Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list R-022 [Repeat of CLM 961: 16 Dec 1999]

CHRISTMAS, TIME AND ETERNITY

by Craig Scott

Luke 2:1-14, Isaiah 9:2-7, Hebrews 1

One of the best lines I’ve heard in a sermon came from Dr Don Hopgood when he addressed the Enfield Anniversary service. He spoke about “Time”, and he defined it as, “God’s way of making sure everything doesn’t happen at once.” I liked that; I thought it was both clever and funny.

But time is a strange thing when you think about it. We can’t really define it, but we can measure it. But then again, as soon as we try to pin it down, it’s gone. The present only exists moment by moment. Even what we might call the present, the start of our service today, or the start of this sermon, or even this word, are in the past before we can stop them slipping by.

Yet Christians believe that time is important because it has a goal; time has an end to which it is proceeding, all at the good will of God. We believe Christ will come again, and in doing so, he will end time. It will have reached its fulfilment in that extraordinary event.

This means that for us, time and eternity run parallel, at least for the time being. But more than that, it means that God has revealed himself in time, and we’re reminded of that especially at Christmas time, when we celebrate Christ’s birth, his coming in time, to bring God’s saving love to fruition.

Hebrews 1 is quite specific about Jesus coming in the flesh. It actually happened; it was an historical event; it occurred in time. Jesus was born among us, a proper, normal human being; fully human we might say, and that is certainly what Hebrews avers very strongly. But we often find this hard to accept. Over the years centuries there have been many people, regarded as heretics by the mainline church, who have wanted to by-pass Jesus’ humanity, and we tend to follow this error when we concentrate too much on Jesus’ divinity. It’s as though we so want a powerful saviour, that we concentrate on all the wonderful, supernatural facets of his nature: his miracles, his resurrection, his titles, like “Son of God”.

We will often avoid his limitations of his birth, his mortality, his bodily containment, which a God of Spirit would not normally experience. Yet there is clear evidence from scripture that Jesus was very human indeed. The author of Hebrews stresses this point.

Jesus shared in our human nature; he suffered; he died; and yes, just like you and me, he was tempted to do evil. The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness clearly points to this, and many other times he could have chosen his own course rather than pursue God’s will for his life. His agony Gethsemane is a clear case in point.

It was meant to be this way. In Christ, God came in person to be like us, to be with us. The Danish philosopher Soren Kirkegaard told a parable which illustrates why.

There was king, who ruled a peaceful land with justice and fairness. It was a happy place and everyone thought the king was happy, with his wealth and position and the adoration of his people. But in fact he was lonely. He wanted a bride, a queen to rule beside him, someone he could love and who would love him for who he was. He pondered long and hard about where to find such a woman, for he knew his courtiers would only promote their relatives to gain privilege and influence. Then one day he saw a peasant girl as he drove through the countryside in his carriage. He fell in love immediately, but then he wondered how he could get her to marry him.

First he thought he would simply issue a royal decree, instructing her to become his wife. But that would only mean that she obeyed him, not that she loved him. Then he thought he would call at her home dressed in his royal robes, and simply sweep her off her feet, but he realised he would never be sure whether she too had married him simply for wealth and power. The he decided he would dress in peasant clothes, and have his carriage drop him off outside town and then try to convince her he to marry him. But this trick did not appeal at all. So finally, he decided to go a step further.

He shed his royal robes, and he went to live in her village. He became a peasant himself. And it worked he lived there with her and her people, and he in the end they fell in love, and were married. A lovely story, with a happy ending of which Barbara Cartland would be proud.

But it is in essence a true story, for that is exactly what God did in Jesus Christ. He came to be one of us. Living as we live. Like us fully, in every way. Our Lord is the tempted, suffering and crucified Jesus who was fully human, who was indeed the perfect human, and that is why his sacrifice on our behalf is so powerful and effective for us. The one who was perfect, the only one who was perfect, chose to take upon his own shoulders all those things which divide us from God, and those things died with him when he died.

Then in rising, he resurrected us with him, born anew, given a fresh start, a second chance, by the grace of God, which comes through our faith in him. This is Good News. In fact this is the best news we can hear, for in it lies the secret of eternal life.

This is one of the things that Matthew was trying to emphasise by including the story of the Holy Family going to Egypt, and by his choice of prophecies, indicating that Jesus was the new Moses. As such he was the one, and still remains the one, who will lead his people out of the slavery of sin and our fear of death, into the freedom of God’d forgiveness and grace. So we can celebrate the fact that Jesus was truly human. He did not go through life six inches off the ground – he was truly flesh and blood like you and me. In Jesus God has taken a very special delight in the whole creation, in humanity in general, and in each of us as individuals.

We need fear death no longer. Rather, we can affirm birth and life as God’s realities, reflecting God’s very nature, and being incomparably greater in their power and their promise. Jesus, the perfect human being, came into this world in the tide of time and of history and has passed from it into the eternal world with God. In passing through death, he has destroyed its power; death is defeated; in Christ, signified by the weak and vulnerable baby Jesus, God’s power is fully revealed, as he bacame one with us, one of us.

The door to eternal life now stands open for us to enter in with God, following our Lord Jesus Christ. In that crib in Bethlehem was born not just a human being, but THE human being. There was born for us, not just a new part of creation, but THE new creation.

In a very real sense, the whole of creation has been born again in Jesus Christ. I invite you now to stop and pray silently for a moment or two. Ask God to remind you of ways you have been born again, of ways in which his love has changed the pattern of your living for the better.

If you find yourself concerned about something that you need to address at this time, then you may care to come forward and pray at the communion rail, or if you prefer you might like to pray with me or one of the Elders after the service.

Ask God to remind you now, of ways you have been, or ways God would challenge you to be, born again.

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Craig Scott Mount Barker, South Australia. Web site: http://www.rebel.net.au/~cscott/index.html Email: