“Continuing Christmas Questions:

Good Will to ALL?”

Matthew 2:1-12

Today, we draw near to the end of the Christmas season!

The season began with the first Sunday in Advent way back on November 28^th, and it will conclude this Thursday – twelve days after Christmas – on a feast day we Christians call Epiphany. We have had a whole season to wait and to watch for the coming of God’s Messiah. We have experienced the candlelit beauty of Christmas Eve to celebrate Christ’s birth. And now, with Epiphany, we are invited to take the next step and put our Christmas faith into action!

Epiphany means “manifestation” or “revelation”, and it is tied to the story of the Wise Men who followed a star to Bethlehem. They are an important part of the Christmas story because the Wise Men represent those of us who are not Jews. The Wise Men represent the rest of the WORLD, and the epiphany that comes with the story of the star and the long journey of the Magi to Bethlehem is that Christ is not just for one select group of people, but for the whole wide WORLD! That’s why we sing, “Joy to the WORLD, the Lord is come!”

And that is why you and I have to start putting our Christmas faith into action today. The Advent wreath is now complete. The candles of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love burn brightly, forming a complete circle of God’s care surrounding the whole world. In the center of the circle is the flame of the Christ candle, telling us that Christ is the One who pulls us together, and reconciles humanity with God. And now, in this last moment of Christmas, you and I are invited to take our Christmas faith and do something truly incredible.

Today, we are to take Christmas, and superimpose it all over the world!

Listen to me now. We are to take the gift of Christmas, and shine it somehow into the tragedy that took place last week in the devastation inflicted upon millions of people by the tsunamis. Oh, the suffering that has come into our world in just the past few days! We are to take the light of Christmas, and shine it somehow into the dark places where drug addicts live and prostitutes work. We are to take this Christmas gift and go seek out the poor, the hungry, the lonely, the sick, the prisoners and all who dwell in places of darkness. We are to take our Christmas faith and shine it upon the faces of the people of Iraq, upon the faces of our own sons and daughters serving there, upon the faces of our friends and even upon the faces of our enemies.

And make no mistake about it: Epiphany is where Christmas gets hard! Epiphany is where our faith gets tested. Epiphany is where we either embrace Christ as the Savior of the WORLD, or as the Savior of just SOME OF US, which would mean he is not the promised Messiah of the Bible.

On Christmas Eve, I preached a sermon about the questions that Christmas raises. And there are many Christmas questions, ranging from silly ones like, “Do reindeer really know how to fly?” to serious ones like, “What Child is this who, laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” If we can leave behind the silly ones, we are left with a whole series of profound spiritual questions that yank us out of our complacency and toss us into the world of probing faith. “What Child IS this…?” is the first and foremost question of Christmas. Why, this, this is Christ the Lord, we answer! This is the Savior sent from God with angelic choirs in the nighttime sky singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward…”

WHO?

And that is the second Christmas question.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward…” WHO?

Community church people? Baptists? Presbyterians? Methodists? Catholics? Episcopalians?

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward…!”

Republicans? Democrats? Swing voters?

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward…!”

Americans? Israelis? Palestinians? The FRENCH?

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward…!”

WHO? That’s the continuing question of Christmas.

Did you know that Christians have been fighting for generations over how to fill in that blank? The translators of the King James Bible rendered it, “Good will toward MEN.” Of course, back in their day there was not a whole lot of sensitivity about inclusive language, but the word men is properly understood to mean ALL. “Good will toward ALL.”

But some Christians have a problem with using that word ALL. Why? Well, because ALL includes EVERYBODY! Good people. Bad people. Saints. Sinners. Believers. Unbelievers. Alcoholics. Sober people. Straight people. Gay people. Christians. Jews. Muslims. Buddhists. Secular humanists! Even people from Michigan!

“Good will toward… ALL?”

Well, we just can’t have God going around doling out divine Good Will to bad people, faithless people, lawless people, immoral people, and those who don’t even give a hoot about Jesus. After all, the world has people like Scott Peterson and Sadaam Hussein and people who are just plain evil! Surely God’s Good Will is not extended to people like that! So some Christians have changed the way we fill in that blank. You hear it in some versions of the Bible that go like this:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace AMONG THOSE WITH WHOM HE IS PLEASED!”

Now that narrows it down, doesn’t it? Peace to those with whom God is pleased. Those who’ve earned it. Those who deserve it.

But even that translation doesn’t satisfy everyone. J.B. Phillips and others render the verse this way: “Peace upon earth among people of goodwill.”

Now what fascinates me about all this, first of all, is that the original Greek can support all three translations of Luke 2:14! I wonder if that isn’t intentional on God’s part, just to test what we’ll do with it. And second of all, the reason we struggle with this little verse of Scripture is simply because we are sinners, and in our sin we do not know the heart and mind of God.

I was watching a TV report on the tsunami devastation in Malaysia, and the female reporter – as she described the suffering – began to choke up and to weep. She struggled to keep it in, but it just wouldn’t stay inside. She burst into tears as she spoke about the people and their losses.

And I thought to myself: there is a woman who knows the heart of God.

Saints and sinners alike were swept away by the waves. Christians and non-Christians, believers and unbelievers, lawbreakers and lawkeepers alike lost loved ones and homes and whole villages.

And God weeps with a heart that overflows with compassion for His children.

Many of us have a hard time with the idea that God’s love is for EVERYONE. In fact, many of us RESIST THE FACT OF GOD’S LOVE FOR EVERYONE!

Jesus ran into resistance like this everywhere he went. The Jews couldn’t believe God could love a Samaritan. The disciples couldn’t believe God could value women. Those who were found couldn’t fathom that a shepherd would leave his flock to find just one lost sheep. And the righteous couldn’t understand why Jesus would touch the unclean…or eat with tax collectors…and prostitutes…and sinners.

Oh, the most IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN KNOW ABOUT GOD IS THE LOVE GOD HAS FOR ALL GOD’S CHILDREN. And one of the most important things you need to know about yourself is that the most basic manifestation of sin in our lives is our resistance to the FACT OF GOD’S LOVE FOR EVERYONE.

But listen. That resistance we have to the fact of God’s love for EVERYONE is what Jesus came to save us from.

“He shall save his people from their sins!” the angels declared.

And the most basic sin of all is our RESISTANCE TO GOD’S LOVE FOR EVERYONE!

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed it about us Christians, but often it seems as though those of us who have cleaned ourselves up morally and religiously and theologically are the ones who are most likely to condemn and live in judgment of others. We may have mastered the commandments, but we fail to obey the COMMAND to “love one another as I have loved you.”

Could it be that we have not truly been saved from the main thing Jesus came to save us from? Only you can answer that question as it pertains to your own life.

The whole of the gift of Jesus to the world – what Christmas is all about - is summed up in the song of the angels:

“Glory to God in the highest!”

WHY?

BECAUSE GOD SENDS

Peace, good will toward ALL ON EARTH!”

Christmas is about God’s love for EVERYONE! It is a gift offered to every person here today! God loves you! God reaches out to you in PEACE and GOOD WILL! God seeks FRIENDSHIP with you, and desires to bring HEALING and WHOLENESS to your life!

To accept Jesus is to accept God’s PEACE AND GOOD WILL toward yourself, and to live and grow in that relationship of divine love!

AND to follow Jesus is to bring God’s PEACE and GOOD WILL to others – no matter who, what or where they are!

Peace, good will to the people who’ve suffered the tragedy of the tsunamis. Peace, good will to the people of Iraq. Peace, good will to the person next door. Peace, good will to those in prison. Peace, good will to the outcasts. Peace, good will to the picked on. Peace, good will to those who do the picking. Peace, good will toward friend…and enemy.

So how do you put your Christmas faith into action?

By becoming a person of PEACE and GOOD WILL toward ALL.

That’s not something we can do ourselves. It’s something that only God can help us become through the gift of Jesus Christ!

Glory to God in the highest!

And on earth peace, good will toward YOU…AND ALL!