First Sunday of Advent
November 29, 2009
 
 
  Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2009
 

First Sunday After Christmas
December 27, 2009
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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December 20, 2009—Fourth Sunday of Advent

Lectionary Texts: Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:46b-55; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

Sermon Text: Matthew 1:18-25

The Preposterous Exchange: God with Us

Several years ago my wife and I had an interesting thing happen to us. One of the young ladies in our church had just delivered a baby, and we were going to visit her at the hospital. It was one of those windy, rainy, March afternoons.

We were taking them a plant, with several blue balloons that had "IT'S A BOY!" plastered all over the sides of them, with a beautiful card attached to the bottom.

My wife had her hands full trying to get our children under the umbrella, and so I took control of the plant and balloons. At least I thought I was taking control of them! Because just as soon as I opened the car door to get out, a gust of wind caught the balloons, ripped them away from the plant, and began blowing them across the parking lot, dragging the card behind.

I knew it was raining, but I didn't care. It was as if some force propelled me to my feet, and before I knew what was happening, I found myself sprinting across the parking lot chasing the runaway balloons. The battle was on. The wind would gust just enough to keep the balloons bouncing up and down with the currents. But oddly enough they weren't ascending - they just stayed at eye level. And every time I thought they would drift away, they would be pushed down again. The only problem was that every time I got close enough to grab them, and just when they seemed to be within my reach, another burst of wind would come and blow them away from me again.

I just kept running. And before I knew it I had run completely across the parking lot. They had now blown into a lot directly in front of the highway and had settled down in the middle of a field.

It was my last chance. I knew it was now or never. And so I stepped onto grass and took off again. I didn't realize how soggy the field was until I stepped onto it. But I had come too far to stop now.

Thoroughbred jockeys claim that they can feel a racehorse kick into an extra gear at high speed. Somehow I managed to find another gear I had no idea I possessed (which wasn't bad considering I had a suit on). I felt like Carl Lewis!

I was within a few feet of taking hold of the balloons, when a final burst of wind whipped the balloons up into the sky, sending them flying into orbit. I was so close to grabbing them, and they took off into the sky like they had been shot out of a cannon! It was amazing how fast and far they traveled once they hit the jet stream.

It was then that I noticed that my run in the field had kicked up streaks of mud all over the back of my pants and suit coat. Dejected, and dirty, I turned and began trudging back across the field toward my car. I couldn't believe how far I'd run. At that point I looked up and saw a doctor standing beside his car. He had been a witness to the entire episode. As I walked passed him he grinned from ear to ear and said: "Just missed it! Just missed it!"

Isn't that the way we sometimes feel about our search to know God? We are continually trying to discover who He is and what He's all about. What is He like? What is His character? What does He want from us?

From time to time we catch a glimpse of who He is, and we begin to chase what appears to be understandable and within our grasp. We run as hard as we can, until finally God seems just within our reach, but in a puff of wind, He is blown away from us again. And we say to ourselves: "Just missed Him! Just missed Him!"

If you've ever felt that way, then take heart. If that's been your experience, you're not alone. Human beings have been on a quest to understand God from the very beginning. And questions like: "Who is God? What is He like? What does He want from me?" are the very questions that have been asked for thousands of years. It can be difficult to break through the shroud of mystery that surrounds an infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, creator God. That kind of awesome God seems so hard to get a handle on.

We sometimes feel a little bit like the little girl whose mother found her crying in bed one night. When her mother asked what was the matter, she answered: "I'm scared!" Her mother replied: "Don't you know that God is with you and that He will protect you?" "But Mommy," she said, "I can't see Him. I need a God with skin on his face."

We can all relate to that. All of us have thought the same kind of things. We long for intimacy with a Heavenly Father who loves and cares for us. We long to know him from the very center of our being. But it seems so hard to trust One that appears so far away, and so distant, and so difficult to grasp. We want a God with "skin on his face."

The name Emmanuel is an intriguing word. Emmanu means "with us" and el comes from the root word Elohim, which is one of the Hebrew expressions for God. If the name were to be translated in its most literal sense it would be "the With-Us-God."
The With-Us-God! What a strange thought. God with us! Think about that. Let it sink in . . . God with US!

As strange as it may sound to us, imagine how it must have sounded to the ears of first century folks. In the Old Testament there was no question as to who God was. He was not the With-Us-God. He was the Above-Us-God.

Isaiah called him "the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity." When the astrologers of Daniel 2 were asked if they could interpret the dream of the king, they said: "No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men." In other words, gods and mortals could not coexist. And therefore it was believed that the only way God could communicate to human beings was through messengers sent from God called angels.

The gods were considered to be so completely "other" from humans it was unfathomable to imagine. They were "out there!" And they would not allow themselves to draw near to the earth, because "we are here!" And frankly, that's the way it has always been with world religions.

In Islam, Allah is always the Above-Us-God. We are told that Allah sends angels, prophets, and books, because he is too holy to come. For God to touch earth, according to Islam, is called shirk, and anyone who claims that God would lower himself to the level of humanity commits shirk, or blasphemes the glory of God.

No wonder we find it so easy to feel that every time we feel close enough to touch God and better understand who He is, that He seems to escape our grasp again, leaving us saying: "Just missed him! Missed him again!"

The story is told that in the early 1950's a missionary to Africa, contracted a disease in the African bush called Belharzia--a disease still prevalent today, but far more treatable. The missionary was returned to the States to be treated for his illness. The doctors struggled and worked to bring about a cure, but were unsuccessful. In just a few years the missionary passed away, leaving his wife and three little boys.

For several years she tried to care for the boys alone. She was a nurse by trade, and kept very difficult hours. But somehow, by the grace of God, she was able to keep her family together and put food on the table. God sent a wonderful Christian man into her life, and they were married, which also meant that those three boys had a new father.

His home was on the Oregon coast, where it rained a lot--much different than what the family was accustomed to. And yet they gathered up their family, moved them across state lines, and moved into together.

The three boys were not impressed! They weren't sure about this new dad. They didn't want anything to do with him. They decided to stand back and make him buy every inch of their affection and love. They were rude, they were cruel, they were undisciplined, and they were angry. And that dad had to work hard at it, because they refused to bend!

It all came to a head about Christmas time--the time when there are so many feelings and memories. And so the father packed up his saw and axe, piled those three boys in the back of his pick-up truck, and headed up into the mountains to find a Christmas tree.

As they searched through the woods that day, slowly, but surely, they began to laugh and unwind. They were beginning to have a little fun when they came upon the perfect tree! Everybody voted that it was the one to have. Each one took a turn on the saw, and down it came!

They dragged it back to the pick-up, threw it into the bed, and started home. But on the way, their Christmas tree did what all do in the trip home--it grew! When they put it in the stand the problem was obvious. It was so tall that it scraped the top of the ceiling and bent over against the edge of the molding. There was a collective gasp! What was dad going to do about our Christmas tree?

Somehow that young father recognized the power of that moment. And sensing it was now or never, he did an incredible thing! He drug out his toolbox, went up to the bedroom above the living room, and cut a hole in the ceiling! He cut through the carpet, through the boards, through the dry wall, everything!
It just happened to be the boy's bedroom and they loved it. They had Christmas upstairs and downstairs. They were absolutely ecstatic! In that moment he became a father to them. Through a simple action motivated by love he said: "I will do anything to be a father to you!"

You understand that story, don't you? God understands our humanness. He knows that it's hard for us to understand. He knows that we would struggle forever with "who He is" and "what He's like." He is aware that we need a God with "skin on His face."

And in the fullness of time: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory and the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." I like the way Eugene Peterson frames that in his paraphrase: "The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood."

Jesus felt our feelings. He knew our pain. He was not ashamed to call us his own. It was a preposterous exchange and yet a holy, infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, creator God, cut a hole in the ceiling of heaven and let himself through!

He became the With-Us-God. Emmanuel. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth we have seen God with skin on His face. And in Jesus we have known the Father!

That's why Jesus said: "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." Jesus IS God with us! Not God above us! Not God around us! Not God against us! But GOD WITH US!

The immensity of that kind of love is overwhelming. What kind of God would allow himself to be shirked by humanity, condemned and even nailed to a cross? A God wanting to be known--a God wanting to be understood--a God willing to be touched so that we would no longer perceive him as the untouchable, unreachable God! Christmas is the announcement that God loved us so much, that He would go to any lengths to be sure we understood that love.

I recently heard a segment on the radio about a little boy who went to see Santa at the mall. Santa said to the little guy: "What do you want for Christmas this year?" The little boy's answer was quite profound. He said: "Love! I want to be loved." Santa said: "I can do that." And he wrapped his arms around him and gave him a big hug. That tiny, defenseless, baby in the manger was God pulling us into his lap, putting his arms around us, and saying: "I love you!"

Emmanuel! God is with us in Jesus! And not just at Christmas. Because the final words of Jesus recorded in Matthew's Gospel are: "Remember, I am with you always even to the end of the ages."