December 25 - Matthew 1:18-25 - "What if the Creator Entered into His Creation?"

MPC 25th December 2018.

Phil Campbell

For the last few Sundays here at MPC we've been working through a teaching series with a title inspired by Joan Osborne's song from 1995 called What if God was One of Us.

If you're old enough that you were round back then you'll most likely remember it. Cool song. Although maybe a bit of a one hit wonder. It's been covered by prince. It's been covered by the cast of glee. So even if you don't remember the original, you've probably heard it. Joan Osborne's chart rocking question, what if God was one of us? Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home? Just some guy you bumped into without noticing. On your daily commute.

Follow up question. Verse 2. "If God had a face... what would it look like? And would you want to see, if seeing meant you'd have to believe?"

Other hit songs that year asked slightly more mundane stuff like Have you Ever Really Loved a Woman? Bryan Adams. Or weren't quite so philosophical. Like, All I Wanna Do is Have Some Fun. Cheryl Crow. Memorable year for music.

But Joan Osborne went for the big one. What if. God was one of us?

Just to refresh your memory, here's a quick clip...

Of course the thing I always wanted to shout at the radio every time the chorus came round and asked the question what if God was one of us, was why don't you take a look at Jesus. Because God has become one of us already.

I mean, that's the claim of Christianity, anyway. That's the claim of Christmas. That's the idea that Christians have been calling the incarnation. For the last 2000 years.

And this Christmas, I want to ask you to stretch you minds a little. To consider that.

Because since the earliest times, Christians have been convinced that God indeed was one of us.

That he had a name, and that name was Jesus of Nazareth.That he was just a stranger in a stable. Just a normal looking guy so ordinary you could miss him on a crowded bus.

Did you notice in our bible reading, Matthew's gospel puts it this way.

And before I highlight it can I acknowledge right up front it's an astonishing story. It's an account that's been one of the the pillars of our Western culture; and yet these days, it's treated as entirely improbable. You're maybe filing it somewhere in your mind just to the left of the Easter bunny and slightly above the tooth fairy.

And I've got to say to you if you weigh it on the basis of whether it's the kind of thing that happens every day; it's not one of them.

You've got Joseph, this was our first reading; betrothed. Engaged to be married to Mary.

And suddenly. Without any intervention at all on his part: he didn't touch her, she's pregnant. With this crazy story that an angel spoke to her and she's conceived through the Holy Spirit.

If you think believing that's a big ask, imagine what Joseph is thinking!

And so Matthew chapter 1 verse 19, he's planning to divorce her quietly. He could have had her publicly shamed for her infidelity. But he's a nice guy. Just heartbroken, I guess. And so instead of exposing her publicly, he's ready to just let her go. a quiet pre-marriage divorce.

But pick it up in verse 20, and look what happens next.

After he's considered this, an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream, and says to him," Joseph son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will give him the name Jesus (which means God saves) because he will save his people from their sins."

And then verse 22. Matthew says,

All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet, "the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which literally in the original Hebrew means "God with us.")

And look, the prophet Isaiah did say that. Hundreds of years before. Isaiah chapter 7. Verse 14.

This baby she's carrying. A conception with no human intervention. Multiplying cells in a womb. God. With us. God. Breaking through the barrier from creator to creation. The author of everything. Stepping into his own story. As a character.

This is going to be God with us.

And so when he's born and these Magi, these academics from the east follow the famous star and they're looking in Jerusalem for this one born to be king of the Jews, it's no surprise they say a few verses later,

We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.

Which when they finally find him in Bethlehem, is exactly what they do. With great joy. Just a few verses later.

See, right from this opening chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, there's no doubt we're being briefed on the fact that God has. Become one of us.

John Osborne in the opening lines of her song, she says, if God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to his face if you were faced with him in all his glory?

And so far Matthew's made the claim that he does have a name, and that name is Jesus which means God saves. But you can call him God with us as well. And for these first wise Magi who meet him, when they came face to face with him I'm not sure what they might have called him. But on things for sure, they fall on their faces and worship him.

And yet here's the thing. He is. Just exactly. Like an ordinary baby. In every way. In the most humble of circumstances. In Christmas cards and stained glass windows maybe they show him with a glow around his head. He didn't have one. Just looks like a normal kid. Grows up. Looks just like a normal guy. Sit next to him on the bus. Wouldn't like twice if he rides past you on a donkey.

Later on in the new testament, Hebrews chapter 2, it says he became fully human in every way. And yet at the same time. God. With us.

Now I don't know if that plays with your head. Matthew as he writes his gospel, he's absolute convinced of it. It's the whole reason he's writing.

And yet God, you'd think, if you've studied any theology or philosophy, God if he even existed from a philosophical point of view in Greek thought; which has largely shaped western thought; God is meant to be defined by all these complicated sounding Latin words. With omni in front of them.

And look, theology books still talk in these terms. That God is omnipresent. That he's present everywhere. The Old Testament says in Psalm 139, If I go to the highest mountain, he's there. If I go to the depths of the sea. he's there. Omni. Present.

That God is omnipotent. That he's all powerful. There's no rock so big he can't move it.

That God is omniscient. All knowing. Invented the Higgs Boson before Higgs even thought of it. And knows your mind better than you do.

Besides which, the Greek philosophers added; that he's immutable. Unchangeable. In any way. Because perfect is perfect. That he's impassible. Which means he's beyond having passions. Emotionally unstirrable. Because otherwise, they said, the Greek philosophers, and philosophers ever since, how could he be perfect?

The Philosopher Immanuel Kant said in 1775

The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend - and we cannot comprehend God...

Kant said there's such a huge gap between what he called the numinous, the world of spiritual truth and God and ultimate reality; and the world that our senses can sense and our logic can understand; that you might as well forget ever crossing it. And stop making the claim that you can know God; or know about him.

And yet Matthew here in the first chapter of his gospel says, but what if God was one of us? Because here he is. Broken through the gap from his side into ours.

Like an electrical arc; a huge charge of energy sparking across that unbridgeable gap.

One of us. God. Embodied with a name. Jesus. God saves. Worthy of our worship.

That's the claim of Christmas. Not just a claim being put out there by Matthew in his gospel or by me up the front here as a fairy tale.

But as the ultimate bridging together of heaven and earth. Of creator and creation.

The incomprehensible God. Suddenly there in front of us with little fingers and toes.

So here's a quote I liked. From the blog of a guy called G Shane Morris. Here's the implication. If what Matthew's gospel says is actually gospel truth. Forget the philosophers.

He says, "The point is that Jesus is God, full stop, no "ifs," "ands" or "buts." When we talk of Jesus doing, being, or experiencing something, we can talk of God doing, being, or experiencing that thing without qualification or hesitation. That is the full, knock-the-wind-out-of-you impact of the Incarnation.

The immutable God changes.

The impassible God feels.

The omnipresent God has to travel. On a donkey.

The omniscient God learns.

The self-sufficient God hungers.

The immortal God dies.

Anyone who has read the gospel accounts... knows this is so. He was not pretending...

One of us.

Which brings all kinds of implications. For us, in our own humanity. It brings a dignity to our suffering. And our work. And the dirt under our own fingernails. To think that God himself knows exactly what it's like.

Your struggles.

Your temptations.

Your sickness.

Your pain.

Your tears. At the loss of a friend.

You know the shortest verse in the bible? It's famous. Jesus standing at the graveside of his friend Lazarus. It says,

Jesus wept.

Real tears. Running down his face. God tears. Jesus bruised. Jesus bled.

Most especially; as he hung and bled on a cross. With the skin of his forehead torn to shreds by a thorn bush woven into a crown. With nails hammered in his hands and feet. The one born as king; God as one of us. Despised and rejected and crucified.

And yet in doing that and in absorbing the worst of the world; gathering up in himself and taking on himself everything our sin deserved. And declaring free forgiveness.

What if. God was one of us.

I know it's an astonishing claim. But the claim of Christmas is that he was. And that means there's a God who forgives. Even the worst of our sins. And that means there's a God we can know. And that means there's a God who can know what it's like to be us. And sympathise from up close.

A God who cuts through the abstracts of our philosophy and crashes through our own ideas wisdom; and says I'm here.

Immanuel.

Which is great news. If Christmas for you sometimes isn't 'great news.' Because, you know, the commercial idea of Christmas, the tinsel idea of Christmas, that it's all about family and festivity and food... what if family for you is just the place you've been abused?

The writer JL Hall says, "for most of the year I can tuck my violent childhood and teenage years out of sight." (She was abused by her dad.) But she says, "somehow, not at Christmas." It all comes flooding back.

What if you're lonely? And there are no invitations to family Christmas dinner. Just memories of loss.

Or if your family's a broken one. Like so many others. And so instead of celebrating togetherness it's just a constant reminder of apartness as you shuffle kids from one extended family gathering to another; and don't really fit into any of them any more.

Let me tell you the one thing we do have to celebrate... that is that's exactly the world God himself has stepped into. Mess and all. And he's felt it. And he knows it. And because of that he somehow redeems it.

So let me finish with a revised Christmas carol.

We sang before O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. Which is nice. If that's your Christmas. But what if that's not you?

Let me close with this Facebook post from English pastor Sam Allberry, who puts it this way;

O come all ye faithless, joyless and defeated.

O come ye, O come Ye, to Bethlehem.

Because Christmas is for the weary, the messed up, the broken.

If your life isn't Instagrammable, Christmas is for you.

You can forget the tinsel. And stop thinking you have to get everything right before you can get right with God. He's not Santa Claus. He's much more gracious. All we need to do is stop pretending long enough to pay a fresh visit to the one who was worshipped right from the start. In his absolute divinity. And his absolute humanity. In absolute humility.

What if. God was one of us.