George MacDonald published three series of Unspoken Sermons, that is sermons that were written but not delivered in front of a live congregation.
Such is my sermon for this Christmas Eve. Above you can see the view from our front porch. The roads are getting messy. Sadly, we saw one car overturned while we were out and about earlier today. Thus, no Christmas Eve service at church tonight. However, here is the sermon I planned to preach....
We tend to notice the big things that happen in
our world and miss the small things. The news media focuses, for the most part,
on world-shaping events: the election of a president, conflict in the Middle
East, a natural disaster that kills hundreds of people in Southeast Asia. It is
almost as if someone or something wants us to pay attention to the big stuff
and ignore the small stuff.
Even in the Church, there is a tendency to focus
on the large and sensational while passing over the seemingly tiny and
insignificant. When pastors meet together at conventions of various sorts their
conversations often whirl around the three Bs: Buildings, Bucks, and Bodies. It
is hard, even for those who are supposed to be spiritual leaders, to talk about
what is close, small, intimate and personal. This perspective, unfortunately,
gets passed from pulpit to pew. Thus, the average Christian is fed on the idea
(through Christian media no less than the secular) that what really matters in
life is the big stuff. “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” we say. In a way, that is
a good maxim. However, in another way it is untrue to what matters to the heart
of God; the small stuff matters to him.
Hear what Dr. Luke has to tell us on this
Christmas Eve about the great and the small….
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a
census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census
that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to
his own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from
the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David,
because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register
with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave
birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a
manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
In our text for this evening from Luke 2, we
begin with the large and seemingly most important figure of first century world
history: Caesar Augustus. His given name was Gaius Octavius and he was born in
63 BC into an old, wealthy equestrian branch of the Plebeian Octavii family. Augustus was adopted posthumously by his maternal great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC following Caesar’s assassination. Augustus began his reign as
Emperor of the Roman Empire in 27 BC and ushered in an era of relative peace
known as the Pax Romana. In that same year, following
his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the Roman Senate voted him new titles, and he officially became Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus. “Divi Filius” means “Son of
the Divine”.
In a statue from the first century known as the
Augustus of Prima Porta, Augustus is clearly portrayed as divine. A tiny Cupid rides
a dolphin at Augustus’ feet, a reference to the idea that the Julian family was
descended from the goddess Venus.
The Cupid in this statue looks like a little
baby. If it were, what a perfect illustration, in a way, this statue would be
of what Luke is telling us. It is easy to spend our entire lives noticing the
big things of this world, the Augustuses, and miss the small things like a
baby. As N. T. Wright has said about Jesus:
The birth of this little
boy is the beginning of a confrontation between the kingdom of God—in all its
apparent weakness, insignificance and vulnerability—and the kingdoms of the
world. Augustus never heard of Jesus of Nazareth. But within a century or so
his successors in Rome had not only heard of him, they were taking steps to
obliterate his followers. Within just over three centuries the Emperor himself
became a Christian.
Sometimes the small things of this world, like
a baby, make a big difference in the long- run. As one unknown poet put it….
More light
than we can learn,
More wealth
than we can treasure,
More love than
we can earn,
More peace
than we can measure,
Because one
Child is born.
Vance Havner once wrote:
At Christmas we say much of the meaning of
His coming to earth, the mission, the message, but we sometimes overlook the
manner of his Advent. God set it up in a pattern we never would have dreamed.
He was born in a stable to a lowly peasant couple in an insignificant town in
an obscure corner of the Roman Empire. Think how we would have arranged it in
this publicity-mad day! That same pattern my Lord followed all His days; and
the Church might take a hint today, when Hollywood sets the style.[1]
***
After telling us of Augustus, Luke tells us about his
census. There is some historical difficulty making this census jive with the
time of Jesus’ birth. The census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria
happened after the time that Jesus
was born. One way of translating what Luke is writing here is to say that this
census came before the famous one
under Quirinius. We may never be able to work out this apparent historical
muddle. However, Luke’s point is clear. God used human circumstances, even the
decree of an emperor, to cause the Messiah to be born exactly where he wanted
it to happen: in Bethlehem, the town of David, thus clearly identifying Jesus
as the Davidic Messiah.
What circumstances might God be orchestrating behind the
scenes to bring about exactly what he wants to have happen in your life and in
mine?
Eight years ago tonight, we moved into our home in Monterey.
That may not seem very unusual to you, but it was to us. The reason it was
unusual was because we had been living in Ireland. We had moved to Ireland
using one-way plane tickets. We planned to spend over a year there. We even
looked into planting a church in Ireland. However, when we discovered that we
could not obtain visas to remain longer than a year, we started looking at the
possibility of returning to the United States. It was December and we were
planning to celebrate Christmas in our Irish home. At the same time, on the
Internet, we researched one-way airfares available over the coming six months.
We found one particular day, and one particular flight that was at least half
the cost of flying at any other time on any other flight or airline. We
concluded that this was a sign from God that he wanted us to return to the USA
on December 21, 2004. Thus, we bought our tickets and made the trip, at a cost
of only $1000 for all five of us.
My brother Roger had a house he was renting from someone in
order to house people who worked for the ministry of Youth Development that he
was running at that time. However, the house was empty and ready for us to move
in. The added bonuses were that it was and is a beautiful house and only a
block away from Highland County Public Schools.
Within two weeks after we moved into our new house, my
brother Roger was diagnosed with cancer. Five months later, he went home to be
with the Lord.
Those events eight years ago were among the most clearly
orchestrated of God in my entire life. If we had not come home to the United
States when we did, we would have been thousands of miles away from my extended
family at a time when they needed us. I believe God orchestrates, behind the
scenes, in both the small and large events of this world.
Sometimes the way God orchestrates circumstances is
pleasant. Sometimes it is not. It probably was not too pleasant for Mary, nine
months’ pregnant, to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Nor was it particularly
comfortable for her to give birth to her first child in a place fit for
animals. However, God had his good purpose in it all, and even though we do not
understand it at times, God has his good purpose in the way he is orchestrating
your circumstances and mine.
Paul says in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in
all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose.”
***
A third thing that Luke tells us about in
this passage is the story of something extremely large becoming very small. The
one who was and is bigger than the entire universe he created became tiny
enough to fit in a feeding trough for animals.
James R. Edwards tells the following story:
In August 1957 four climbers—two Italians
and two Germans—were climbing the 6,000 foot near-vertical North Face of the
Eiger in the Swiss Alps. The two German climbers disappeared and were never
heard from again. The two Italian climbers, exhausted and dying, were stuck on
two narrow ledges a thousand feet below the summit. The Swiss Alpine Club
forbade rescue attempts in this area (it was just too dangerous), but a small
group of Swiss climbers decided to launch a private rescue effort to save the
Italians. So they carefully lowered a climber named Alfred Hellepart down the
6,000 foot North Face. They suspended Hellepart on a cable a fraction of an
inch thick as they lowered him into the abyss.
Here’s how Hellepart described the rescue
in his own words:
As I was lowered down the summit … my
comrades on top grew further and further distant, until they disappeared from
sight. At this moment I felt an indescribable aloneness. Then for the first
time I peered down the abyss of the North Face of the Eiger. The terror of the
sight robbed me of breath. …The brooding blackness of the Face, falling away in
almost endless expanse beneath me, made me look with awful longing to the thin
cable disappearing about me in the mist. I was a tiny human being dangling in
space between heaven and hell. The sole relief from terror was …my mission to
save the climber below.
That is the heart of the Gospel story. We were trapped,
but in the person and presence of Jesus, God lowered himself into the abyss of
our sin and suffering. In Jesus God became “a tiny human being dangling between
heaven and hell.” He did it to save the people trapped below—you and me. Thus,
the gospel is much more radical than just another religion telling us how to be
good in our own power. It tells us the story of God’s risky, costly, sacrificial
rescue effort on our behalf.[2]
Our big God became something very tiny, in
order to usher us into a life larger than anything we can even describe.
However, can you imagine this: can you imagine
being one of those stranded climbers, and can you further imagine rejecting
Alfred Hellepart when he came down to rescue you?
Hard to imagine, is it not? Yet, that is what
many people do in response to God. It is an old, old story. It happened when
Jesus was first born and all throughout his life. At his first coming into the
world, there was no room for him in the inn.
Now I know we give the innkeeper a bad rap. After all, he
did not know who Mary and Joseph were. He did not know who the baby in Mary’s
womb was. Perhaps the innkeeper really had no room. Perhaps he gave to Mary,
Joseph and the baby Jesus the best he had.
However, the point is this: We have had it explained to us who Jesus is. Yet, often we still have
no room for him in the inn of our hearts and lives.
He who was and is bigger than the entire universe did not
simply become small on one occasion. He continues to become small enough to fit
inside a human soul, in fact every human soul that will admit him.
Have you any room for Jesus,
He who bore your load of sin?
As He knocks and asks admission,
Sinner, won’t you let Him in?
Room for Jesus, King
of Glory!
Hasten now His Word
obey;
Swing your heart’s
door widely open,
Bid Him enter while
you may.
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