Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · December 10, 2006

Second Sunday of Advent

Prayer of the Day

As we light the second candle of Advent, may we reflect on our own readiness for receiving God’s hope in our midst.  Receiving God’s hope means welcoming light into the dark places, peace into the jagged places.  It means making possible a world where wolves can live with lambs, and the peoples of the earth will not bring harm to each other.  May our lives reflect that light as we dare to hope and pray for a world of peace.  Amen.

Scripture

Luke 2:4-6 and 2 Corinthians 9:15

We have two texts today.  They are very familiar.  It is a wonderful narrative of the nativity scene for us.  Here begins the reading.

Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem, because he belonged to the house and lineage 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 first born, a child, a son.  And she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Another Christmas verse that you may not associate with Christmas is found in 2 Corinthians 9:15.  It’s just one verse.  Paul is writing and he says:

 Thanks be to God for God’s indescribable gift.

This is the Word of the Lord for us this day.

Message

Some Things Are Priceless

Rick Frost

Since the Christmas season began several weeks ago, one word that I think has fallen from the lips of many is the one word I would like to lift up today. 

It is probably not the word “decoration,” even though there are some beautiful decorations around.  Even though my brother-in-law’s house can be seen from the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles.  There are nativity scenes, and sleighs, and reindeer doing strange things on the lawn.  The Grinch of Christmas is up on the roof with the six-gazillion lights.  It’s just amazing.  However, I don’t think that’s the word I hear most. 

“Music” is a wonderful word, and it’s a wonderful time of year for music.  We just listened to some beautiful music here in worship.  Anne Murray’s been here in town.  “The Nutcracker,” and Handel’s “Messiah” are in the air.  As we have said, “The Many Moods of Christmas” is coming next week to Broadway.  It’s going to be a wonderful time.  But I don’t think “music” is the word we hear most often this season.

The word I hear most often this season is the word “gift.”  Now most of us have lists of gifts we would like to give friends, coworkers, small-group brothers and sisters, family we have here, family we have elsewhere, gifts to Rickman Center, gifts to Broadway Christian Church, the gift of blood, the gift of life, the gifts to poor children who are in foster care.  Gifts, gifts, gifts. 

As most of you know, there are people who are pretty hard to shop for.  Have you found that out?  I love that scene in Shall We Dance?  Has anyone seen it?  I keep forgetting you all don’t go to the movies.  Susan Sarandon is saying to her husband, played by Richard Gere, who is one of those guys who never wants anything, “Just once I’d like to know what you really want that comes in a box.”

You know people like that.  They’re hard to shop for.

Of course, then there are the people who are on the other side of that.  I remember one of our children (I’m not allowed to mention names anymore) who used to provide Mom and Dad with a single-spaced, typewritten list of the things we might wish to get her.  Then on top of that, there was the single-spaced, typewritten list of things that were absolutely not optional.  Did you ever get any of those?  It was amazing.

As I said earlier, we’re going to focus on gifts today.  2 Corinthians 9 is one of the best passages in Scripture, because I think it’s not in the mix.  It’s not usually found in the setting of the nativity scene.  It’s out there somewhere else.  But it should appear on every Christmas card, because it’s uttered by a brilliant man, who wasn’t even there at the scene.  He was a very keen thinker, a talented theologian, a capable communicator, and a person with a broad, huge vocabulary.  Indeed, more of his writings appear in the New Testament than anyone else’s writings.  Yet, he pauses literally in the text when he comes to this simple four-letter word, “gift.”  And he says that this gift is indescribable.  Isn’t that interesting?

Paul chooses a word, that scholars say, exists nowhere else in all of Scripture.  He coined a word.  Sort of like the word “Google” that got added to the dictionary last year.  Paul coined a word – the word we translate “indescribable.”  Suddenly, here is one who is at a loss for words, which, if you read Paul very much, you know this doesn’t happen very often.  He simply says that the gift God gives us in Christ Jesus is indescribable.

What’s the gift?  Well, that’s our first text today.  Dr. Luke tells us.  He says, “And the time came for Mary to give birth, and she gave birth to her first-born son, and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and placed him in a manger, and laid him there in the feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Please note these words, ones we don’t usually focus on: “She wrapped him.”  She wrapped the gift, the indescribable gift of God.  Folks, on this Second Sunday of Advent, a time when we Christians prepare for the birth of Jesus, I want to focus on the word “wrapping.”  The Bible says that the baby Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, all of God that could be placed in a human being, came wrapped, and it wasn’t with ribbons and bows.  He came wrapped, I suggest, with three things.  He came wrapped: 1) in prophecy, 2) in history, and 3) most importantly, in mystery.  Let’s see if we can get through those three. 

I suggest that God first wrapped God’s indescribable gift to us in prophecy.  Now, that’s not a word we use a great deal nowadays.  The word “prophet,” in the dictionary, is defined as a person who can foretell the future.  But that’s not what the Bible calls prophecy at all.  Prophecy, in the Bible, is that understanding of history which accepts meaning only in terms of divine concerns, divine purpose, divine participation.  It’s about God.  It’s about God’s plans.  It’s about God’s desires for God’s creation.  It’s about God’s activity in God’s creation.  What does God what?  What’s God going to do?  And when God does it, what happens? 

God in Christ, folks, did not just show up one day in Bethlehem.  According to Scripture, God has prepared the world for God’s coming into the world hundreds and hundreds of years ahead of time. 

Listen to just a few of these prophecies.  In Isaiah 7:14, written 700 years before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah says, “The Lord, himself, will give you a sign.  Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’.”  Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born.  Unto us a child is given.  And the government shall be upon his shoulders.”  That is to say, he will use the government to accomplish his purposes, but he will not be used by the government to accomplish the purposes of those who govern.  It’s very important to understand that distinction.  It goes on.  It says, “His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, a Wonderful Guide, a Wise Advisor, Mighty God – powerful, strong, potent – Everlasting Father, Creator of Eternity, Prince of Peace, Shalom, Harmony, Well-being, and he will reign over his kingdom and uphold it with two things.”

How do you uphold a kingdom?  How do you uphold a nation?  How do you uphold?  Two things: justice and righteousness.  Doing what’s morally right.  The quality of being fair and reasonable.  Having genuine respect for all people whether they’re rich or poor or somewhere in between.  These are the things, the Bible says, that make for the peace that the world so much desires.

Listen to Isaiah 53.  He tells us more about this indescribable gift.  He says, “He will grow up like a tender shoot, like a root coming out of dry ground.  There will be no beauty or majesty about him that attracts us to him.”  He’ll look just like any other Jewish boy or young man.  There’s no shining glow around him like the artists have betrayed.  Indeed, it says, “He will be despised and rejected by people, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

How do your wrap the incredible, indescribable gift that God gives?  First of all, you wrap it in this kind of understanding, so awesome that people are waiting on their tiptoes for his arrival.

But besides prophecy, Jesus comes wrapped in history.  What was promised for so, so long actually arrives.  It happens.  Galatians 4:4: “When the fullness of time came, God sent God’s son, born of a woman, under the law…”  Born a Jew, at just the right time, in just the right place, right on schedule in the fullness of time. 

How do you wrap this indescribable gift?  You wrap it in history.

Jay Kesler, in his book I Never Promised You a Disneyland, (I love that title) offers this great analogy.  He said, “Most people, when they think of Christmas, think of camels, and angels, and shepherds, and swaddling cloths, and mangers, and babies.  When I think of Christmas, I think of an automobile plant.  Have you ever watched them assemble an automobile?  It’s an incredible eye-opener. 

“You see, I thought that the auto company just sort of guessed how many cars they needed to make, and then they went about making that many.  Like maybe they decided that one day they needed 3,000 green cars and then switched to some other color the next day.

“I learned, of course, that’s not the way it’s done at all.  No.  All over America, indeed all over this world, people walk into dealerships.  They look around.  They kick a few tires.  Then some of them order a car, like a four-door, WRX, turbo charged, five-on-the-floor, silver, stereo, black interior.  You know… You just pick out a few things.  So, the dealer fills out a computer card, and then places that order with the company.

“As some of you know, in one city they make the correct transmission.  In another city, they make the right-size motor.  In another city they make the doors, and so on, and so forth.  All these places start feeding their products toward the assembly plant. 

“Now, there’s a person there who puts the steering wheel on the silver car.  You can bet that when that silver car comes down the assembly line, they don’t get a green steering wheel to put on that car.  No, exactly, at the right time, the black steering wheel is there.  That’s what happens with the doors, the mirrors, the seats, the CD player.  Every part shows up at precisely the right time.”

Point?  The point is this:  If people – human beings – are capable of designing such a system to bring thousands of events, and products, and people together at precisely the right time just to make a car, then can you imagine what God did in preparing for God’s visit to planet Earth?

Folks, there are people out there who think that Jesus was just sort of a last-minute band-aid that got stuck on a wounded world.  There are people who think that God had tried everything else, and so God, in frustration, just decided to come to planet Earth as a person. 

Folks, read the Scriptures.  It doesn’t say that at all.  The Bible says that Jesus came in the fullness of time.  The Creator’s preparation was staggering.  That indescribable gift came just at the right time, in just the right place.

Finally, how does God… How does the Creator of all that is come to Earth in the form of a human being?  How does God become flesh and blood just like you and just like me?  It’s baffled the brightest minds for 2,000 years.  All kinds of explanations have come up and have been given.  The bottom line I’ll share with you today is that we simply don’t know.  We don’t know how.  But there are a lot of things we don’t know.  There are a lot of things about us, a lot of things about the universe, a lot of things about all kinds of things that we don’t know. 

It’s part of the mystery, how come Jesus isn’t just another Jewish boy born into poverty in the Middle East, grows up to be a rabbi, brings a revolutionary message, gets cut down at a young age, by the powers that be who are threatened by what he has to say and do?  I don’t know why.  It’s part of the mystery of it all.

All we know, folks, when it’s all said and done is what Dr. Luke tells us.  He says, and he’s the only one that says, “There were shepherds in the field that night keeping watch over their flock, and suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them, and they were so, so terrified and afraid.  And the angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid, for I bring you good tidings of great joy that will be for you and all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord’.”

How?  I don’t know.  All we know is it happened, and it’s a gift.  Paul doesn’t know.  He calls it an indescribable gift.  It’s part of the mystery of it all.

So, I would ask you as we celebrate the Second Sunday of Advent to remember.  You don’t really need to be looking for another savior.  The world doesn’t need to be looking for another answer, even though there are many in the world who are doing that kind of thing.  They’re looking for a new savior and a new answer to their problems.  They’re looking for a new savior and a new way to deal with the world’s problems.

The good news that we have to offer to the world is the answer is already here.  It’s just that many of us haven’t tried it yet.  Indeed, many in the world haven’t really tried it yet.  Many in the world have maybe even tried it, but rejected it.  Be that as it may, Scripture says the answer, the Savior, the way, is here.

Sometimes there are things you can buy with MasterCard, but everything else is priceless.  There’s nothing original about any of this that I’ve said today.  It all comes right out of the Book.  It simply says that the gift has come.  It’s indescribable.  It’s priceless, but most of all, it works.  And we, again this year, are invited to take it.

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

Giver of Gifts, you fulfill the prophecy; delivering a complete package, wrapped in fibers of our history and tied up in spiraling ribbons of mystery: one elaborate angel vision, one humble and agreeable surrogate, one donkey ride to Bethlehem, one savior born to the world… priceless!  For this and everything else, there is Master God.  Amen.