Dr. Tom Pace

December 24, 2018

Luke 2:1-20

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. Luke 2:1-20

Join me in prayer. Gracious God, open us up, open our eyes that we might see and our ears that we might hear what you have for us today. Open our hearts that we might feel and then O Lord open our hands that we might serve. Amen.

I met the most interesting, amazing guy the other day. I can’t tell you the impact he’s had on me. It’s really remarkable. There’s something about him. I think what I noticed most is that he seems to just find people who everybody else seems to be ignoring or don’t want to be with. He makes a beeline for them, picks them out of a crowd to be with them. He listens and talks with them. I found that so winsome, so attractive. When I’m with him, it’s like he really listens to me. I find myself telling this guy all sorts of things that I didn’t really want to tell anybody. I think “why did I just tell him that?” When I’m with him I find that I want to be a better person. I find something changing, just being with him makes things better for me. In fact, I just find him so amazing that I think I’m going to talk to Dee and see if he can just move in with us.

I hope by now you realize that I’m talking about Jesus. That is the Christmas message; let’s get really clear about what Christmas is about; we talk about a baby; lots of focus on innocence but the essence of the Christmas message is that God decided to be a man, to become a human being. When God decided that God was going to redeem the world, to turn everything around, to reclaim his children, he didn’t send a book, he didn’t send rules for us to follow, or principles for us to apply to our lives. He sent a man. He came himself as a man to love and be loved. That’s the Christmas message. God incarnate.

We read from the Gospel of Luke, but the Gospel of John has a Christmas message too. A Christmas story, it’s just very different, a theological story. I’ve printed on the front of your bulletin our theme message for our Christmas Eve services this year, our theme verse. It’s from John 1:14 and I put it here in The Message translation (translated by Eugene Peterson). He passed away last year. The Message version of scripture, if you want to start reading the Bible start with that. It’s a great translation. Here’s how he translates that one verse, the word became flesh, the revelation of God, God’s overture to us, became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a kind glory, like Father like Son. Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

When I was preparing for this message I looked up at my wall and I have a framed picture that a member of St. Luke’s gave me after a sermon series some years ago. In it there’s a long quotation from a sermon by Martin Luther King, Jr. called “The Drum Major Instinct” that he preached on February 4th, 1968. Let me read to you just a piece of it. I know a man and I want to talk about him a minute. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a poor peasant woman. He worked as a carpenter until he was 30 years old. Then for 3 years he just got on his feet and was an itinerant preacher. He went about doing some things. He didn’t have much. He never wrote a book, never held an office, never had a family, never owned a house, never went to college. Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever-entered human history. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever met, all the kings put together have not affected the life of man on earth as much as this one solitary life. His name may be a familiar one to you, Jesus. He didn’t have anything, he just went around serving and doing good.

Friends, that’s the man I met, that’s so amazing, that’s so attractive, that’s so life-changing and I want to invite him to move in with us. When Jesus moved into the neighborhood, what that gave us the opportunity to do is invite him into our lives.

I want to lift up three things. First, because Jesus, God, chose to move into the neighborhood we can invite him into our families to be a part of our lives. There’s a whole genre of musical theatre about what happens when someone moves into a family. The Sound of Music, Fraulein Maria moves into the Von Trapp’s and now music has returned, and love has returned, and everything is wonderful again. Then another musical – really the same musical just different names, same actress, Mary Poppins. She moves into the family, and everybody is happy again. Now there’s laughter and love together. When someone moves in everything changes.

I used to love to watch the reality TV show Super Nanny. There would be these families with out of control children and they would invite this super nanny to come in and take over and all of the sudden order and discipline would be restored. I wonder what would happen - I want you to think about it a minute. How would your family, your life, be different if Jesus moved into the spare bedroom? How would conversations be at your dinner table, or at the breakfast table, or how you worked out challenges and issues?

In 1951 there was a children’s book that came out that my daughter pointed me to recently. It was a classic. I had forgotten that we had it. If Jesus Came to My House, you may have had it. If Jesus came to my house I’d like him to be about the age of I am and close to the height of me. I’d offer him my rocking chair, it’s such a comfy seat, and at the pleasant little fire place he’d warm his feet. And with my bricks I’d build him a palace of his own and he should be the little king and sit upon the throne. What a beautiful picture of a child. But what about your family? What if Jesus actually moved in? I would tell you things are different then. There is incredible love and grace, and at the same time there is truth and accountability. There is a sense of purpose that draws you together to accomplish, to be all about the kingdom of God together. There’s a sense of hope for tomorrow, if Jesus just moves in.

Here’s the second think I think it means. Because Jesus moved into the neighborhood you can invite him to move into your pain, the broken and difficult places in your life.

I had the opportunity to hear Jimmy Dorrell not too long ago speak at an event. He is the Founder of Mission Waco. You may be familiar with Church Under the Bridge. That’s one of the ministries that’s from Mission Waco. A number of decades ago he and his family decided to move into a neighborhood in north Waco. A blighted neighborhood full of crime and poverty and all sorts of difficulties. He tells the story that he had kids and a wife, and his father-in-law was not happy at all about this decision. To quit his job and move into a terrible neighborhood to see what we can do. But, to hear him talk about it, he talks about it as incarnational ministry. That’s the Christmas story, God made flesh. Here’s how he describes it, But you know that’s what incarnational ministry is about. That is what Jesus did. He didn’t stay God, but he became a human and moved into the pain of the world. Jesus moved into the pain.

Leonard Cohen has a song called Anthem that I’ve always loved just one line of, ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, everything has a crack in it, that’s how the light gets in. Everything has a crack. Here’s a more straight-forward, maybe crass, way of describing it. Maybe you’ve seen the movie Black Hawk Down. They crash and there’s a big fire fight going on in Somalia. A lot of people are shot, and the officer says to one of the enlisted men, Get in the truck and drive us all out of here. The enlisted man says, but sir I’m wounded, and the officer looks at him and says, Son, we’re all wounded, shut up and drive. I’ve thought about that a lot. We are all wounded, everybody has got a place of pain, a place of grief, regret, betrayer or betrayed. Who know what the wound is? What we want to do too often is say, Okay, Jesus I wanted to invite you in to the respectable places in my life. I want to invite you in to those things, come on in. We’ll do that stuff but just don’t come in to this place where I’ve got a problem. We cordon it off like grandmother’s living room. You can come in but just don’t mess with that. Here’s the problem with that. That’s where Jesus wants to be born. That’s the mangers of our lives, those places of pain, so Jesus can move into our homes, our pain. But for all that to happen we have to invite Jesus into our hearts.

I began with John 1, the word made flesh, but as you move deeper into John, in what we call the Book of Glory, when Jesus is on his way to the cross and he’s talking to his disciples and he uses a word that’s similar. He says to his disciples, abide in me and I will abide in you. Abide is one of those church words we don’t use. We don’t say, Hey, where do you abide? It means where do you live. When he says abide in me and I’ll abide in you he is inviting us to ask him to move in.

Joyce Kilmer is a Poet from the 1900’s. He didn’t get to write a lot of poetry because in 1917 he enlisted and became part of a famous squadron called The Fighting 69th regiment and went to France. In July 1918, he was killed at age 31. Much of his poetry has a religious bent to it, and he has this one poem that’s called Gates and Doors. I love it because it’s from the perspective of the innkeeper. Joseph and Mary come to the innkeeper’s door. He wants to let them in but he’s afraid to let them in. He doesn’t know what to do and he’s struggling with that decision and he finally lets them sort of halfway in by letting them stay in the stable. Here’s the last verse of it, so unbar you heart this evening, and keep no stranger out. Take from your soul’s great portal the barrier of doubt. To humble folk and weary give hearty welcoming and your breast shall be tomorrow the cradle of the king.

There are a number of turning points in my life. The day I got married, the day my first child was born, the day I was ordained as a pastor. These are all moments that from that point on nothing was every quite the same, everything turned on that moment. The most important turning point in my life was the moment I invited Jesus to move in. When I met this amazing man, met him in scripture, met him in the faces of the community and invited him to come and live with me, to live in my heart. There have been times where we drifted apart. Times that we seem so close, but he never left, refused to move out, and things have never been the same. Christmases come and go. You mark them, another Christmas, another Christmas, and as I get older they come faster and faster. It’s funny how that happens. What if this Christmas was not just a regular Christmas? What if this was one of those turning points which for you you said, he’s moved into the neighborhood, I want him to move into my heart and life, maybe for the first time, maybe again?

In a few moments we are going to celebrate holy communion and we’ve talked about the first chapter of John and John 15. In the Revelation to John at the end of the Bible Jesus says, Behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him and he with me. At the time of Christ, you didn’t eat with people you didn’t love. Eating with them was a sign of an intimate relationship. That’s why they harassed Jesus because he ate with tax collectors and sinners. It implied this intimate relationship of love. When you come for communion that’s an opportunity to invite him in and let him move into your heart and your life will never be the same.

Gracious, loving God, thank you so much that you did not choose to remain far off, away from us, but became a human being that you might be with us. And since you are so close, God, we pray that you would move into our hearts, our lives, our families, even our pain, and that because of that our lives would never be the same. Amen.