 Rev. Matthew J. Hook |
The
Unbridled Terror of Christmas
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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Having grown up in Michigan, I had been blinded. I was blind to what it was like to have four seasons. I was blind to what it was like to have hundreds of different kinds of trees around me. I was blind to what it was like. Having grown up in the church, I realized I was blind to the mystery and wonder of Christmas until someone pointed out to me the strangeness of the whole Christmas scene, let alone the mystery and wonder of God. Unless we somehow have our blindness lifted, our world is but a blind cave. How did I know what it was like to have four seasons until I lived in Memphis, Tennessee? How did I know what Christmas was about until I read and thought about the strangeness and mystery of the event? I want to begin the season by looking at Christmas from a slightly different perspective. When you boil it down, Christmas is almost macabre. It is God breaking into humanity in a new, miraculous, unrepeatable way. It is not tame. It is unbridled terror. Hold that thought as we take a look at our scripture. Paul’s letter to the Colossians was written around 60 A.D. to a church in an ancient, but declining, commercial center. From the letter, we know that the group of Christians there was experiencing a pluralism that was warping and obscuring the Christian faith. False teachings had slipped into the church’s teachings and the Christian community there. Paul’s response to these problems was to emphasize the cosmic importance of Christ as the Lord of all creation and the Head of the church. (How many of our problems would be settled if we turned to Christ and emphasized him in all aspects of our lives?) This passage is rich in theology, which makes it difficult to understand. But when you rightly divide it, it sheds much-needed light on Christmas and the unbridled terror of it all. In our pluralistic, hyper-religious society, we need to return to the supremacy of Christ. As we enter into the season of remembering the Incarnation, the birth of Christ, God coming to us in the flesh, we must be struck by the mystery and sheer act of God. God shows us his reckless, raging fury of love as he breaks the bounds of time and space in order to become one of us. There are so many things that make Christmas special to us: gifts, friends, family, pageants, carols, the lights, traditions, food, TV specials, shopping, the Christmas cheer on people’s faces, memories. My prayer is that Christmas will come to mean much more than that to each of us. What happens when the gifts aren’t there? Or friends move? Or family leaves us alone? Pageants lose their magic; carols get old; lights dim. What about when no one is around to share traditions with? Food and TV specials are missed; shopping gets reduced to spending money on things people don’t need. Christmas cheer becomes jeer when you try to get out to the mall (let alone the church parking lot on Christmas Eve!). Memories fade… It’s a lot more
than a baby being born in a manger. You see, He is on 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 shall 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. (Revelation 19-21) "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 the Father." (Philippians 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. And we know him because he came and dwelt among us, as the Bible tells us in John 1:14. The Greek word "dwelt" is the same word used for "pitched a tent." Jesus literally "pitched his tent" among us. His tent was like everyone else’s, in the flesh. But his tent was also like the ancient Hebrew tabernacle. The tabernacle was the tent the Hebrews worshiped in during their early history. In that tent was the glory of God, although the outside of it was very ordinary. Jesus did not put aside his deity, but he veiled his glory. It is a plan that
could only be devised by God. No human can take any credit in
instituting this stunning move by God, for "it is
written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the
cleverness of the clever I will set aside.’" (1
Corinthians 1:19) It was all God. Jesus Christ as the "first-born over all creation" means that he is before all creation in time and rank. Christ was never born. He has existed eternally. He has the rights of inheritance. He is the Father’s representative and heir and has the management of the divine household (all creation) committed to him. He is Lord over all creation. Being the "first-born" does not mean that he was ever born. Because we call Jesus the "Son of God" does not mean that he was created by God the Father. The term "Father and Son" describes the relationship of love that exists within the Trinity between God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Christ has existed eternally, one with the Father. Think of Christ as being God expressed. We have God the Creator, God the Redeemer who came and showed us God, and God the Sustainer who is the Holy Spirit. John 1:1 tells us: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (the Word being Jesus). John goes on to say: "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory…" (John 1:14) In one verse, John the gospel writer describes what took Luke 2000 words to write, and Luke gave many more details of Jesus’ birth. The glory of the Lord is not warm fuzzies. It is great and powerful and terrible. It is like facing the sun. It is pure, sheer holiness. The earthly birth of the Lord Jesus was unique. When any other child is born into this world, it is the creation of a new personality. A new life is created, one that never existed before. But when Jesus was born, it was not the creation of a new personality at all. It was the coming into this world of a person who had existed from all eternity. This was something new in the history of the universe. No wonder the angels went wild that night, in heavenly chorus, over the fields of Judea! The Word became flesh. It happened in a moment. God became a man. Divinity arrived. Heaven opened up and placed her most precious one in a human womb. The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. God, who was larger than the universe, became an embryo which Mary carried and birthed. "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." All things came to be "by him," "through him" and "for him." The person and power of Christ is the primal force within all creation, spiritual and physical, visible and invisible. Christ, who sustains the world with a word, chose to be dependent upon a young, teenaged, peasant girl for all his needs. "And he is head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the first born from among the dead, so that in everything he might have first place. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body (the incarnation, all the way) through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation…" If you were to take one of our personalities (as winning as they are!) and amplify it to infinite God, we would have a tyrannical, horrible ruler of a god. If you magnify Jesus infinitely, you have exactly God. We need look no further than Jesus Christ to witness the fullness of God. "Jesus, though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. But he emptied himself." (Philippians 2:6-7) Do you know what that means? It means Jesus gave up all the benefits that being the Son of God merited. Before being born, he was worshiped eternally by angels who were created for no other reason than to praise God, 24-7. He let go of all his advantages 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 as if through a darkened mirror (1 Corinthians 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 with no suffering or illness or dying, to come to a place where suffering and illness and dying are normal parts of life. 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. Christ, in giving up his divine rights and privileges, became a lowly baby, boy and man. He plummeted. Jesus calls us to take that plunge. To empty ourselves, even as he began at Christmas. For a person in our day and age to "empty himself" or "empty herself," it could well be terrifying. The message of the day is to fill ourselves; how different from Christ’s message of emptying oneself to be the servant of all. As terrifying as this approach to Christmas may be, it also becomes funny. Imagine. Angels watched Mary change God’s diaper. The universe watched as The Almighty learned to walk. Children played in the street with him. I’m glad I wasn’t there to bully him! Imagine the "my dad’s bigger than your dad" taunting. Just imagine if the synagogue leader in Nazareth had known who was listening to his sermons… He is the image of the invisible God. The Word became flesh. The theological term is incarnation, in the flesh.
To think of Jesus in these terms seems almost irreverent. It’s not something we like to do. It’s uncomfortable. It’s much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer. It’s easier to stomach that way. There’s something about keeping him divine that keeps him distant, packaged, predictable. But don’t do it. For heaven’s sake, don’t. Let him be as human as he intended to be, which is one hundred percent. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in, can he pull us out. Let him be Lord. It makes no sense. It’s terrifying. It’s not sweet "lowing" of the cattle or "silent nights" where "all is calm." It’s not all bright. But it is God’s way of saving the world. The only thing more strange and terrible than the gift itself is our stubborn unwillingness to receive it. Accept it. Celebrate it. Claim it. Share it. Feed on it. Let it mull around inside you. Let it change you. This Christmas, don’t be blind to the miracle and the blessing of this strange, terrifying and wonderful event. See it for what it is and what it brings and what it allows us to do and be now. Amen.
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