KNU International English Church
Josh Broward
December 21, 2008
We're going to start this sermon today with one of my favorite activities: audience participation. Turn to someone around you and answer this question: “Why did Jesus come?” We are preparing for Christmas, right? Why did Jesus bother to enter our world in the first place? Why did Jesus come?
--- Talk in small groups.
--- Shout out answers.
Christians have two basic views of why Jesus came and how Jesus fits into the story of humanity.
In view #1, which has become popular over the past 100 years or so, the world is kind of like an airplane with engine failure. We are loosing altitude. Society is experiencing moral failure. The wings are smoking. This plane called humanity is going down. We are going to crash into the mountain of God's judgment, and everything we've ever known will explode in a ball of fire. Some parts of the Bible definitely sound like this.
In view #1, Jesus functions kind of like an ejection button and parachute. We can see the world going down in smoke. We can see the hell and fire of judgment coming our way, but aha! We also see a red button marked, “Jesus.” We push our little red Jesus button, say a quick prayer, and eject out of planet earth. We are saved by our Jesus parachute which carries us safely to heaven, while the earth burns wildly in the flames of God's judgment.
But there's another perspective in the Bible, another perspective available to us Christians. In view #2, the world is more like a sick body, a single human. God created a good world, but we were infected by sin. Now the cancer of sin is spreading throughout humanity. Every last cell of the human body has some form of cancer.
In this view, God is like the doctor. In the Old Testament, God tried non-invasive treatments. God entered a pilot program with Israel, hoping they would be the means for curing the world. God's treatment plan included instruction on healthy living through the Torah, a change of environment through the Exodus, steady doses of medicine through the prophets, even the physical therapy of difficulties and exile.
But nothing seemed to be working. Humanity was still sin-sick, rejecting God, and abusing each other.
Finally, in a radical step, God – the doctor – decided to get inside the body of humanity. In an amazing leap of theology, God entered the human world as a single human being – like a live vaccine. Once inside our humanity, God was able to start the cure on a new level.
Jesus formed a counter-cancer cell cluster (later called the church). He trained them in cancer fighting tactics, and finally God diversified his life in the world, by injecting each member of the church with his own living presence – the Holy Spirit. Now, the church is growing and spreading throughout humanity, fighting the cancer of sin in all its forms. Now, through the church , God is working within humanity for our own cure.
Someday, God will bring the final cure. Someday, God will work so dramatically and beautifully that all the cancer of sin will be eliminated, and humanity will be one whole, loving God and loving each other perfectly.
OK, so do these two views make any difference? Does it really matter which one we believe? Yes, it makes a lot of difference.
If we believe view #1, then our basic attitude will be to check out of this world. We will live like we're trying to escape. This world doesn't really matter. We'll ignore the poor and ignore the environment and ignore those around us – except for remembering to tell them about the emergency button. With view #1, holiness becomes a matter of measuring up to God's standards, being good enough so that we qualify to push that little red Jesus button and get our Jesus parachute.
If we believe view #2, then our basic attitude will be to check in to this world, to engage with what's happening around us. This world really does matter, so we'll care for the poor, care for the environment, and have strong, positive relationships with those around us. We will try to love them in all ways. With view #2, holiness becomes participating in God's mission of rehabilitating our world.
So we have to come back to that first question. Why did Jesus come? What is Christmas all about? What's the big deal with this baby in a manger? Why did “the Word become human and make his home among us” (John 1:14)? Tony Campolo, a preacher and professor, says he often asks his students this question. Tony says:
I get a lot of good answers. … But they seldom come up with what Jesus really would have said. I do know what Jesus would have said and did say. The first thing out of Jesus’ mouth when he started his ministry—Matthew, Mark, Luke, check it out—the first thing he says is, “I have come to declare the kingdom of God is at hand.” Jesus came declaring the kingdom of God. All of his parables are about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like a man who does this or a woman who does that. When he told his disciples how to pray he said, “Pray for the kingdom. Pray: thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.” Note: no pie in the sky when you die! He’s talking about a kingdom in this world. He wants to change this world into the kind of world that it ought to be. That’s why Jesus came, to create transformed people who in turn will live in a transformed world.1
Then, Campolo starts talking about Isaiah. In Isaiah 56, the prophet cries out: “This is what the LORD says, 'Be just and fair to all. Do what is right and good, for I am coming soon to rescue you and to display my righteousness among you'” (56:1). Throughout the last 10 chapters of Isaiah, God is calling the people to honor him by living faithfully and generously:
No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. Then, your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind. (Isaiah 58:6-8).
Isaiah goes back and forth between judgment and hope, threat and promise. One of the moments of hope is our passage today: Isaiah 65:17-25.
Tony Campolo explains:
The kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem, the new society that God wants to create, will be marked by justice. It will be justice in this sense: everybody will have a decent house to live in, everybody will have a good job and have a good opportunity to earn a decent living in the vineyards of this world, children will not die in infancy, old people will live out their lives in perfect health and not have to worry about who’s going to take care of them. ... It says when boys and girls are growing up, parents aren’t going to worry that their sons and daughters are going to end, “in calamity" ... girls getting pregnant before their time and boys being blown away in gang warfare.2
God promises the people of Israel that, if they will persevere, he will fulfill their dreams and his dreams for a just society. What are the basic building blocks of justice? Health, secure homes, dignified and productive work, and hope for our children, connection with God, and peace. God will fulfill their dreams so deeply that everything will feel new. The air we breath – new. The sky above us – new. The ground we walk on – new.
Jerusalem itself will be a called Joy and Gladness. God's people will be so beautiful that they will be a source of joy. Even God will rejoice because of his people. He will take delight in his people (Isaiah 65:18-19).
Here in our church, we are deeply committed to this dream. God has called us to be a loving community that changes our world. God has called us to help this dream become reality. When we think about this together, we see God's dream happening here in our community in three ways. First, we will be renewed by God's love. We'll connect deeply with God and be transformed by his love. Second, we'll be a multicultural community. In some ways, we don't have much choice about being multicultural. Look around. But we are going to embrace this diversity and become one diverse people through Jesus. Lastly, we want to cause global change through local action. Starting right here, and then partnering with one local community in a developing country, we want to change the world one community at a time! This is the dream God has given us, and we are deeply committed to it.
But dreams can sometimes get lost. Dreams can sometimes get buried amid the daily work of life. Especially when life gets hard and the dream is taking longer than we expected, dreams can fade away.
That's what was happening to Israel. God had brought them back from exile, but the garden of Israel wasn't regrowing very well. Isaiah gives them this picture of heaven as a reminder of their direction and as a call to persevere. It's like, through Isaiah, God is saying, “Look where we're going. Don't give up. We are working toward a beautiful end. Look at this beautiful society we are creating together. Join my rebuilding team and rejoice with me as we rehabilitate our world.”
This is why Jesus came. This is why we celebrate Christmas. God has a dream. God has a dream for a just and loving society. God has a dream for a community where all people are loved just as they are, where all people have something valuable to contribute, where all people of all colors and all backgrounds are respected and welcomed. God has this amazing dream of recreating the world, of recreating us, bringing us back to Eden – so to speak – where all people and all animals live together in peace with each other and peace with God. This is why Jesus came!
And God packed this dream into a baby, and he allowed that baby to grow in Mary's womb. God entrusted his dream child to Mary and Joseph. God entrusted the future of the universe to a pregnant teenager and a manual laborer. God gave them Jesus – the hope of the world – as a weak, vulnerable infant, dependent on their care, in an oppressed land. What was God thinking?!
Mary and Joseph probably often felt incapable and confused. This is a big responsibility for a young newlywed couple. Sometimes Sarah comes home after Emma and I had a fight, and I'll say, “I don't know how to be a parent. I don't know what the right thing to do is. What are we supposed to do in this situation?” I'm guessing that Mary and Joseph often felt the same way. But they just cared for Jesus and helped him grow the best they could. They made sure he knew the ways of God, and eventually Jesus became more than they could have imagined
In some ways, we are a lot like that. God has entrusted his baby little dream to us: a just world along the lines of Isaiah 65. When we look at the situation our world is in: terrorism, poverty, ethnic conflicts, AIDS, and on and on – when we look at all that, God's dream for a community of love and justice feels so small, so vulnerable, almost impossible – kind of like a baby given to a teenage virgin and a carpenter.
In many ways this infant dream is dependent on our care. In many ways, God's dream will succeed or fail in our world based on our participation. What was God thinking?!
We may feel incapable like Mary and Joseph. Maybe we won't know what to do or how to do it sometimes.
But, like Mary and Joseph, we need to just do the best that we can. We can nurture God's dream in our church and in our homes. We can help it to grow. We can shape our community by what we find in the Bible.
If we care for this God inspired dream, nurture it, help it grow, we too will be amazed at how this dream grows and evolves and becomes more than we could ever have imagined. If we will do every little thing to help God's dream along, we will be amazed at what happens.
Even as we work day by day and week by week to be a loving community that changes our world, we will find that month by month and year by year, the dream is becoming a reality. We will see that slowly a new world is emerging right here in our own community. This is Christmas.
1Tony Campolo, “The Victory of Justice,” October 30, 2005, 30 Good Minutes, http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/campolo_4905.htm.
2Ibid.
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