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“Our God, contracted to a span.”
A Hymn for Christmas Eve, by Charles Wesley:
Let earth and heaven combine,
Angels and men agree,
To praise in songs divine
The incarnate Deity,
Our God contracted to a span,
Incomprehensibly made man.
He laid his glory by,
He wrapped him in our clay;
Unmarked by human eye,
The latent Godhead lay;
Infant of days he here became,
And bore the mild Immanuel’s name.
Unsearchable the love
That hath the Saviour brought;
The grace is far above
Or man or angels thought;
Suffice for us that God, we know,
Our God, is manifest below.
He deigns in flesh to appear,
Widest extremes to join;
To bring our vileness near,
And make us all divine:
And we the life of God shall know,
For God is manifest below.
Made perfect first in love,
And sanctified by grace,
We shall from earth remove,
And see his glorious face:
Then shall his love be fully showed,
And man shall then be lost in God.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
The Ordinary Baby of Christmas
Great night with you all last night. So great to sing those songs so loudly together. If you’re interested, here are the notes from the portion of the evening where we looked at Mark 6 in relation to Christmas.
In my bible class this year, we are studying the Gospel of Mark. The other day we read the story of the time when Jesus took his followers and visited the town he grew up in. As it says in Mark 6, verses 1-6:
Then He went out from there and came to His own country [back to Nazareth, his home town], and His disciples followed Him. And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue [there, in Nazareth]. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands! Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” And they were offended at Him. [The NIrV translates that last phrase: “They were not pleased with him at all.”] But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.
In his commentary on the book of Mark, James Edwards wrote this, on Jesus being “amazed at their lack of faith” in Mark 6:6…
What amazes God about humanity is not its sinfulness and propensity for evil but its hardness of heart and unwillingness to believe in him. That is the greatest problem in the world, and herein lies the divine judgement on humanity. Humanity wants a spectacular sign of God, or, like the devil, a great display of divine power. But it does not want God to become a human being like one of us.
The people of Nazareth see only a carpenter, only a son of Mary, only another one of the village children who has grown up and returned for a visit. If only God were less ordinary and more unique, then they would be believe. The servant image of the son is too prosaic [commonplace, unromantic] to garner credulity.
God has identified too closely with the world for it to recognize in Jesus the Son of God. Humanity wants something other than what God gives. The greatest obstacle to faith is not the failure of God to act but the unwillingness of the human heart to accept the God who condescends to us in only a carpenter, the Son of Mary.”
Maybe these doesn’t sound like “Christmas” kind of thoughts to you. But it connected dots for me last week when I was teaching it to my class, dots that led right to tonight and Christmas. Here’s the connection, I think: A lot of people have spent the last 2000 years complaining that God is too far away. In response to that, Christians typically point to Jesus. “No—God’s not far away, just look at Jesus.” We try to tell people about Jesus and how he shows us that God is actually really in touch with us, really close to us, really cares about our situation. But if you’re a Christian in here tonight, I think you know the experience of trying to tell someone about Jesus and all they can hear is that you’re telling them about some ancient history, which doesn’t feel very relevant to most people, or, that Christians worship some guy who lived along time ago. And it just sounds so weird to people to say that a truly historical figure was God. It’s like saying, “Julius Ceasar was a real Roman general…and Julius Ceasar was the creator of the world.” It sounds like what your logic professor might call a category mistake. These are just two things that don’t go together—God and human.
And actually, I think that’s exactly the point of the record of Jesus’ trip to Nazareth, and what Edwards is pointing to in his commentary on the passage. Here’s the issue: In Jesus Christ, the world in general sees something so ordinary that they no longer take notice. They see a man. A real person who lived a long time ago. No big deal. It’s a real tragedy, but history is boring to most people. Christians might get all excited that Jesus really existed, but to most people, the fact that Jesus existed in history actually makes him less interesting. Most people are infatuated with people that haven’t ever existed. That’s who excites us. Thanos and the Avengers. Luke and Leia and Darth. (And baby Yoda.) Harry and Dumbledore. Frodo and Bilbo.
But Jesus? So ordinary. So not interesting.
That’s how people feel. But what’s the reality? The truth is that the mystery of who Jesus is, and was, is beyond the greatest fantasy story that could ever be written. The very fact of his “ordinariness” means that he became fully, really human—which, of course, is where our boredom with him, our contempt, arises from. But when you realize who (and what) it was that became really human, that’s when the ordinariness fades in front of the blazing sun. And this totally ordinary human-ness is itself the canvas the great mystery is painted on. In the ordinary carpenter is the ocean of God. In the historical human is the eternal life of all wisdom. In the five-foot-whatever Jewish guy, is…the infinite.
The fact that these two realities could even come together is something that blows the human mind. And both of them are totally mind-blowing, because they’re totally out of scale with each other. God is, in himself, a mind-blowing, mind-altering reality. Try to wrap your mind around the infinite depths of his being. And then, the fact that he could become so ordinarily human that we could mistake him for being only human—that is crazy. He was so real that he didn’t raise the hairs on the backs of peoples’ necks—not usually anyway. He wasn’t easily picked out of a crowd. He walked around city streets without being noticed. People bumped into God in human flesh when the streets were crowded. Some of them probably said, “excuse me,” and some of them didn’t. People bought carpentry work from him.
People saw him as a little kid. Other kids grew up with him. A regular woman changed him and nursed him and rocked him to sleep, after she carried him inside of her for nine months and birthed him in the middle of the night.
And even today—aren’t there times when we wish for someone less ordinary? We just read about it together a couple weeks ago: He will come back on a white horse and shatter the ordinary. He’s going to change everyone’s perception of him. Maybe we should have a day every year on the Christian calendar that looks forward to that day. Second Coming Day. White Horse Day. Victory Day. Something like that.
But next Wednesday, we come to the day every year where we celebrate the beginning of… is it the greater miracle? Since Adam sinned, we should almost expect the white horse. The more humanity grew, the more evil and organized we got, it’s almost inevitable that God would have to come back and conquer us. We deserve the white horse. We deserve God the Conqueror. We deserve war. We deserve defeat.
But what don’t we deserve? Christmas. God the baby. God the man. God the Son, here to hold our kids and heal our sick and raise our dead and teach our minds, and take our punches, and bear our sin, and die our death. What we don’t deserve, is God with us…laying helpless in a manger at the mercy of a couple of human beings and their religious community and a European empire. As Swiss Theologian Karl Barth prayed:
“Lord our God, you wanted to live not only in heaven, but also with us, here on earth;
not only to be high and great, but also to be small and lowly, as we are;
not only to rule, but also to serve us;
not only to be God in eternity, but also to be born as a person, to live, and to die.”
It’s the greatest thing that ever happened. Everyone should believe. Everyone should celebrate. But, like James Edwards says: “The greatest obstacle to faith is not the failure of God to act but the unwillingness of the human heart to accept the God who condescends to us…” as a simple, ordinary baby.
Can you worship the God who comes ordinarily? If you can’t worship God the Son who came as a baby, you won’t receive God the Son as the conqueror. If the birth of Jesus bores you, the return of Jesus will make you mourn. As it is written: “He is coming soon, in the clouds, and every eye will see Him… And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.”
So, the follower of Jesus knows that Christmas is not the whole story. We don’t worship baby Jesus. But it’s the beginning of the story. It’s the historical marker of the moment God revealed how he was going to fix everything. Traditionally this time of year has been called “Advent,” which means “arrival.” It’s not everything—but it’s when the Everything arrived. And he shocked us all.
He would be a baby. A boy who grew up in Nazareth. He would be easily ignored or dismissed, like a grain of wheat that fell into the ground. Like a seed sunk into the dirt—a small seed, maybe…a mustard seed. Jesus said: “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32)
The story of Christmas is the story of the small beginning of the biggest thing that ever happened. For many around us it’s a time for sales, followed by a time of standing in the returns line. Ordinary. But followers of Jesus take time every year to remember, and celebrate, and sing, and worship the God who wanted to be with us, and wanted us to be with him.
And when the baby was born that night, and that young couple wrapped him up and held him, it was the voice of God, beginning to say, “behold, I make all things new.”
And it was like the first time we heard him say, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
As Barth says later in his prayer: “Lord, What remains for us to do but wonder, to rejoice, to be thankful, and to hold fast to what you have done for us?”
Wow.
New Testament scholar James Edwards relates this story:
In January 1982 I asked [German theologian] Helmet Thielicke if he could identify the worst evil he experienced in the Third Reich in Germany.
His answer: “The unredeemed human heart.”
Let it not reign.
Calvin, on Romans 6:12 (“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.”)—
He does not say: ‘Let it not be,’ but ‘Let it not reign.’
So long as you live, sin must needs be in your members. At least let it be deprived of mastery.
Let not what it bids be done.
(Institutes, III.3.13)
The Unity is Real. Work hard for Unity.
Unity is something people in Christian circles discuss a lot. And for good reason. Consider, for instance, what Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesian church (chapter 4, verse 3), that we must be“endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” What does this mean? Why did Paul write this? What should be our takeaway from words like this? Here, in a passage loaded with practical (and biblical) insight, is Gordon Fee, commenting on this very verse:
The phrase, “the unity of the Spirit,” recalls in a very direct way [Ephesians] 2:18 where Paul says that through Christ we both (Jew and Gentile) together in the one Spirit have access to God. That is, even though finally at the practical level this will have to do with personal relationships within the community, in its first instance it refers to the “union” of the two peoples into the one new humanity, the one new people of God. The “unity of the Spirit” does not refer to some sentimental or esoteric unity that believers should work toward. Rather, Paul is speaking of something that exists prior to the exhortation.
Whether they like it or not, their lavish experience of the Spirit, which they have in common with all others who belong to Christ, has made them members of the one body of Christ, both on the larger scale and in its more immediate expression in the local community and in their own (believing) households.
So they may as well get on with “liking it” and demonstrate as much but the way they live. All of this, then, underscores that for the unity of Jew and Gentile [the issue of division they were facing in that day] to happen on the larger scale, it must first of all happen among people who regularly rub elbows with one another. They are the one body of Christ by their common life in the Spirit; the exhortation is that they bend every effort to maintain this unity of which life together in the Spirit is the predicate.
As elsewhere in Paul, the word that best describes the nature of their “unity of the Spirit” is “peace,” here expressed in terms of “the bond of peace.” Along with Romans 14:17 and 15:13, this passage is the clear indication that for Paul “peace” as a fruit of the Spirit refers not so much to inner tranquility as to the necessary “shalom” that Christ has effected, in bringing an end first of all to the hostility between God and people, and secondly to the similar hostility between people(s). Since Christ is our peace, who has made of the two one new people of God, they are here being urged to maintain their “oneness,” which has bound them together in peace.
“The war is over; let us keep the peace” is Paul’s point.
[from Gordon Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, p. 700-701]
Do you feel a battle within?
Most of us who have walked with Christ for more than a few days are familiar with the experience of an inner struggle. We want to follow Christ. But we also find things in us which seem to press in the opposite direction. So I feel comforted when I read things like Romans chapter 7 and into chapter 8, and I hear Paul saying: “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” This seems to describe the familiar struggle, even for the Christian. Of course, Paul does not (ever, really) end on a note of defeat. He goes on to say: “I thank God– through Jesus Christ our Lord,” which seems to answer his question, “Who will deliver me?” However, he immediately observes, “So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” Which seems to say, “But still, though final victory is assured, I know the experience of having something in me (called “flesh”) which struggles against serving God’s law.” And he follows this up with the first two verses of Romans chapter 8, which say: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” Again–final victory is assured, but the struggle does remain.
I hear similar things in Galatians chapter 5, where Paul writes: “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” That’s ESV. NIrV says it: “The sinful nature does not want what the Spirit delights in. And the Spirit does not want what the sinful nature delights in. The two are at war with each other. That’s what makes you do what you don’t want to do.”
Isn’t this describing the experience so many of us have, of a battle we feel inside of us? Interestingly, several of the commentaries I’ve read on these passages, by New Testament scholars, say, “No.” And they say it pretty forcefully. They say that Paul is talking about people who are not saved. He’s not talking about believers. The two books I have in mind (one on Paul’s letters and one on Romans) both make this claim, but then give no explanation for the sense of the battle within so many of us feel. If the New Testament doesn’t want me to think of a battle within, why do I feel it, and why do these passages so clearly seem to point to it? This has been kind of an open question for me, for a while. So I was very interested the other day to find this passage in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. It seems that John Calvin knew the struggle too. This is from a section in Book 3 titled: “The Conflict in the Heart of the Believer.” Enjoy…
In order to understand this, it is necessary to return to that division of flesh and spirit which we have mentioned elsewhere. It most clearly reveals itself at this point. Therefore the godly heart feels in itself a division because it is partly imbued with sweetness from its recognition of the divine goodness, partly grieves in bitterness from an awareness of its calamity; partly rests upon the promise of the gospel, partly trembles at the evidence of its own iniquity; partly rejoices at the expectation of life, partly shudders at death. This variation arises from imperfection of faith, since in the course of the present life it never goes so well with us that we are wholly cured of the disease of unbelief and entirely filled and possessed by faith. Hence arise those conflicts; when unbelief, which reposes in the remains of the flesh, rises up to attack the faith that has been inwardly conceived.
But if in the believing mind certainty is mixed with doubt, do we not always come back to this, that faith does not rest in a certain and clear knowledge, but only in an obscure and confused knowledge of the divine will towards us? Not at all. For even if we are distracted by various thoughts, we are not on that account completely divorced from faith. Nor if we are troubled on all sides by the agitation of unbelief, are we for that reason cast down from our position. For the end of the conflict is always this: that faith ultimately triumphs over those difficulties which besiege and seem to imperil it.
(Calvin, Institutes, I.3.18)
I mean, at this point in my Christian journey, I agree with this. I agree that the Bible teaches final victory over unbelief for believers, in some way, shape or form, but I also am aware of a constant struggle, on my own part and the part of those around me, to press towards that victory. And it seems like that struggle won’t be fully over until we reach the resurrection, and Christ finally delivers us from these “bodies of death.”
When Will Injustice be Fixed?
On Monday we studied Revelation 20:11-15, which records John’s vision of the judgement at the Great White Throne. Here are some further thoughts from Thomas Oden, answering this question: Why must the ultimate judgement for humans happen at the very end of history?
The Decisive Moral Significance of Final Judgement for Present Choices
Why final? Any judgment short of final judgment would risk being incomplete, hence unjust. After one dies, one’s influence continues. The deceased lives on in memory, reputation, progeny, and in the “projects on which he had set his heart.” For “no action can be fully assessed before it is finished and its results are evident.” For “no action can be fully assessed before it is finished and its results are evident.” “A full and public verdict cannot be pronounced and sentence passes while time rolls on its course.” [These quotes are from Thomas Aquinas.]
This is why there must be a final judgment at the end of history, and not only at many points within history. The effects of a given life are not known at the time of death. The evil consequences initiated by Hitler and Stalin continue to plague the world long after they are gone, and in generations yet unborn. It is therefore reasonable that the final judgment be rendered only after all accounts of all historical agents are in, namely, at the end time. Good and evil deeds of all historical agents “continue to extend their influence throughout all time as a stone thrown into the water creates successive and ever widening circles.” These influences are only known by God’s omniscience, hence only revealed at the final judgment.
The incomparable justice of God requires a final judgment, for in this life many if not most evils remain unjudged, or crudely judged (Psalm 103:10, 92:7; Luke 6:24, 25; Romans 9:22). If justice is inadequately fulfilled in this present life, surely another life, another sphere, another city is required to perfect it… Some future judgment [is] rationally required by the disparity between conscience and historical injustice…
Thus only the end of history could be the proper time for final judgment when all things are brought to their end. We intuitively hypothesize from [our own] conscience that more fitting and impartial justice must somehow follow, even if we cannot now behold it.
We weary the Lord by repeatedly asking, “Where is the God of justice?” (Malachi 2:17).
Scripture, rather, points us toward a final judgment beyond history wherein God will answer all human queries about the course of justice.
Classic Christianity, p. 814
Putting the “a” in “amuse.”
On Saturday, at the Men’s Conference here at church, Jack Crans said something to this effect:
“If I say the word ‘muse’ people look at me like I’m crazy. If I say ‘amuse,’ they know what I’m talking about.”
He was trying to make a point about our need to muse on the word of God. He used the word, then stopped, and said the quote above. His point was that, in our culture, we use the word “amuse” a lot. And we almost never use the word “muse.”
And I forget if he went on to make this point or not (because my mind went off on this at that moment) but what a profound insight this is–because of course, the meaning of the prefix “a” before a word is to say “not” something. So, if “muse” means “to think over slowly and deeply,” then “amuse” means “to not think deeply or slowly at all.” And if we live in a culture where everyone knows and loves the word “amuse” but no one knows the word “muse”… do you see what’s going on? We’ve built entire industries for amusement, and most people around us spend most of their time and money, and invest most of their emotional energy, in these industries–the industries of amusement. Which means…we have an entire society built on keeping people from thinking slowly and deeply about things that matter.
Many people don’t even consider that they might spend their life doing that. They want to be amused. And if “musing” is what is really necessary for a deep understanding of who God is and what he says to us, where does this put us?
I suggest doing a word search on the word “meditate“ in the Bible.
You might also want to listen to Jack’s whole message.
Angry at Chick-Fil-A?
Russell Moore is a pretty dependable source for thoughtful, spiritual insights into cultural issues. For instance, here is his answer to the question, “Should You Be Angry at Chick-fil-A?“
Here’s one great quote:
“The cross is a contradiction to the powers of this world and needs no propping up by them, whether governmental or corporate or cultural. “
And here’s another:
“We need no franchised, culturally-approved outposts of finance, though we should be thankful when we see such occasionally. We need outposts of the kingdom, following Jesus Christ by faith.”
Godliness and Physical Attraction
Here’s a question you might not think would apply to you if you’re a current member of the Young Adults group: “How Do I Stay Attracted to My Aging Spouse?”
But if you plan on getting married, it’s a great question to pre-think, for several reasons. First, you absolutely can not make your choice of a spouse or your commitment to marriage based on the distortions of physical attractiveness displayed by our culture through media. It’s a lie. It is a lie specifically directed to attack marriage, and it is incredibly deceptive. And that applies to all seasons of life and marriage–not just to when you’re old. For instance, here’s a quote from the article that gave an answer to that question:
If women are to prioritize inner beauty over outer beauty, then we men, we husbands, should grow in our capacities to see and cherish and be moved by — deeply moved by, physically moved by — that inner beauty.
Think about how profound that is—growing in the capacity to see and cherish and be moved by something other than physical beauty. It most certainly applies to you if you’re looking, dating, engaged, or newly married, as much as it does to those who’ve been married for 50 years. In fact, here’s the whole section, in context:
1 Peter 3:3–4, which addresses wives, but has huge implications for husbands. “Do not let your adorning be external — the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear — but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” There is external beauty that is perishable. There is internal beauty that is imperishable.
The world gets Peter’s emphasis exactly backward. And we get sucked into it as we watch and watch and watch. But my point is: if women are to prioritize inner beauty over outer beauty, then we men, we husbands, should grow in our capacities to see and cherish and be moved by — deeply moved by, physically moved by — that inner beauty.
So, young men (and women), when you’re first thinking about who to date, may I suggest that you should be deep in to this kind of praying and thinking—asking God to help you see things this way? This may shape the kind of people you pursue, and the kind of people you give the time of day to.
And as you’re in the middle of a relationship, may I suggest that you keep asking God to help you see things this way? It may keep you from making bad decisions that will impact the rest of your life.
And as you’re beginning your marriage, and moving on into mature marriage, may I suggest that you make this a priority? It will most definitely keep your marriage in a place of god-honoring fruitfulness and happiness.
One more quote:
As our bodies move from the passing splendor of youth to the different splendor of age, we should become better at what we should have been good at all along. Namely, instead of outer appearances dominating the awakening of our affections, inner realities should more and more dominate the awakening of our affections. And I would put no limits on what those affections or desires might be.
This is wise counsel. I suggest reading the entire article…