"And Now ... - Encountering Jesus.
"
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Text: Luke 2:22-40
Over the last few days, a number of people have been talking to me about the year we are about to leave behind - 2008. Some people have shared that it has been a terrible year. For some, it has been a year of trouble; for some a year of grief; for some it has been a great year. For me, 2008 has been an interesting year. Several of us on staff have had significant birthdays which, at least, I am having a little trouble getting used to. As if to drive the point home, I have also had to deal with some things the others haven't, like becoming something called a “father-in-law,” and even worse, something called a “grandparent.” It just doesn't make any sense to me. I remember my early 20s as if they were yesterday … but, they're gone. Getting older was always something other people complained about, not me. Yet, alas, it creeps up on all of us and sometimes surprises us, like the time I looked at my new gym membership and took a second, and third, and a fourth glance at the box entitled, “age.”
Now, I know that some people out there are shaking their heads and saying, “What are you talking about, McMaster? I only wish I were your age.” But this is new territory for me and you have to know that I am looking back at others and saying the same thing, “Oh, to be 25 again.” Probably like you at some point, I, now, have to face the question, “and now what?” What do I do about this age-factor? Do I get depressed about it or embrace it as a new reality and opportunity?
I have three children. Two are still at home, more or less, that is when one is not at university. The one who has left home blessed me with grandchildren and I say “grandchildren” because there are two of them. Being a double grandparent means I really am one. My son and his wife live in Virginia Beach. As a wider family, we had looked forward to the births of these little ones for months. I had regular updates by telephone about how the pregnancy was going. There was great excitement. But now they are here and now what?
I flew down to see the new arrivals last month and within an hour, the memories of having babies came flooding back. Almost as soon as I stepped into Tom's house, one of the babies was crying. I picked him up and calmed him down before putting him back in the crib. I was feeling good - I still had it in me to settle babies. But in this case, as soon as he was settled the other one started, so I picked him up, calmed him, and put him back in the crib. I was still feeling good - a job well done. But as soon as that was done the first one started crying again, then the second, then the first. Either these twins were playing games with me, or this twin thing was going to be much more difficult than I'd ever imagined. Only one hour in and I was going crazy. I began to feel sorry for Tom and Sabrina who have to live with this. As with all babies, one moves from the excitement of the baby coming to the reality of its existence very quickly. One gets into that “and now what?” moment and has to decide whether to treat the diapers, the sleepless nights, the illnesses, the expenses begrudgingly as some sort of monotonous, interfering routine, or whether one is going to embrace it as a marvellous opportunity and privilege to raise a child in this world.
Not unlike these, “and now what?” moments, over the last couple of months we have been “dreaming of a white Christmas.” Stores were decorated with the bold colours of the season. Christmas music invited us to “jingle all the way.” The weatherman did not let us down, the dreamy, white stuff was right across the nation on Christmas Day. In the Church, Advent helped build excitement. Trees and decorations went up and candles were lit each week as we waited and waited for Christmas and the coming of the baby Jesus; or at least, the celebration of his advent. But now that Christmas Day has come and gone we must ask, “And now what?” Do we go back to the same old? Do we go back to the routine of living out our lives in the cold, sometimes dreary, Canadian winter? Do we just go back to work, school, and the humdrum of our lives? Or does Christmas change anything? Does the coming of this baby alter anything? That question keeps coming up, “and now what?”
2,000 years ago, Mary and Joseph's excitement may have dimmed as the baby kept them up at night, as they dealt with whatever they used for diapers in antiquity, as they got down to the day-to-day business of looking after a baby; but there was something different about this baby. They kept getting glimpses of something greater.
Lesser known than the accounts surrounding the birth of Jesus with the angels, the shepherds, and the kings; there is, in Luke's Gospel, the account of when Mary and Joseph took the baby Jesus to the temple to make the customary sacrifice to God for the firstborn son. There was a man there, Simeon, who was righteous and devout. Simeon had probably gone to the temple hundreds of times in his lifetime. He had bowed down, he had prayed, he had witnessed hundreds of infants being brought into the temple precincts and their parents doing their duty in accordance with the law. But guided by the Spirit, on this occasion, he knew there was something different about this child. He took the baby in his arms, and probably with a smile and great joy, he praised God saying, “Now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation…a light for revelation of the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel (2:29-32).”
Joseph and Mary were amazed and as if that were not enough, another random person came to them; an older woman, a prophet named Anna. When Anna saw the child she began to praise God and spoke about the child and redemption to all around her. There were continual glimpses that there was something different going on here and it forced them and it forces us, on this fourth day of the Christmas season, to ask the question, “and now what?”
And now what? Are we merely to focus on the coming of a baby and then get “back to porridge,” back to the mundane? Or is there something so different about this baby that life is altered? The testimony of those who wrote about Jesus was a categorical, “Yes!” Yes, there was something different. Yes, God was at work. Yes, God was bringing about the salvation of the world. And perhaps if we take the time to look at Christmas in light of the bigger picture of what God was doing, it would help us to see. Perhaps, if we really looked at the birth as the coming of God to be with us, in Hebrew, 'Immanu 'el, (Isaiah 7:14) we would understand. Perhaps, if we truly noted that this was the beginning of a new story with God, a new revelation of God, a new revelation of his word, a new stage in our relationship with him, a revelation that involved God's son dying horribly, showing that he can defeat death and rise again. Perhaps, if we could bring all these parts of the Jesus story together again, we would be unable to go back to business as usual; we would find something different there, something incredible, something transformational.
Those who lived with Jesus found that interaction with him was transformational. The eyewitnesses and those who heard them, said some incredible things about him as an adult. Mark, Matthew, Luke and John told us about a man with a powerful moral teaching. They saw miraculous things take place. Ten lepers, for instance, meet him on the road and are healed. One is so moved that he goes back, praising God, and he can just fall at Jesus feet. If you know the plague of leprosy, you will realize that this man's life was totally transformed (Luke 17:11ff.). Another described as a demoniac encounters him and the man is so moved that he wants to join Jesus' disciples and follow him forever (Mark 5:18). Out on the Sea of Galilee in the midst of a storm, the disciples fear for their lives but, as Jesus calms the waters, they are “filled with great awe and say to one another, 'Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?' (Mark 5:41).”
It's not just miraculous things, his mere presence seems to bring transformation. He meets a taxman named Zacchaeus and by the end of the meal they shared, Zacchaeus pledges half his possessions to the poor and to pay back anyone he has defrauded four times over. “Today, salvation has come to this house,” says Jesus (Luke 19:8f.). A woman caught in adultery is brought to him. She is about to suffer capital punishment by way of stoning and in the midst of the hostile voices, Jesus merely asks that the person with no sin cast the first stone. As the woman's judges saunter away, he says, “Has no one condemned you?” She says, “No one, Lord.” And he says, “Then neither do I … Go your way and sin no more (John 8:11).” That woman's future possibilities were altered dramatically and it just goes on and on; many who encountered Jesus had their lives absolutely transformed.
What really got the message across, however, was the resurrection. Those who followed him had seen him beaten and placed to die on a Roman cross on a trumped up charge. They placed his body in a tomb but when, after the Sabbath, a number of women went to anoint the body, it was gone. Moments later, the women saw him alive again. Then Peter and John saw him alive and as many as 500 people (1 Corinthians 15:6), and then, “as to one untimely born,” he appeared to Paul. There was indeed something different here; something magnificent, something mysterious, something incredibly fascinating about this Jesus whose coming we have just celebrated. So much so that one of his eye-witnesses, Peter, said, “Know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah (Acts 2:36) ... everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21).” Paul said, “he is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead … For in him, the fullness of the deity was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:18-20).” John said, “In the beginning was the word … and the word became flesh and lived among us, we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth … The true light, which enlightens everyone, came into the world ... to all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the power to become children of God (John 1:1, 14, 9, 12).”
What they are saying here is, “We have learned about Jesus and if a person truly encounters the son of God, it can never be 'the same old' again.” What happens is a transformation of the whole person. It is a matter of grace, a grace that changes lives, a grace that says, “God accepts you no matter what, now go do something with that.” It isn't the cheap grace that has become so fashionable to speak about in pop-Christianity, whereby a person meets Jesus, experiences grace and then carries on with life as if nothing happened. We really have to get rid of that reductionist view of grace and of Jesus, you know the one, “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” the Jesus who will love us and be gracious to us regardless of what we do. I'm not sure who promulgated that concept but it's not true to the character of the Gospels. If you read about Jesus, he can be meek and mild but not always. The character of the Gospels can take up a whip and crack it to cleanse the temple, he can demand that a person put God above their nearest and dearest and even life itself (Luke 14:26), he suggests turning the other cheek, suffering on his account, taking up a cross, laying down one's life for one's friends, he talks about judgment and he does not hold back from speaking about our accountability to God. Jesus is much more complex than the gentle Jesus, meek and mild theme we have heard about. Jesus comes to us with grace, yes, but it is a holistic grace - a grace that offers us a clean slate, a new relationship with God, a fresh start, and an opportunity to go out and be and do something significant in the world. Remember what he said to the woman caught in adultery. It wasn't just, “Then neither do I condemn you, off you go.” It was, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more … go and make some changes … go and be transformed.”
I think that this is why Simeon's prophecy about Jesus includes the words, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel.” Because in any encounter with Jesus we all must face the question, “And now what?” And now what? Will we go back to “the same old?” Some will come to Bethlehem, look at the baby, and carry on with their lives as they always have. But others will come and see God and what God was doing. And in seeing, their lives will be transformed.
I know some people worry about that. They don't want to get into anything too radical. But a Christ transformation doesn't mean that one has to become a minister or a missionary or that you have to stop having fun. It does mean change, changing and giving priority in life to God and the things of God. It means looking at the world in a different way and putting much of life in a different perspective as you go about your day. Like the medical doctor I know who volunteers to take a shift in the Emergency Room every Christmas. I sent her a note a few days ago, asking if she minded being away from her family on one of the most significant family days of the year. She responded by outlining the many things she had already done with her family over the month of December. “It is a blessing to work in the hospital on Jesus' birthday,” she continued. “In many ways, having to care for sick and needy on Dec 25th makes it easier to celebrate the coming of Christ.”
“Hmmm!” I thought. The God who transforms us has come. At Christmas, we encounter him again. And now....... what will you do with that? Amen.