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HARK — AND THEN WHAT
MESSAGE? #2
GOD SEARCHING THE SNOW-COVERED STREETS
"And on Christmas day, the wayward son came
home." How many holiday stories are there with that very predictable
story line?
Here on Christmas, we're taking a few days to consider just one Christmas
carol: the classic hymn "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing." And
yesterday we began to think about four quiet, powerful words — the fourth
line in the first stanza of the song. "God and sinners reconciled."
Somehow CHRISTMAS is a time when we just naturally think of reconciliation,
don't we? "Please come home for Christmas," goes one song. "I'll
BE home for Christmas," promises another. So the phone lines are
buzzing from both ends. People are looking to get back together.
A couple of years ago we enjoyed featuring five Christmas stories by my
friend Dr. Joe Wheeler, author and editor of the three-volume series,
Christmas In My Heart. Some of you will remember that we had him read
several favorites over the air, in fact. And the very first story in Volume
One, written by Dr. Wheeler himself, beautifully uses this theme of reconciliation.
"The Snow of Christmas," it's called . . . and an angry young
father named John walks out on his wife, Cathy, and Julie, his little
girl. Three doors he slams — the bedroom door, the front door, the car
door. Soon he's 3,000 miles away, clear across the continent. But something
pulls him back: the memories, the sense of a father's obligation, the
carols he hears on the Christmas TV specials. He hikes downtown and finds
himself buying a cashmere teddy bear out of the Macy's window. Then the
long cross-country flight, the rented car, the drive home. And his wife's
not there; the place is empty. His family's gone.
"Maybe she's at my folks' place," he says to himself, his heart
in his throat. So he drives another hour through the darkness. And sure
enough, there's the family car parked in front of Mom and Dad's place.
He slips in through the back door and hears his little girl singing: "All
is calm, all is bright." And then: "Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth."
And his wife sees him, and opens up her arms. She accepts him back. Reconciliation
takes place. And the story closes: "Then there were THREE at the
window — not counting the snow-coated teddy bear — the rest of the world
forgotten in the regained heaven of their own. And the snow of Christmas
Eve continued to fall."
And friend, it's very nice, but it's all kind of FORMULA — not at all
to take away from Dr. Wheeler's writing, which is picturesque and brilliantly
done. It's a beautiful story . . . but it's the kind of thing we EXPECT
out of Christmas. People coming home and getting forgiveness. Despite
our many sins and mistakes, there's a reunion, and the sinner is given
a place at the supper table.
And yet, as we hear this fourth line again from Charles Wesley's hymn,
"Hark! the Herald Angels Sing," the stark contrasts jump out
at us. Yes, it does say "God and sinners reconciled." But in
THIS story, the saga which serves as the model for all the others, who
is it who does the reconciling? Who is the active party in the search
process?
In the Bible verse that this Charles Wesley hymn is really based on, Luke
2:14, we find a clue about that. Notice it in the King James Version:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will TOWARD
men."
In most Christmas stories we invent, it's the wayward
husband who finally comes crawling back — or flying back on American Airlines
as the case may be. "Where is my wandering boy tonight?" — and
the prodigal son returns. The profligate mom returns to take care of her
babies.
But in heaven's story — "God and sinners reconciled" — it's
GOD who does it all. GOD does the reconciling; GOD reaches out; GOD makes
the overture. To a world where practically nobody's paying attention except
a few Wise Men, three or four shepherds, and a pregnant kid named Mary,
it's GOD who goes a'rescuing. God even sends the choir of angels; the
"Herald Angels," as Wesley describes them in his song. Luke
19:10:
"For the Son of Man came to seek and to
save what was lost."
The New Testament often uses the Shepherd motif, but
we even find it in the Old Testament. Ezekial chapter 34 says this about
the Sovereign Lord:
"As a shepherd looks after his scattered
flock when he is with them, so will I look after My sheep. I will rescue
them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds
and darkness. . . . I will search for the lost and bring back the strays."
I run a risk using the ancient sheep-and-shepherd metaphor
here in 2001, but friend, the REALITY of God looking for you right now
is something that to me is the most serious thing in the world. If you'd
rather think of Him surfing the Internet, desperately looking for you
in some hidden, lonely chat room — fine. If you want to picture Him walking
the snowy streets of Times Square in New York City here on Christmas Eve,
fine. But friend, HE'S LOOKING FOR YOU TODAY: DECEMBER 25. He's the reconciling
God — the heartbroken Father who ALWAYS makes the first move.
Yesterday we commented on the tragedy of hearing beautiful Christmas music
and having it simply be part of the December mosaic. And Christmas STORIES
can have that same effect. It's "Once upon a time" . . . and
then finally "They lived happily ever after." And maybe we don't
stop to realize the raw REALITY of the REAL Christmas story, the REALNESS
of God's move in our direction. This is one story that isn't fiction;
it's not a fairy tale, and it didn't come out of a CBS Christmas special.
This one is REAL.
I really appreciate some of the comments that Dr. Joe Wheeler included
in the front of this book: Christmas in My Heart, Vol. 1. "We are
a lonely race," he writes, "and we are getting lonelier."
And he writes about how Christmas can be a time where the emotions finally
do come to the surface; a heart CAN be touched then. Which is partly why
his three-volume set of books has been such a bestseller.
But then he makes this probing observation. "Much of the literature
of Christmas is sterile." And we wonder: what does he mean by that?
Listen.
"Non-Christians cannot write great Christmas stories; they frequently
try, but they are as ephemeral [lasting for a brief time] and transitory
as cascading autumn leaves. These writers fail to notice one great truth:
without the GOD-induced love for one's fellow-creatures, Christmas is
no more than a Madison Avenue after-Thanksgiving sale."
I wish we could include all that he writes in this
insightful foreword, but the essence of it is this: Unless we grasp the
reality of the FIRST Christmas story, of GOD'S reaching out to us, of
THAT reconciliation . . . all of the other ones are really just a lot
of sugar. They sell merchandise and give a brief glow, but friend, they're
as counterfeit as the orange money you're giving your kids tomorrow in
that new Monopoly game.
In fact, Wheeler, in his closing paragraphs, observes
that to collect and read Christmas stories which miss the Christ-CENTEREDNESS
that is so necessary, is to miss what Christmas and life are all about.
"Without it [Christ]," he writes, "Christmas
is but a hollow drum beaten by commercial opportunists, or to paraphrase
Shakespeare: ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sophistry and futility,
signifying NOTHING.'"
Well, I'm thankful that GOD'S story isn't nothing.
It's SOMETHING; it's EVERYTHING . . . and friend, YOU'RE everything to
God as well, or He wouldn't have gone to all the trouble on Christmas
Eve to come looking for you and for me.
As we close up for today and get ready to drive over to Grandma's house
for Christmas dinner tomorrow, let's think for just one more moment about
those two brothers: John and Charles Wesley. Four years apart in age,
they were both serious-minded young men. In fact, as they studied so diligently
and methodically there at Oxford University, and organized a group of
young men known as the Holy Club, other students teased them for their
strictness. "Those guys are a couple of METHODISTS," they said.
It was on a missionary trip to America in the year 1735 that John and
Charles really noticed that something was missing. It was a stormy voyage
to the colonies — Georgia — but some Moravian Christians still seemed
so calm, so peaceful. How come? the Wesley brothers wondered. Three years
later, on May 24, 1738, to be exact — back in London now — John Wesley
went to a Moravian revival meeting. And there, really for the first time,
this troubled Christian understood the saving power of Jesus. For the
first time, it came pounding home to him that he could have an assurance
of salvation by faith in Jesus alone. And in the famous statement that
every Methodist Christian knows and loves, John said: "I felt my
heart was STRANGELY WARMED." And he went out and preached 40,000
sermons; his little brother Charles wrote 6,500 hymns.
But don't miss the fact that GOD CAME DOWN and gave him that new assurance.
True, John Wesley was in the right place; he was there in the church.
But for 35 years he'd never really "GOTTEN IT" . . . until God
CAME DOWN and reconciled John Wesley to Himself.
Friend, it might be cold outside your window right now, or there on the
freeway where you're driving. After all, it's Christmas. But are YOU ready
to have your heart "strangely warmed" too?
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