Date:  December 19th, 2010

Speaker: Pastor Kevin Snyder

Title:  Radical Christmas - Part 2

 

Introduction

The birth of Jesus brought about the greatest paradigm shift in the history of the world.

Last week we talked about how it was announced by one of the more radical dudes you will find in John the Baptist.

• He talked about a shift that would change the landscape of the world.  A kingdom that would turn upside down the values of the world.
• He spoke of a shift that would call for a life direction shift. A shift that would change our heart and direction.
• He spoke of a shift that would rattle the religious world by speaking of a personal engagement with God through Jesus Christ.  

 

The question today is: How?

How did God shift the paradigm, change the world?

• Last week: What that shift would look like….
• Today: How?

 

The answer to that question is the “incarnation”.  God became flesh in Jesus Christ.

Phillip Yancey tells of a time when he had a salt-water aquarium.  He said managing it wasn’t as easy as he first thought.  He had to run a portable chemical laboratory to monitor the nitrate levels and the ammonia content.  He said he pumped in vitamins and antibiotics and sulpha drugs and enough enzymes to make a rock grow.  He filtered the water through glass fibres and charcoal, and exposed it to ultraviolet light.  He says, you would think for all the energy expended on their behalfthe fish would be grateful.  Were they?  No.

He said everytime his shadow loomed above the tank they dove for cover into the nearest shell.  They showed only one emotion: fear.

And although he opened the lid and dropped food on a regular schedule, 3x per day, they responded to each visit as a sure sign of his designs to torture them.  He couldn’t convince them of his true concern.

To the fish he was deity.  He was too large for them, his actions too incomprehensible. To truly change their perceptions and image of him, he would require an incarnation.  He’d need to become fish and speak to them in a language they could understand.

 

And that’s how it is with us.

Nearly every religion contains an element of fear when it comes to God.

• The Animist fears the unpredictability of God in storms and disasters.
• The Muslim fears what Allah might do if he doesn’t act rightly
• The Hindu brings sacrifices to the temple to gain protection.
• The Old Testament Hebrews associated fear with worship. 
• Touch the mountain when not invited and you were threatened with punishment. 
• Mishandle the ark of the covenant and you died.
• Enter the Holy Place and you’d never come out alive.
• They feared God so much that they shrank from pronouncing his name.

Our experience is like those fish until Jesus came and put a human person to it…and not a big, powerful, aggressive human…but a baby.

 

Incarnation literally means “to pitch a tent”.

The image of the Old Testament tabernacle comes to mind where it was a tent pitched in their midst with a cloud that would stay above it by day, and a pillar of fire by night. God camped with them in the wilderness.

In Jesus, God camped in human flesh among us.

 

Scripture says…

 

John 1:14 -14 So the Word became human?*? and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.?*? And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

 

Col 1:15 - Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.

He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,?*?

16      for through him God created everything

in the heavenly realms and on earth.

He made the things we can see

and the things we can’t see—

such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.

Everything was created through him and for him.

17      He existed before anything else,

and he holds all creation together.

18      Christ is also the head of the church,

which is his body.

He is the beginning,

supreme over all who rise from the dead.?*?

So he is first in everything.

19      For God in all his fullness

was pleased to live in Christ,

 

Hebrews 1:1-3 - Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. 2 And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. 3 The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

 

 

God did 3 things in this incarnation to communicate with us…to reach us…to change our world.

3 components to it.

 

1. HE ENTERED THE DARK & LOWLY PLACES OF OUR WORLD

He entered a stable, with lowly shepherds, in a little hic-town, called Behlehemin the backwoods of Israel.

He didn’t come in a palace but a lowly stable. 

2. HE EMBODIED GOD’S GLORY

• He was full of grace and truth.
• He modeled grace and authenticity (truth)
• He was the exact representation of the Father’s nature and being.
• In seeing him we see the heart and nature of the Father. 

3. HE CAME TO SERVE & TO DIE

Jesus described his purpose as coming to serve, to give his life as a ransom for many.

1 John 4:9-10:

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.  

 

 

APPLICATION

God changed our world in Jesus Christ through the incarnation…that’s the “How”

• Entering the dark places
• Embodying God’s glory
• Dying to self.

 

And Christmas that changes our world…that is more than fluff…and superficial niceness calls on us to take up Christ’s model.  To followhis example.

We too must do that …

 

Enter the Dark & Lowly Places with the presence of Jesus in sacrificial ways.

Let me ask: Are there ever times when you don’t like to get your hands dirty.  Places, situations, feel uncomfortable & like to “love from a distance.” I have those.

i.e.

Uganda – asked to speak & open a church in a slum of Kampala.  Park about 500 m away…walk down through conditions I had never seen.  Boxes, tin houses, ditch for scraps & sewer…broken off pipe where people got water

• Naked little kids with distended bellies all over
• Church Of God built a block church right in the middle of this slum area.
• Walked down I felt so “like I don’t want to be here”…mixture of fear, sorrow, inadequacy out of my element…long ways away from my home with clean water, bathrooms, nice bed, clothes…

 

I can relate to a story told by E Stanley Jones of his time in India.

Students took turns cleaning latrines.  One Indian from a higher caste when told that was his duty countered:

“I may be converted, but I’m not converted that far.”

 

There are dark & lowly places I’m not excited about entering.

 

There are times when the need calls for a bigger commitment than I want to give.

And it forces me to inwardly wrestle with God.

• Yet I know that one can’t change things without getting one’s hands dirty
• …without entering with another person the dark places of their life
• …without stooping and willing to go to lowly places

i.e.

Last Sunday – watched Dateline

Glimpse of one of the darkest places on earth to me…haunted me all week.

Suburb of Phenom Penh in Cambodia.

Program was entitled “Children for Sale”

Renown for its brothels.  But what sickened me was these brothels were filled with children.  Run by pimps and madams & filled with children as young as 5 sold to thepimps by parents for money or kidnapped from villages. These places exist because of Westerners & Russians who come and prey on these children. The pimp said “1 child for $30/ 2 for $60/ 3 for $90.

It is estimated 30,000 children are in sex trade in Cambodia.  I can’t fathom that.

 

Story of a family – Mom, Dad, 3 teens living in California who watched the program and couldn’t get away from it.

Sold their house, car, everything.  Left his lucrative job.  Moved to Cambodia and set up a rescue & safe center called “Hagar” for these girls.  Where they could get school, counselling, love, and food.

 

I couldn’t help but think

Would I do that? Am I converted that far? Am I willing to embrace the incarnation of Jesus so much as to enter into some of the darkest and lowliest places on earth?

Am I willing to enter into the depths of human pain in order to help?

 

And 2ndly, I wondered…if Jesus entered the world today would he be born in Cambodia? 

I was caught up in the thought of the “vulnerability of God” Entrusted to a young teenager in a difficult situation….left to be protected against the world of Herods, & soldiers…

I mean Bethlehem wasn’t safe. There too was a greedy, power-mongering king that would kill all the babies under 2 years old in order to keep his throne.

God entrusts his most precious commodities, children, into such hands…to protect them.  Praise God the Mary’s who will flee and do what is needed to protect children…here selling them…

 

Summary:

I don’t know about you, but I would much rather send a cheque…a card…an email.  I’d rather say “I’m praying for you” than be a good Samaritan.

• I’m tempted to cross on the other side of the road.
• I’d rather “someone else do it” at times.
• Because it’s costly. 
• It means I have to sacrifice time with friends,
• time doing something I enjoy,
• being around people when I want to be alone,
• taking the initiative when I wish someone else would
• phoning when I wish they’d phone

 

Think of it…

Thank God - that Jesus entered into our dark & lowly place called earth for us. 

• He entered into our existence to help lift us out.
• He entered.
• He brightened our existence with his presence
• He gave himself sacrificially for us.

 

POINT

As Christians, and as a church, we don’t make a difference in a community unless we are willing to follow our Lord and be incarnational…enter into the dark, lowly, and difficult places of life…in our community.

 

And one of the most surprising discoveries you will ever make is: When you do, you find Jesus already there.

 

There are a lot of dissatisfied, unhappy Christians who struggle with experiencing God.  Often they say…

• “Worship doesn’t do it for me.”
• “My small group isn’t any good.”
• “I can’t find God in my church…”

 

Friends, if that resonates with you.  Let me say to you “Get out of the house more often…challenge you to enter into a lowly, dark place in ministry. 

It is often in those lowly places that you experience Jesus in a remarkable way.

 

Let me add one more thing about that couple that moved to Cambodia. They were asked: “How can you live knowing all the problems and so limited to help?”

Great response: “I can’t focus on thinking what I am doing will solve the problem…it’s too big. I can’t solve the problem, I am here to help the people. I’m here to rescue & redeem lives.”

 

You see, most of the problems in our world we won’t fix.  That isn’t why we enter. We enter to help people.

i.e.

• You can’t fix all the bullying…but you can enter & incarnate Christ by defending someone in your class who is being bullied.
• You can’t fix poverty, but you can enter in and help one poor family like we did with “Adopt-a-Family”.
• You can’t fix the drug problem but you can befriend and enter into the life of one kid who is making some bad choices.
• You can’t fix or meet all the needs of people who maybe come to church…but you can enter into the journey of one

 

Solutions and changes come by entering into the dark & lowly places.

• Is there someone in your world that you need to walk towards? 
• Where do you need to follow Jesus and incarnate his love in that dark place?

Maybe it is as simple as…Greeting that new person near you at church.  Inviting them to be included in lunch.Seeking to get to know them.

 

Basic reality:

We can spend a lot of energy and time and effort to “wow” people.  Get there attention.  Attract them with lights, and glitz, and dramatics…but maybe the incarnation cuts through all the wrappings and gets to the core…entering quietly into the dark & lowly places. The stables.

Maybe the secret to change of Christmas that lasts beyond next week…change that lasts all year…is wrestling through…

“Am I converted that far?”

• To enter.
• To embody the authenticity & openness (truth) & grace of Jesus.
• To be willing to give of myself sacrificially for others.

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* Greek became flesh.

* Or grace and truth; also in 1:17.

Tyndale House Publishers: Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 2nd ed. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, S. Jn 1:14

* Or He is the firstborn of all creation.

* Or the firstborn from the dead.

Tyndale House Publishers: Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 2nd ed. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, S. Col 1:15-19

Tyndale House Publishers: Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 2nd ed. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, S. Heb 1:1-3

Tyndale House Publishers: Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 2nd ed. Wheaton, Ill. : Tyndale House Publishers, 2004, S. 1 Jn 4:9-10