Preached December 5, 1993, morning service First Baptist Church, Garrett, Indiana
We have scarcely had time to savor Thanksgiving....the delicious turkey and dressing .... the football contest on television ....reunion with family and friends ....the brisk cold of an autumn afternoon and the glow and warmth of a fire.
For the children the coming of Christmas has always signaled a flood of expectation. Santa Claus is already setting up his listening post at shopping centers across our town. Some may complain about the over-commercialization of Christmas, but not me. I love to see those little eyes light up as they rush into the living room to see what the jolly old elf has brought them this year.
For your pastor there is an added note that brings to mind the coming of this unique event in the year--the church calendar. This is that season in the church year that is designed to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Christ Child. And it is never too early to begin preparing for that kind of Christmas.
This time of year there are usually two kinds of sales being advertized in the newspaper: Post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas. I could not help wondering if those two terms do not describe the spiritual state of many of us --post -Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas. Permit me to cite some examples.
IF YOU ONLY OBEY THE LAW AND NO MORE YOUR FAITH IS PRE- CHRISTMAS.
How is that for a starter? If most of us were brought before Heavenly Tribunal this day and were asked to defend ourselves before the Righteous Judge of the Universe, I suspect that most of us would start off naming the things we haven't done.
Let us see, "Thou shalt not kill...." Why there! That's a good start. I certainly have never killed anyone.
"Thou shalt not steal...." Why certainly that leaves me out. Or Adultery. And I certainly don't mistreat my parents. Most of us would take refuge in the things we don't do. And yet I say to you that if you obey the law and that is all, your faith is pre-Christmas.
Jesus spent very little time condemning evil-doers. He spent a great deal of time condemning good folks who were worthless. For example, the priest and the Levite who passed by the man lying in the ditch; they may have kept all the laws, but their faith was pre-Christmas.
Or the rich young ruler who "had kept all the commandments from his youth up." Jesus told him there was still one more thing he needed to do; he needed to take everything he had and sell it and give the money to the poor and leave it all behind and follow Jesus; Being good was not good enough.
Or the goats at the last judgment. The hell of fire was prepared not for those who had broken the laws of adultery, stealing and killing. Rather it was prepared for those who had a chance to give a cup of water to a man who was thirsty or a piece of bread to a man who was hungry; or clothing to the naked, or to make a simple visit to the sick or imprisoned. Chances came time after time to these folks and they let them get away unfilled.
How about you? Are you willing to go beyond being respectable to being responsible? A lawyer asked Jesus what was the great commandment. Jesus did not answer with a "Thou shalt not...." He summed up all of christian living with a thou shalt; "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength; and thy neighbor as thyself." "Thou shalt love..." And who is your neighbor?
Jesus answered with a story about a good Samaritan who took time to minster to one in need. We need good Samaritans today.
You may have heard the story about a woman who rounded the street corner and came upon an accident victim lying on the sidewalk. Suddenly, she was grateful for the first aid course she had recently completed at the local YWCA. "I was going for a walk today," she told her husband later, "and saw this poor man lying on the sidewalk in pretty bad condition." "Then," she continued, "all my first-aid training came back to me, and I knew just what to do. I bent right down and put my head between my knees to keep from fainting!"
An article in the CHRISTIAN HERALD tells that one of the best apartments in New York is near the banks of the East River. Yet the living room windows face to the West, away from the river view. When the buildings were erected, in 1925, animal pens and a large slaughterhouse were in sight of the apartments, so the planners faced a more desirable view.
This happens to people. Instead of changing the circumstances and improving the conditions...we simply turn away or we put our head between our knees to keep from fainting. This is how we have dealt with migrant labor camps, penal reforms, city slums--we have just looked in another direction. Christ calls us to be servants. Servants do the work.
Your faith is pre-Christmas if you only obey the law.
IN THE SECOND PLACE, YOUR FAITH IS PRE-CHRISTMAS IF YOU LOVE ONLY THOSE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU.
Everybody loves people who love them. That doesn't take any great act of commitment, does it?
There was once a fellow who was a general ne-er do well. He never contributed anything to his community that I know of. He wasn't malicious at all. He was simply lazy and what some would call "worthless." Still most members of the community were charitable. After all, they would say, "he is good to his mother."
EVERYONE is good to his or her mother. Not everyone of course. There are some bums out there. Still, it takes no great leap of devotion to love your mother or your brother or people who go to the same church or live on the same street. Everybody does that.
They even say that about the Mafia: "They really take care of their own! That's great. So what?
Jesus said, "Even the Gentiles love those who love them." The test of Christian faith is whether you can love persons whom ordinarily you might not even be able to stand.
The cause of Christ has been crippled through the years by those who say they love Christ but cannot love humanity. The world sniffs out hypocrisy in the church quicker than a bear sniffs out a handout in a state park. The penetrating TV news show SIXTY MINUTES some time ago filmed a story on the church in South Africa. The obvious angle was the glaring hypocrisy of apartheid in the face of clear Christian teaching that in Christ, "There is neither Jew or Greek." Surely the church would be against racism, wouldn't it?
The story showed otherwise. While declaring out one side of the mouth that apartheid was racism and sin, the leader of the
major Christian denomination in South Africa said out the other side of his mouth that the two races shouldn't mix. In fact, when the denomination decalared that racism was clearly against biblical teaching, 105 churches pulled out to form an all-white denomination. The story closed with cameras focused on a sea of all-white faces singing joyfully to an all-white God.
The editors of SIXTY MINUTES knew what the Christians in South Africa evidently do not--the gospel of Jesus Christ wipes out racial barriers. In his autobiography Mahatma Gandhi tells of his interest in the Bible as a student. He even attended a Christian church one Sunday.
When he entered the sanctuary, the ushers refused to seat him. They suggested that he worship with his own people. Gandhi was so disillusioned he left, and later wrote, "If Christians have caste differences also, I might as well remain Hindu." So sad.
By the way, how are you doing so far? Your faith is pre- Christmas if all you do is obey the law and no more. Your faith is pre-Christmas if you love only those people who love you.
FINALLY, YOUR FAITH IS PRE-CHRISTMAS IF IT HAS NEVER MADE THAT VITAL MOVE FROM YOUR LIPS TO YOUR HEART.
We get disturbed because Christmas has been so captured by our culture that it has almost lost its religious significance, but that is true to a lesser extent of the Christian faith itself.
How about you? Do you have Christ on your lips but not in your heart? "Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." A church with one of those signs on which you can change messages was right next to an S&H stamp redemption store. On the sign was this message in front of the church: "Soul & Heart Redemption Center."
Remember the description of the prodigal Son's change of heart: "He came to himself." The following is an account of a young man whose life history was the subject of a government report on juvenile delinquency:
A young man who was a very serious problem to his parents and local authorities because of his antisocial behavior, spent several weeks one summer in a peaceful rural area with members of a religious group well-known for their kind, simple modes of living. His behavior among them was exemplary. The following summer, after another violent year in the ghetto, he returned to the country and to his peaceful, friendly mode of living with the comment, "The real me is here."
Perhaps we have missed the whole point of Christmas and Christianity--no longer shall we be dependent on an external law but upon an indwelling spirit. The surest testimony has always been this one, "You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart." Our faith is pre-Christmas if it is a faith of the lips but not of the heart.
This is to say that your faith is still pre-Christmas if you have never made a commitment of your life to Jesus Christ.
Remember the story of the Methodist preacher who called his Bishop and told him that Jesus Christ was visiting his church in person that day and asked what he should do. "Look busy," was the immediate reply.
We are a busy people. We are even busy about the things of God. And yet, "busy-ness" is not the key to the Kingdom of God. Our lives may still be fragmented, our busy-ness lacking focus, our vision lacking in power, purpose, and promise. Why? Because we have never given all to Christ.
The Bethlehem babe provides the answer to the space that separates man from God. Indeed as the Christian community attempted to understand and explain the Christmas event, they described it as the veritable meeting of man and God in one person--the babe who lay in the manger. Incarnation, that is what they called it. God revealing Himself through the life of a man is what it means. "Emmanuel"--that is what they called Him, Emmanuel, God with us.
The fact of Christ, writes Dr. Carnegie Simpson, "does not indeed show us everything, but it shows us one thing we need to know the character of God. God is the God who sent Jesus. That God is Love." Jesus not only showed us that the nature of God was Love; He also showed us that we are important in Gods' eyes. In fact, we were the reason for Christmas. As we have heard it said: Christmas began in the heart of God. It is complete only when it reaches the heart of man."
Is your faith pre-Christmas? If your faith is but a tradition you follow, a law you obey, a creed you espouse, it is dead. Christ calls you this day to open your heart, let His love come in, that in turn you may also love, and that you might make a commitment of yourself to his will and his way.
