Christmas Eve

[HKHaugan]

While we have been concentrating on the Second Coming during Advent it is time we look at what it will produce in the present. It is why we continue to celebrate Christmas year after year. Because we are looking forward to Jesus returning it is that vision that gives us purpose in the present. This is what makes every next moment a living moment. Building on that expectation gives us the essence of our individuality, why we are here. It is to be like Him. When we become more like Him the world around us is affected.

Raised consciously before us is real and genuine concern for others, the downtrodden, the dispossessed, the lost, the victimized, those treated unjustly, the sick, diseased, the emotionally crippled and the poor. A wheelchair is no longer just a mechanical device to allow someone mobility. It carries a damaged person, damaged not only physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. It symbolizes the condition of the world of persons who are in need of overcoming the aloneness they feel in their heart. Like wheelchairs, crutches, prosthetic limbs you have group residences like hospitals both physical and mental, retirement centers, homeless shelters, jails and prisons.

And not to be overlooked are neighbors right next door who live in nice homes, have the appearance of stability, children, cars and pets but the myriad problems of breaking and broken hearts. Then just across town are the blighted neighborhoods where survival both emotional and physical is not just a hope it is a way of life.

Obviously no one of us can solve the massive issues that lie in wait for someone to come and make a difference in the lives and hearts of those trapped in their confines. It is precisely here that the One who has come and is to come again lays out the blueprint to reclaim this territory taken over by the power of hopelessness and frustration both of which characterize the villainous assault of the devil. It is a blueprint that touches the hurt where it begins and that is in the heart. Above the media hype, the blaring talking heads on TV, the material wealth of our society and the political upheaval so prevalent in its pounding drumming on the borders of our ears, stands the ultimate truth that the overall problem of humanity is internally grounded in the individual heart. It is right here that the blueprint for hope, change and recovery is in Jesus, the One who changes hearts. The blueprint calls for a change of heart by letting faith in Jesus cauterize the sin from within. It is only when the heart changes that the world around that heart changes. There is no other way.

The blueprint is historically recorded in Scripture. Look at its skeleton. Have God limit Himself to ultimate human vulnerability. Let Him be a baby conceived in the most vulnerable of humans, a woman. Have this baby born into a family with an ethnic heritage denounced and renounced by culture after culture. Have this baby born in the most unsanitary place, a stable and have Him born because there is no room to accept Him in the normal circumstance of a home among friends. Have Him born because His parents were forced to travel by a hostile governing entity with no other goal than the money gained by taxes. Have Him born in a world that couldn't care less about anything but personal survival and exploited power-mad leaders. Have Him born in the midst of a local ruler's fear he might lose his power. Have Him born where religions of all kinds were based on fear for survival and Him in a family subject to one that was rule ridden and devoid of personal love. Have Him raised to be an artisaned craftsman with a spiritual mission, a rejected carpenter/Messiah whose death would be a sign of the greatest humiliation a government could confer on a condemned, alone and disgraced human being, the Cross. By every human standard have Him suffer the stigma of anonymity while bleeding out on an arid hill.

In His lifetime which the devil will attack, have Him simply touch hearts by healing, teaching and sharing His life relationally day by day. In that set of experiences let Him offer faith in Him as the key to a changed heart and a changed world. After His death have Him rise from the dead to show a perfect heart, a perfect mind and a perfect Spirit. Then have Him appear to hundreds as a guarantee of the truth and have Him ascend into Heaven and return in the Holy Spirit to those who decide to trust His offer of faith in Him. And last but by no means least have Him and His Spirit accessible by means of a set of historically verifiable documents called Holy Scripture. Now you have a blueprint that brings reality into the present, that is eternal not temporary, that is lasting not momentary and yet moment by moment always available.

The flesh that Jesus puts on this skeletal outline is each of us who make up what He has ordained, a kingdom of believers known as the Body of Christ which is now Him living in our hearts. Through worship, discipleship, ministry and mission we are molded together to receive spiritual gifts by which each of us has a role in changing the world right where we are.

Tonight is the great night of anticipation, praise, worship and celebration. The Lord and Savior Jesus, God the Son, came among us to bring us into eternity through faith in Him. He is the heart of hearts and the King of Glory. He is the height above all attempts to confine, define, refine and align personal consciousness. He alone is their fulfillment. No matter what man searched for outside of God, everything finally finds itself understood and completed in Jesus, the One through whom all things came into being.

In 2nd Timothy Paul gives Timothy a charge which can be applied to each of us. It is a charge that puts us in the trenches every day. As we celebrate Christmas consider his charge as our marching orders:

“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry (2Tim.4:1-5).”