We will not be getting together at Mountain View Academy to worship God this Sunday. Instead, we’ll be getting together in our LTGs (small groups) to hang out, watch the Super Bowl, and eat food together. Invite friends and have a good time. If you’re not part of an LTG, use this as an opportunity to check one out. Check out the LTG page for details and more information about each of the LTGs that are currently running.
Our passage for this morning is a really familiar one: Luke 2:1-7, the birth of Jesus Christ. There are a few things about it that I think are easy to skip over because we’re so familiar with it.
The first is that this Jesus is Joseph and Mary’s first born child. For those of you who have kids, think about the time when you were having your first born. Recall the feelings. All that anticipation. All that excitement. And yet, at the same time, all that fear. All that anxiety. Joseph and Mary were likely an emotional mess.
The second is that the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, that trip that they took late in Mary’s third trimester was an 85 mile trip through some steep inclines. And if you’ve ever ridden an animal, you know that that’s still a physical exhausting mode of transportation. Think of the time when you were late in your third trimester. How far were you able to walk? Jospeh and Mary were physically exhausted. They were running on fumes.
And lastly, Bethlehem was Joseph’s “own city”, verse 3. Though it’s unclear whether Joseph’s parents were still alive, it’s almost certain that Joseph still had close relatives in Bethlehem. And considering Middle Eastern hospitality, it would’ve been inconceivable for Joseph and his new family to stay the night in some random barn as it’s portrayed in many of our Christmas pageants and plays.
Joseph and Mary likely stayed in one of his relatives’ home as did many of his other relatives, hence, why there wasn’t enough room for their entire family to sleep. With everybody coming back to their hometown to be registered for the census, there was likely a family reunion in the house where Joseph and Mary stayed. There’s music, dancing, massive amounts of food, laughter, and hugging. Jesus is getting passed around the room from family member to family member. And at the end of the day, after the party’s subsided well into the night, Joseph and Mary lay him down in a manger, a step below the living area but under the same roof.
There is very little that’s silent about this night. Very little is calm. And there’s little sleeping in heavenly peace.
If anything it’s a chaotic night. They’re emotionally and physically exhausted before they even get to Bethlehem. And when they do get there, they’re greeted by Joseph’s extended family who are excited to see the new addition to their family.
But Jesus is there with them. And for that reason, one of the lines from Silent Night rings true. It was a “holy night”. Being holy isn’t about being composed and calm, about having it all together with your sins properly managed. Being holy is about being with Jesus, abiding in Him.
I know that many of you are in a place right now where you feel like life is too chaotic to be connected to Jesus. Well, our relationship with Jesus is a two-way street. Jesus reaches out to us as well. Jesus loves you.
But will you notice? Will you notice Jesus loving you in the midst of the chaos of your life?
To notice, consider group life, being part of an LTG. When we live life alone, in seclusion it’s all too easy not to notice Jesus. Our spiritual vision gets near-sighted as we just live through the routines of our lives. But as we share about our lives, chaos and all, others in our LTGs can speak into them revealing Jesus at work in it. And as we pray together through the chaos of our lives, we can tangibly feel Jesus ministering to us through His body, the Church.
Discussion Questions:
31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
35 “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.
So this past Sunday we talked about how the Christian faith is markedly supernatural; it is comfortable with the supernatural, assumes the supernatural, and teaches that we live in that supernatural reality as well. And the best one-word response it asks of us is the word, FAITH.
Faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1 as “1 Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (N.L.T.). The N.I.V. translation has “the certainty of things unseen.” As children of the Enlightenment still stuck in the assumptions and paradigms of Western Modernity, this sounds like a paradox: “certain of things unseen.”
Faith’s opposite, Hebrews 11 maintains, is sight — using the natural faculties to see and assess the visible world as opposed to faith’s courageous reliance on the supernatural faculties to comprehend what is revealed. Observation and analysis is behind one; and discernment of revelation and risk-taking obedience is behind the other. I think of Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade; using his natural eyes and common sense, all he saw between him and the cave with the Holy Grail was a deep chasm. But trusting in Scripture, he uses it as the key: “the just shall live by faith.” Then, he closes his eyes and takes a giant step onto an unseen stone bridge. A great illustration, Steven Spielberg, of Faith vs. Sight.
That’s an example from Hollywood, but the list of people that the author of Hebrews gives us in chapter 11 is filled with examples of every day people who — by employing faith in the revealed — did things that do not make sense if our world view does not make room for the supernatural. My case in point Sunday was that Joshua’s encircling strategy would never be found in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War or in a SWAT team manual!
What I assumed but did not say aloud on Sunday was this: we will never experience the kind of intimate relationship God designed us for or the powerful living-out of our Kingdom calling unless we are able to discover this simple and foundational truth that Abraham realized when he left all that was comfortable to follow only a command and a promise from God, that Noah realized when he was mocked for months while creating something that the natural faculties told him was crazy, that Joshua realized when he listened to God’s instructions for walking around Jericho as his military strategy, and the list continues on.
And so I issued a challenge to exercise our faith muscles: this week do something — privately or preferably publicly — that puts yourself in a situation where God must intervene and do what He says He will do. Then, pray and watch. And when God comes through, do it again… and tell people for their encouragement and so that experiential truth gets reinforced inside your heart by its re-telling. And if you wanted to go whole hog out there, I put another challenge out there: this week, assume that everything you’re reading in the bible is REALLY true and REALLY relevant to where you are now; then, obey and respond accordingly. And you will see God move.
The assumption behind these status-quo challenges is that God is REAL, and that he SO wants us to break out and truly live. This we get from the same chapter of Scripture, Hebrews 11:6: “And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”
This verse is tremendously important for all of you who are moving forward in more and more trust. I didn’t share it Sunday, but it is a promise that speaks of a different and unseen reality. I wanted to make sure I passed that on to you before the week gets too far in.
In addition, I wanted to reiterate my encouragement that you will need prayer and community around you as you plan to move forward in this arena. Your life will never be the same when the veil between the natural and the supernatural begins to thin and tear.
The Lord is doing something in our midst. And I’m thankful to be journeying with you into this place of holy experimentation and rebellion. Lord, Jesus, build your church, so the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
SN – If any of you feel led to post any stories of how God has come through as you stuck your neck out in faith for Him, feel free to post them as replies in this thread. A lot of us would appreciate any additional encouragement.
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