For Good (New Beginnings UMC)

Continuing our series tonight, Wicked for Christmas.

If you haven't been with us for the series, we've been working

our way through the movies, Wicked and Wicked for good and

using some of the songs in those movies of ways to reflect on the

life of faith. We've had most of the Sundays

we've been doing this, we've had live people singing tonight.

I didn't want to ask. I I thought it would be simpler

for everyone to use a recorded song tonight from the movies

rather than rather than live singers.

I, I know folks have a lot of stuff going on on Christmas Eve,

and so I didn't want to put pressure on anyone to need to

sing tonight. But tonight we're talking about

what we'll be later listening to the song for good, which is from

the second movie. I believe it's the final song.

And but before we get to that, I want to talk about one of the

good things about being a kid, kids.

There's a lot of, you know, being a kids not easy all the

time. There's a lot of struggles that

go along with being a kid. But there's some things you can

do when you're a kid that you can't do when you're an adult.

And one of the best things you can do as a kid, which I seldom

see adults doing, is playing tag, right?

I mean, you don't typically when a group of adults get together,

you don't hear a 40 something person saying, hey, let's play

tag, you're in. You don't typically hear that,

but tag is one of the best games ever.

You don't need any equipment to play tag, right?

None. You can play tag bare feet if

you're tough enough. I was never tough enough for

that. But all you need is space and

people and sometimes the more people the better.

And you know how it works. Who?

What's the part that everyone wants to have when you're

playing tag Bass. No, no, no.

What role? What role do you know?

What person? Who?

What? What's the one thing?

What it you want to be it when you're playing tag?

I don't know who came up with his name, but you just it and if

you're it, that means you have a special power.

You can run around and you can touch other people and depending

on the type of tag you're playing, different things

happen. If you're playing freeze tag and

you're it and you touch people, you have the power to freeze

them. But in the purest form of tag

and the most simple version of the game, the power that you

have as it is that when you touch someone, now they're it.

And they get to chase people and tag them and make them it.

And you just keep passing it around from person to person.

The brilliance of the game. Now I'm finally understanding

it. I'm sure this game was invented

by parents who wanted to wear their kids out because part of

the brilliance of the game is there is no end.

You just keep playing until everyone like, falls on the

ground exhausted or someone says, is it a time for ice

cream? Let's go in and get some ice

cream. It's a great game.

One person touches the others and the next person becomes it,

and so on and so on and so on. There's a lot of, There's a

sense in which life is like this.

It's like a game of tag where one person is it and they touch

others and, and pass that on to others.

And, and I did that too soon. We see that from the time of

Jesus's conception, right? There's Jesus in Mary's womb.

Not exactly. I think she's like 3 or 4 months

along at this time. I can't remember.

She goes to visit her relative Elizabeth, who is also

miraculously pregnant with Jesus's cousin John.

And and she's miraculously pregnant because she is well

past childbearing years, and yet she's about to have her very

first baby. And as soon as Elizabeth hears

Mary's voice, the child within her leaps for joy.

John. He didn't even have to be tagged

by Jesus. You just had to get close to

Jesus and, and, and hearing his presence through Mary's voice,

John leaps for joy. There's a very real sense in

which this is kind of a cosmic game of tag Being touched by the

person who's it changes you. Being touched by Jesus changes

you. Jesus changes us for good.

Knowing Jesus, being touched by Jesus, being in Jesus's presence

changes people for good. We see that over and over and

over again in the Scripture. We see it with Mary as Jesus

comes literally into her life. Then as Mary carries the unborn

child to other people, they're touched by Jesus.

Their life is changed. There's joy in in John's life

before he's ever born just because he's in the presence of

Jesus. Jesus when he, he goes out into

the boat with Peter and James and John and they get the

miraculous catch of fish. And Peter's like, who is this

guy? He's, he's, he says to Jesus,

get away from me, you're holy and I'm not.

And Jesus says, we'll take care of that.

Jesus went to the woman at the well and this woman outcast by

her own community suddenly becomes it and she becomes the

one that brings the other people in her community, Jesus, after

she's touched by Jesus, Jesus touches the lepers.

One of the amazing things about, you know, I don't know about

you. When I was growing up, I, I had

to dress up for church. I'm glad that that's not a rule

anymore. I had to dress up for church

and, and, and, and you ever have anyone here have their parents

ever have the experience of your parents making you dress up?

Anyone ever have that? And what are you told once you

get dressed up? What's that?

They look nice. You get that, But you also get

an instruction. Don't get dirty.

Don't touch anything. No playing on the ground, no

playing on the floor, no crawling around outside in the

grass. Don't touch anything dirty.

Because when you're all cleaned up and you get into something

dirty, what happens? You get dirty.

That's not how it worked for Jesus, the ultimate cosmic it He

was perfectly clean, perfectly holy.

And when he touched someone, no matter how holy or no matter how

dirty or how unholy they were, they didn't make Jesus dirty.

Jesus made them clean. They didn't make Jesus corrupt.

Jesus made them holy. That was the power that Jesus

had. No one wanted to touch the

lepers. They would immediately become

unclean, dirty, corrupted, but Jesus, who could have healed

them with a word without ever touching them because he did

that for people sometimes. Jesus touched the lepers and

healed them and made them clean. Jesus touched with and hung out

the folks that no one else wanted to touch your hand.

At least none of the good people, none of the religious

people wanted to touch want to hang out with.

He hung out and touched the tax collectors.

He hung out and touched the prostitutes.

He hung out and touched the the drunks.

He hung out and touched the folks that that that were

shunned and avoided by all of the good religious people in

society. When Jesus entered their lives,

he changed them and he changed them for good.

Sometimes it seemed even against their will, or at least against

their knowledge and their intention, it didn't.

It's something it didn't seem to matter.

Whatever the reason, you came to Jesus.

And, and I say this just because at the end of Jesus's life on

this earth, when he was being beaten and hung on the cross and

crucified there, those folks touching Jesus, Jesus prayed for

them and asked his Father in heaven to forgive them.

They were blessed. They were changed for good by

Jesus without ever trying to be, without ever trying to be.

The woman caught in the act of adultery brought to Jesus so

that he could sentence her for the sentence her to death.

Because she was brought to Jesus, she was forgiven and went

away, set free. This is what it means to be

touched by Jesus, to be close to Jesus.

Now there is a very real sense. Well, there's there's many

different versions of tag, right?

One of my favorites that contradicting what I said

earlier, I, I did play a lot as an adult.

I wasn't really an adult. I was right.

Just Full disclosure, right now, I'm mentally and emotionally a

15 year old and I have always been a 15 year old.

My sense of humor, everything about me and in most respects in

my brain is about 15 years old. So technically I've never grown

up, but I I as a young adult, I played a game at camp called

BLOB tag. You ever played BLOB tag?

BLOB tag is light tag, only more complicated.

And in this case, the complication makes it fun in a

lot of other ways because you can have a massive group playing

BLOB tag and you're never, it's never too many people.

The difference between BLOB tag and regular tag is that in BLOB

tag, when when it touches someone, that person doesn't

just become it. And then it becomes someone to

be chased. When you're playing BLOB tag,

when it touches someone, you're both it.

You have to stay in contact. If I ran up and touched and we

would join hands and then we would try to touch other people

and join hands with them. And the BLOB just keeps getting

bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until everybody's it.

There's a very real sense in which the life that Jesus calls

us to is like a really good blame game of BLOB tag, that

when Jesus touches us, when we encounter him and he changes us,

he's changing us for good. But not just for our sake, for

our sake, because we all need that, but not just for our sake.

He wants us to stay close to him and then reach out and touch

others and be part of his changing them for good too.

Jesus passes along that power to us.

He did that with his first disciples.

He sent him out into the world 2 by 2 little blobs, but blobs

nonetheless, so that they could go out and change people for

good, Casting out demons, healing wounds, restoring

relationships, helping folks discover and rediscover the joy

and wonder and awesome holiness of God, and making the BLOB

bigger and bigger and bigger. Jesus passes on to us the power

to change others for good. Now we're going to listen to the

song and this is a short message tonight after the song, I'm

almost done. We're going to listen to the

song for good, from the end of Wicked for Good.

And if you haven't seen the movies or the the theatrical

production, the two main characters are Alphaba and

Glenda. And they early on hate each

other, then they become close friends, then they become find

themselves on the opposite sides of the major ideological and

social issue of the Kingdom of God.

And in the end as they are reconciled, I think is maybe the

right word as their relationship and they are physically going to

be separated maybe for the rest of their lives.

They sing this song together. I think it's a beautiful song,

and as we listen to it, I'm going to play a lyric video.

I can't get a video clip of it because the movie's still in the

theaters, but we're going to play a lyric video.

I want you to just watch and listen to the lyrics and invite

you to think about this. Who in your life has touched you

and changed you for good? Let's reflect together.

At this point in the sermon, we listen to the song for good from

the movie Wicked for Good. For licensing reasons, I can't

include it here, but you can find it on YouTube and all major

music platforms. It's a beautiful song about how

two people can affect each other's lives and change each

other for good. I hope you'll listen to it.

Now back to the sermon. As you go into Christmas Day

tomorrow, maybe as you're lying in bed trying to go to sleep

tonight, as you walk through this coming year, when those

people come to your mind, people that have been in your life,

that have touched you in one way or another and you know they've

changed you for good, take a moment and pray a blessing for

them. Take a moment and thank God for

them. Take a moment and receive again

that blessing of having been changed for good.

And then as you take your next steps, as you're getting up

tomorrow morning and walking through this year, ask God, this

God, how can I, how can I be one of your people who when other

people encounter me, they're changed for good too?

This is the gift that we have in Jesus, who was born as one of

us, that he came not not to show off, not to simply display how

wonderful and powerful he is, but to touch us and change us so

that we can be part of changing others for good as well.

In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.