in our real world…..the God of the universe chose to enter and live in our real world.
God had no intention of shielding His Son by having Him born into the world of the rich and famous. God wanted His Son to experience life in its blue-collar boldness. Jesus’ first breath of air burned with the odor of animal urine. The first noises He heard were the grunts of livestock. Jesus’ first outfit was made of dust cloths, or the equivalent of grease rags. From day one, God the Father determined not to shelter His Son from the rude, crude realities of life on Planet Earth.
“Why?” > Because relationship is a matter of relating.
How do we feel when those who lead are completely removed from the real world in which we live ?
You may remember just a few years back when in Romania, an iron-fisted aristocrat lived in palatial splendor and told the common folk to eat cabbage. For twenty-four years the resentment grew inside the Romanians, until the people couldn’t hold it in any longer. Not only did the common folk throw the dictator out of office—you may have seen it on your television sets—they broke into the palace and pitched his personal effects out into the street. People tore his material goods apart and spit on them. Then they stormed the palace and torched it.
You see, for twenty-four years the Romanians heard the guy’s speeches and followed his orders and marched to his drumbeat, but underneath they kept muttering to themselves, “He’s not one of us, he’s not one of us.” All along, as they did their menial tasks throughout the years, the Romanians had been saying, “You have no idea what we common folks are going through in this country. You have no idea. You live in a different world. You’re sheltered and shielded.”
Take a good look at the stable, friends. The stable is a permanent symbol of the fact that God has entered and lived in our real world.
For our sake, Jesus was given no aristocratic advantage. He had humbler beginnings than any of us. He was born into a real family, and He worked a real construction job for thirty years. He lived in a neighborhood. He had real friends. He suffered hardship like the rest of us have, and He died a cruel death for a crime He didn’t commit.
So when the Bible urges people who are going through disappointment and pain to pour their hearts out to the now-ascended Savior, we can do so with the absolute assurance that Jesus understands. He’s been there.
Make no mistake… This is not simply sympathy… but empathy. Not simply sympathizing for us but sharing with us the experiences of our human condition.
Life without advantage? He lived it. Shortage, poverty? He’s been there.
Discrimination, oppression? Jesus was a refugee before His first birthday.
Rejection? He experienced it. Ridicule? It was a part of His daily life.
Abandonment? By lifelong friends in greatest time of need.
Death of loved ones? Multiple times.
Physical pain? More than you and I will probably ever experience.
If you ever felt that nobody understands… look at the stable. Be reminded that in Christ, God understands. He can identify with you no matter what you’re going through.
Be we must be humble and trusting enough to pour out our hearts to him and then allow Him to love and minister to us. (Bill Hybels, The Heart of Christmas, pp.40-44)
In striking contrast to the pop spirituality of our day.. which implies that the realities of the real world we experience are irrelevant… an illusion…and that all that really exists is an impersonal energy… At Christmas we see God declaring just how real our world is…. And just how personal is the love that reaches out to us.
Which leads us to refocus our eyes again…
3. The Baby….. God Incarnate.
Naturally as we see at baby… we may imagine the cuteness of the precious little features that.
But look a little longer… a little deeper. This is God bearing Himself… Look into His eyes. Listen to Him crying. Sense the utter frailty… the vulnerability of it all.
> Whatever soft sentiments this child gives us.. what lies here should cause us to shudder like never before.
Babies may bring forth warm sentiments in any of us…..used so often in T.V. commercials… but this isn’t just a baby….. this is a child being given. It’s the ultimate parent giving the ultimate child.
Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
This is the love that is willing to descend…. to die…. in order to love you.
> God loves us like no other.
Love …can be a limited concept…especially when we try to understand Divine love.
> But here we see a love so painfully personal… it can stagger any imagination and silence any doubts about whether we’re really loved.
> God loves us like no other.
Finally, look at…
4. Those Who Received Him.
A young woman named Mary like any other young woman… A young man named Joseph…a carpenter.. a “regular Joe.” And of course shepherds… ordinary shepherds.
> Ordinary lives that are forever changed for God had come to change ordinary lives.
And there would be far more than our nativity scenes could ever hold.
Those who next receive Him are interestingly enough a striking contrast in their age… Anna and Simeon.. She was a widow.. eighty four year old. He was one who had waited his whole life … having been told he would die until he saw the Christ whom God would send.
Upon entering his later years of ministry… those who receive him are a remarkably diverse and unexpected group. Alcoholics… prostitutes…thieves…. lepers… racially mixed Samaritans…. working class fishermen… and a wealthy man who gives up his own burial tomb.
If we look at their lives the message is clear..
> God changes ordinary lives.
How ? What difference did he make.. does he make ?
1. Acceptance… in him they found God’s means of forgiveness… the deepest acceptance.
These are lives that knew plenty about personal flaws and failures.
They are a picture of the sin and shame that haunts us all.
They needed forgiveness and freedom…. They needed a Savior. Only those who knew this in their hearts could enter the nativity scene.
2. Meaning….Purpose…. freedom from futility..
Luke 2:29-31
"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
As the Bruce Cockburn song says so beautifully –“Like a stone on the surface of a still water. Driving the ripples on forever. Redemption rips through the surface of time in the cry of a tiny babe.”
Look closely at all who received him and you’ll notice something happened to their lives.
Suddenly the wandering… wondering lives became part of God’s eternal drama of love and redemption.
In receiving Christ into their lives they had received the central character of all history… of all of life.
They had once lived as the central character and knew well that life, when were the central character, has no meaning.
The great nativity scene is a portrait of God once again becoming the central character.
All those who receive him find meaning as they become characters in a drama in which God is once again the central character.
The wealthy English Baron, Fitzgerald, had only one son. The son had left home and died while away from home. Fitzgerald never got over the loss of his son, his only heir. As his wealth increased, Fitzgerald continued to invest in paintings by the masters. At his death, his will called for all his paintings to be sold. Because of the quality of the art in the holdings, a message was sent to collectors and museums. A great crowd gathered for what was to be an auction. When the day of the auction came and the large crowd was assembled, the attorney read from the will of Fitzgerald. It instructed that the first painting to be sold was the painting "of my beloved son." The painting was from an unknown painter and of poor quality. The only bidder was the old servant who had known the boy and loved him. For a small sum of money he bought it for its sentimental value and the memories that it held. The attorney again read from the will, "Whoever buys my son gets all. The auction is over." That’s the way it is with Jesus. Whoever chooses Him gets all that God has - His only Son, loved of the Father, God’s gift to broken people.
