DEC 20, 2009  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen

The sermon for this morning is based upon the Epistle of the day, from Hebrews chapter 10. There we read these words:

(Heb 10:5-10 NKJV) Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me. 6 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. 7 Then I said, 'Behold, I have come; In the volume of the book it is written of Me; To do Your will, O God.'" 8 Previously saying, "Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the law), 9 then He said, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God." He takes away the first that He may establish the second. 10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Dear Christian friends,

Guess what. Your God is a bit of a grinch.

No, I do not call Him a grinch because He is green and ugly like the grinch with whom we commonly identify from the holiday cartoon you have seen on TV, or the movie that has been shown in theaters. But God does wish to ruin your Christmas.

No, I do not call God a grinch because He is hard-hearted and cruel, either. No, I call Him a grinch because He is not hard-hearted and cruel. He is, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, "the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles" (2 Cor 1:3-4).

No, I do not call God a grinch because He takes any delight in your burdens or your sufferings or your death. Your God is a God who takes pleasure in your well-being as the psalmist rejoices, "The LORD takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with salvation" (Psalm 149:4).

No, I do not call God a grinch because He for some reason desires that you stop celebrating the birth of His Son. This is a season and a time for all God's people to rejoice, even as the shepherds glorified and praised "God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told" (Luke 2:20). Christmas marks the revealed gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and "we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2).

So by now you must be wondering, if God has no shriveled and hardened heart, if He seeks no ill toward His creation, and if He by no means wishes to silence your praise or stifle your song, then why do you call Him a grinch, Pastor?

I say it to you my friends, because God wishes to ruin your Christmas. But, even as I say this, I will tell you that He is a divine, all-powerful, all-knowing, righteous, holy, merciful, compassionate, self-sacrificing grinch.

Just think about today's Epistle from Hebrews chapter 10. It sits between these two other readings, the Old Testament and the Gospel, like a thorn between two roses.

In the Old Testament (the first reading your heard) we have those beloved words from the prophet Micah: "But you, Bethlehem Ephratha, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for Me One who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times" (Micah 5:2).

The very sound of this well-known prophecy transports our commercialized hearts and minds to a Christmas card picture of Bethlehem, serenely covered in a blanket of new snow, lit by a lone star above, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" playing in the background. This is a comfortable and customary picture of Christmas-one that we all know and enjoy as part of the atmosphere of Christmas.

Today's Gospel (the third reading of the day) is equally well known as part of customary Christmas joy. Mary is pregnant with Jesus, Elizabeth is pregnant with John, and the scene is rich with maternal and rosy images, as if this visit to Elizabeth were the occasion of a baby shower.

Today, in both Micah and in Luke it is easy to drink once again the common and popular themes of Christmas, as if these readings were a favorite wine to be sipped once a year, savored briefly, then stored again for next Christmas.

But nestled between these two sweet roses lay the thorny barbs of today's Epistle, that reading from Hebrews 10. It is on the basis of this reading that I must insist that God wants to ruin your Christmas. When Christ came into the world, He said, "Sacrifice and offerings You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am-it is written about me in the scroll-I have come to do Your will'"(Hebrews 10:5-6).

Talk about dampening the spirit of Christmas! There is no mention here of quaint, wintry villages or of joyous mothers, or of singing angels and rejoicing shepherds. There is talk of blood. There is talk of sacrifice. There is talk of a body prepared by God to be offered up in death. Here is how God wishes to ruin your Christmas, for these are not the things we desire to contemplate during Christmas. Yet here He is!

God could not be pleased with the sacrifices and offerings, the burnt offerings and sin offerings, of the Old Testament. Sin runs so deeply in every human heart that the blood of some senseless bull or goat or pigeon could never wash it away. Human sin demands human death.

For this reason Jesus says here, "Sacrifice and burnt offerings You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me" (Hebrews 10:5), for "You knit me together in my mother's womb. Your eyes saw my unformed body" (Psalm 139:13,16).

Your God is a grinch, dear friends, and He wishes to ruin your Christmas. He does not want you to focus on the nostalgia and fluff that marks this season. He does not want you to be K-Mart/Walmart/Target Christians, more focused on the tidbit gifts you give to one another than on the one, great and all-surpassing gift He gives to you in the birth of His Son, this sacrificial offering He prepared specifically for you!

Again I say, Your God is a grinch, dear friends, and He wishes to ruin your Christmas. He is not concerned that you see Bethlehem's new-fallen snow-He is concerned that you see the deep red stain of childbirth that scars it. He desires that you hear not only the joyous song of Mary's praise, but that you also hear the mournful wails and terrified gasps of a birthing mother. Jesus entered the world naked and bloody! He came in the same way that He would die-naked and bloody and hammered to a cross.

You see, God wishes to ruin your Christmas by focusing your eyes fully upon the true gift of Christmas. He wants you to see those newborn hands and tiny feet that await the piercing pain of a nail. He wants you to see the rags of cloth that swaddle this Child foretell the shroud of death that shall soon cover Him. He wants you to look into Mary's arms and see upon her breast "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

You see, Christians, we cannot celebrate one season of the Church without bearing in mind the other seasons as well. The joy of Christmas brings also the sorrowful realization that this Child came to die.

But on the other hand, the sorrow of Good Friday comes with the joyous news that Christ died His horrible death for you, so that you may participate in that great Easter morning surprise, the news that Christ Is Risen.

God wishes to ruin your Christmas, my friends, by taking away all the fluff and sentimentality that is so common to the season. He wants to redirect your eyes to the true purpose of Christmas, a picture grimly painted in today's Epistle: When Christ came into the world, He said, "Sacrifice and offerings You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings You were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am-it is written about me in the scroll-I have come to do Your will '"(Hebrews 10:5-6).

Because of this sacrifice, this Child of Mary, born in Bethlehem, God has washed your sins "as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18). Because of this baby and all He did for you, you have the greatest gift of all, the gift of eternal life.

And you can be sure it is true. Because Christ Is Risen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.