Advent Sermon #1
Who is this God of mine?
Take a look! Today I have a set of Binoculars and there is a peculiar thing about binoculars. They help us see things far away better or if you want you can focus them in real close and see things that are closer up but the one thing you can’t do with a set of binoculars is see both at the same time. Yah can’t see both. I suppose that is a natural limitation of something in this fallen world.
I thought about this when I prepared my sermon for tonight. I thought a lot about what kind of God we are looking for to come. Is it a beautiful baby in a manger or is it a bloody man on a cross. Which one do we see?
Well, lets zoom this thing all the way in and take a look at the prophecies about Jesus. According to Isaiah 7:14 he would be born of a virgin. (looking through the binoculars) Hmm, that seems about right. We know that Mary gave birth to Jesus as a virgin from the scriptures. It says in Micah 5:2 that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. (again) Yeah that part is true as well. It says that Jesus would be a son of David, from the root of Jesse, and part of the Tribe of Judah (again) yes, yes and yes.
Look at our hymn Oh, Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel. Look at the names Jesus is given. Emmanuel=God with us, Rod of Jesse=yes he is from the root of Jesse, Day spring from on high=yes he is the First light of a new Day, Key of David=yes he is a descendant of David and the true king who will lead his kingdom forward.
All these things are true. But what do you see. Do you see and infant king? Do you go to this poor lowly manger and see the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth? What do you see? I see the Christ, a wonderful gift given to me even though I did not deserve it. I see the Christ. True God and True man. Our very God Yahweh lying in a manger as a small human helpless little boy.
Wow. The Christ has come to us and is here! This is amazing. But wait…how do we know he is the Christ…for sure. What if this Mary lady lied? What if there was some other child born in Bethlehem? What if this Joseph guy isn’t related to who they say he is? Are all these prophecies about his birth the only thing that makes him the Son of God?
Maybe we need to see the landscape to answer these questions? Maybe see the whole picture to figure out who this Jesus guy is? Here I will crank this thing all the way out and we can look at stuff far away. Hmm. I am seeing a different picture here. Looks as though this Jesus isn’t who we thought he was. Looks as though this Jesus is suffering a criminal’s death not reigning as a king. I guess maybe we were wrong about this guy. But wait…didn’t it say something about a guy who was the Servant of the Lord and who had to suffer as well? Yeah we read it today. How do we know the lord? How do we know who the Christ is? Sure we can know him by his virgin birth, his miracles but Isaiah wants us to remember him by his suffering. How are we supposed to know the Christ…know him as our savior? By what he does on the Cross.
It says in Isaiah, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” And later it says, “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” This prophecy proves that Jesus is Lord too not just the prophecies about his birth. So, you see it’s both. Jesus is God both because of how he was born and also because of how he died.
Again, as we look at our hymn for today we can see the author had it right. The very first stanza of Oh, Come Oh Come, Emmanuel. In this hymn we see that the most important reason for Jesus to come is “ransom captive Israel.” That is Jesus mission even when he was a beautiful little baby. He sat in that rough-hewn manger and no cry did he make. A baby who knew his mission even then and no cry did he make.
Your all probably wondering then what is my point? Okay Vicar, so we know that Jesus came to earth to be our savior…we get it…what’s the big deal. I think the world has lost sight of the season of Advent and of Christmas. But why? Is it because of how the shopping season gets earlier every year? Is it because of how watered down Christmas has become? I wonder if the reason why Christmas has lost it’s meaning is that we have forgotten to talk about the cross during Christmas. We are okay if the kids get to sing songs about Christmas. We are okay if the season at least focuses on Christmas. We clap when Charlie Browns Christmas is played and yet it becomes its own holiday doesn’t it. We sit back and pat our selves on the back that Christmas was about Christmas this year and hardly at all did we tell people about the reasons for this beautiful gift.
Why would Jesus come down as a man? Why would sacrifice everything to save us? Have you asked those questions rather have you answered those questions. I am reminded of a funny part to the Movie Talladega Nights: The Ricky Bobby Story. He prays at the dinner table and in the middle of the prayer they get into a discussion about which Jesus they like to pray to baby Jesus or adult Jesus. It is really quite funny because Ricky Bobby loves to pray to “Dear baby Jesus.” While it is funny, I wonder if it tells us something about our society, even ourselves. What Jesus do we want to see Which Jesus do we want for our King? I would say that people chose the infant Jesus because he isn’t bloody, he isn’t messy, he isn’t complicated, and most important he doesn’t incriminate. He doesn’t immediately make you remember just how lost and broken we were. Maybe the reason Christmas is becoming so screwed up is the fact that we haven’t been telling people why Jesus came. And in our John reading he tells us why he came, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
It’s ironic isn’t it. Christ’s death, our forgiveness of sins, he resurrection and our gift of eternal life can only be accomplished on the cross. We receive faith when Jesus ascends back to heaven. The only way we can look at the baby Jesus in the manger and know he is God is because of everything that happened after his birth.
I guess that is the problem with Binoculars isn’t it? You can’t see both things at the same time. Maybe we need to toss them out. Get rid of them. But then what are we going to do? We are going to pray for the Holy Spirit to help us remember who we are and who Jesus Christ is. More importantly we are going to pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to show this world who Jesus is. He is a tiny promised baby. He is your lamb of Sacrifice. He is both. I would like to close by reading to you a poem I wrote about two years ago.
“Come see a child,” they said to me.
“He’s come to set his people free.”
“He’ll be your God, he’ll be your vine”
“Who is
this God of mine?”
A stable humble, cold and bare
“How can this be?” “Is he the King?”
Who is
this God of mine?
I hadn’t asked I didn’t care
“Prepare
the way!” “The Roads
make straight!”
God is flesh and bone
“Come see a criminal,” they said.
We asked for Barabbas instead
They marched him out and crucified
This very God of mine
I went to see him on the cross
They mocked and many insults tossed
“Forgive them God for what they do.”
Who is this God of mine?
I went to bury him that morn
But when I got there he was gone
He had arose.
My sins made clean
Who is this God of mine?
The same God who made his bed on the rough timbers of Calgary sleeps in a manger made of rough-hewn boards. Who is this God of ours?
Amen