Episode 1. A Gift Like No Other (1)
God does some really strange things sometimes. Take Christmas. The King of Kings arrives in a stable. Completely without fanfare. Completely not what anybody was expecting. So what was it all about …
It’s odd that if Jesus truly was and is the Son of God that He should enter this world, not with a fanfare of trumpets but with His glory veiled.
Mediocrity Begets Mediocrity
We live in a world where, increasingly, mediocrity is the norm. Now, that’s not to say that some people don’t work hard and achieve extraordinary things – of course they do. But have you noticed that the more choices we have the more complex our life becomes. And the more complex it becomes, the more detached we become from one another.
I was at a hardware store recently, buying some grout for the tiles in our bathroom – just a few dollars – and when I went to the checkout, there was a young lady there to serve me. I use that term ‘serve’ very loosely, but the young woman at the next checkout had no one to serve so she was over talking to this young lady. And the whole time I was at the counter, these two just chatted away and I think they were a little shocked when I pulled them up. What was happening was that the customer was being treated like an interruption to their social life, instead of the customer whose patronage pays their wages.
The more sophisticated our world becomes – entertainment options, purchasing options the more detached we become – not just in the affluent West but in societies where traditionally, people and families and communities would be much closer. And we’re not just the ones on the receiving end of this mediocrity, the great temptation is to become part of the culture of mediocrity – to be more concerned about fulfilling our desires and our needs and less focused on caring for and loving other people.
Churches are full of mediocrity. Had an email from a man recently who had been through some terrible tragedies in his life. When he was a kid his parents and his sisters were killed in a car accident and then when he grew up, well, his wife and his children were killed by a drunk driver. He ended up in a mental health unit and he went from one church to another and they rejected him because where he was living, to the point where he now even struggles to believe that there is a God.
Come on, let’s examine our own lives. It’s so easy for us to be annoyed with mediocrity – we’re so often on the receiving end of it and yet, how easy is it for us to dish that same mediocrity up to other people? See, mediocrity begets mediocrity. And that’s no more true than in the lead up to Christmas – rushing around to do all the last minute things.
Down here in the Southern Hemisphere we are getting, not just for Christmas, with the presents and the food and all those preparations for goodness knows what, but most of us will be heading off for our summer break – a few well earned weeks in the sun and surf and sand.
So over these next couple of weeks it’s going to be a frenetic time – rushing around. Its Christmas after all – presents to buy, family get togethers to organise – there’s so much to do. We go down to the shops – there are crowds and they’re pushing and shoving … and the sales assistants behind the counter, who are so tired – I mean, some of them have been working, literally, around the clock with stores open 24/7 in so many places.
So by the time Christmas arrives, we just kind of fall over the line; we only just make it – we’re exhausted. Too tired to think about Christmas; too exhausted to celebrate what Christmas is all about. Anyhow, it’s all about spending money on our credit cards which we don’t have.
If you are living in a country similar to mine, you’ll know what I’m talking about – mediocrity begets mediocrity. And so the whole idea of Christmas is so easily lost, isn’t it? So what if I said to you that Christmas is about receiving the best of the best – the very best – God’s best? Sounds like a good idea but it just doesn’t gel with what we experience, does it?
What if I said to you that Christmas is about a love so great that nothing was too much to give? Sounds good in theory! And perhaps you’re even someone who believes that that’s what Christmas is all about, but let me asked you this … is that what your experience of Christmas is? Is that the sort of Christmas that you live out, year after year? And the answer for ninety nine percent of people is ‘No’.
And if you’re someone who is living in a place without the wealth that I have been talking about, you are probably sitting there wondering, ‘Man, how … how can these people live like that? There are millions of people listening to this programme who are living in poverty, in war zones, afraid for their very lives – people who may even be persecuted for just believing in Jesus. And here’s some guy talking about the receiving of the ‘best of the best’ from God at Christmas. A love so great that words simply can’t describe it and you look around and you think to yourself, ‘What is he talking about?’
Well, what I’m talking about is this: it comes straight from God’s Word, the Bible. It tells us what Christmas is all about. It comes from First John chapter 4, verse 9:
“God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”
There it is! There’s what Christmas is all about. Christmas is God telling us something, but what? Have another listen: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into this world so that we might live through him.”
Christmas is God telling us how much He loves us and He tells us of the infinite love that He has for us by what? By mere words? By giving us a tie or a bottle of perfume, all wrapped up nice under the tree? No, no, He tell us of His infinite love for us by giving us something or Someone of infinite value; a gift so great that no price can be put on it – His one and only Son.
Now over these next few weeks, heading up to Christmas, we are going to spend some time together; some time out from all the madness and carryon that we carry on with, unwrapping this Christmas present of great value. Because the problem with Christmas presents is this: someone can give you a present, but if we leave it under the tree, if we never unwrap it, well, it’s useless – it just gets thrown away. We need to open the present in order to receive it and this very first Christmas present, God’s one and only Son, is no different.
That’s why I have called this series, “Receiving the Best of the Best” – God’s best. There is no better ‘best’ than this one and my prayer is that, as we share together of some of the stories of this miraculous coming of God in the flesh, it’ll be kind of like … like unwrapping the present in our hearts. And my prayer for you, for each one of us, is that in doing that together, we’ll be receiving the best of the best – God’s best!
A New Shot at Life
One of the saddest sights I think I have ever seen is a forest of old growth trees cut down. These beautiful, majestic old trees, that began their lives as little seeds fallen to the forest floor, that grew through many decades of sun and wind and rain and storm, to become majestic old trees … trees that provided homes for the birds and the animals; trees that breathe fresh oxygen into an atmosphere chocking on Co2; trees that provided shade and beauty and a rich organic fragrance.
And then in just a few hours, men with chain saws came along and felled this ancient forest. What was left were stumps, remains where there once was life. All those stumps in the ground were like tombstones marking the death of beauty and majesty, the loss of life, the sense of desolation. I look at one of those stumps and what I see is a life cut off, cut short, brutally, ugly and sadly.
I don’t know about you but I remember my life being like one of those stumps once. It felt as though my life had been cut off. That same feeling of brutal desolation and hopelessness because when a tree has been cut down like that, well, that’s it, it’s all over, there’s no future, no hope, just a tombstone to mark the spot.
And so it was in the life of Israel. I mean, amazing things happened to those people from the time God spoke to Abraham and gave him a son, Isaac, who had a son Jacob, who had twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. They were in slavery in Egypt for centuries and then they crossed through the Red Sea and forty years in the wilderness and then finally, into the Promised Land.
And they had judges and kings but they were supposed to be blessed in the Promised Land, only they dishonoured God. And so in 587BC they ended up in exile; in slavery in Babylon and eventually they came back again but were under foreign occupation.
God spoke to them through the prophets of old but they rejected the prophets. They killed most of them and then they went through the most brutal occupations and punishment from God because they rejected God’s prophets. They turned their backs on their God and they were paying the price. And then, all of a sudden, God stopped talking … God stopped sending His prophets to call them back to Him. There was dead silence from God. And it went on for four centuries.
By this time the Romans had occupied Israel. Caesar was a brutal dictator. People were oppressed again – here in their own land – the Promised Land. All the promises God had made to them; all the hope they had for the future. But it needed some Messiah, a King like David to lead them back to freedom, the way David had done a thousand years before but nothing … just stumps, just tombstones where once there was freedom and vibrancy and blessing.
Things looked completely hopeless but centuries before, God had spoken of this time through His prophet Isaiah. Have a listen with me, what God said through Isaiah, beginning in chapter 11, verse 1. He said:
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”
What a fabulous picture! “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jessie.” Jessie was King David’s father. He had lived a thousand years before Jesus was born. David had been promised something by God around 1000BC. David had just had victory over his enemies – he was feeling pretty pleased with himself and he decided to build a house for God … a temple. ‘I’ll do this for God as my way of saying ‘Thank You’’, but God turned that idea on its head with this promise: Second Samuel chapter 7, verses 12 to 16:
“When your days are fulfilled (David) and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.”
Here it was – a great promise – a Kingdom forever. That’s why Isaiah talks about the stump of Jessie. The promise to David was grand and majestic, to rule forever and here was Israel, just before Jesus was born, an occupied land. What had happened to God’s promises? They were cut off like a stump.
But then … then comes Jesus, a direct descendant for Jessie and then from David – one of David’s royal blood line. And He emerges – not with some great trumpet fanfare – He doesn’t burst onto the world stage in a blaze of media glory, like some superstar. He’s born into a filthy stable somewhere in Bethlehem and the picture of His birth is painted here by Isaiah, centuries before. It’s a picture that emerges out of the desolation of Israel and out of the promise made to David many years before. Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1:
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jessie and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”
My friend, that is so often how Jesus chooses to come into our lives – amidst the desolation; amidst the loss, the sense of what should have been and could have been. He doesn’t come with some great trumpet fanfare. He comes as a tender green shoot, a new shoot, a new life – so soft and so delicate, just a small green bud of life that bursts forth to grow a mighty tree out of this apparently, dead stump. That’s what was going on the night when Jesus was born into this world.
That’s what goes on in our lives when we accept Him into our hearts. He brings a tender new shoot, a small soft green shoot of life. That’s the plan!
A Strange Sort of King
I remember when I was a young man, training to be an army officer at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia. We had an Honour Guard to line the entrance to the College. It was a special occasion. We put on a parade for her, all four hundred of us. It was a grand affair – pomp and ceremony – we practised so hard for that parade, I have to tell you, and our drill was just perfect. But after all, the Queen was visiting! That’s what you do for royalty; at least we did back then.
And that’s why, when I look back to the coming of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, that first Christmas a couple of thousand years ago – it’s such a strange affair. It’s odd that if Jesus truly was and is the Son of God, how odd is it that He should enter this world, not with a fanfare of trumpets; not with a clear pronouncement and proclamation amongst God’s chosen people, Israel – but with His glory veiled, hidden. Strange that He should arrive in a stable, don’t you think? Strange indeed!
I know that if I were God, my son surely would have been born into a castle. No one would have been in any doubt who he was and what he was there for. And if I were God, people would have been waiting on my son, hands and feet. There would have been parades and honour guards and pomp and ceremony, that’s for sure. But lucky for you, I’m not God. And God choose this rather odd way of bringing His Son into the world.
Was it something He dreamed up on the spur of the moment, or was this always His plan? Well, if we go back to the prophet Isaiah who prophesied over seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, is seems that God always had a plan for His Son to be, well, humble. Have a listen – Isaiah chapter 53, verses 1 to 3:
“Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces,
he was despised, and we held him of no account.”
That’s what God said through Isaiah seven hundred years before Jesus was born. Let’s think about this for a moment. Israel were God’s chosen people – they had all the promises of God; they had the blessing; they had the Promised Land. This is where they were going to live and milk and honey flowed but they turned their backs against God and in 587BC they suffered a great punishment. What happened was, the Babylonians, God raised them up against Israel and destroyed Israel and took those who were left alive into captivity for seventy years.
And when they got back they found their Promised Land under occupation. First it was, of course, the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks and by the first century, it was the Romans, the brutal Romans. This was a brutal occupation. So by the time Jesus came, they were expecting a King to save them from the occupation; to set them free; to restore them back to the freedom they had enjoyed in the Promised Land under their kings, like David, a thousand years before. That’s what we were looking at earlier.
See, they were expecting a Messiah, but one like you and I would expect when someone says the word ‘king’. Surely God would send them another king just like David, to sit on the throne in Jerusalem and kick those Romans out of this place and restore Israel back to its former glory; back to living in the blessing of God. But that didn’t happen!
In fact, the Nation of Israel lived under one form of occupation or another until 1948, when the modern state of Israel was declared. That was almost two thousand years on. So God wasn’t in the business, back then, of meeting the worldly expectations of His people and my hunch is, He’s still not in that business.
See, He was doing something different; He was doing something new, so He sends them His Son, the Messiah, who, as Isaiah had prophesied, “had no form or majesty that we should look at him; nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” And what did the people do? Did they rejoice? Did they say: ‘WOW, look at this, God is doing something so much better than we expected. He didn’t send us some earthly king to establish our earthly kingdom. He didn’t come to establish a kingdom that surely, one day has to pass away. No, no, God did something much better than that: He sent us the heavenly King, to establish the Kingdom of heaven here on earth – a Kingdom that would never pass away.’ Is that what they said; is that the conclusion that people came to? No!!
As Isaiah prophesied and rightly predicted, He was despised and rejected by others and they held him of no account. In fact, even after three and a half years, His disciples, they saw all the amazing miracles Jesus did; they heard Him preach those amazing sermons; they even witnessed His death and His miraculous resurrection. After all that, here’s what the disciples ask Him: Acts chapter 1, verse 6:
“So when they had come together the disciples ask him, “Lord, Is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom of Israel?”
See, they couldn’t let go of their worldly view; they still didn’t get it! Jesus didn’t come back to restore an earthly kingdom; Jesus wasn’t born on that starry night in Bethlehem to fit in with our worldly expectations and to dance to our tune. He didn’t come to us to establish something that one day would pass away. Jesus came to establish an utterly different kind of Kingdom – a Kingdom from out of this world – the Kingdom of God that reigns in our hearts – a Kingdom not of this world; a Kingdom that would last forever.
Let me ask you, what do you make of this rather strange sort of a King, Jesus? What does this whole Christmas thing come to mean to you? Is it a whole children’s pantomime kind of ritual thing that you go through every year? Or has this rather odd, rather radical, rather unconventional King established His Kingdom in your heart? And if you are struggling to answer that question; if you are not quite sure whether He has really touched your heart, then you would be alone.
See, many a man, many and woman struggles to know – ‘How can I know if Jesus is the Lord of my life? Well, actually, it is so much easier than you might think because as you hear these words; as you listen to someone telling you the wonderful story of Jesus; as you engage with the Christmas story, it becomes so much more than a ritual – it becomes so much than a pantomime.
When God has touched our hearts through His Son Jesus Christ, our hearts ache to belong to Him. That’s how you know! You long to live your whole eternity in the light of His glory. That’s how you know.
My friend Christmas is coming! Can I ask you, what has Christmas come to mean to you? How are you going to celebrate Christmas? Is it going to be the same old, same old again this year – just doing the same things that we’ve always done? Or is it perhaps time this year to really focus on the beautiful, wonderful story of God’s love, which is the story of Christmas, after all.
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