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Let
us pray: Take my lips and speak through them. Take our thoughts
and think through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire
with love for you. Unless you speak, nothing of significance
will be spoken. Bring us your word, Lord Jesus. Amen.
I hope
that you have come tonight because you want to experience
Christmas and the whole "reason for the season."
I know that's why we will have five packed worship services
on Christmas Eve. Because people, whether or not they choose
to make God a part of their daily lives, are searching. Searching
for God, searching for meaning, searching for a connection
within their lives. We all want a meaningful Christmas. We
want to make it a special time this year. A special experience.
A special connection. Unfortunately, sin in the world around
us and sin in our own lives interferes. This sin makes integrating
this experience of God's love into our lives difficult to
achieve. This sin in the world and in ourselves leads us away
from God and from living deeper, more meaningful lives. I
believe the reason we don't experience God and his plan for
our lives is because we've been fed a great lie that eats
away at our very souls, leaving us deprived and depraved.
This great
lie impacts our lives because of our very nature. We live
for service. Every year the demand for services increases.
You can hire someone to do just about anything. All of us
enjoy being served. Isn't it true that a significant portion
of our personal budget goes toward paying for services: water,
electricity, housekeeping, babysitting, lawn care, interest
payments, repairs, dry cleaning and more? And what about personal
trainers, wardrobe consultants and other personal advisors?
Many of these services are luxuries we have grown so accustomed
to having that we consider them necessities. Much of this
is so we don't have to be bothered with the small stuff of
life. Americans are addicted to insulation. Our goal? To move
up "in the world." To have the freedom to do whatever
we want whenever we want. We call it "upward mobility."
And upward mobility is the American dream.
This great
lie has been given a boost over the last 50 years as consumerism
has become the dominant theory of our society. Consumerism
is what our society is based on. This economic theory is that
a progressively greater consumption of goods is beneficial.
We are fed a steady diet of this theory from birth, through
ads and commercials. Madison Avenue has been applying psychological
research to manipulate our habits and behavior. This phenomenon
has only fed our desire for the American dream, to be free
to be served, so we can do what we want. How many of us have
gotten into trouble because we have been programmed to consume?
And whether or not we have gotten into financial straits,
how much of our souls have been stolen away by the emphasis
on loving things and using people, or how much of our lives
have been wasted climbing the ladder of Madison Avenue success?
You know what I'm talking about. How often do you pre-judge
someone because they are out-of-style? The urge we constantly
have for the next dollar, the next new item, the next upgrade.
Do you see how deadly subtle it is?
With so
much available to us, we are set up to believe the great lie
that's been around since Jesus' day. Simply put, it is this:
Those who are being served the most, are the most important.
Or: The greatest of all is served by all. Entire
industries have learned the monetary truth that those who
do the serving reap the most benefits. Most of us want to
be taken care of. Let's face it. When it comes to my car,
or anything mechanical, I need it! In this world, the businesses
that can offer the greatest number of services to their customers
will win the lion's share of the market; they will reap the
greatest reward.
You and
I need to learn this truth on the spiritual level, because
this is what the meaning of Christmas is. Yes, self-emptying
service is the key to the depth of the Christmas story. Not
gifts, friends, family, pageants, carols, lights, traditions,
food, TV specials, shopping, Christmas cheer, or memories.
All those parts of Christmas that we enjoy are the result
of the main truth that Paul writes to the Philippians: Christ
Jesus...emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,
and being made in the likeness of humanity, he humbled himself
to the point of death (Phil. 2:5-7). What a sacrifice!
Unfortunately,
we usually stop when we reach the manger. Most of us describe
Christmas as a time we celebrate by giving each other gifts
to remember how, long ago, God came to earth as a little baby.
Well, that's what you say to a preschooler. Unfortunately,
that's as far as many of us take it. (Is there someone we
can hire to explain it for us?) My prayer is that Christmas
will come to mean much more than that to each of us. It's
got to do with a lot more than a baby being born in a manger.
You see,
Jesus
Christ is not a baby in a manger anymore.
Jesus
Christ is not a young boy in the temple anymore.
Jesus
Christ is not just a prophetic teacher who lived
2000 years ago.
Jesus
Christ is not just a miracle healer in the Middle
East.
Jesus
Christ is not still hanging on the cross.
Jesus
Christ is at the right hand of God the Father Almighty!
(Rev. 19-21). He is in the judgment seat in heaven. He is
the Lamb of God and is seated on the throne of God. He is
the lamp illuminating all of heaven with the glory of God.
There is no other light there. And the kingdoms of this world
will become the kingdoms of our Lord and Christ and he shall
reign forever and ever. He is the King of Kings and the Lord
of Lords. He holds the book of Life. At the sound of his name,
one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God (Phil. 2:10-11).
He is worshiped eternally by all the heavenly beings and all
the saints in glory. This is who Jesus Christ is right now.
God came
to earth as a little baby. Jesus Christ was on the ultimate
trip of downward mobility. It means Jesus Christ gave up all
the benefits that being the Son of God merited. He was worshiped
eternally by the angels who were created for no other reason
than to praise God. Twenty four-seven. Jesus Christ was never
created-Christ is eternal-before anything that was created.
He was never born. It is true that the scripture says Jesus
Christ is the first-born of all creation, but that means he
has the rights of the first born. He has inherited all of
creation. Christ has rights to all of creation (Col. 1:15-20).
All things were created through Christ, in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible. He holds all things together in himself,
just by the nature of who he is! He was there, one with God,
before the creation of space itself; before the sphere of
time was created. He was there at the beginning of the creation
of the universe: the stars, the sun, the first life on earth,
the first human. He was a part of every aspect of creation.
He was one with the primal force of the universe.
When he
came to earth as a little baby, Jesus Christ gave up the advantages
of deity to become human like us. He gave up heaven itself-the
place where the glory of the Lord was the only light- to come
to earth, where we only see through a darkened mirror (1 Cor.
13:12), and he felt that reality as a human. Jesus Christ
gave up heaven itself, where there was no presence of sin,
no unrighteousness, and no temptation; to take on our nature
and come to our fallen world with the very real presence of
sin and temptation and the suffering that results. Christ
gave up heaven where there is eternal life-no suffering or
illness or dying-to come to a place where suffering and illness
and dying are normal parts of life (the only truly sick people
are those who refuse to accept the reality of suffering).
Christ
gave up being worshiped eternally by the angels, to be scorned
and rejected by people of every level, even to the denial
of his best friends. No one understood who he was; and even
if they did, they suffered from the inability to love and
to be loved. This condition of brokenness is the very reason
Jesus came as our Savior. Christ, who created and held together
all things, subjected himself to his own creation, even to
the point where the creation turned on the creator. Christ,
in giving up his divine advantage to become a man, became
a lowly man, the most humble of all people, a servant to everyone.
If I were giving up all that and coming to earth, I'd have
allowed myself a few comforts. I'd at least have made myself
some sort of king, so somebody would pay me a little homage!
But not Christ. He gave up everything. Jesus Christ, who had
everything, gave it all up. He plummeted down to the point
of hitting rock bottom: ultimate downward mobility.
Isn't
it interesting that the number one goal of Americans today
is "upward" mobility? Why do we do what we do? To
get ahead; to have the freedom to do what we want; to be "upwardly
mobile." Our priorities (to stay late at work, to take
on extra projects, to choose the "right" colleges,
to have the right appearance and attend the right parties)
seem to reflect this choice of lifestyle. It's the opposite
of what Christ chose. How would he evaluate our choices? We
seem to constantly say: "When I get my act together,
then I'll take my faith seriously." We wait, we stall,
we procrastinate, all because we don't want to be slowed down
by what God wants to do in our lives. Have you tried to re-prioritize?
Ask Jesus Christ to show you ways that you may be on a path
of "downward mobility" for his sake.
When Jesus
Christ gave up what he did to "come to earth as a little
baby," he became fully human. He integrated himself totally
into our state of humanness in order to redeem us and give
us eternal life. How sad that we don't integrate God into
the totality of our lives! The majority of Christians relegate
one piece of the pie to God, just as we divvy up the rest
of ourselves between job, finances, family, friends and hobbies.
We need to give up ourselves totally to Christ, even as Christ
gave up everything for us.
A life
of discipleship is likely a life of downward mobility, as
you and I seek to follow in his footsteps. A life of emptying
ourselves. A life of serving all. A life of giving. People
easily embrace the baby in the manger. It's my prayer that
we could embrace the baby who became the man who died an ugly
death on the cross to free us from our sins. A warning though:
it won't make you popular. It may send you on a truly downward
spiral of self-giving and sacrifice. It may even kill you!
As you
go through the rest of this Christmas season, think about
the story set against the backdrop of what Christ Jesus gave
up to be here. Even the simple, beautiful, extremely familiar
song we're about to sing becomes new. He was born to die,
for us and for our salvation. It's macabre. It's strange.
It makes the rest of the trimmings and trappings of Christmas
more significant. It makes life itself more significant. It
makes no sense to people caught up in the great lie, until
we re-read the last portion of the text today: "Therefore
also God highly exalted him, and bestowed upon him the name
which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth,
and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
And the way there is the path of downward mobility.
Let's
take some time now to think about how we respond to so great
a love and sacrifice in our own lives. "Lord, come once
again to our over-crowded hearts. Lord, we may not be giving
you much space, but we trust you'll find at least enough room
in a manger there somewhere to make your entrance again. We
remember what you gave up to get here, and we're grateful.
We know we need you. Our simple prayer is: `Lord, we need
you. Lord, we need you.'" Amen.
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