Christmas is so close now. Our grandson Real
opens a new door on his advent calendar every day and there are now more open
doors and missing chocolates than closed doors remaining. The radio plays
Christmas music, and the stores with shoppers as they also play Christmas songs
to get everyone to buy more. When you slow down and listen to the songs being
played, you hear mixed with Santa and Rudolph and Baby It's Cold Outside songs, songs like Joy to the
World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing and other songs pointing to the arrival of a
special baby to a place called Bethlehem. But who is this baby? Why is this
baby so special?
Most of you know the story. Mary and Joseph,
a poor engaged couple find out Mary, a virgin, is expecting a baby that an
angel says is from God and it happened through the power of the Holy Spirit
coming over Mary. Mary is told that her son will be
great and will be called the Son of the Most-High; this is the child we
heard about in the candle lighting, “The virgin will be
with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel, which
means, God with us.” Both Mary and Joseph are told to call their baby,
Jesus, and this is what they do; generally, it’s a good idea not to argue too
much with an angel I would think. Jesus is born in Bethlehem because Caesar
told everyone to head back to the place their families came from, and because
it’s so busy in town, Jesus is put in a manger instead of a cradle because of a
lack of room in the good part of the house. Later that night, the family gets a
visit from shepherds who tell them that angels told them about the baby in a
manger.
The problem with this story is that for far too
many people, this is where the story
ends. We go to church on Christmas, we open our presents and we carry on with
life and all the stuff that goes on in real life and we leave Jesus in the
manger. We miss out on what Jesus desires for us, we miss out on what Jesus is
able to do and accomplish in our lives, we miss out on the blessings of Jesus’
divine presence. Jesus may have been laid in a manger as a baby, but he is born
through the power of the Holy Spirit coming over Mary, meaning Jesus is the Son of
God. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us as a
physical real person.
This is powerful news for the people Paul is writing
to in Colossae. This is powerful news for us still today. Paul is writing to
the Colossians about the child of the manger, the Son of God. Like us, the
Colossians were desperate to hear more about who Jesus is as the Son of God,
who Jesus is as God. Their question is still ours today, what difference does Jesus make in our lives as God? Paul uses an
early church poem here to share with the people who Jesus is. Paul knows that
poetry and music and worship are powerful ways the message of Jesus slips into
our hearts, powerful ways to connect with Jesus while remembering who he is,
and giving us strength and encouragement whenever we worship Jesus.
The people in Colossae believed in many gods and had a strong
belief in dangerous spirits and powers. Paul has been praying that they will
rescued from these spirits and powers, as he tells them in verses 9–14, “since the day we heard
about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill
you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding
that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy
of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work,
growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to
his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and
giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the
inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he
has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of
the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness
of sins.” The people knew the power of the forces of darkness and that
even though they now believed in Jesus, they still needed to deal with these other
spiritual forces. Even good gods could lose their temper and strike out, so how
was following Jesus going to make a difference for them. Our gods are different
today, as Timothy Keller says, we take the good things God gives us and make
them gods in our lives, giving them a higher place in our hearts than Jesus and our gods today are often money, pleasure, relationships and people. They have great power in our lives, but the problem is, they never
completely satisfy us and always end up disappointing and even hurting us.
Paul reminds us that Jesus is more than simply a man, he’s the image of the invisible God, the first-born over all
creation. Jesus has become human just like
us, someone you can see, hear, and touch, but still God, the physical
appearance of God. The catechism puts it this way, “the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God, took
to himself, through the working of the Holy Spirit, from the flesh of the
virgin Mary, a truly human nature so that he might become David’s true
descendant, like his brothers in every way except for sin.” As human, Jesus
understands our lives, why we fear the powers and forces of darkness that
surround us, but Paul reminds us that Jesus is also God and he is powerful
enough to protect us and defeat these powers. Advent is a time when we look
back to Jesus’ birth, his first coming to earth to experience and learn life as
we life it, but it’s also a time when we look forward to when Jesus returns to
completely renew creation and heal creation from the sin that infects and
twists it, including us. This is why Jesus has come and is coming back again.
As God, all of creation belongs to Jesus because he’s the
creator of everything, both the
things we can see and the things we can’t see, including Satan and all the
spiritual powers that are out there. Not only has
everything been created through Jesus, everything holds together in him. What
does this all mean? J.B Lighthouse puts it this way, “Jesus is the one who makes creation “a cosmos instead of chaos,” meaning that Jesus keeps the world from
falling apart due to earthquakes, floods, plagues, and other disasters, as well
as making sure that Satan and other evil forces are kept in check. Jesus brings
order out of chaos, brings sense out of senselessness.
This is why God has given us the church. Jesus is the head
of the church, the source of the life energy for its growth, and guiding us
into the world to be his presence, leading us to bring the gospel news to the
world that God has come into the world through Jesus to reconcile us with God. Jesus
fills the church with his Spirit, giving the church the power to change the
world! We’re here to walk alongside people during hard times when the world
doesn’t make sense, helping them to see where God is in the hurt, to be Jesus’
love and hope when hope seems far away. My wife and I are part of a support
group for parents who are in crisis and so many times they cry out that they
can’t understand why these things are happening to them and to their children,
things like addiction, violence, choosing homelessness over home, choosing
abuse over love, choosing brokenness over health.
So often I don’t have answers for them other then that this
is the result of sin in our world, but even by simply being there, crying with
them, caring about them, listening to their stories and offering understanding
and hope, they begin to find peace and hope again. As one mother said, “Just
finding people who care and understand has helped, but then being reminded
after the meeting that Jesus also cares and understands me was life changing.” This
is because Jesus came into the world and he understands the brokenness we find
ourselves in and his heart is filled with compassion for us. When things become
too much for us, Jesus has given us the church, his body to find strength, to
be surrounded by other followers of Jesus who will hold us, lift us up when we
slump to the ground in hopelessness and remind us that we are never alone, that
Jesus has sent his Spirit to be with us always.
We also know that because God, Jesus’ father was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through
him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in
heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. On the
cross, Jesus accomplishes more than paying the price for our sin, he also
defeats Satan and death, he begins the journey of renewal of creation. On the
cross and in Jesus’ resurrection, he reveals himself as God, bringing healing
and hope and peace with our heavenly father and throughout the creation. This
healing, hope and peace are already found in small ways in the church, but will
be completely poured out into creation when Jesus returns.
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