I think that if you talk to any married couple with children...they will tell you that when their kids came along that there were some major changes in their lives. Some of us are getting ready to find that out for the very first time and others are getting ready to be reminded....and I have to tell you that the changes are well worth it. To tell you the truth I often have trouble remembering Anne and I’s life before Suzy came along. We were walking through Wal-Mart about a year after she was born and Suzy was sitting there in the cart and one of us asked the question...what did we do before she came along? What was our life like...and we had a hard time remembering specifics. We were able to go a lot of different places on the spur of the moment...it was a lot easier to take those weekend trips....but beyond that we could not remember a whole lot about our lives.
But we have no trouble thinking about our current life. We have no problems remembering the sleepless nights...the first colds...the first ear infections....the times when are budget was stretched to the breaking point...in fact..those times are a pretty recent memory! But the changes...they were well worth it.
The really funny thing is, though, these changes....they weren’t that far reaching. When our daughter was born...there were very few people who were directly affected by her arrival. Outside of us there were only her grandparents and some close family and friends....other than that there was very little change in anybody’s life. When she woke up crying in the middle of the night because she was hungry...the neighbors didn’t get up to feed her. Come to think of it...I didn’t get up for lack of the necessary equipment to take care of the problem! When Anne went back to work...it was her father and I that took care of Suzy during the day...not the people down the street. When she got sick...when she needed changing...more often than not it was a select group of people who were affected.
It wasn’t just the negative things, though, that only a select few got....the blessings were not for everyone as well. The hugs, smiles, kisses...only a few of us got to experience them. Very rarely does a child come along that affects more than a few people.
Bret Harte tells a story about a child that changed the lives of many people in a story set in the Wild West, called “The Luck of Roaring Camp.” Roaring Camp was the meanest, toughest Mining Town in the entire West. There were more murders and thefts than any other place around. Roaring Camp was inhabited entirely by men … except for one woman who made her living in the only way she knew how. Her name was Cherokee Sal.
Eventually, Cherokee Sal became pregnant and gave birth to baby. She died in childbirth, and no one knew who the father might be. The men put the baby girl in a box with some old rags under her. Somehow that just didn’t seem right, so one of the men rode 80 miles to buy a Rosewood Cradle. When they put the rags and the baby in the beautiful new cradle, the rags just didn’t look right. So another man rode to Sacramento and purchased some silk and lacy blankets. They men lined the Rosewood Cradle with silk and tucked the new blanket around the little baby girl. But then someone noticed that the floor under the cradle looked dirty.
The next thing you knew, a few of those big, tough men got down on their hands and knees and scrubbed the floor until it was spotless. Of course, then the walls and the ceiling … and the dirty windows looked awful. So they washed down the walls and the ceiling, and they even hung some clean white curtains on the windows.
Things were beginning to look a lot better. But they soon realized they had to give up their carousing and fighting. After all, the baby needed a lot of sleep, and babies can’t sleep during a brawl. Besides all that, the baby didn’t like angry voices or frowning faces. So the men started smiling and talking in pleasant, cheerful tones. And, since babies shouldn’t be left alone, they set the cradle by the entrance of the Mine and one of the men stayed next to her while the others worked.
Then somebody noticed how ugly the mine entrance was. So they planted some flowers and made a small garden near the cradle. And as they worked, the men looked for shiny little stones that they could show to the baby and watch her gurgle and coo. But when they held the stones down near her, they saw that their hands looked black and dirty. And they didn’t want to scare the little baby with their scraggly hair and wild beards. Pretty soon the general store sold out of soap and shaving gear.
The baby changed everything!
We are entering into a month in which we celebrate a baby...a baby that has changed more than just a family...a baby that has changed more than just a neighborhood...more than just a mining town in the Wild West...we celebrate this month a baby that changed the outlook for the entire world. Did you get that? There is no one in this world who has not been touched in some shape, form or fashion by this child that was born in that Bethlehem manger...even if that person is an atheist...whether they like it or not...they have been affected by this baby...the one that we call Jesus. Today and for the following three Sundays we are going to focus in on this unique child and we are going to look at his birth through many different eyes...and we begin today with the eyes of God himself.
One of the most basic things I think that we forget during this time we choose to celebrate the birth of Christ is that he had another father...we drive down the road and we see the Nativity displays in people’s yards and on a select few town squares...something that is getting rarer are rarer every year...we see Jesus’ Earthly parents in these displays...Mary looking so serene...Joseph so proud...and we forget one thing...Jesus has a Father way before he came to Earth. God is a God of emotion...he is a God of Love...the Bible tells us that he is a jealous God...he is an emotive God...and this was his Son that was born in Bethlehem...this was his Son that had left a heavenly home for approximately 33 years of trial..tribulation...and humanity. So, we begin today by taking a look at the birth of Jesus through the eyes of the Father.
I have often said that my favorite Gospel to read and study is the Gospel of John...and we start our series there today....in John the first chapter and we’ll start with the first three verses....
John here...he calls Jesus "the Word." The really interesting thing about this name for Jesus is that it is a proper noun...it is the Greek word "Logos." You see, John is making a really interesting statement here by calling Jesus the "logos".....it is a play on a philosophical concept that was prevalent at the time that John picked up his pen to write his Gospel....a concept that was quite possibly introduced by a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus around 600 B.C. However, during the time of Christ...the champion of the concept of the "Logos" was a man named Philo.
Philo was born around 20 B.C. and he died around 40 A.D. He was a Jew whose goal was to harmonize the Jewish religion with the teaching of Plato through an allegorical interpretation. His interpretations of the books of Proverbs and Wisdom resulted in a concept of the Logos that is so similar to John’s that scholars have deduced that John must have at least been familiar with Philo’s teachings.
Philo believed that matter was subordinate to the divine arrangement of the world yet it resisted it. He further taught that it was this resistance to the divine arrangement that was the source of all imperfection and evil within the world. However, he could not come to any just notion of what the Deity of the world actually was, so he assumed the existence of an “intermediate cause” which he called the Logos. He also imagined an invisible world, which could only be appreciated by the intellect that served as the pattern of the visible world in which daily life occurs. So, in short, Philo did not have a concrete concept of the deity that created the Heavens and the Earth. He seemed to hold a belief that was between two extremes: a personal creator who was and continues to be intimately involved in the lives of creation and atheism. This “middle ground” creator was what he called the Logos.
Now, we have no indication that Philo ever came in contact with Jesus or with his apostles...it certainly wouldn’t be unrealistic to conclude that Philo had at least heard of Jesus...because after all Jesus was a pretty well-known guy amongst the Jews. I don’t think it very likely that the two ever actually met though....I have to think that that meeting would have certainly been recorded by the Gospel writers. Regardless if they met or not...John seems to be familiar with Philo’s teachings...and here he says....Philo...you missed the boat, man. The Logos....he was here....he’s not some unknown force....he was here in the flesh. The creator came...he has been here since the beginning and he was God. His name was Jesus.
You see, as we look at the birth of Christ through the eyes of God...we have to remember one very important thing. We have already brought out that this was a parent/child relationship the two had....that God....the emotive personal God....who was as much the Logos as his son was...he allowed this child to leave. That much we get. However, here is the difference: there was never a time that God was not without his Son.
You see, unlike the parent/child relationships we know here on Earth....there was never a time that God was not without Jesus. Remember how we started out this morning talking about Anne and I’s situation...how there was once a time that we did not have Suzy? We may not be able to remember it very well...but there was a time that she was not part of our lives.
Not so with God and Jesus...John tells us here that the Logos...Jesus...he was there in the beginning.....he was with God in the beginning....he was God in the beginning....and there is absolutely nothing in this world that exists that he did not have a hand in creating.
For those of us who are parents...it is probably impossible for us to imagine giving up our child for anything...and we have experienced life without them before. We know that we will be able to draw breath...we will be able to live without them...we have had that experience before. Now, imagine if there was never a time that they were not a part of your life. Imagine that there was never a time in your life that they were not there...right beside you....how much harder would it be for you to give them up? That is what John tells us is the case here...Jesus and his Father...they have always been together...not a moment in time has gone by that they have been apart.
To me, that makes the birth of Christ even more amazing then it has ever been before...and it makes me want to look at his birth through the eyes of God and ask the question why? Why did he do it? You see...I am not a holy, omnipresent, omnipotent God. I cannot begin to understand why in the world that this step was even taken.... as a parent....I cannot fathom it....but John....he explains it a little bit further down....
Let’s look at verses 12 and 13....
Here..my friends...is where we are able to take a look at the birth of Christ through the eyes of the Father. Here is where we are able to kind of step into his shoes and see and answer the question: what in the World was he thinking...and quite simply...he was thinking about his other children. You see...God...he had more than one child....Jesus was not the only one.
The Greek word here is "teknon" and it appears 99 times in the New Testament....and its primary meaning is "offspring." There are no connotations to it like stepchildren....there are many different meanings to the word...but when it is used to indicate a family relationship...there is no difference made between children who are adopted and those who are born naturally into the family.
In fact, let me give you some instances where this word appears in the New Testament in exactly the same manner...part of speech, person and tense...that it does here.
Matthew writes in chapter 2 verse 18 of his Gospel about a fulfillment of prophecy...Rachel is "weeping for her children" and this is in reaction to Herod’s massacre of the young Hebrew boys at the birth of Christ. The word used for "children" is teknon and it is exactly the same as John’s use here...and since there is weeping involved....it is safe to conclude that there is no distant relationship here. Also, Paul writes to Titus in chapter one of that epistle and also to Timothy in first Timothy chapter 3 about the qualifications of an elder...and he says that there are certain things about the elder’s relationship with his children that must be considered...and again the word is exactly the same as John’s use here.
Are we getting the picture? When we look at the birth of Christ through the eyes of God...we see love....we see redemption...we see the beginning of the final phase of his plan to bring his other children home.
You see, there was only one way for this to happen and it was by his son Jesus becoming flesh...something that John tells us happened if we read a little further in verse 14...and John...he doesn’t allow any misconceptions here...he says that the Logos became Sarx...which is the Greek word for literal flesh and bone...skin...sinew....that’s the miracle of the birth when it is viewed through the eyes of the Father...this was his attempt to reach down...and rescue his other children....he was willing to give up one in order to save many, many more.
However, I think that you can probably bet that the Father...he wasn’t very happy about having to give up the one. I think that being the God of emotion that we know him to be...he was sad to see his Son leave...so...I bet it was with a mixture of sadness and excitement that he looked down on that night in Bethlehem...because he knew where this road would end...at the cross of Calvary. But he did it anyway...he sent Him...because he knew that this was the only way that he could bring all his children home......
If you notice, though, there is one thing that must be done in order to be one of these children...you don’t become one automatically...John tells us here in verse 12 that in order to become one of these children you have to receive the Logos...or more literally...you have to take him...you have to seize him...you have to grab hold of him and not let go. This word appears a whopping 293 times in the New Testament...and one of these uses that is exactly the same as John’s her in tense..person...everything...is when Jesus was taken by the guards and beat in Mark 14:65....you see...I think it goes much deeper than just receiving...I think...there is some much deeper action on our part. It’s a little bit different when you receive a gift than when you take one, isn’t it...don’t get me wrong...the wording here is right...we have to receive him...we can’t forcibly take his gift to us...we can’t rob him of salvation...but this word here...it is an active word...he is offering the gift to us and we have to reach out and take it....there is some action involved on our part. I think that when we think of the word "receive"...a lot of times we think about something that is placed in our laps...and that isn’t the case here...there is some action that must be done on our parts as well.
Dallas Willard tells of when the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) extended the electrical lines to his home in Missouri. He says, “When those lines came by our farm, a very different way of living presented itself. Our relationships to fundamental aspects of leisure, preparing food, and preserving it — could then be vastly changed for the better.”
Those farmers, “in effect, heard the message: ‘Repent, for electricity is at hand.’ Repent, or turn from their kerosene lamps and lanterns, their iceboxes and cellars, their scrub boards and rug beaters.” The power was now inside their homes to make their lives better, if they would accept it.
But some did not accept the kingdom of electricity. They were suspicious of it, even afraid of it. Some thought it cost too much. Some just did not want to take the trouble to change. The blessing was there waiting for them to enjoy, but they were not taking advantage of it.
You know…this may be a pretty elementary illustration….but the concept is very much the same. The benefits of being a child of the Father…it is there for you today…but just like the people who had electricity readily available to them…there has to be some action on you part. You have to reach out and grab hold of the gift from Jesus just as these rural people had to be willing to hook onto the system to enjoy the benefits of electricity.
So...as we look at the birth of Jesus through the eyes of the Father...we get a small glimpse of the reasons why the Logos came...so that the Father’s other children could come home..but we also see that this isn’t something that just falls into our laps...we have to reach out and grab hold of it and take it. So, my question for you today is...have you? If not then now is your opportunity to claim his gift to you...the gift of his Son...the Eternal Logos...one that is not abstract and impersonal like Philo believed but one who came in the flesh...so that you could take your place as a child of Him....and today is your opportunity to do so.
