There was a story years ago in the Canadian version of the Reader’s Digest of a large moose that wandered into a residential area in Calgary, Canada. The moose ended up on the lawn of a lady named Lorna Cade. A Fish and Wildlife officer was dispatched to try to coax the magnificent animal back into the wild. After two hours of absolutely no progress, the officer finally shot the moose with a tranquilizer dart. The moose bolted down a lane and eventually collapsed on another nearby lawn.
The reporters who had been following this event interviewed the lady at the house where the moose collapsed. They asked her what she thought about the moose which had passed out on her lawn. “I’m surprised,” she answered, “but not as surprised as my husband will be. He’s out moose hunting.” (1)
Her husband had gone out looking for moose and a large moose had come to him.
That is the message of Christmas. While humanity spends its time seeking after God, God comes to us in the babe of Bethlehem. Christmas is a God-thing. The angel Gabriel was sent to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel said to Mary, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God . . .” Christmas is a God-thing.
We could not reach up to God, so God came down to us. That’s the good news for today.
Michael Hendrix tells about a dinner party he once attended during the Christmas season. The house was properly decorated, including an electric train set up around the base of the tree. One of the children was running the train too fast and it derailed. She was bent over the train trying to put it back on the track. The host noticed what she was doing and went over to help. He said to her, “You can’t do that from above; you have to get down beside it.” Then he lay down on the floor beside the train where he could see to place the train back on the track.
“What a wonderful way to think about the incarnation,” Hendrix says. “The human race had derailed and needed to be put back on the track of life. It couldn’t be done from above; God had to come down beside us in order to put us on track. That’s what God did in Jesus Christ. God came and lived among us in the person of His Son Jesus to show us His love and to put us back on the track of life.”
Some of you have undoubtedly seen the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, which was loosely based on the life of T.E. Lawrence, a flamboyant and controversial British military figure. Lawrence was a British citizen who led an army of Arabs against the Turks in the First World War. Lawrence once said this concerning his service in that conflict: “No man could lead Arabs except he ate the rank’s food, wore their clothes, lived level with them, yet appeared better in himself.” (2)
That’s what God did for us. When we could not reach up to God, God came down to eat our food, wear our clothes, live level with us. We call that Incarnation God took on human flesh in the manger of Bethlehem.
Now you may be wondering what it means to say that we could not reach up to God. It means many things.
For example, it means we could not reach up to God intellectually. That is, our little brains are not sufficient to understand God.
Christian faith is not a philosophy that someone thought up. Christian faith is revelation. God revealed His purpose and plan, His love and His grace, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. If there are some things about our faith you do not understand, join the crowd. If we could understand everything there is about God, God would not be God. We do not have the mental capacity to reach up to God intellectually. Let’s use an example a metaphor, if you will of the intellectual gulf that separates us from God.
Remember Humphrey the humpback whale? Humphrey became a national celebrity in 1985 when he made his way into the San Francisco Bay and headed up the Sacramento River into fresh water which, of course, could have been fatal for him. Each evening a large local television audience would tune in for the latest update on Humphrey’s plight. Then national media coverage began and the whole country watched the ensuing story.
Many experts and well-meaning lay people attempted to get Humphrey to turn around and go back to the saltwater environment of the ocean, but nothing worked. Several weeks of being trapped in the fresh water of the Sacramento Delta began taking a toll on Humphrey. His skin was graying and he was becoming more and more listless. None of the traditional herding techniques were working and the world held its breath as Humphrey appeared to be dying.
As a last ditch effort, Dr. Bernie Krause, who had recorded the sounds humpback whales made while feeding suggested using them as a possible way to lure Humphrey out. No one knew if this would work, but it was their last shot at saving him. A speaker was lowered over the side of a boat, the sounds of other humpback whales were played, and everyone stood quietly while the eerie songs reverberated through the hull. Suddenly, Humphrey emerged from the water at the bow of the ship right where the speaker was playing, and gazed at the startled crew. The Captain quickly started down the river with Humphrey following close behind.
As they approached the San Francisco Bay, and the water gained in salinity, Humphrey was visibly excited and began diving deeply to everyone’s delight and amazement. It was like the climax to a Hollywood film. The air was filled with helicopters and the river banks were lined with thousands of spectators all cheering Humphrey on to freedom. Though the crew lost sight of him that night, they picked him back up in the morning and led him out through the Golden Gate Bridge, to the freedom of the Pacific Ocean where he promptly headed south to parts unknown. (3)
Don’t you think that’s interesting? They failed using various methods to lure Humphrey to turn around. Nothing worked until he heard the recorded sounds of other humpback whales. I guess it takes a whale to talk to whales!
Now imagine God’s dilemma. God sought to communicate His love and His purpose for humanity through the Law and through the prophets, through Scripture, and through the worship of the Hebrew people in the Temple of Jerusalem. But still the people did not get it. We did not know how much God loves us and that God’s ultimate plan was for us to love one another. So God did the only thing left. God became one of us in the babe in the manger. God came to us when, intellectually, we could not reach up to Him.
But that was not the only way we could not reach up to God. We also could not reach up to God morally. That is, before the coming of Jesus the Jewish people believed that the way to God is through right living. If you could just follow the Law and keep all its ordinances, then you could be saved. But salvation by righteousness did not work. For some, their devotion to the Law deteriorated into an odious legalism. They looked down their noses at others who were not as righteous as they. While others, feeling that they had no hope of fulfilling the Law, simply threw up their hands in despair and did not bother to try.
They were like the little girl who was Christmas shopping with her mom. The little girl, about three years old, was obviously beginning to get tired. The long line at the register was moving slowly. Her mother’s patience also was stretched to the breaking point, and her voice sounded irritable.
“Straighten up and be nice,” the mother said as the child began to cry and whine.
“Mommy, I’m all out of nice,” came the response. (4)
Well, sometimes adults run out of nice, too, and it is not a pretty sight to see.
“Nobody’s perfect,” we say at such times. And, of course, it’s true. But sometimes when we give in to our imperfections, sad things happen.
Dr. Samuel Massey tells of watching a World War II movie once. In this particular movie one character is giving lessons to another character about how to destroy a dam. The pupil anticipated that, if you packed the dam with enough dynamite you could send the entire dam skyward. But the teacher explained that far less explosive power was needed. “Place a few sticks in critically vulnerable places, blow them up, and then wait patiently,” he said. “Silently, but certainly, the pent-up water would do the rest of the job washing the dam downstream.” (5)
What’s true of a dam can also be true of a family or a reputation. One time of “running out of nice,” can sink us. One seemingly minor indiscretion can blow a hole in a life. Who will help us? Who will save us when we’ve blown up our life? We know the answer to that, don’t we? the Savior of the world.
I love something that author Max Lucado said in one of his books. “It is unfortunate that most of us see ourselves as a composite of all our failures,” writes Lucado. “When we look in the mirror we may only see our failures. Even though many of us can’t see beyond the failures, this is not the way God views us. As a loving God, he looks past our failures. Can you imagine a loving parent introducing their children by saying, ‘This is my daughter Meagan, who stained the carpet with grape juice when she was two,’ or ‘This is my son Myles, who broke a valuable vase last week.’ If loving parents don’t have a need to memorize their children’s failures, you can rest assured our loving heavenly Father has no use for such memories either.” (6)
Jesus showed us God’s amazing grace. He helped us by understanding that grace is not something you earn, but is a free gift. We could not reach up to God intellectually . . . or morally . . .
We could not even reach up to God with our good deeds or good works. Even now, 2100 years after the birth of Christ, we know what God wants of us. God wants us to love one another. God wants us to take care of the least and the lowest. God wants us to lay down our lives for others, even as He lay down his life for us. But time after time we fail the test of love and compassion, just as we failed the test of keeping all the ceremonial and moral laws. We don’t have it in us to love as Christ loved us.
Robert Morris tells a somewhat amusing and also telling story about a disheveled Hispanic man who showed up at the rear of a church after midnight service on Christmas Eve. The pastor of this particular inner city congregation, named Mark, was a friend of Robert Morris. Mark was a man who was devoted to serving the homeless, but he was getting weary and this final Hispanic gentleman was almost “one homeless person too many” for him. Mark knew that his commitment to being a “caring” pastor had put him in this position, but he was starting to feel sorry for himself. On the way to the shelter, he stewed in his own anger at himself, at the man, and ultimately at God.
Finally, realizing he didn’t know the stranger’s name, he asked. The man answered, “Hayzoos,” which is, of course, the Spanish pronunciation for “Jesus.” The ironic humor of the whole situation suddenly washed over Mark’s mind and heart. Here he was griping to God about taking a man named Jesus to a shelter on Christmas Eve! He felt as if it were a huge cosmic trick. The comic aspect of it both judged his anger and redeemed him out of it. “Leave it to God to beat us at our own game,” he thought to himself. (7) And so, gratefully, that Christmas Eve he provided shelter to a homeless man named “Hayzoos,” Jesus.
Anyone who seeks to do good burns out at some time or another. It’s inevitable. We’re not Christ. There are many loving and devoted people in this congregation. I know that you serve God in our community. I am so thankful for each of you. But none of us, no matter how much good we do, cannot keep it up forever. We cannot love as Christ loved. Our love is a drop in the ocean compared to the love Christ showed for us on Calvary.
We cannot reach up to God . . . intellectually . . . morally . . . or even in terms of our good works. And that is why the world needed Christmas. Christmas is the celebration of God reaching down to us when we could not reach up to Him.
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, tells of watching a video showing the work of one of the most experienced therapists in Great Britain. In the video this therapist seeks to explain what she is trying to do with her methods to treat a young man suffering from extreme autism.
In the video you see, first of all, this young man, severely disturbed, beating his head against a wall and then walking fast up and down the room, twisting and flicking a piece of string. The therapist’s first response is strange: she begins to twist and flick a piece of string as well. When the young man makes a noise, so does she; when he begins to do something different, like banging his hand on a table, she does the same.
The video shows what happens over two days. By the end of the two days, the boy has begun to smile at the therapist and to respond when touched. A relationship has been created. Here is what the therapist said about it: “Autism arises when the brain senses too much material coming in, too much information. There’s a feeling of panic; the mind has to regain control. And the best way of doing this is to close up on yourself and repeat actions that are familiar; do nothing new, and don’t acknowledge anything coming from outside. But when the therapist gently echoes the actions and rhythms, the anxious and wounded mind of the autistic person sees that there is, after all, a link with the outside world that isn’t threatening. Here is someone doing what I do; the world isn’t just an unfamiliar place of terror and uncertainty, and when I do this, I can draw out an answer, an echo; I’m not powerless. And so relationship begins.”
Archbishop Williams says, “To see this sort of thing in action is intensely moving. This is real mental and spiritual healing at work. But it gives us a powerful image of what it is we remember at Christmas,” that at Christmas God broke down the barriers between ourselves and God by becoming one of us, one with us, one alongside us.” (8)
And that is the good news for this final Sunday of Advent. When we could not reach up to God, God reached down to us. God became as we are that we might know God’s love and be led to love one another as Christ has loved us.
1. Calgary. MerryHearts@xc.org. Tue, 26 May, 1998.
2. Chevis F. Horne, Basic Bible Sermons (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992), p. 40.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_the_Whale.
4. Debra Klingsporn, “For Women Only,” Marriage Partnership, Winter 1994, p. 28.
5. http://day1.org/540-youve_got_to_be_kidding.
6. The Timothy Report, http://www.timothyreport.com.
7. Salt of the Earth, January/February 1995, p. 32.
8. Cited by Ned Provost, http://www.christchurchwinnetka.org/SermonsESP12-24-04.htm.