Christmas Was Meant to
Change
Our Lives
Dr. Larry Thorson
Luke 3:7-18
All Scripture in this sermon is from Today’s New International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
Must I remind you, this is the last Sunday of
Advent? Advent is all about getting
ready for something big that’s going to happen. If you’re like me and haven’t
done your Christmas shopping yet, you’ve only got today and tomorrow to get
ready. But hey, that’s plenty of
time. Advent means “get ready”. This is it.
Time is short.
That’s
why I chose to study John the Baptist during Advent. His whole purpose was to get people ready for
the coming of the Savior. But to get
ready for something usually means hard work.
Last year I was getting ready to run a marathon to celebrate my 50th
year of living to raise money to build a house for the poor through Habitat for
Humanity. This year I’m much wiser and
I’m getting ready to run only a half marathon, again to build a house for the
poor. Next year I’ll get even smarter.
If you insisted on torturing your body over
That’s where we are with John the Baptist
this morning.
Let’s
read Luke 3:7-18…
7 John said
to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who
warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with
repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our
father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for
Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does
not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
10 "What should we do then?" the crowd asked.
11 John answered, "Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who
has none, and anyone who has food should do the same."
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked,
"what should we do?"
13 "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"
He replied, "Don't extort money and
don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay."
15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts
if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, "I
baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the
thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his
threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the
chaff with unquenchable fire." 18 And with many other words John exhorted
the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
“And proclaimed the good news to them?” Coach Baptist, where’s the good news? I missed it. When I went to college I started
midyear in January and went out for track the first thing. I thought it was going to be cool to have the
sweats and the uniform and be a college track guy. I’ll never forget my first day of practice. We had just finished a hard five mile
run. I was more than ready for the
showers. Coach Bonano said to us “I’ve
got good news for you fellas, I’m only go to have you run 15 quarters today
(which is 15 laps all out with only a short break in between laps). That literally was Coach Bonano’s idea of
good news. But Coach Bonano had a
reputation of producing winners. When
you ran for him, track was supposed to change your body from good to
great.
Christmas, the coming of the Christ child is
supposed to change your life. We like
the candy. We like the ham or whatever
it is that you eat at Christmas. We like
the red clothes, the red plants, and the shiny lights. We like wrapping paper, even bows. Christmas is cool.
But Christmas, the coming of the Christ child
is supposed to change your life. That’s
why Luke interweaved stories of John the Baptist with Jesus so tightly that the
stories were inseparable. You can’t have the cute Christ child without having
the cranky coach.
Let me give you some examples. First Luke tells us the surprising
announcement of John’s birth to his parents for whom it was too late to have a
son. Then we’re told the surprising announcement of Jesus’ birth to his parents
for whom it was too soon to have a son.
See how those are intertwined?
Next, Luke describes how
Luke doesn’t want you to miss the point that
these two men are a part of the same gospel story. The story doesn’t alternate
between Jesus and John as good news and bad news as if they are playing good
cop, bad cop. No, they make a single Christmas message – real change in real
life is really possible!
After John finished preaching his dire
sermon, the people who heard it began to ask him, “So what should we do?” What’s
most striking about John’s response to their question is how simple he makes it
all seem. “If you have two coats, give one to the person who has none. And if
you have enough food, give to those who are hungry. Collect no more than you
are due. Do not make threats. Do not lie. Be satisfied with your wages.”
There was nothing new in John’s answer. It
was as if John had said to us, “‘What should we do?’ is not a real question.
You know what you should do. Live charitably, ethically, justly. The real
question is, ‘How will you do that?’” Maybe we can be giving and loving over
the Christmas holidays, but how do we do that for the rest of the year?
At Christmas, we can put on the sweater and
try to blend in, but after the holidays, we soon go back to being anxious about
whether we’ll have enough to live on. The truth of the matter is that caring
for others and doing what John tells us will cost more than we have to give. We
really don’t have it in us.
That’s the judgment part of Christmas. But
remember that John is not just the bad cop. He came to prepare the way for
Jesus, which has always been the purpose of judgment. Jesus wasn’t born to give you a holiday from
John’s judgment. He was born to make every day a holy day in which you fulfill
John’s exhortation. He does within you, what you can’t do without him.
Think about it this way, if our greatest need had been
information, God would have sent us an educator; If our greatest need had been
technology, God would have sent us a scientist; If our greatest need had been
money, God would have sent us an economist; If our greatest need had been
pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer; But our greatest need was
forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.
The poet John Keats wrote about the necessity
of coming to terms with what he calls our “negative capability.” Our negative
capability is our ability to stay in the place where we are inadequate. For
example we all have sins that we battle to overcome; selfishness, crankiness,
complaining, whining, gossiping, it’s different for everyone. Negative capability is the place where you
most feel your limitations, anxieties, doubts, and fears. It’s the place from
which you are most tempted to flee so you don’t change. It’s like when the
coach said I had 15 quarters to run and I wanted to flee to the showers.
But this is also the place where you are best
able to receive the birth of a Savior. It’s where you know that you need
help. Whenever you confess inadequacy or
inability, you prepare room for the Christ Child to be born within you.
That’s when the Holy Spirit gives birth
within you. God’s Holy Spirit gave birth
to Christ not only in
The child will grow, and soon you will find that
he is strong within you. In time, you may even echo the Apostle Paul who
claimed, “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives within me.” And that is
why John the Baptist is good news for us.
So this Christmas if you’re having a hard
time it’s not going to waste. If you’ve
opened your heart to Christ he’s using the difficult circumstances that he
didn’t even have to cause because life is difficult enough as it is to mold and
to shape you.
Christmas is meant to change our lives.
But change does not come easy. So
the final assignment in getting ready for Christmas is to respond to this
question: how much of your gift giving this year is going to people who have
very little? Remember that God always
provides what we need and who we need exactly when we need them.
I want to conclude with this illustration from retired theologian Dale
Bruner. David Peterson, when
he was pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in
She
said, "Okay, when you're finished, Daddy, I am going to give you a great
big hug." He said, "Thank you very much." She went to the door
and (these are his words) "Then she did a U-turn and came back and gave me
a chiropractic, bone-breaking hug." David said to her, "Darling, you
said you were going to give me a hug after I finished." She
answered, "Daddy, I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward
to!" One meaning of Christmas is that God wants us to know, through this
First Coming and how much he has given to us, how much we have to look forward
to in the great Second Coming.[1]