Advent Paradoxes: The Splendor of Rags

December 24, 1995

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Scripture: Luke 2

Talk about paradox, talk about surprises and unexpectedness, talk about unobtrusiveness.... It happens every year, and each time it takes you by the throat.

I’m talking about the restraint, of course, the sheer, controlled restraint in this old story. IT’S THE INVASION OF THE WORLD, for heaven’s sake...the mighty Divine intrusion.

It’s the establishment of the beachhead in the war for the reclamation of the world. It’s D-Day, Oscar Cullman put it, the moment the final phase of the crusade for human redemption was initiated....AND IT HAPPENS SO QUIETLY YOU ALMOST HAVE TO GO LOOKING FOR IT TO FIND EVIDENCE OF ANYTHING UNUSUAL.

Every year it surprises us. Where you would expect fanfare, there is a muted tone; where you would think it would be forte, it’s pianissimo.

But it seems to be God’s way---When He comes to redeem, He comes through a peasant girl, in a remote, backwater village, miles off the beaten track....He lets the main event take place in a smelly, primitive cow barn....

And He lets the first word be released not to the press, not to the media, not to somebody who could broadcast the news, BUT TO A MOTLEY BAND OF WANDERING SHEPHERDS WAY OUT IN THE “BOONIES”, in a distant, meager pasture.

I suppose what it must mean is that the God of Jesus Christ is not the kind of God who knocks you down and drags you into His corner.

He could do that, of course---that’s what omnipotence is all about...BUT HE DOESN’T---And that’s what GRACE is all about.

God doesn’t bludgeon, He beckons, He doesn’t shove, He signals. He doesn’t insist, He invites. The whisper of God is His authentic voice, not the loud, clanging, irresistible force that bowls you over and slams you into a slot, but the quiet, persistent whisper that respects your integrity as a person even as it makes its appeal.

There’s a danger in that approach, of course...the danger of losing some.

God always takes that chance. But to me, it’s what makes God so impressively magnificent---HE SHARES THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS GRACIOUS REDEMPTION WITH THE RECIPIENT. He trusts us to make the right response.

Maybe it’s why the shepherds came so quickly.... Sophistication hadn’t ruined their capacity to receive. THEY BELIEVED ENOUGH TO COME AND SEE FOR THEMSELVES...and they found that it was true.

What a strange sight it must have been to see those rough, dirty, outdoorsy, manual laborers stumble into the quietness of the stable. Don’t you know they were awkward and clumsy?

But they came because something inside of them made them come. There’s something deep within the human heart that yearns for purity. And something  in us that recognizes the splendor of it, even when it’s swaddled in rags.

Jesus always had the power to pull that out of people, and it was true even when He was a Baby.

Someone has said that the curse of our world is not so apt to be its evil as its disillusionment. I think that’s true. We can fight evil as long as we know it’s evil, and even gain strength in the battle.

Our danger is that we may become cynical. There is so much compromise in the world that sometimes you almost wonder if there is any such thing as purity of motive, or an unspoiled heart.

But then you think of all the people you know who are upright, and clean, and noble---mothers who are tirelessly faithful to their children, people who endure unbelievable hardship and suffering for the sake of those they love...people who refuse to lower their standards even when doing so could bring them gain...young people who keep their idealism unspotted despite the

fierce pressure of the world.

AND YOU THINK OF JESUS CHRIST, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

There is something in all this that calls us upward to a better way of life.

The shepherds responded to the innocence and purity of the unspoiled Babe of Bethlehem. I’m sure they didn’t understand all the subtle complications of an advance Christology, but they knew that in Him there was that which appealed to the best that was in them, and we’re told that they returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen.

You see, the true power of Christmas is not the power to MAKE, but the power to MOTIVATE... strength made real through weakness.

It’s not really a Christmas verse at all, but in a sense it may just be the most characteristic Christmas verse in the Bible.

In the Book of Revelation, we are given the graphic image of the Risen Christ, standing at a door, and the text reads, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” It’s almost incredible. The very angels of heaven must be breathless with the sheer restraint of it....

The Almighty God of the Universe, who could wither us with His power, if He wanted to, chooses instead to put Himself in ours...coming to us, almost hat in hand, not with might, but with mercy, with enormous respect for our frailty and freedom, standing at the heart’s door, to ask to be let in.

The real Christmas question is, HOW DO YOU ANSWER THAT KNOCK?

“No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in.”

May He enter, and grow, and shine in your life this Christmas, and forevermore.

Let us pray: O God, may the simple, pure, unpretentious splendor of the redeeming Christ live in our hearts and burn brightly; for we pray this night in His name. Amen.