The God Who Comes Among Us
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, December 25, 2011
St. John 1:14; St. Matthew 1:23
“All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (which means, God with us) (Mt.1:23; Is.7:14).”
What an incredible, paradoxical, almost impossible assertion Matthew makes at the beginning of his Gospel. Think about it. Think about God for a moment, the power and the force behind all that exists. Sometimes I think our ideas of God are not adequate. Maybe it comes from the fact that we live in neighbourhoods. We may work in another neighbourhood, but most of our time is spent in a fairly confined area. We think about God who brought all things into being, and we think about the world and the neighbourhood that we know, and we think God made that. But that may cause us to think too little of God. We need bigger thoughts. As one of my Jamaican friends puts it, “When it come to God, ya gotta t'ink big, man.”
Sometimes we are able to travel and we can go around the nation that we live in and see the splendour of the Rockies, the expanse of the prairies, the extent of the Great Lakes, and the wonder of East Coast. We think about God, the One who brought this great Dominion into being, yet that is still going to give us too small a conception of God. A few years ago, I travelled a couple of times across the Pacific to Australia and then across that great continent to Western Australia. It was about 24 flying hours to the other side of the world and through that travel I became aware of the size of this world we live in. I thought about God bringing all of that about and, yet again, that still is not taking me to the greatness of God. There are a few individuals who have flown out of our atmosphere and gone to the moon. Those Apollo astronauts, looked back from outer space and described our planet as “whole and round and beautiful and small,” a blue, green, and tan globe suspended in space. Jim Lovell said that it was just another body out there in space … but because, he knew, that is where his life was, he said that it was the most beautiful thing that he saw in the heavens.” And that brings us to the heavens. According to scientific estimates, the universe is immensely large. The region “visible” from earth stretches out 46 billion light years. The diameter of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is roughly 100,000 light years. When you consider that one light year is just under 10 trillion kilometres, I don't know how many millions of trips to Australia that would be, but when you consider the expanse of the universe, we begin to get a sense of what must be the power and being of the one who gave life to all things.
I want you to come back with me now to our world and the 1980s. You may have had your own experiences of this kind, but it was in 1985 that my first child was born. We were in St. Andrews, Scotland. Early in the night, my wife said that things were stirring. Around 5:00 a.m., we got into the little Peugeot we had and made the trek westward past Leuchars Air Force Base, north over the Tay Bridge into Dundee, and a little west to the Ninewells Hospital. It was a long labour, but 16 hours later, I was holding a baby in my arms. The midwife said to me, “Do you see what you have?”
And I said, “Yes, it's a baby!”
And she said, “Yes, and he's a boy.”
And I said, “O yes, right, of course.” Today, he is a big, strong man, serving as the lead, petty officer on his naval vessel, but not quite 27 years ago, he was a 9lb infant, wondering what had just happened, crying a little, in need of his mother and father for everything. We fed him, we changed diapers, we clothed him, we changed him again, we clothed him again. We fed him more and more. We comforted him when he was in pain, cared for him when he was ill, tried our best to guide him step by step as he grew and grew.
Just think! What is being said in the Gospels is that the one who brought the expanse of the Milky Way and all things into being became present in something like that baby I held in my arms. As St. John puts it, “the Word (that is a divine epithet) became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth (Jn.1:14).” That is an incredible assertion, absolutely incredible. John knew it was incredible too, he may not have understood every thing about it, but he said that he had to declare what he had seen and heard and touched with his hands (1Jn.1:1). He wrote of Jesus' life, teaching, mighty works; and of his passion, death and resurrection. He wrote of the occurrences that had led him to the realization that, the Word really had become flesh and dwelt among us. He had experienced things so magnificent, events so outside of common experience that he gave his life over to telling the story. “He wrote,” he says, “that you too may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name (Jn.20:31).”
We've spoken about God. We've spoken about a baby which became a man. John says, he “dwelt among us.” Matthew says, “and his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us.”
I don't know about you but it seems almost an innate aspect of our humanity that we like to have someone with us. It may not be all the time, but we feel safer, more comfortable, more able to take things on when there's someone else with us. Whether it is a loving partner, a friend, or even a stranger, there's something about having another with us on the paths of life and particularly when we go through trials and the dark places of life.
2011 has been quite a year. I've been close to people who have lost loved ones. A friend committed a nonsensical suicide. Another is finding it difficult to make ends meet and I sometimes wonder if she's going to make it. Yet other friends are concerned about their child who is troubled by addiction. Many people struggling, in need of help, perhaps, in need of God. So when we say, “God is with us,” what does that mean?
Maybe it is something like the story that my sister-in-law sent to me, the other day, entitled, Christmas Eve 1881. The story is of a young man who writes: Pa never had much compassion; but for real needs, his heart was as big as the outdoors. I was fifteen years old and feeling like the world had caved in on me because there just hadn't been enough money to buy me the rifle that I'd wanted for Christmas (remember, it's 1881). Pa and I finished the chores and after supper, I took my boots off and stretched out in front of the fireplace. I waited for Pa to get down the old Bible. But instead he bundled up again and went outside. When he came back, he said, "Come on, Matt, bundle up, it's cold out tonight." I was really upset then. Not only was I not getting a rifle for Christmas, but now Pa was dragging me out in the cold for no earthly reason that I could see. Begrudgingly, I put my boots back on and got my cap, coat, and mittens.
Outside, Pa had already hitched up the work team to the big sled. Whatever it was we were going to do, it wasn't going to be a short or quick. Pa pulled the sled around to the woodshed. He went in and came out with an armful of wood. "Pa," I asked, "what are you doing?" “You been by the Widow Jensen's lately?" he asked. The Widow Jensen's husband had died a year or so before and left her with three children, the oldest being eight. “Yeah," I said, "Why?" "Well, I rode by just today," Pa said. "Little Jakey was out digging around in the woodpile trying to find a few chips. They're out of wood, Matt." That was all he said and then he turned and went back into the woodshed for another armful of wood. I followed and we loaded the sled so high that I began to wonder if the horses would be able to pull it.
Then we went to the smoke house and Pa took down a big ham and a side of bacon. He handed them to me and told me to put them in the sled and wait. When he returned he was carrying a sack of flour over his right shoulder and a smaller sack of something in his left hand. "What's in the little sack?" I asked. “Shoes, they're out of shoes. Little Jakey just had gunny sacks wrapped around his feet when he was out in the woodpile this morning. I got the children a little candy too. It just wouldn't be Christmas without a little candy."
We rode the two miles to Widow Jensen's pretty much in silence. I tried to think through what Pa was doing. We didn't have much by worldly standards. We came in from the blind side of the Jensen house and unloaded the wood as quietly as possible, then, we took the meat and flour and shoes to the door. We knocked. The door opened a crack and a timid voice said, "Who is it?" "Lucas Miles, Ma'am, and my son, Matt... could we come in for a bit?" Widow Jensen opened the door and let us in. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The children were wrapped in another and were sitting in front of the fireplace by a very small fire that hardly gave off any heat at all. Widow Jensen fumbled with a match and finally lit the lamp. "We brought you a few things, Ma'am," Pa said and set down the sack of flour. I put the meat on the table. Then Pa handed her the sack that had the shoes in it. She opened it hesitantly and took the shoes out, one pair at a time. There was a pair for her and one for each of the children - sturdy shoes, the best.... shoes that would last. I watched her carefully. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling and then tears filled her eyes and started running down her cheeks. She looked up at Pa like she wanted to say something, but it wouldn't come out. "We brought a load of wood too, Ma'am," Pa said. He turned to me and said, "Matt, go bring in enough to last awhile. Let's get that fire up to size and heat this place up."
I wasn't the same person when I went back out to bring in the wood. I had a big lump in my throat and as much as I hate to admit it, there were tears in my eyes too. In my mind, I kept seeing those three kids huddled around the fireplace and their mother standing there with tears running down her cheeks with so much gratitude in her heart that she couldn't speak. My heart swelled within me and a joy that I'd never known before filled my soul. I had given at Christmas many times before, but never when it had made so much difference. When I returned, the widow Jensen looked on with a smile, something that probably hadn't crossed her face for a long time. She finally turned to us. "God bless you," she said. "I know the Lord has sent you. The children and I have been praying that he would send one of his angels to spare us."
Out on the sled, as we drove home, I felt a warmth that came from deep within and I didn't even notice the cold. Now that rifle seemed very low on any list of priorities. Pa had given me much more than a rifle that night, he had given me the best Christmas of my life.
God is with us. The great God who fashioned the entirety of the universe, the divine Word that became flesh and lived among us is still with us. American preacher, William Willimon says, “The incarnation, the Word made flesh, is the supreme example of God's determination … to be with us no matter what it takes.” What does God with us mean? As in the story, Christmas 1881, sometimes God is with us through his people, people influenced by Jesus, people who, when the chips are down, when calamity hits, they are there to help us through. Sometimes, we have needs that are different, spiritual, emotional, intellectual. There are times God is with us in some mystical, indescribable way that perhaps is best assigned to the realm of the Spirit - some comfort, guidance, help to get through difficult life-situations. And then there's that issue called life. We ask questions with people of all ages: What is this life? What happens when we die? Is there more to life than this? John says it well because of what he had experienced in Jesus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him, should not perish but have eternal life (3:16).” I love the majesty of the third stanza of Charles Wesley's carol, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing. Steeped in scripture and his experience of God, Wesley wrote:
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Think of the greatness of God. Think of him laying “his glory by” and coming to us as a babe. He comes to bring light, life, healing, and eternity. We find these things in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The challenge is for us to believe. Perhaps, if you don't, you would think about finding out more. One way to do that would be to read John's Gospel. It doesn't take that long. It's about 20 pages or so. Why don't you give it a go this Christmas season and, as you read, try to discover what drove John, what made him give his life at any cost to tell this particular story. It was the story that moved Pa in Christmas 1881, the story that has moved countless men and women over the centuries, the story that led the forefathers and foremothers of this congregation to build this marvellous church and dedicate it to the glory of God. It is the story that brings life. God is with us!