This is my story.
Isaiah 61:10-11 (NIV) says, "I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations."
After 45 years of ministry I know from experience that this is the most awkward Sunday in the entire Church calendar. Everybody knows what to preach on Christmas Sunday and it is easy to come up with ideas for the first Sunday of a new year, but what do you do with this in-between Sunday, this awkward time between Christmas and New Year's Day? Smart ministers go on vacation and devious ones get their father-in-law to fill in for them.
Actually, this in-between Sunday is a metaphor not only for my message but also for life. It also aptly illustrates our text from Isaiah 61. We are living in between the year of the Lord's favor, Christ's first appearing, and the day of vengeance of our God, his final second coming.
The four great themes of Christmas are hope, comfort, love, and joy.
Texts like Isaiah 61 put everything we experience into a larger, longer-term perspective, placing our lives on the timeline of eternity, reminding us that we live in the tension between the already and the not yet. Reflect for a moment on what Nic, Brad, Jay and Jon have shared with you in the past few weeks on the four great themes depicted in banners outside your building.
We have already received a living hope in the resurrection (1 Peter 1:4), but we have not yet experienced the realization of all that our hope entails. We have experienced God's comfort (2 Corinthians 1:4) but we have not yet experienced that comfort that will come when he wipes away every tear from our eyes, where there will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain (Revelation 21:4). We have already experienced the love of God (Ephesians 3:17-19) and the joy of salvation (John 15:11), but not yet the eternal love that the Father will lavish on us when he welcomes us home (1 John 3:1-2) to the eternal joy of heaven (Revelation 19:1).
We are living in the middle.
Eugene Peterson, in his devotional commentary on Revelation titled "Reversed Thunder" calls this phenomenon, "living in the middle". We are people of faith living between a believed but unremembered good beginning (Genesis 1) and an unimaginable good ending (Revelation 21-22).
It is obvious that God never intended for Christmas to be merely a past event that is celebrated for a short season once every year. Rather it is to be a present life-transforming encounter with an ever-present God who is with us. It is to be a life-changing experience of Jesus Christ that is intended to shape the way we live in the future.
While the Church complains about what our culture has done to make Christmas a politically correct, socially acceptable, non-religious holiday, as one author put it-- "like a birthday party where everyone is told not to mention the honored guest's name"-- many churches have done something equally lethal. They have made Christmas a once-a-year event to be celebrated-- just as we get decorations out of storage for a short season, dust off the Christmas music and revisit Christmas traditions for a month or so, then pack them away until next year. We are to pack up the message of this season, not to put it away, but to take it with us on our journey into the future. We are to let that message give meaning and shape to our mission for the rest of our lives.
We are blessed by God in order to be a blessing to others.
David Platt in his book titled "Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God", captures the message and meaning of Christmas in these words. "God blesses his people with extravagant grace so they might extend his extravagant glory to all peoples on the earth." What a reminder of the globe ornaments in the banners and the logo for this sermon series that the message of hope, comfort, love, and joy is for all peoples! What a grand summary of Isaiah 61! What a fitting text to accompany the testimonies being shared here today.
Listen again to Isaiah 61:10-11 (NIV). "I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations." There's that global image again. God's praise is to spring up before all nations.
How appropriate that we celebrate with testimonies about what kind of transformational culture Lakeside is. This is a place where the seed is sown, where sprouts come up, where seedlings are nurtured, and where fruitfulness and faithfulness are expected. This is a place where people become, "...oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor..." (Isaiah 61:3) Lakeside is a greenhouse for growth, where through the truth of God's word and the transparency of accountable relationships, spiritual transformation can take place.
Clothed in our robes of righteousness and dressed in our garments of praise, we bear witness not to what we have done, but to what God has done. Our hope, our comfort, our love and our joy are not found in what God could do, or might do, or what we think he should do, but in what he has done in Jesus Christ. There is only one appropriate response to this extravagant gift of grace. That is to live every day in profound appreciation for grace. You don't wake up the Sunday after Christmas (or any other day), yawn, roll over, and go back to sleep. You arise to worship with a life of praise. As the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 13:15 (NIV), "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-- the fruit of lips that confess his name."
How do we respond to being transformed by grace?
This week Margaret and I watched another metaphor for this message. Victor Hugo's classic redemptive novel, "Les Miserables", was released on Christmas Day and became a Number one hit at the box office. Watching this popular morality play/musical come to life in cinema was a moving experience. In the novel, the ex-convict Jean Valjean's personification of grace stands in stark contrast to Constable Javert's personification of law and characterization of self-righteousness.
What Hugo captures and what Hugh Jackman portrays is how one responds to being transformed by grace. You will spend the rest of your life in deep gratitude for grace and will do everything humanly possible to be an instrument that extends that grace to others. In the finale Valjean sings, "Take my hand and lead me to salvation. Take my love, for love is everlasting. And remember the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God."
And then the chorus erupts from all those who have gone before.
"Do you hear the people sing, lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light.
They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord.
They will walk behind the ploughshare; they will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward.
Do you hear the people sing? Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!"
And in the distance I can hear God's people sing. "This is my story, this is my song; praising my Savior all the day long."