Morning Message Text: Philippians 2: 5-11
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Morning Message:
We begin this season of Advent as we have for the past several years, with a Devotional to study together. I don’t know how many of you take full advantage of this opportunity, but I hope that, by studying together, the season might be more meaningful. For this Advent we have chosen a devotional based on the writings of C. S. Lewis. If you have read any of his writings, you already know that he writes with a wonderful Christian heart. Advent is usually a time for us to contemplate the second coming of our Lord, but this year we are going to focus on the wonder of the birth of our Savior. Our devotional starts with John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” C. S. Lewis calls this, “One Grand Miracle.” Let’s think about the magnitude of this for a moment. We sometimes read through scripture without taking the time to let it sink in.
I chose to focus on the devotions for Monday and Tuesday of this week. C. S. Lewis says this in his writings in Mere Christianity, p.179, “The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.” This really made me stop and think about what lengths God went to in order to give us a chance at redemption. My first thought is that there must have been an easier way, but then I quickly realized that that is me thinking in human terms, so imperfect and so far from the mind of a perfect God. If you really think about it, how better to save mankind than to become one of them and live the perfect life for them.
We tend to gloss over this grand miracle. Maybe we take for granted the miracle of childbirth. We have children. Women give birth, and it is the most miraculous event in your life. But then, as our children begin to grow into teenagers and young adults, we start to lose sight of the miracles that God has given us. Christmas is a story of life. We need to recapture the importance of life in order to fully appreciate what God did when He sent Jesus, when He placed His spirit inside of a fetus so that we might know Him and find peace with God. I wonder if this would change people’s thinking on the life that exists in the womb of an expectant mother?
One more quote from C. S. Lewis (Miracles, p. 148), “He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift; he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.” This is from your devotional that I know you will read on Tuesday. “God came down in the person of Jesus to bring the world up. Abraham was humbled when asked to sacrifice his son Isaac and, in the process, learned to trust God fully. Peter refused to have his feet washed by Jesus but changed his mind when Jesus said, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me’ (John 13:8). Perhaps that’s why Peter later wrote, ‘Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time’ (1 Peter 5:6). Where did he get that idea? From Jesus, the one who humbled himself and was later exalted, but in his case, without sin. Jesus told a dinner host, ‘For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’ (Like 14:11).”
During Advent we usually follow a pattern, a process. We talk about the coming of Jesus and we try to have a build-up to the celebration of his birth on Christmas Eve. I am not suggesting that we change how we experience Christmas Eve, but I think that we should focus on the miracle of the birth during this whole season. And, maybe after the Christmas season is over, we will take this grand miracle with us and have a new appreciation of what God did for us when He stepped down from heaven in all of His majesty and stepped into a fetus. From all knowing and powerful, to helpless and dependent on the process of labor and birth. From creator of the universe to a baby in a manger on a tiny planet in an obscure little town wrapped in rags.
God calls us to do something different this Christmas season. He calls us to humble ourselves, maybe to sacrifice our comforts, to reach beyond ourselves and reach out to those around us with the true love of Jesus that we have been so blest to discover. God, our Savior Jesus the Christ, has every right to ask us, we who are called by his name, to give of ourselves. Why? Because He withheld nothing from us. He gave us one grand miracle that changes our eternity.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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