The Story Behind The Glory
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
For Sundays In Advent, Christmas, And Epiphany
Welcome to the Sunday after Christmas! Tell me, has the glory begun to fade?
A pastor recently described his shopping experience at one of the busy malls. He watched a small boy put his hand hopefully on an inexpensive Christ-child on a counter. "What is this?" he asked his mother, who had him by the hand. "C'mon," the hurried woman answered, "you don't want that." She dragged him grimly away, her mind dark with gift thoughts, following a star of her own devising.
Strange, isn't it, the way the story behind the glory gets lost in the Christmas rush? It is something of a paradox, but a day that should be holy with thoughts and dreams of the highest becomes cluttered with the irritations and frustrations that come with shopping. Maybe the hurried mother was right, and we don't want Christ. And yet, maybe we are tired and irritable because we have lost sight of the story behind the glory of Christmas. The fact that God came into human life to share it, enrich it, and save it is the story that flows from Bethlehem. The "news of a great joy" remind us that we are loved by an everlasting love even when we are unlovable, forgiven when we are unforgivable, and accepted when we are unacceptable. This is the Story behind the Glory! Let's think about it for a few moments on this Sunday after Christmas.
As our text conveys the Christmas message, we will see that the glory grows as the story unfolds.
First of all, it is a Mystery Story. "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman" (v. 4).
Agatha Christie or John Grisham couldn't match this story for sheer excitement! Think of it, Almighty God invading human life in the person of his Son. Next Sunday's Gospel will say it in another way: "The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Only a crass blindness could fail to see that such a truth as that presented in the sentence, "The Word became flesh," is over-poweringly dramatic in itself and utterly revolutionary in its consequences. "If this is dull," exclaimed Dorothy Sayers, "then what, in heaven's name, is worthy to be called exciting?" And to put it even more precisely, Ms. Sayers continued, "From the beginning of time until now, this is the only thing that has ever REALLY happened. When you understand this, you will understand all prophecies, and all history."
Think of it, fellow Christian, here is the mystery that unlocks the meaning of all history. And what is history but his-story, the story of the God who became man on that first Christmas day. Recall his words, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). And, wonder of wonders, he is the one who "walks with us, and talks with and tells us we are his own." He is not just a fact of history but an ever-present factor in the living of these lives of ours. As Lord Tennyson put it, "Speak to him, thou, for he hears, and Spirit to Spirit can meet; closer is he than breathing, nearer than hands and feet." Perhaps it was thoughts like these that inspired Harry Farrington to write:
I know not how that Bethlehem's babe
Could in the Godhead be
I only know the Manger-Child
Has brought God's Life to me.
I know not how that Calvary's cross
A world from sin could free
I only know its matchless love
Has brought God's love to me.
I know not how that Joseph's tomb
Could solve death's mystery
I only know a living Christ
Our immortality.
Our text moves on to show us that this is also an Adventure Story -- "God sent His Son ... to redeem those who were under the law" (vv. 4, 5).
In the comic strip, Hi and Lois, the next door neighbor and his wife are seated in the living room. She speaks up, "Thirsty, get away from that TV set. You watched golf yesterday afternoon, tennis last night, and now baseball. Get out and see the real world," to which Thirsty responds, "I don't like the real world!" And, sometimes that's true of us. We don't like the real world. But, of course, the remedy is not to retreat into fantasy or entertainment. The remedy is to get to work to change the real world into a better world.
The story behind the glory of Christmas is the record of God's plan for transforming a world that had lost its way into what it was meant to be: his world. Our text tells us that the mission of God's Son was a redemptive one. "To redeem those who were under the law." This entire human race was in bondage to the law, because the law of God, the law written into the very fabric of the universe, stood over it in judgment.
Follow me for a moment. There is a mystery of evil in our world. Those evils from which we suffer are in the main the fruit of man's sin. It is man's inhumanity to man that has made countless thousands to mourn. The wars, cruelties, and wrongs which form such a grievous part of the burden of humanity are the outcome of human lust and passion. This is a world, I am sad to admit, which is in rebellion against God. The depth and intensity of that spirit of evil is made manifest at the Cross. Here is the true measure of evil and the final judgment upon it. If the question were asked, "What sort of a world is this and how does it stand in relation to God?" the truest answer is that it is a world that could not tolerate in its presence the Christ of Christmas, the blessed Son of God Almighty. When he came, full of grace and truth, he got a scant welcome. When he spoke as no other ever spoke, there were few who responded to him. When he went about doing good, ever willing to help and to save, the opposition to him grew more and more bitter until at last they cried out, "Away with him, crucify him." It is a world that has fully earned and brought upon itself the just judgment of God.
Martin Luther once said, "If I were almighty God, and the world treated my son as it treated God's Son, I'd knock the world to pieces."
But here is the crowning mystery of the story behind the glory of the Christmas event. He tells us, "My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways" (Isaiah 55:8). There is no desire in him to retaliate, or in any way act as man would act under similar provocation. On the contrary, the cross of Calvary, which is the supreme evidence of human wickedness, proves to be at the same time the crowning revelation of God's redeeming grace. It was all in his loving purpose; it was the price he was willing to pay. Since humankind's need was so desperate and the world could be redeemed in no other way: "God sent his Son ... to redeem those who were under the law." Yes, this is the story behind the glory of what we celebrated so few days ago. I wonder if the hymn writer thought of each of us when he penned these words:
What language can I borrow, to thank thee, dearest friend
For this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end
Oh, make me thine forever, and should I fainting be
Lord, let me never, never, outlive my love for thee.
What an Adventure Story!
In our third look at the "story behind the glory," we discover that it is a Love Story. "So that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' "(vv. 7, 8). Everybody loves a love story!
Can you conceive of anything more loving than the experience of adoption? Here is a child, orphaned or unwanted, because of some tragic event beyond his control. A childless couple, anxious to pour their love into a needy child, learn about him, see him, fall in love with him, and choose to make him part of their family with all the rights of one born to them naturally. He is adopted! In a similar sense, our text tells us, every Christian has passed through this experience. Orphaned because of our sin, separated from the God who made us, we later became the objects of a love that would not let us go. So great was that love that it entered our world, lived our life, died our death, then conquered death for us on that first Easter morning. Having done all this, the Eternal God, through the gift of his Son, bestows on us the blessing of reconciliation: adoption into his family, with all the rights and privileges of an heir. No wonder the scripture has us responding joyfully: "Abba, Father, now, dear God, we belong to you!"
When did all this take place? At the moment of our baptism into Christ, or at the time, in later life, when we realized the emptiness of life without God and turned in faith to the lover of our souls, saying, "If you have loved me that much, I will trust you, and gladly commit the direction of my whole life to you!" Call it what you will, this is the defining moment, the moment of adoption, or reconciliation, or conversion. Our wandering is over, the prodigal has come home. Isn't that what Phillips Brooks had in mind when he wrote in his carol: "O Holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today."
Blessed Love Story!
Having looked at the "story behind the Glory," is there perhaps one thing more we need to consider? As Paul Harvey often puts it, "Now for the rest of the story." What, dear friend, is the rest of the story? I think we get our clue from the action of the Wise Men. They came to the Child, they worshiped, they sensed a measure of the story behind the glory, and responded by presenting gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In essence they presented all that their lives represented. That, dear friends, is the "rest of the story."
A person of color was applying for membership in a Southern church. When questioned about his willingness to support the congregation with his time, talent, and treasure, he frankly said, "Brethren, I'se all I'se got." In sober truth that is all any of us possess, but if we give it, we give all else, as well. We will leave this fellowship this morning and return to a terribly needy world. What a blessing we will communicate if the "rest of the story" radiates from our lives.
Do you recall how the story of the Wise Men ends? Matthew tells us, "They departed into their own country another way" (Matthew 2:12). Of course he is saying that they took another route homeward, but doesn't it also tell us that they, themselves, went back "another way," different persons, changed by what they had seen and heard? No person can visit this Christ and return home the same person he was before that encounter. He/she must return "another way." May it be true of each of us today.
Once there was a man, according to an old story, who was so filled with despondency that he decided to commit suicide. He started on a long walk to a bridge that was to be his jumping off place. But he promised himself that if he met one smiling, happy, friendly face on the way he would turn back. Oddly, the story ends without answering the question whether the mission ended in suicide. The story, however, poses a question. If that man had met you, would he have turned back?
"I'se all I'se got" to offer this tired world. We can give the laughter and joy of those who have caught some hint of Bethlehem's meaning. We can give hope and confidence because we have beheld the love of God flooding down the ages from the Manger-child who will never let us go.
An unknown poet summed it up for us:
Wise men, indeed, to know a newborn star
Would be the herald of a King! Wise men,
To watch in readiness and travel far
To seek a light beyond their fellow's ken!
At star-bathed stable to rejoice, and when
They saw the Babe, to kneel and humbly lay
Their riches gifts of gold, of myrrh; and then
To travel back, dream-told, another way.
Ah, rare and wondrous wisdom, in our day
To read God's portents and to find his key!
Sweet manger baby, to thy gentle sway
We yield all pride, all knowledge, gifts for thee.
We worship in the radiance of thy Face,
And rise, a different way of life to trace.
This is the "rest of the story." Amen.
A pastor recently described his shopping experience at one of the busy malls. He watched a small boy put his hand hopefully on an inexpensive Christ-child on a counter. "What is this?" he asked his mother, who had him by the hand. "C'mon," the hurried woman answered, "you don't want that." She dragged him grimly away, her mind dark with gift thoughts, following a star of her own devising.
Strange, isn't it, the way the story behind the glory gets lost in the Christmas rush? It is something of a paradox, but a day that should be holy with thoughts and dreams of the highest becomes cluttered with the irritations and frustrations that come with shopping. Maybe the hurried mother was right, and we don't want Christ. And yet, maybe we are tired and irritable because we have lost sight of the story behind the glory of Christmas. The fact that God came into human life to share it, enrich it, and save it is the story that flows from Bethlehem. The "news of a great joy" remind us that we are loved by an everlasting love even when we are unlovable, forgiven when we are unforgivable, and accepted when we are unacceptable. This is the Story behind the Glory! Let's think about it for a few moments on this Sunday after Christmas.
As our text conveys the Christmas message, we will see that the glory grows as the story unfolds.
First of all, it is a Mystery Story. "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman" (v. 4).
Agatha Christie or John Grisham couldn't match this story for sheer excitement! Think of it, Almighty God invading human life in the person of his Son. Next Sunday's Gospel will say it in another way: "The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Only a crass blindness could fail to see that such a truth as that presented in the sentence, "The Word became flesh," is over-poweringly dramatic in itself and utterly revolutionary in its consequences. "If this is dull," exclaimed Dorothy Sayers, "then what, in heaven's name, is worthy to be called exciting?" And to put it even more precisely, Ms. Sayers continued, "From the beginning of time until now, this is the only thing that has ever REALLY happened. When you understand this, you will understand all prophecies, and all history."
Think of it, fellow Christian, here is the mystery that unlocks the meaning of all history. And what is history but his-story, the story of the God who became man on that first Christmas day. Recall his words, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). And, wonder of wonders, he is the one who "walks with us, and talks with and tells us we are his own." He is not just a fact of history but an ever-present factor in the living of these lives of ours. As Lord Tennyson put it, "Speak to him, thou, for he hears, and Spirit to Spirit can meet; closer is he than breathing, nearer than hands and feet." Perhaps it was thoughts like these that inspired Harry Farrington to write:
I know not how that Bethlehem's babe
Could in the Godhead be
I only know the Manger-Child
Has brought God's Life to me.
I know not how that Calvary's cross
A world from sin could free
I only know its matchless love
Has brought God's love to me.
I know not how that Joseph's tomb
Could solve death's mystery
I only know a living Christ
Our immortality.
Our text moves on to show us that this is also an Adventure Story -- "God sent His Son ... to redeem those who were under the law" (vv. 4, 5).
In the comic strip, Hi and Lois, the next door neighbor and his wife are seated in the living room. She speaks up, "Thirsty, get away from that TV set. You watched golf yesterday afternoon, tennis last night, and now baseball. Get out and see the real world," to which Thirsty responds, "I don't like the real world!" And, sometimes that's true of us. We don't like the real world. But, of course, the remedy is not to retreat into fantasy or entertainment. The remedy is to get to work to change the real world into a better world.
The story behind the glory of Christmas is the record of God's plan for transforming a world that had lost its way into what it was meant to be: his world. Our text tells us that the mission of God's Son was a redemptive one. "To redeem those who were under the law." This entire human race was in bondage to the law, because the law of God, the law written into the very fabric of the universe, stood over it in judgment.
Follow me for a moment. There is a mystery of evil in our world. Those evils from which we suffer are in the main the fruit of man's sin. It is man's inhumanity to man that has made countless thousands to mourn. The wars, cruelties, and wrongs which form such a grievous part of the burden of humanity are the outcome of human lust and passion. This is a world, I am sad to admit, which is in rebellion against God. The depth and intensity of that spirit of evil is made manifest at the Cross. Here is the true measure of evil and the final judgment upon it. If the question were asked, "What sort of a world is this and how does it stand in relation to God?" the truest answer is that it is a world that could not tolerate in its presence the Christ of Christmas, the blessed Son of God Almighty. When he came, full of grace and truth, he got a scant welcome. When he spoke as no other ever spoke, there were few who responded to him. When he went about doing good, ever willing to help and to save, the opposition to him grew more and more bitter until at last they cried out, "Away with him, crucify him." It is a world that has fully earned and brought upon itself the just judgment of God.
Martin Luther once said, "If I were almighty God, and the world treated my son as it treated God's Son, I'd knock the world to pieces."
But here is the crowning mystery of the story behind the glory of the Christmas event. He tells us, "My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways" (Isaiah 55:8). There is no desire in him to retaliate, or in any way act as man would act under similar provocation. On the contrary, the cross of Calvary, which is the supreme evidence of human wickedness, proves to be at the same time the crowning revelation of God's redeeming grace. It was all in his loving purpose; it was the price he was willing to pay. Since humankind's need was so desperate and the world could be redeemed in no other way: "God sent his Son ... to redeem those who were under the law." Yes, this is the story behind the glory of what we celebrated so few days ago. I wonder if the hymn writer thought of each of us when he penned these words:
What language can I borrow, to thank thee, dearest friend
For this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end
Oh, make me thine forever, and should I fainting be
Lord, let me never, never, outlive my love for thee.
What an Adventure Story!
In our third look at the "story behind the glory," we discover that it is a Love Story. "So that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' "(vv. 7, 8). Everybody loves a love story!
Can you conceive of anything more loving than the experience of adoption? Here is a child, orphaned or unwanted, because of some tragic event beyond his control. A childless couple, anxious to pour their love into a needy child, learn about him, see him, fall in love with him, and choose to make him part of their family with all the rights of one born to them naturally. He is adopted! In a similar sense, our text tells us, every Christian has passed through this experience. Orphaned because of our sin, separated from the God who made us, we later became the objects of a love that would not let us go. So great was that love that it entered our world, lived our life, died our death, then conquered death for us on that first Easter morning. Having done all this, the Eternal God, through the gift of his Son, bestows on us the blessing of reconciliation: adoption into his family, with all the rights and privileges of an heir. No wonder the scripture has us responding joyfully: "Abba, Father, now, dear God, we belong to you!"
When did all this take place? At the moment of our baptism into Christ, or at the time, in later life, when we realized the emptiness of life without God and turned in faith to the lover of our souls, saying, "If you have loved me that much, I will trust you, and gladly commit the direction of my whole life to you!" Call it what you will, this is the defining moment, the moment of adoption, or reconciliation, or conversion. Our wandering is over, the prodigal has come home. Isn't that what Phillips Brooks had in mind when he wrote in his carol: "O Holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today."
Blessed Love Story!
Having looked at the "story behind the Glory," is there perhaps one thing more we need to consider? As Paul Harvey often puts it, "Now for the rest of the story." What, dear friend, is the rest of the story? I think we get our clue from the action of the Wise Men. They came to the Child, they worshiped, they sensed a measure of the story behind the glory, and responded by presenting gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In essence they presented all that their lives represented. That, dear friends, is the "rest of the story."
A person of color was applying for membership in a Southern church. When questioned about his willingness to support the congregation with his time, talent, and treasure, he frankly said, "Brethren, I'se all I'se got." In sober truth that is all any of us possess, but if we give it, we give all else, as well. We will leave this fellowship this morning and return to a terribly needy world. What a blessing we will communicate if the "rest of the story" radiates from our lives.
Do you recall how the story of the Wise Men ends? Matthew tells us, "They departed into their own country another way" (Matthew 2:12). Of course he is saying that they took another route homeward, but doesn't it also tell us that they, themselves, went back "another way," different persons, changed by what they had seen and heard? No person can visit this Christ and return home the same person he was before that encounter. He/she must return "another way." May it be true of each of us today.
Once there was a man, according to an old story, who was so filled with despondency that he decided to commit suicide. He started on a long walk to a bridge that was to be his jumping off place. But he promised himself that if he met one smiling, happy, friendly face on the way he would turn back. Oddly, the story ends without answering the question whether the mission ended in suicide. The story, however, poses a question. If that man had met you, would he have turned back?
"I'se all I'se got" to offer this tired world. We can give the laughter and joy of those who have caught some hint of Bethlehem's meaning. We can give hope and confidence because we have beheld the love of God flooding down the ages from the Manger-child who will never let us go.
An unknown poet summed it up for us:
Wise men, indeed, to know a newborn star
Would be the herald of a King! Wise men,
To watch in readiness and travel far
To seek a light beyond their fellow's ken!
At star-bathed stable to rejoice, and when
They saw the Babe, to kneel and humbly lay
Their riches gifts of gold, of myrrh; and then
To travel back, dream-told, another way.
Ah, rare and wondrous wisdom, in our day
To read God's portents and to find his key!
Sweet manger baby, to thy gentle sway
We yield all pride, all knowledge, gifts for thee.
We worship in the radiance of thy Face,
And rise, a different way of life to trace.
This is the "rest of the story." Amen.
