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Up Close and Personal

This month so far, we worshipped together at celebration services around the themes of the sounds and smells of Christmas. Last week we were challenged to think about the fact that the Christ of Christmas is over us, for us, with us and wants to be in and through us.

Today we are going to focus our attention around two ideas: On this Christmas Eve Sunday we are going to talk about touch of Christmas this morning and this evening those of us who gather back here will be led to the taste of Christmas.

Darrell Griffen is the pastor of the Oakdale Covenant Church on Vincennse Avenue on the south side of Chicago. If you ever heard him preach, you’d want to go back again. Darrell grew up in Wisconsin, did his Master’s work at Harvard and then took a ministry position in the Manhattan Borough of New York City, in a neighborhood called Harlem. While he was living in New York, his parents came to visit him and one of the things Darrell wanted to do was take them to Long Island. When Darrell mentioned his plan, his mother protested vehemently, “Oh no, I’m not going there! If we go there we may never make it back. No way!” Darrell’s mother who had come to see him in Harlem, had never been to Long Island. But she had some preconceived ideas about what Long Island was like. She was certain, totally convinced it was a dangerous place. She had heard stories in the news about gangs all over Long Island, about how someone on Long Island had committed murder and buried the victim in their back yard. Women all over the island were getting breast cancer and there had recently been a massacre on a metro train. Everything she’d seen, heard, or read convinced her Long Island was dangerous and she didn’t want to go there.

Way back in the Old Testament, the Israelites had a similar idea of what it would be like if they ever went into the presence of God. They felt about seeing God like Darrell’s mom felt about seeing Long Island. You don’t want to go there. It’s too dangerous. Everything they’d ever read said, “You can’t see Him and live.” No one could survive seeing God. The presence of God is a dangerous place. You don’t want to go there because if you do, you may never come back. And that was what they though about seeing God. Touching Him was totally out of the question.

I think some people today have the same idea that going where God is can be scary. It’s dangerous. He knows all about me. I can’t hide anything from Him. I’ve heard the fear in some people who mask it with jokes like, “The roof might fall in if I show up there.” But behind all that is an expectation about what it’s like when you get in the presence of God. You don’t want to go there. You might come out with a sour face or a long list of things you’re not allowed to do anymore. If you go into the presence of God you might see a bunch of people acting crazy or be asked to be or do something you don’t want to be or do. It’s dangerous to go into the presence of God. You don’t want to go there because you might not ever make it back.

When Darrell’s parents arrived in Harlem he had his work cut out for him convincing them to go to Long Island, but he kept after it and finally they gave in. They made the drive through the Lincoln Tunnel and onto the island. When they arrived, his mother was shocked as she stared with wide-eyed wonder, like a 5-year-old seeing the cotton candy vendor at a ball game. She said, “I can’t believe it. This not what I expected at all. It’s really pretty nice.” And this woman who had been terrified of going there ended up enjoying a whole day on Long Island and leaving with a desire to go back.

In Exodus 24, Moses, Aaron, Abihu, Nadab, and 70 other Israelites followed obediently when God sent them up Mt. Sinai. Moses had just returned, having received the Ten Commandments and the other guidelines God had given for how the Israelites were to live if they were going to be the people of God.

3 Then Moses went down to the people and repeated all the instructions and regulations the LORD had given him. All the people answered with one voice, “We will do everything the LORD has commanded.”

When Moses came down from the mountain and told the people what God had said to him, everybody said, “We’ll do it. We’ll live the way God wants us to” (v. 3). Then God himself wrote down the covenant code of conduct and Moses didn’t recite it, but read it all to the Israelites so they heard it all a second time. Their response was the same: “Whatever you say, we will obey” (v. 7). After God said, “This is what I expect from you, and here’s what you can expect from me,” the people said, “Count us in,” and a covenant relationship was established between God and Israel.

It might appear to be a little bizarre how it was solidified, but we see how it happened in verses 3-8. Animals were sacrificed in an act of worship. (The narrator makes sure we know the young people were involved, included, and given major roles to play in this ritual of worship—see v. 5.) But Moses did something else. He took all the blood, put half of it into bowls, and poured the other half on the altar. The blood Moses put into bowls he then sprinkled on the people in a ceremonial act of ratifying the covenant between God and Israel.

4 Then Moses carefully wrote down all the LORD’s instructions. Early the next morning Moses got up and built an altar at the foot of the mountain. He also set up twelve pillars, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent some of the young Israelite men to present burnt offerings and to sacrifice bulls as peace offerings to the LORD. 6 Moses drained half the blood from these animals into basins. The other half he splattered against the altar.

7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people. Again they all responded, “We will do everything the LORD has commanded. We will obey.”

8 Then Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people, declaring, “Look, this blood confirms the covenant the LORD has made with you in giving you these instructions.”

9 Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel climbed up the mountain. 10 There they saw the God of Israel. Under his feet there seemed to be a surface of brilliant blue lapis lazuli, as clear as the sky itself. 11 And though these nobles of Israel gazed upon God, he did not destroy them. In fact, they ate a covenant meal, eating and drinking in his presence!


That’s when Moses, Aaron, Abihu, Nadam and the 70 were told to go back up the mountain. When they did, the unthinkable happened. God showed up and they were in His presence—they were also able to see Him. The first thing they thought was, “We’re dead! We can’t see God and live. No one sees God and lives to tell about it.” But then again, I don’t think they saw a whole lot of God. They described seeing what was under His feet. It seems to me that a glimpse of the glory is often what we see of God today. We see His feet, or His hand at work. I can say I’ve seen God this week. I heard His voice in group of children, parents and college students as we stood on peoples porches and sang and brought them a few minutes of Christmas cheer. I saw His handwriting in visit to the food pantry and watching some of you connect with people from our congregation who are in need spiritually and even economically. I have seen God in the way you have responded to providing gifts for 12 families this year. I saw God in the crowd that came together to wrap those gifts on Wednesday evening.

Sometimes all we need is a glimpse of God’s hands or feet as all the evidence we need that God really is here. When this group of Israelites who had ascended Mt. Sinai saw God, they didn’t get what they expected. Not only did they live to tell about it, they got an invitation to sit down with God for a meal on the mountain. It was a Supper on Sinai where they got to fellowship with this God who had just invited them into a covenant relationship and sealed it with blood. We can see their expectation (fear) in verse 11, “But God did not raise his hand against these leaders.” That’s Hebrew for God didn’t do them in like they thought He would.

Can you imagine what they must have felt when they saw God and instead of being struck down they were invited to sit down and have something to eat? (Probably a lot more surprised than Darrell’s mom when she saw that Long Island wasn’t full of gang members and murderers who buried people in their back yards.)

It was the day after Christmas at a church in San Francisco. Pastor Mike was looking at the nativity scene outside when he noticed the baby Jesus was missing from the figures.

Immediately, Pastor Mike turned towards the church to call the police. But as he was about to do so, he saw little Jimmy with a red wagon, and in the wagon was the figure of the little infant, Jesus.

Pastor Mike walked up to Jimmy and said, "Well, Jimmy, where did you get the little infant?" Jimmy replied, "I got him from the church."

"And why did you take him?"

With a sheepish smile, Jimmy said, "Well, about a week before Christmas I prayed to little Lord Jesus. I told him if he would bring me a red wagon for Christmas, I would give him a ride around the block in it." I think God wanted them to know this covenant, though it was full of expectations for Israel’s behavior, wasn’t only about keeping commandments and obeying rules. It was also about times like this where they would eat and drink, and discover the God who had given the tablets was also a God who invited them to a table. Apparently the covenant they had just entered into wasn’t only about tablets inscribed with Commandments. It was also about tables filled with fellowship. It was about a God who was accessible.

One of the reasons I think there’s really something to this whole eating and drinking on the mountain is because in the very next chapter, after Moses returns from another 40 days on the mountain, he comes down with a blueprint for a worship space and all the furnishings. It’s called a tabernacle, and among other things, this tabernacle (dwelling place) was furnished with a table. With specific instructions God told Moses, “Build a table and put 12 loaves of bread on it.” The bread is called the Bread of the Presence and it was among the items God said to put in the Tabernacle, along with the Ark of the Covenant that housed the stone tablets upon which were written the Ten Commandments.

A table in the Tabernacle? Fresh bread on the table? Why? I think God wanted His people to remember the covenant was more than rules on tablets. It was about relationships established and grown, born and raised at tables.

I can almost hear Darrell’s mom now, wanting to go back again. “Long Island? It’s not like that at all! It’s not a dangerous place. You’ve got to go there yourself. You’ll see. Let me tell you all about it.”

I can almost hear the 70 leading the way to worship when the Tabernacle was completed, directing others to the table. “You’ve got to go to the Tabernacle where God dwells; I’m telling you, you can experience God’s presence in ways you never imagined or expected, and when you do you’ll want to go back again and again. Believe me. I’ve experienced a God who not only writes commands on tablets, He invites people to tables.”

The Israelites didn’t expect to see God and live to tell about it. They certainly didn’t expect to encounter God at a table on Mt. Sinai, but they did. Maybe today you didn’t expect to encounter God at a table, but you could. On the night He was betrayed Jesus gathered His closest followers around a table and told them about a new covenant He was establishing.

A covenant about to be ratified not by the blood of an animal poured on an altar and sprinkled on the people, but by His blood, which would be poured out on a cross and sprinkled on the hearts of those who would believe in Him. That’s what the writer to the Hebrews was talking about (see 10:19-25).

“19 And so, dear brothers and sisters,[f] we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20 By his death,[g] Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.

21 And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, 22 let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”


Come near to God, have your hearts sprinkled. Command and invitation. Rules to follow and a relationship to enjoy. Tablets and tables.

God is always exploding our expectations, broadening our understanding of who God is. That’s what He did to Moses and the 70. It’s what God did most dramatically in the Incarnation. The God above and beyond became the God who moved in next door. He became flesh. Dwelt among us. Not far away but up close and personal. Approachable. Relational. Accessible. Touchable.

Christmas is about a God who didn’t love us from a distance. He came to us desiring intimacy and fellowship. And He still comes to us like that today. In a world where so-called valuable things are often labeled, “Do Not Touch,” the most valuable, eternal, and meaningful One there is invites us to touch and be touched by Him.

This is from a 60 Minutes broadcast from a few years ago. It’s an excerpt of what Harry Reasoner said around Christmas time that I want you to hear. Listen carefully – he said:

“Eleven years ago I did a little Christmas piece and it seemed like a good idea to repeat it. The basis for this tremendous burst of buying things and gift buying and parties and near hysteria is a quiet event that Christians believe actually happened a long time ago. You can say that in all societies there has always been a midwinter festival and that many of the trappings of our Christmas are almost violently pagan. But you come back to the central fact of the day and the quietness of Christmas morning, the birth of God on earth.

It leaves you only three ways of accepting Christmas. One is cynically, as a time to make money and endorse the making of it. One is graciously, that’s the appropriate attitude for non-Christians who wish their fellow citizens all the joys to which their beliefs entitle them. And the third, of course, is reverently.

If this is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord of the universe in the form of a helpless babe, it is a very important day. It is a startling idea, of course. The whole story that a virgin was selected by God to bear his son as a way of showing his love and concern for man. It’s my guess that in spite of all the lip service given to it, it’s not an idea that has been popular with theologians. It is somewhat an illogical idea and theologians like logic almost as much as they like God. It’s so revolutionary, a thought that it probably could only come from God that is beyond logic and beyond theology. It is a magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God and almost nobody has any real idea what he is like, and the truth is that among men the idea of seeing God suddenly and standing in a very bright light is not necessarily a completely comforting or appealing idea.

But everyone has seen babies and almost everyone likes them. If God wanted to be loved as well as feared, He moved correctly, for a baby growing up learns all about people. And if God wanted to be intimately a part of man, He moved correctly, for the experience of birth and family-hood is the most intimate and precious experience that any of us will ever have.

So it comes beyond logic. It is either a falsehood or it is the truest thing in the world. It is the story of the great innocence of God the baby. God in the power of man has such a dramatic shock toward the heart that if it is not true to Christians, then nothing is true.

So if a person is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it. And maybe on some given Christmas some final quiet morning, that touch will take. The touch of God coming into this world as a vulnerable baby.

What do you say we go to Long Island? Follow Moses up Mt. Sinai? Head to the Tabernacle. Check out the table where God-made-flesh joins us. Once we’ve met God there, I’m pretty sure we’ll find ourselves wanting to go back again and again.

Wally was a 7th grade student who was bigger than any of the other students in his Sunday school class. His mother had been an alcoholic when he was born, & as a result, Wally just did not have all the mental capabilities that the rest of his classmates had. But somehow he managed to get by.

Christmas time came & his class decided to put on a Christmas pageant. Since he was the biggest, Wally was selected to be the innkeeper. After all, the innkeeper is kind of a villain in the Christmas drama. So they coached Wally to be just as mean as he possibly could be.

Well, the night came for the Christmas play. And in it, Mary & Joseph came to Bethlehem, went to the Inn & knocked on its door. Wally opened the door & said, "What do you want?" just as mean & gruff as he could possibly be.

Joseph said, "We need a room. We need a place to stay tonight." "Well, you’ll have to stay someplace else," said Wally, "because there’s no room here. There’s no room in the Inn."

Joseph said, "But my wife’s expecting a baby just any time now. Isn’t there someplace where we can stay, where we are protected from the cold & where she can deliver her child?" "No," said Wally, "There’s no room here."

Then suddenly there was a silence on the stage. It was one of those embarrassing moments when you know that someone has forgotten the lines. From behind the curtains you could hear the prompter saying, "Begone. Begone." Wally was supposed to speak, but for some reason he had choked up & forgotten to say "Begone."

Finally, after he had been coached for several long seconds, Wally managed to say, "Begone." Mary & Joseph sadly turned to leave. But just as they did, Wally said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You can have my room."

The director of the play was ready to pull out her hair because she knew that the whole Christmas pageant had been ruined.

But had it? Maybe Wally, better than anybody else communicated the real spirit of Christmas. "You can have my room."

Communion

Benediction: 2 Corinthians 13:14, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”



Christmas Candlelight Service

Hebrews 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

When David wrote about his life with God, he used the sense of taste to describe what it was like, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him” (Psalm 34:8). First Samuel 13:14 says that when God “sought out a man after his own heart” to be the leader of His people, He chose David. If anyone had tasted and seen that the Lord was good, it was David. His heart was consumed with a pursuit of God.

He didn’t just nibble a little on the God-life like a catfish nibbling enough to nudge a bobber. He feasted on life with God. We get a little glimpse into David’s life with God in this psalm that starts with worship. “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips” (v. 1). When David thought about his life with God, it caused him to worship. He couldn’t help but praise God, and for good reason. David had discovered firsthand that when you call out to God, He answers. In David’s case, God answered with salvation and deliverance, provision and protection.

He answered not just by being the kind of God who could get David out of the jam he was in, but by being the kind of God who could make an everyday difference. David didn’t just have a crisis experience with a get-me-out-of-a-mess God. He knew an every-day relationship with God. So when David wrote, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” I don’t think he had a bite-sized sample in mind. David feasted on his life in God. He knew God as savior, deliverer, protector, and provider, and he wanted everyone else to get in on this life. “Taste and see.”

I think that’s why so many people have found in David an example of how to nurture a walk with God. He’s transparent. He didn’t say, “Life is always good,” but he said, “God is good.” In the Psalms we see the good and the bad, David’s joys and frustrations, victories and failures. We see the times David was upset and didn’t understand what was happening. But what comes shining through no matter the circumstance is this: David had acquired a taste for life with God.

There is a taste that’s worse than any medicine out there. It’s worse than a ruined recipe, and even worse than anything a person would eat on Fear Factor. It’s the taste of sin and it tastes like death. The death of relationships. The death of innocence. The death of trust. It tastes like the death of wholeness, the death of peace, the death of families. Sin tastes like the death of purity. The death of joy. The death of happiness. Sin is like a cheap diet drink. It might taste OK initially but the aftertaste will get you every time. That’s sin. Sins of rebellion and rejection, of unfaithfulness & disobedience. Sins of attitude like pride, anger, and bitterness. Sins of action. Sins of thought and sins of neglect. Sins we think no one else knows about. Sins we think only affect us. The flavors of sin may appear to be different but in the end it all tastes the same; sin tastes like death. The taste of sin was medicine we were all going to have to take because all of us were guilty. Romans 3:23 says the wages of sin, (and we add, the result of sin, the taste of sin) is death, and it’s what we all had coming.

But Christmas reminds us that when it was time for us take our medicine, God stepped in. In the fullness of time He sent His Son as a baby to come to our world and make us well. In His infinite mercy and grace Jesus took our medicine and threw away the bottle. He tasted death so we wouldn’t have to.

That’s how the writer in Hebrews describes it. [Read Hebrews 2:9--10]. 9 What we do see is Jesus, who was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.” Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. 10 God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation. He tasted death, took our medicine.

Not only did Jesus taste death for us, He set the table for a feast of life. Abundant life. Joy-filled life. A life where every single day we can know intimacy and friendship with God. Jesus not only took our medicine, but He spread the table with a feast of a relationship with Him, and He invites us to do more than sample or nibble, or take an occasional taste of grace. He invites us to sit down at the table and stay there, day in and day out: at Christmas, Easter, and every Sunday in between; on Sunday and Wednesday, and every day in between. He tasted death so we wouldn’t have to, and invites us to life in Him, a life I can only describe as a feast.

The story of Christmas is a lot about tastes. Ultimately, Christmas is about what God did to keep all of us from having to take the sickening taste of sin. But Christmas isn’t just about a taste we want to avoid. It’s also about a taste we want to embrace. It’s the taste of a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. One of the tastes of Christmas was written about years before the Babe was born in Bethlehem when David said it well, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Wouldn’t it be great if this Christmas we did more than sample the taste of life in Christ? He invites us to feast on the taste of an abundant life that comes through a personal, daily, intimate relationship with Jesus. I invite you today, because He invites us: O taste and see that the Lord is good.

Ron’s story from Papua New Guinea

Communion: Bread and juice. These too, are the tastes of Christmas. They taste like forgiveness, hope, restoration. They taste like the love of God given freely to us. This feast at God’s Table can taste like life to us, because Jesus tasted death for us. Benediction: 1 Peter 2:2-3, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”



2006/12/24