Our Gift Has Come

I'm working through how to rephrase and re-understand some of the oldest ways

of understanding Jesus's birth.

Because Christmas is really one of the most misunderstood times of the year.

And it's unlike Easter because at Easter time, there's no question,

there's no doubt in anybody's mind in our society that Easter is a uniquely

Christian experience because we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

And that is much more challenging than a baby being born.

So the society looks at us, and the world looks at us, and at Easter,

what we celebrate doesn't make any sense to them.

Because we're saying, hey, there is this guy, Jesus, and he died.

He was killed on the cross. And then three days after he died,

he was brought back to life.

That throws off the world's wisdom. But people are born every day.

And oftentimes, as many parents of teen mothers hear, there seems to be miraculous

births all the time, miraculous pregnancies all the time.

So for a woman to say, well, I haven't done this, so I shouldn't be pregnant.

That's not an uncommon thing for the world to hear, although it's an uncommon

thing to actually be true.

And so it's misunderstood and people don't get it.

And it's too bad because really the incarnation, which is what we call Jesus being born.

And we find in John 1, it says the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

So that's the incarnation, the son, the second person of the Trinity,

putting on flesh and becoming human. That's the incarnation.

That's our fancy word for it. And really the incarnation is one of the most scandalous.

I think the incarnation is more scandalous than the resurrection,

but we don't treat it that way.

We become kind of glib in our response to Jesus being born.

And usually how we think about it, especially as we're good evangelicals.

And so for us, we like to talk about how Jesus died for our sins.

That's kind of the focus of our spirituality.

And so we kind of look at the incarnation from the cross and we say,

well, Jesus had to be born.

The son had to be born because he had to die for us.

But for the first 600 years of Christianity, it was the other way around.

Christians looked at the cross through the incarnation.

We're going to get to that later, why that's different. So the nativity that

we celebrate, the incarnation of Jesus, is maybe more scandalous than the resurrection.

So go back with me to before creation. We have the Trinity, the Holy Trinity,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

They're coexisting with each other for all eternity, forever.

There was never one without the other. the three of them together,

the three persons of the Trinity, they were in relation.

The Father giving all of himself to the Son in the Holy Spirit,

the Son giving all of himself to the Father, there was this relationship going on.

And when we're in relationship with each other, it is always a matter of giving

and emptying ourselves.

And so we read in Philippians 2 that Jesus did not consider godliness to be

something to be grasped, but instead he emptied himself and became human.

And so always that's what relationship is.

If you're married or in a relationship with someone, you know that you have

to open up yourself and you really have to give up yourself in order for that to be successful.

Both parties have to empty themselves. They have to put themselves on the back

burner and put the other person on the front burner. That has to be a mutual thing.

And so that's what the father and son are doing for all eternity.

And then out of this love for each other, this beautiful, creative love that

they have, they created the world.

They said, God said, the father said, I want to share my love for the son with other free beings.

So let's create a physical world and let's create physical humans that are made

in our image so that they can share in this life with us. That's why they created.

So this love that the father had for the son, it was this creative, inviting love.

Man, as we know in the biblical account, Genesis 3, man fell.

They disobeyed God. They were disobedient to God. And then they began what's

the early church called corruption.

Have you noticed in the first four or five chapters of Genesis,

everyone lives a really, really long time.

And we don't really think about it this way, but many in the early church and

in the Eastern Orthodox church, our Christians in the East, they understand

that there was a gradual corruption that happened.

So we tend to think there was the sin, they were cast out, and then it was boom.

It's the way things are now.

But if you notice, you can kind of see a pattern. Of course,

it's not exact, but people live a little bit less and a little bit less and a little bit less.

And even Cain and Abel, they talked to God, didn't they?

Much like how we understand Adam and Eve talked to God. They just conversed

with him because there was a whole situation where Cain killed Abel.

But so we have this understanding that there was this gradual kind of corruption.

That people at first could speak to God. And then I think it's Genesis 4.

At the end of Genesis 4, it says, and at that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord.

At that time. And so that's kind of when people were separated from God and

they had to start calling on him in order to be able to have any sort of interaction.

So I would guess that would be what we would call organized religion.

I'm guessing that's when they started sacrificing, when they started doing those

things, is at that time, people called on the name of the Lord.

Anyway, that's a side note. So there's this process of corruption where slowly

man was corrupted. By the time of Noah, man was completely corrupted.

And in fact, Jesus says that our time now are much like Noah's time.

So we have a similarity there.

So by Noah's time, the world was corrupted fully and man was living in their sin.

So God restarted. He eventually calls Abraham to begin his work of redemption.

And then after he calls Abraham, he calls Israel, and he starts developing them

as a people. He brings them out of Egypt.

They start to develop. And you can see it in the Old Testament.

At the beginning, when God gave them the law, everything was very strict.

And then by the time you get to the prophets, by the time you get to,

especially right before the exile, what does Isaiah say?

He says things like, you don't, well, the psalmist says, you don't delight in sacrifice.

You delight in a contrite heart.

And even Isaiah, when you get to Isaiah, Isaiah is speaking for God.

God's speaking through Isaiah. And God says, is this the fast that I choose?

This religious work, this organized religious work that the Jews all fasted at the same time.

He says, is not the fast that I choose that you feed the hungry,

that you release those who are in slavery.

So we kind of have, by the time the exile comes around, God is starting to show

Israel a different kind of religion.

We have all the rules at the beginning, much like when you have a child,

when you have a toddler, they can't do anything unsupervised.

It's very tight rules. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't do this other thing. Don't touch that.

And then as they get a little bit older, you start giving them more freedom.

By the time they're 16, you give them the keys to the car.

You wouldn't give a toddler the keys to the car, but you would give a 16 year old.

So that's kind of that shift that we see in Israel is that they're maturing

and they're getting ready for the nativity.

They're getting ready for the incarnation of the sun.

And then God, in his infinite wisdom, chose to come to earth because it was

the right time. That's what Paul said.

While we were still sinners, Christ came. While we were still sinners, he came.

So after enough of this maturing, he came to earth. And there's this,

I want to be very clear that he didn't wear flesh like a jacket.

That's not really exactly what happened. And I think that's sometimes how we think.

We think, okay, he was God, but just like putting on, Charles Wesley called

it veiled, which we talked about.

But it's not like God, it's not like Jesus, the son, put on skin.

But the divine, this is why it's scandalous, the divine actually became flesh.

He didn't just wear it. He wasn't this divine core with this flesh outer shell.

He became flesh.

He became human.

There was what was once spirit, what was once without form, and we get some

glimpses of the Christ in the Old Testament, but was really once without form

now is given flesh and blood.

He wasn't 50% God and 50% man. He was all God and all man.

And that's the scandalous thing. That's the scandalous thing about it.

Because where man could, in the garden of Eden, he could converse with God.

He could speak with God, but he wasn't God, was he?

And now here we are 2000 years ago, a child is born in Bethlehem and that child is God.

He is divine. And in this moment through, there's this great artist named Josh

Gerrles and he has this beautiful line and he says, through screams,

blood and water, a child is brought into a woman's arms.

Through this act of birth, this God that we worship was human.

No longer was there God and humans.

He bridged that gap. He bridged that gap and not just in the Romans road where

he allows us to walk over to God, but he actually became.

So now in one person, in one human, there is both the divine life and the human life.

That's the scandalous thing. And that's the thing that we really don't understand.

And that's what makes the cross make sense.

Because we don't just have this person, because if we're being honest with ourselves,

God is a powerful enough God that he could have just created a human that lived a sinless life.

If we're being honest with ourselves, he could have done it.

Now he might've broken his own rules of free will on some of those issues,

but in all honesty, God is a powerful enough God that if he just needed somebody

sinless, he didn't need to send his son.

He could have just had one person live a sinless life and then die on the cross, but he didn't.

He gave his son, a very part of the Trinity, one of the three that were always

in communion with each other now is a human being.

And not only is he now a human being, but now he said, I am your head and you are my body.

You are the body of Christ.

So now we, as human beings, get to partake in the divine life.

And that's what Charles Wesley, if you grew up in the Methodist church,

you may have heard that phrase in some hymns, because Charles Wesley wrote that

quite a bit, that we get to partake in the divine life.

And so that's why in Psalm, the psalmist says, it's God speaking,

and he says, I say, you are gods, little g.

Not that I have, not that Eric has some divinity in and of himself.

We're not Mormons where we believe that I will be a God that will have a world.

That's not what we're saying, but we're saying that we get to partake in God's life.

In a way, God opened up the Trinity and then he let humans kind of walk in and

then he closed it around the humans.

So if we're looking at a Venn diagram, you have God and you have humans,

and now there's this space that's overlapped, and that is the person of Jesus Christ.

We're no longer are they two, but now they're one. That's the scandal of the incarnation.

So why? Why did he need to do this?

And as good evangelicals, what we love to say is that God saves us from our sin.

He hung on the cross so we don't have to go to hell.

God could have just orchestrated one human to do this.

I think that God doesn't want to just save us from our sin I think that's the

difference That's what the incarnation teaches us Is that God's not just interested

in saving us from hell But he wants us to be part of his divine life He wants us to be part of it.

The Eastern church views crucifixion in light of the incarnation,

not the other way around like we do.

So then the question is, what if God was reversing the corruption that sin introduced into the world?

So if we think about it, Jesus, what did he do?

One of his main ministries was healing.

He stood as Lord over the created order.

And he said, yes, there is cancer. Yes, there is addiction. Yes,

there is pain and there is suffering, but Jesus healed people of that.

Now, if Jesus was just in the business of saving people from hell,

there was no real reason for him to heal.

But if he was recreating the world, if he was reintroducing the divine back into the physical,

which I think he was, then he can say, now I, a human person can walk in power

over the physical world.

And he healed and he blessed. and he fed people.

He broke bread and broke it and broke it and broke it and broke it and broke it and fed 5,000 people.

He had power. He had lordship over the physical and he lived as if he were in

Eden presently. That's what he did.

He lived as if he were in Eden. He had complete power over the physical.

It says that he didn't eat or drink anything for 40 days when he went and fasted

in the desert. And guess what? You can not eat anything, but you have to drink something.

That's not a possible feat to not eat or drink anything for 40 days.

He had lordship over the created order. The word became flesh so that we might

once again taste the divine.

The word became flesh so that we might once again taste the divine, taste infinity.

The early church, there There were a couple theologians that they said,

the divine became human so that humans could be divine.

Now I understand that's kind of a scary, especially for us, but there's a mystery

there where we're still separate from God.

We're still sinners saved by grace, but Jesus kind of blurs that line for us.

And now we can operate in the kingdom.

We can operate as if we're living in Eden now. We don't have to wait.

We don't have to wait until we're dead to enjoy paradise.

But Jesus is offering that in a limited way now.

I've heard it similar to, I think B.T. Roberts said this, founder of the Free Methodist Church.

He said, if God is an ocean of salt water, you can get a glass and you can fill

it with, and that's still ocean water.

It still has all the properties of the ocean, but it's just in a smaller container.

It's not the ocean, but it has all the properties. And that's kind of what we live in now.

If we're saved by grace, if we are filled with the Holy Spirit,

That's kind of the life that we live presently.

The word became flesh that we might once again taste divinity.

God, the God of love and of relationships, opened himself up.

So there's that self-emptying.

If we look at the journey that God made, he gives to his son,

then he self-emptied to create, and then he self-emptied himself to incarnate,

and then he self-emptied himself to be crucified,

and then he self-emptied himself

into the grave, and then he rose up victorious, and then he ascended.

Do you see that directional thing going on there.

And so God is this God of relationship in that he only knows how to open himself up.

He only knows how to offer forgiveness and offer freedom. And we don't like

him because of it sometimes.

That's why there's evil in the world. It's because God is open.

He opens himself up and we can either choose God or choose not God.

And that's why bad things happen. It's a both end.

God is a God of love and relationship. He opened himself up to giving us the

opportunity to respond to him.

This is the great invitation. This is the final word of Jesus Christ,

that God and man are no longer separated, but God has redeemed the physical by becoming physical.

And now we can share in that life. For it is not I that lives,

but it's Christ that lives in me.

It's Christ's life. It's Christ's divinity. It's Christ's work.

And we just get to join him in it. He opens himself up and we become one.

That's why the very end of the revelation, the end is a marriage supper.

Two, become one in marriage. That's what that is. We get to join him.

All right, pastor, what does that have to do with Luke 2? Well,

we'll get there. We're going to go there now.

So let's look at Luke 2. I wanted to jump ahead. I know we still have a week

to Christmas, but I wanted to jump ahead of the Christmas story so that we can

look at it in a healthy light.

So we're at Luke 2, 16 through 19.

And you guys know this story. I don't need to hash everything out,

but you know, the angels come to the shepherds. They tell the shepherds the good news.

The shepherds run into Bethlehem and now they're telling everybody the good

news that they've heard.

It says, verse 15, when the angels went away from them into heaven,

the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this

thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.

There's verse 16. So they go and they find him.

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told to them concerning this child.

So now they go out and they're telling everybody.

And all who heard it wondered, if you're writing down, write that word down,

or if you're just keeping mental tabs, keep that in your head.

All who heard wondered at them that what the shepherds told them.

Verse 19, but Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

So we have these two words. We have wonder and we have ponder.

Wonder and ponder. The people in Bethlehem, it was a busy time,

much like Christmas is for us now.

It was a busy time for them. Everyone was going to their hometowns for the census.

So there was a hustle and bustle. There were lots of people coming in.

There was no room in the hotels.

I mean, there was no vacancy. So it was a busy time. People were busy.

Things were going on. They were probably seeing family that they hadn't seen for a long time.

Because all of their families would have all gone in to Bethlehem together.

So really, this is actually very much like kind of what we experience now.

There were probably lots of parties. There were probably lots of get togethers.

There were lots of families that

were guilt tripping them to go see them and go do this and go do that.

So there was probably a lot like we know now.

And the shepherds go and they tell them what happens.

And the people say, wow, that's so cool. Okay, but I'm pretty busy over here.

Wow, that's crazy that they said that. Oh, but I have my, I had to go to my

mother-in-law's at five.

Oh, wow. That's so cool. Oh, but I have this office party at,

right? That's the kind of thing that would have been going on.

And so they wondered and wonder is this kind of awe, amazement,

but you can wonder at something without actually being involved in it.

You can wonder at something just like last night, Sarah and I were looking out

the window like, man, the snowstorm is crazy and there's no way we're going

to drive out in it. We saw it.

We were amazed, but we really weren't participating in what was going on.

But then we have Mary who does not wonder at what is happening,

but it says, Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.

The people were gathering for the census. They must have been busy.

And here's the difference.

If you want to know the main difference between Mary and these people is that

Mary had, she had spent the last nine months waiting and expecting it.

The people were just caught up in the hustle and bustle. Can you tell where

I'm going, right? You should have connected the dots already.

The people were caught up in the hustle and bustle of life.

But Mary, she was ready. She was waiting.

She was expectant of what was happening. That's why we say expecting.

What to expect when you're expecting.

So Mary did not have the luxury of being able just to wonder at something.

She did not have the luxury of just being able to say, oh, that's so cool that

that's happening, but I'm not going to do anything about it,

which is what the people did.

She was forced because it was her son. She had the relationship there, right?

So today, this week, as we kind of slide into this Christmas season,

as we go into this Christmas season where we were busy and many,

for many of you, maybe last week was the busy week.

And then you kind of get to slow down, which would be great because then you

can take time and really focus on this.

But we are called to be ready for Christ.

We're called to be ready for christ and to

walk in his incarnation we are called to share in his life and be christ for

others there's this christian artist named derrick webb he says like the three

in one like the trinity like the three in one you know you must become what you want to save,

So there's an opportunity to be incarnational. There's an opportunity for you

to incarnate Christ to your neighbors, to your coworkers, to your friends, to your family.

And it's not going to look the same like it did 20 years ago.

It's going to be different.

There's a new wine. And so we have to have a new wineskin.

What does it look like for us to be simple, simply Christian?

Or as I think John Wessek and B.T. Roberts just said, biblical Christianity.

What is a common denominator? What have all people everywhere forever done and

believed and practiced?

Because that's the key. And then you can reincarnate that over and over and

over and over. And it's the same Jesus.

It's the same Christ. It's the same Holy Spirit, but we have to become what we want to save.

We have to become what we know around us, because that's what Jesus did.

That's what God did. That's at the heart of what God is doing.

So you, you are in Christ.

You are in Christ. If you've given your heart to him, if you're filled with

the Holy Spirit, you are in Christ and you do share in his divinity and you do share in his life.

And he doesn't expect you to keep that to yourself.

He doesn't expect you just to wonder at that. Don't just be surprised or amazed

that it happened, but he wants you to open up.

He wants you to, what Mary does, he wants you to treasure up the things and ponder them.

At some point she had to give him up for crucifixion.

We have to take these things. We have to open up our lives to the God who opens

up his life. There's that relationship.

We have to empty ourselves so that he can fill us up because he's going to empty

himself into us every chance that he can.

We can now walk in the light of God, not as outsiders, but as daughters and sons.

But we have to open ourselves up to God and let him root out the sinful nature

and the false self so that we can experience the resurrection,

which we're going to celebrate in a few months.

So open up your hearts today. Open up your hearts this week.

Treasure things up. Ponder them. Don't be too busy. Don't look away too fast.

Look, see hurt, see pain. Heal those who are sick.

Pray for those who are in danger. And we can be part of Christ's life.

That's how we do it. Let's pray.

Oh, Father, you have called us to give of ourselves just as you gave of yourself.

You've called us to empty ourselves just as you emptied yourself.

And Lord, I ask now for the Holy Spirit's power and the Holy Spirit's confidence to do those things.

Lord, help us walk in the delight and the love that you have given us.

Help us walk in the incarnation.

Help us walk in the resurrection and Lord, help us ponder, help us take time

this week, the next couple of weeks, as we finish up our celebrations.

Help us not rush through the holidays.

Lord help us open up our hearts as you have opened yourself up.

It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.