Jesus Arrives in Reality

All right, well, we are in week two, we'll have one more week of Christmas. And we've been looking at how Jesus arrives. And last week we looked at how Jesus arrives in history in a real tangible time and place. And we looked at a lot of nerdy data to show that Jesus was real. And every historian, Christian or not, believes that. I think I maybe mentioned this before, but I'll say it again, just because it popped in my head. But my professor, he. 14 years ago, he put a. There's a website, you can look it up again. His name is John Dixon, and he had this thing, he said, if there is any credible or accredited professor in history or any, you know, I don't know anything that would debate that Jesus didn't actually live, I will eat a page of my Bible. And there were people who went out in search of a historian or somebody who would say, yeah, Jesus didn't actually live and it's never happened. So 14 years later, nobody's ever taken him up on eating a page of his Bible. He's Australian. So he said, I was just going to mix it up with some Vegemite and I wouldn't have noticed it, but he never had to do that. But Jesus arrived. He arrived in history. And then we're going to look at today that Jesus arrives in reality. And then next week we'll look at Jesus arrives in. In glory. Today's not gonna be a typical Christmas service. I mean, it is. We're gonna be looking at the birth of Christ for sure, but it's not gonna be, wow, let's look at this baby in the manger. And isn't this just fun and happy? Yes, it is. And yet I wanna look at what makes Jesus stand out a little bit. And so let's get into that. This is a guy who, from the 4th century, Anselm, not the 4th century, doesn't what 10th or 11th century, doesn't matter. Old dead guy. But he's famous. Anselm is famous for creating what he calls the ontological argument, or Anselm's ontological argument. I know I've mentioned this before. Onto ontological, it just means being. And then a study of, or a belief in the being, the existence of something. And so he tried to prove that God existed just through this little phrase that he had. And the phrase was along the lines of that there is a God exists and that God is the greatest conceivable being. Okay, so if we all think of the greatest conceivable being, one of us is going to have a greater conceivable being than everybody else in the room. And that's what God is. Okay, so that's what he would say. And the next step then is. And the greatest conceivable being would be better if he actually existed in reality. And so if God is God, he would be better if he actually existed. And so then he would say, therefore, God exists. And it's like, eh, it doesn't quite work that way. But you get his point. And so I wanna mention this. I actually. I literally shared this story yesterday at a coffee shop with a guy. So. And I was not planning on using it, but. But it works. I think you can be the judge of that. In the movie the Karate Kid. The original. Right. 1984 or something. This movie came out. I don't remember. I wasn't born then, obviously. And. But the Karate kid, you have Mr. Miyagi, who is the karate sensei. And then you have Daniel son. Now, Daniel's son, I always thought was like he was calling him son. It's not. Son means. Or sen means like Mr. Or like a term of like. All right, so it was Mr. Daniel the same way. He called him Mr. Miyagi. Isn't that kind of interesting? I didn't know that. Fun fact of the day. Here's the point. Daniel gets beat up by some guys in high school because that's what you do. It's not true, kids. We don't fight at all. But he gets a black eye. And so he decides he's gonna learn karate. And so. But he doesn't know how to learn karate. So what's he do? He goes to the library and he gets a book that teaches karate. And so he's trying these skills in this basement of some building, and Mr. Miyagi happens to be walking by and he says, what are you doing? And he says, I'm learning karate. And then Mr. Miyagi says, you learn karate from a book. And that's the whole point, right? That Mr. Learning Karate would be better in reality, learning from a skilled master than to try to learn it from a book. Just some ethereal thing that it's better to have that. That's why I asked you, who is your favorite teacher? My guess, it was somebody who. Who knew what they were talking about and somebody who could transfer their wisdom, their energy, their joy for whatever field it was that they were teaching and be able to explain that to you. And it just. It's contagious. And that was Mr. Miyagi. And we're gonna see that today, that we're gonna see that Jesus arrives in reality. And specifically John 1:14. We'll get there in a minute. But if God were to exist, it would be better if he existed in our reality. And again, as we looked at last week, Jesus did actually exist. And we can debate all we want if he actually was God. I'm assuming if you're here this morning, you believe that Jesus is in fact God, but it would be better if God showed up in reality than if God just existed, that there's something different about God. And so I want to look at how does Christianity stand out from all other world religions or even worldviews, and why does this matter? And this isn't an apologetic for the Christian faith or some kind of way to bash other world religions. That's not my goal. My goal is that we would just see Jesus. That we would just see Jesus in reality physically in front of us this morning. And specifically through spoiler alert, the Advent, Christmas season, or Emmanuel, which we just sang about, it means God with us. This is God existing in reality. Oh, this is where I got confused. This is Athanasius. He's from the 4th century. And this is in his book on the incarnation, Carne flesh in the flesh, Jesus becomes flesh. He says this. He, Jesus became what we are, that he might make us what he is. So let's get into this again, five points, like I usually have in the beginning. Every world religion has some kind of origin story, some kind of beginning. And so I want to ask the question, what comes to mind when you think of God? If you think of God, and maybe as if you're in your Christian mindset, you think of God the Father. What is it that pops into your head? And I don't mean like a physical description or what does it look like, but who is God? What comes to mind when you think of. And this could be maybe an eternal creator, and this could be true of a naturalist or even an atheist to say, well, I don't even believe in God, but there's something that is still eternal, whether it's a matter or it's just nature itself, that it's always existed and it has evolved into this thing, but there's still something that is eternal. Let's say it's all powerful, that God is this all powerful being. He might not be loving, but he is all powerful. All world religions would agree on that. And that God is maybe the first uncaused cause, that he is the one that sets everything into motion. But we're Going to see. And I debated going back to Genesis 1:1, but I skipped forward to John 1:1, that. That says in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What the Bible reveals is that God isn't just some distant clock maker. He's not just this ethereal thought or force or idea in the sky that he exists. And he uses language. He uses human language to relay who he is to us. However, God revealing himself to his creation is not necessarily anything extraordinary. A lot of world religions, not all of them, but a lot of them, would agree to what I just said. So how is that different from Christianity? Well, let's. Let's keep going. The second point I have is that I see you. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because some of you remember very clearly my sermon from the summer on Hagar. And Hagar was this woman who was abandoned by Abraham, who was sent out to be killed in the wilderness just by the natural elements. And she cries out, and God shows up. And Hagar is the first person in the Bible to name God. And the name that she gives God is, you are a God who sees. Genesis 16:13 says, so she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God of seeing. For she said, truly here I have seen him who looks after me. This is one of my favorite things now that I've. I've got kids and I remember this. And some of you might. This might. This might be a good memory, and it might be a really awful, sad memory. So just bear with me. I apologize if that's the case. But recently our kids had their Christmas, you know, concerts, you know, at their school, and they all go to North Heights and Lutheran and Anyways, Emma, my Emma, she's on my left. You're right there in the red dress. And there's just this moment right when you. When you go to these events that their kids are all up on the stage and there's hundreds of parents and grandparents in the. In the pews or in the auditorium or whatever, and everyone. The child is seen. There are thousands of eyes on that child. But at the moment that that child finally finds you as a parent, oh, man, they just light up. They just light up right at that moment that that child is seen. They're being seen by lots of things and lots of people for sure. But once someone that they love and cares for is there and is present and sees them, just elation and joy. That is the God that we see in in the Bible that he is a God who sees that we are looking around saying, I can't, I can't. I feel alone. I. I feel abandoned. And then we look and we can see that we serve a God who sees. And the same joy that that little girl has just seen, that her parents and her brothers are there watching her, is the same just elation and joy that we should feel. Because we worship a God who sees even when we don't think he sees us. John 1, 3, 4. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life, and the life was the light of men. Other religions again would say that God sees all. Yes, check the box. We would agree with that, that he's watchful, he's aware. But at the very least, other religions might say that this God monitors human behavior or is at least aware of cosmic morality or some kind of cosmic moral awareness. But already, even just after these two points, we start to see a little bit of a difference between other world religions and maybe the Judeo Christian God that we start to see. A God who isn't just aware. A God who just isn't there and can see and observe, but one instead, who who sees right, looks upon us on. Looks at the world that he made and genuinely cares. And we see this all the way back in Genesis chapter 16. The third point, moving quickly, is face shine upon you. May his face shine upon you. In Numbers, chapter six, we see this. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his son, saying thus, you shall bless the people of Israel, and you shall say to them, going again, going all the way back to Moses. He's the one who is there to help the Israelites get set free from the slavery in Egypt. And then he has these and Aaron, his brother, who's the priest of Israel, and his sons. And he's saying, I want you to bless the people of Israel as their priest. And I want you to say this. This is what God is saying to these people that I have set free. And if you've ever been to a wedding, you've probably heard this. This is a pretty common phrase that people will say. They might not know that this is God speaking through Moses, but this is what we read in Numbers, chapter 6. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace again. Nearly all religions hope for divine blessing that we read even back in numbers in our Old Testament people try to do this through sacrifices or rituals or performances or meditation, pilgrimages. I'm reminded of Martin Luther when he was. He took a pilgrimage to Israel, to Jerusalem, and he did this prayer where you would get on your hands and knees and every step up these stairways that Jesus would have potentially taken as he's being executed and being crucified, that he does this prayer as he goes up. And Martin Luther attests to this, that he gets to the top and he says, I hope that worked right? I don't know. I'm going to do this thing. I really hope that I earned God's favor. What's interesting though, is that divine favor in a lot of world religions is indeed possible to achieve the favor of their God. However, it must be earned or it must be achieved. This is the beautiful thing about numbers, chapter six, all the way back in the Old Testament, is that God chooses to bless. God is the one who lets his face shine on us. He is the one that determines to do this. Not anything that we can do or offer or merit or earn, not because of anything that we can do. God chooses to bless. It is indeed a gift. On Thursday night, we had a Hope Christmas party. And it looks really fancy because it was really fancy. So a lot of you probably don't know, but there's a guy by the name of Mel, and I'm not even going to say his last name because he wouldn't even want me to even say his first name, but he was there. My boss, Steve, is the one standing up. It's hard to see. Steve had to give a speech. I don't know why, but Mel was sitting next to him. And Mel has been paying for all of the staff of all four locations. And there's in our spouses to go and celebrate and have a Christmas meal together. And he spares no expense. And it's always an incredible time. We had a private restaurant and a private chef, downtown Minneapolis, and it was amazing. And Mel came over and he was kind of making his rounds. And of course we just were like, hey, I mean, thank you so much. And he said it to every single person. Stop thanking me. I don't want you to thank me. I'm not doing this for the thanks. I'm doing this because I just want to see the joy in your heart of being able to celebrate the birth of Christ together. Right? That's what he. That's what he wanted. And we were chatting with him for a little bit and he was talking about some things that he had been learning and was talking about this idea of a gift. And he just said this. He said that the only thing that keeps someone from receiving a gift is pride. And I would have sit there chewing on that. And I was like, ah. Cause I'm just a skeptic, you know. And I was like, that's not true. Then I was like, actually really at the root of it, that is really the only reason why someone wouldn't accept a gift. That they might say something like, well, I don't need that thing, right? I don't need a new multi tool. I just don't need it. Thank you, but no, I just don't need it. You take it or we re gift it. Maybe naturally it's more of a Minnesotan thing to do, right? Some of us might just flat out, I don't want that thing, right? If I got a Vikings jersey, no, I don't want it. That is pride, right? That is flat out pride. I mean, and truth, I guess. But maybe the other aspect of it is just. That's just too generous. I couldn't ever. I could never possibly accept that. I don't. I can't accept that. It's too kind, it's too generous, it's too loving. That's pride. It's a gift and we receive it. And when we look at God showing up and gives it, all we have to do is receive it. He's the one who shines his face on us. I don't do anything. It's the whole point of, of a gift. It's still. This isn't necessarily a fully decisive difference between maybe other religions and Christianity. So let's, let's keep going. Another one is this idea of an arbiter in job, chapter nine, 32 through 35. Just to recap maybe what's going on in Job. This is why I said this isn't a typical Christmas sermon. Job goes through hell on earth. He loses everything. He loses his 10 kids, all of his finances, and everything that made Job maybe who he was as a. As a wealthy, popular individual at that time, loses everything because God allows it to happen. And Job declares that he's innocent in this. He didn't do anything wrong. So why would God allow this to happen? And Job, as you read the book of Job, he starts to get a little angry with God. And honestly, as you read it, you go, yeah, he's kind of justified in his anger towards God. Why would God do this? Or why would God at the very least allow these things to happen? And so Job in his complaint, as he's talking with his friends, he says, for he that is God, for God is not a man as I am. That I might answer him that we should come to a trial together. Because Job is putting God on trial, and he's saying, I'm innocent and he's wrong for doing this to me. Therefore, we need to have someone who can fix it, who can make it right. We need to go on trial. But he's the judge. He's the Creator. How could I ever go on trial against the One who wrote the whole story? And he says, there is no arbiter between us who might lay his hand on both of us. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me. Then I would speak without fear of Him. For I myself, for I am not so in myself, saying, I'm. I'm man. I'm a human being, and he is God. Who. Who am I to. To. Actually, I want to put him on trial. But how can I do that? How can I possibly do that? How could I demand that he takes the rod away from me? I need an arbiter. I need someone who can put their hand on God and who can put their hand on me and amend. Almost every religion agrees that we need some kind of go between, be it a priest, a prophet, an angel, even the law, some guru, avatar, some enlightened guide. Job expresses what every human being who has ever suffered feels, even a righteous anger, saying, I have some complaints that I would like to make against God. This hurts and it's not right. It's not fair. I'd like someone to be. I'd like to at least make my case before this God. But He's God, and I'm just a man. And so he cries out, if only. If only there were an arbiter. If only there was someone who could stand between us. Finally, and we'll spend the remainder of our time here, because this is what it's all about. The Word becomes flesh. This is what separates Christianity from every other world religion, that the God of the universe takes on flesh. Carne. John 1:14, main verse for this morning. And the Word, that same word that created that same word that sustains the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory as the Son from the Father. Full of grace and full of truth. God himself enters the physical, historical, sweaty, fragile reality of human life. Verse 16. From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. Jesus the Messiah. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. He has made him known that this God, who is unapproachable, ineffable, light and holy, that the angels and the cherubim are flying around saying, you are holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of your glory. Enters in through Christ. It has been made known in reality. And we see again in the Christmas story in Luke chapter two. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. There's something incredibly unique that when you read, especially when you read the origin stories of other religions, that there's chaos and there's fighting and there's blood and there's. And humans are just meant to serve and be slaves of some deity. And yet God enters in and he brings shalom, he brings peace. And how does he do this? He does it through himself. He does it by becoming a human. And so what makes Christmas unique? First one. Again, it's incarnation, not just revelation. Again, he's not just some ethereal being sitting up in the clouds watching us, that we're just his entertainment for the night. He is. He enters in incarnation. In reality, he takes on flesh. Two, God enters our mess. It's not us entering his presence. He comes down this ladder, if you will, that we were never able to clap. The whole Old Testament proves that over and over and over, that here are some laws, here are some regulations, and yet we fall flat in our face over and over and over. And so the theological term is called condescension. That Jesus had to condescend himself. He had to come down and enter into our space so that we could see God. We read this in Philippians chapter 2, 5 through 8. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Being born in likeness of men and being found in a human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even a death on a cross. He condescends to our level that God himself takes on flesh so that he can stand between, and he becomes a human. Third point here, that God enters suffering. He doesn't avoid it 500 years or so before Jesus is born. We read in Isaiah 53, starting in verse 3, he was despised and rejected by man. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. I know there are some of you in here this morning that you're like, that's me. I am a man. I am a woman of sorrows. I am acquainted with grief. This is what makes Christmas so beautiful, because Jesus says, I get it. I see you. I see your sorrow, I see your grief. I know what it's like. I can empathize with you. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteem him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And upon him was the chastisement that brought us. There's that word again. Peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own ways, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity or the sin of us all. There's an author, British author, Dorothy Sayers. Any Dorothy Sayers fans out there? Just one. It's okay. We knew you would. I took a poll before with. With two people. Dorothy Serres. She was a British author, poet, good friend with C.S. lewis. She says this in one of one of her writings. For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is, limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death, he had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine. He has himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life to the worst horrors of pain and death. That's Christmas. That is Jesus taking on flesh, entering into which he calls trivial irritations of family life to the worst horrors of pain and death. The fourth, the arbiter, innocent, intercessor, mediator. In first Timothy 2, we read, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. This is why Christians get so upset or maybe uptight about the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ. The only way one could pay for my sins is if God himself paid for it. The only way to have an arbiter, to put one hand on God and one hand on mankind is if God himself becomes mankind. It's the only way. And so we can't just say that all roads lead to God or some better way of life, because then Christianity becomes divine child abuse. If there is another way, if we could believe something else and just figure out on our own how to get to God. But then for some people, they should believe in Jesus Christ. That's their way to get to God. That is God crucifying his son when there is another way. That's awful. This has to be the only way. And logically, it is the only way that God has to take on flesh. This is what Christmas is all about. And finally, it's a God you can see, a God you can touch, and a God you can crucify. This. This idea is completely unimaginable in other world religions. The invisible becomes visible again. Jesus is deeply grounded in historical reality and dates that we can find and look up and artifacts and things that we can dig up from the earth to say Jesus existed. The invisible became visible. The untouchable becomes touchable. He's born, he's held. I made this word up. But the unlookatable literally turns his face upon us. That there was a time in the Old Testament where when Moses is up on the mountain and they say, we don't even wanna look at the mountain unless God strike us down. And it's etched here in the stained glass. There it is, the little. The cleft in the rock that Moses says, God, would you show me who you are? Would I see you? And God's like, not a chance. Not a chance can you look at me? But I will hide you in this rock, and I will pass by you, and I will let you see where I once was. And that will make your face shine in a very unnatural way. And now, because of the birth, because of the incarnation, because of Christmas, he can be held and he can literally look at us. The immortal becomes killable, the infinite God becomes an infant. This is what makes Christmas unique. And I know what some of you might be going through. And I also don't know what a lot of you are going through. And you might be in there just saying, man, I'm hurting right now. Christmas season is coming. I'm so alone. I feel so empty. I feel so alone. I got nowhere to go. I don't think anyone cares. If I didn't show up to some Christmas party, no one would even notice. Jesus does notice. He sees you, he hears you. He feels that he was betrayed, he was left behind, he was crucified so that you might have life and have it abundantly. So in gospel application, if Jesus really arrived in physical reality, might he enter your real life too? Or maybe going back to that Christmas party that I had on Thursday, are we just too proud to accept that gift? No, it just sounds too good to be true. God could never Actually love me. I know we say that. I know we read it, but no, no, no, not me. You don't. You don't know me. I don't think I'm worthy of that. It's pride. Are we too proud to accept the gift of God entering our life? And maybe you did this a long time ago. Maybe you said, yes, I see Jesus. I believe in him. But maybe just some of you need to see his face shining on you anew. This morning we're talking about a God who became human. And if I can believe that, if I. If I can believe that Jesus God became a man and took on flesh and was born in Bethlehem thousands of years ago, then it's really not all that much of a stretch to say, maybe we should have faith that he can make a difference in my reality here today as well. And so maybe to sum up, last week and this week, Jesus arrived at a real time and place in history so that he could arrive in reality and make a real difference in your real life. We're going to have communion. We do this every week at Lowertown. As many of you know, we're going to take that bread that represents his body that's broken for us. The juice that represents his blood that was shed for us is gluten free option on my left if that's a dietary restriction. And what's beautiful about taking communion is we physically remember the reality that Jesus was an immortal God who was crucified on a cross and yet he rose again. We remember this because it's real, because it's tangible. And. And so as you take these elements, see and feel Jesus looking at you in the face and saying, you're okay, because I declare you okay, that there is a power, there is an evil, the devil that is accusing you. And I stand there next to you and I say, hey, devil. Everything you said, all those wicked things about this person you are, you got it right in the nose. But guess what? Guess what? I took care of it all. I took care of everything. And he looks at you with joy as a brother. That's what we get to celebrate in communion. So as to take these elements. Let your petitions be made known to God. We are not Job, we are not Moses where we can't even look at a mountain, we can't approach God that now, because of Christ who entered into reality and died for our sins and paid for them fully and completely, we can now boldly go to the throne of grace. And there are some of you who really need some grace this morning. In this season of Christmas that every time you drive by some manger, that you would just look at that with a new eyes that would say, he looks at me, he sees me, he feels me, he gets me. He became flesh so that we might have life. And we get to remember that. Now, this morning, the worship team's gonna come and they're gonna play two more Christmas songs for us as we get to celebrate Jesus taking on flesh and entering reality. Let me pray. You don't need to be a member of this church or any church, but if you are a follower of Jesus, I would love you to take these elements with us as we remember the finished work of Christ on the cross. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this season. For a lot of us, this is memories and traditions gather around a fire and a tree and opening presents. Some of us, it's. It's breaking generational sins of, of looking at how maybe we were raised and saying we, we don't want that. And so we, we try our best to. To change things, and yet we're still sinners. There's some of us who, who aren't going to have any of those things, even though we might long for them. God, would you just show up in their lives and, and be real for them this season that they would just see you because you see them, that they would believe in you, that they would trust in you, that they would put their faith in you because you love them enough to put on a body and die for us. God, we love you. I pray that as we enter in these next few days, that we would just rejoice as many of us will read Luke 2 and read how the Christmas story of you, God, becoming man. Would we just be elated just at that? We love you and it's the name of Jesus. Amen.