Community
Church Sermons
The First Sunday After
Christmas – December 26, 2004
Margaret I. Manning
Well, the gifts are
opened and if you’re like Sonny and me, the wrapping paper is still strewn
across the floor. Our stomachs are full
from lots of delicious cookies, pastries, cakes, pies and holiday
feasting. Our houses ring with our
children’s and grandchildren’s exciting shrieks and screams over presents and
toys galore, or like in our home, our dogs howled with delight over their
Christmas bones! Our homes bear the
markings of Christmas – the lights still shine, the tree is still up – and it’s
so hard to believe that another Christmas has come and gone – its coming seems
to arrive faster and faster each year.
As I walked with the dogs yesterday at Fort Loudoun State Park, I felt
the crisp, cool winter breeze blow against me – it reminded me that Christmas
is like that - a crisp, winter breeze, which wraps itself around us and then is
gone.
While Christmas day
comes and goes like the winter wind, the vestiges of Christmas are all around
us still. We have new gifts – perhaps
we’re wearing some of them today, or we will enjoy some of them, or we’ll
vacation with them later on in the year.
But, perhaps for some of us our gift from Christmas is some extra weight
from too many rich meals, or perhaps our gift is fatigue from entertaining
neighbors, friends and family? Surely,
these are not the only gifts Christmas brings us - but is there something more;
something truly lasting and wonderful that begins on Christmas day and
continues with us through each day of the year? What exactly has come with Christmas? Is there one gift left to open today?
Our text from the
letter to the Hebrews tells us that indeed, there is a gift that comes with
Christmas and that this gift is God, in Jesus Christ. With everything else that Christmas has become, we often miss
this greatest of all gifts. Ok, ok,
Margaret – we know this – we know all about the baby born in a manger and we’ve
celebrated his birth throughout the whole advent season! Well, you’re right – we do emphasize the
baby Jesus all throughout the Advent Season.
But, as we enter into Epiphany, do we truly see the gift that has come
in Jesus Christ – through his life, death and resurrection? The author of this
letter to the Hebrews reminds us of just how special the gift of Jesus is and
opens our eyes to this marvelous gift that will stay with us throughout the
year and for the rest of our lives, if we’ll simply open it up.
First, the writer
tells us to open the gift of “God with us, Emmanuel.” For the gift that has come to us at Christmas is the gift of
God’s presence among us, as one of us.
God is not far off from us, or distant from us, but has come near to us
by becoming a human being, the man Jesus.
The author of Hebrews highlights this theme again and again throughout
our passage – “Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters; since we
share flesh and blood as humans, Jesus likewise shares our flesh and blood;
Jesus had to be made like his people in all things.” All of this is simply a way to say that God is with us, as one of us!
This gift that has
come at Christmas is Jesus. And the
gift Jesus gives us is the gift of salvation which is offered to everyone
without exception. How does Jesus save
us? Jesus saves us by becoming one of
us. Jesus, who comes as a human being,
shares a ‘family’ relationship with us – the Son is not ashamed to call us
family since he shares the human experience with us! Jesus has taken on flesh and blood and therefore understands us
perfectly, and knows us completely. As
a result, Jesus is perfect to save us, because Jesus perfectly understands the
human condition, and the wrong that plagues the world, and the wrong that
plagues the human heart.
So often, we are
tempted to forget this gift at Christmas when we think that Jesus wasn’t really
human – he just ‘dressed up as a human’ like the Greek gods of old who appeared
as humans, but kept all their divinity in order to play tricks on humans and
wreak havoc among them. In Greek
mythology, the gods remained removed and separate from human beings. But, this is not the truth or the beauty of
the Incarnation of God as the human, Jesus.
Our text tells us that Jesus was made like his people in ALL
things. One author describes how Jesus
was made like us in ALL things this way:
“Angels watched as Mary changed God’s diaper. The universe watched with wonder as The Almighty learned to
walk. Children played in the street
with him. Jesus may have had
pimples. He may have been tone
deaf. Perhaps a girl down the street
had a crush on him or vice-versa. It
could be that his knees were bony. One
thing’s for sure: He was, while completely divine, completely human. For thirty-three years he would feel
everything you and I have ever felt. He
felt weak. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He was susceptible to seduction. He got colds, burped and had body odor. His feelings got hurt. His feet got tired. And his head ached. To think of Jesus in such light is –well it
almost seems irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s not something we like to do; it’s
uncomfortable. It is much easier to
keep the humanity out of the incarnation.
Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes.
Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a
hammer.”[1]
But Jesus did! You see the gift of Christmas is God with
us, God as one of us in the birth, and life of Jesus. What has come with Christmas; God as one of us and God who has
come to save us, and not condemn us, through this gift of Jesus. Have you opened this one remaining gift?
Since Jesus is one
of us, not merely God encased in flesh, but truly human, truly vulnerable, the
writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is able to serve as our faithful High
Priest, the one who bridges the gap between humanity and God Almighty, and this
is the second aspect of God’s gift to us – Jesus is our faithful high priest. The author’s use of the language of a high
priest is in reference to the Old Testament sacrificial system. The high priests made atonement for the
peoples’ sins before God. Priests had
to be separate from the people and followed elaborate rituals of purification
and cleansing before they could even enter into the presence of God. Not so with the gift of Jesus. Jesus is a faithful high priest, by becoming
one of us, and identifying with us – not keeping separate from us. In fact, Jesus made his home among the
so-called sinners of his society – the tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, and
other outcasts as a dramatic symbol of his presence among us. As broken human beings, we need a bridge
between ourselves and God that could be built only by one who had experienced
fully, both sides of the gulf separating us from God. – our human brokenness
and God’s holiness. Jesus isn’t
removed from us, as the Old Testament priests, but, Jesus is a faithful priest
because Jesus is one of us – Jesus comes among us and understands us. Because of his humanity, Jesus transforms
the human condition from within it, and not as an outsider. What has come with Christmas; Jesus as the
one who goes between us and God and bridges the gap. God offers you the gift of a faithful high priest in Jesus
because Jesus was one of us. Will you
open God’s gift of Jesus and allow him to be your faithful pastor and priest?
The third aspect of
God’s gift to us is the fact that God, in Jesus, suffers with us. The author of Hebrews tells us that ‘it was
fitting for God to perfect the author of salvation through sufferings; and,
‘since we are flesh and blood, and Jesus partook of the same flesh and blood,
including death, so that he might render powerless the one who has the power of
death’ and, since Jesus was tempted in all that he has suffered, he is able to
come to the aid of those who are tempted.’
The God of all power, the God of gods and the Creator of the whole
universe took the position of the powerless.
The Lord of life drank deeply of death.
Jesus, the sinless one was tempted in all things. The way Jesus brought us up to God was by
coming completely down to, even below our level, taking the form of a servant,
as our text tells us. Jesus did not
save himself from the worst of human experiences. The limitless Lord of the universe took on human limitations in
order to free us from ours, and nowhere are our limitations more clearly
recognized than in the face of death.[2] But the God of all Gods, the Lord of life
experienced death for us, with us, in Jesus, so that not even death can defeat
us. And Jesus suffered the worst form
of death – death on a cross – a death reserved for low class criminals, slaves
and outcasts. Jesus went lower than
low, so that you and I could receive the gift of life. Will you open the gift of Jesus – the one
who suffers with us - this morning?
As we finish the
Christmas season and are led into Epiphany, I hope we will discover and
understand that what has come with Christmas is God’s gift of everlasting
love. God adores us because of, and in
spite of our humanity. God’s adoration
is demonstrated in Jesus entering human life in Bethlehem, and showing us the
path to life. Jesus did this by sharing
our flesh and blood, by experiencing our pain and death, and taking our human
suffering on himself again and again.
The gift of Christmas is Jesus among us, as one of us, our faithful pastor and
friend. All of who Jesus is
demonstrates his gift of love towards us.
Since his first day on earth, Jesus injected the wondrous power of life
into a death-dominated world. His birth in Bethlehem brought life to a people
feeling crushed by the cold and cruel efficiency of their Roman
conquerors. His ministry brought
renewal of life to the poor, sick, oppressed and possessed throughout Galilee
and Judea. Even his death on the cross did not mark the end of his life-giving
work - instead, God used the cross to overcome evil, to introduce the
resurrection, and to free us from the fear of death. Jesus took the sin of the
world on himself when he went to the cross, sacrificing himself for our
forgiveness. We are now free to join
him in enjoying the gift of God’s presence with us and to experience God’s love
for us! [3]
What has come with Christmas? Jesus
Christ – our Savior, our faithful priest, pastor and friend, the one who has
become like us in every way – even tasting death on our behalf, so that
suffering and death no longer have any ultimate power over us. Do you see and understand the gift of Jesus
as the most treasured and precious gift of the season? Christ has come with Christmas – open your
heart to the gift of his love. His is a
gift that won’t come and go with Christmas day, but that surrounds us and fills
us all throughout the year. Open up
God’s gift to you, today! Amen.