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Hope of Deliverance
a sermon on Luke 2.1-20
for Christmas Eve
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
A man with a problem went to see his pastor one day. The pastor was Victor
Shepherd, a Presbyterian minister and professor in Toronto. I do not know the
specific problem. It may have been drinking. It may have been pornography. It
was something with a stranglehold on his life. Something he knew was wrong.
Something he had tried unsuccessfully to overcome. Dr. Shepherd, when he related
this experience, did not say what the problem was, because it doesn’t matter to
us. Shepherd, at the time, was a fresh, young pastor. He listened attentively as
the man poured out his heart, telling how over and over he had fallen when
tempted. Then, with great compassion, Shepherd began to tell the man about the
grace and love of Jesus Christ. He explained the sufficiency of Christ. “God
forgives you,” he told the man. Then he was shocked by what the man said next:
“I don’t want forgiveness! I want deliverance!”
Now I suspect the man didn’t mean what he said about forgiveness. Of course he
wanted to be forgiven. But what he desperately needed was not simply
forgiveness. He needed victory. He needed God to break that stranglehold sin had
on him and set him free. He didn’t want his life to be an endless loop of
temptation, failure, remorse, and forgiveness. He needed God to break that
cycle. What about temptation, resistance, victory, and thanksgiving? Could God
give him that? … The answer is yes!
“Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the
people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the
Messiah, the Lord.” Shepherds on the hills around Bethlehem received this
message from the heavenly host. A Savior! What thoughts jumped into their minds
when they heard that word? Savior! They thought of Moses, standing before mighty
Pharaoh and saying with the authority of God, “Let my people go!” They thought
of David, delivering God’s people from Philistine oppression—standing as a young
boy before the invincible Goliath, and taking five smooth stones from the wadi,
defeating the giant. They thought of Ezra and Nehemiah, leading God’s people
back from exile, back from Babylonian captivity, back to the Promised Land. What
does a Savior do? He sets God’s people free. He delivers them! If we learn
anything from the Old Testament we learn this.
Jesus’ birth merited heavenly celebration because he is the Savior. The heroes
of old, both men and women—we could add Deborah and others to our list—they
delivered God’s people once, in their finest hour. Jesus is not a savior like
them. He is the Savior. He saves God’s people always and everywhere. He not only
saves God’s people, he rescues God’s enemies and turns them into God’s people,
into God’s children. He delivers us both from the darkness that surrounds us (if
you will permit me to crib a line from Paul McCartney) and from the darkness
that lurks inside us—deep in the recesses our hearts and minds. Jesus is the
true light that came into the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness cannot overcome it. Therefore, the birth of the Savior means hope—hope
of deliverance.
Let’s consider first the darkness that surrounds us. We all know the world is
full of problems. I don’t need to list them or try to convince you. Anyone who
thinks God is happy with the way things are does not know God. And anyone who is
happy with the way things are is both selfish and too blessed for his or her own
good.
Therefore, let us stipulate that the world, particularly the human part of it,
is broken. No, let’s be a bit more dramatic and say it is shrouded in darkness.
This is not to say it is all bad or that there is no good at all. God’s grace is
such that he sends rain and sunshine on the just and the unjust. He loves
creation too much to let us utterly corrupt it. No, our ruin is not utter, but
it is total—that is, everything is affected. Consider the pain and folly of
humankind and call it darkness.
Very well, Jesus is the Savior. He is the light. How does he deliver us from the
darkness? The answer surprises, but perhaps it should not if we thought it
through. How does light ever overcome darkness? It enters it. It shows up. Light
pierces darkness simply by being there. Of course, this is why we celebrate
Christmas. Jesus showed up. The light entered the darkness, and the darkness was
not able to overcome it. His teachings, his death, his resurrection—they are all
how he shines.
Jesus told us about the kingdom of God. According to him, God is going to keep
all those amazing promises about establishing permanent peace, justice, harmony,
and knowledge of God. We Christians believe Jesus will someday return to
complete the project. He taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.” And we pray it with gusto because we want nothing
more than that, because it would mean the rising of the sun and an end to the
darkness. In our impatience we must not forget that we do not have to wait for
someday to see his deliverance. Through his Holy Spirit he is continually at
work. The primary way he works is bringing the Good News about Jesus to all
people through the mission of the church. The church in North America is
struggling, and the church in Europe is in ruins, but around the world the Good
News is spreading like a head cold through a kindergarten. Do not think,
however, that God’s work is limited to the church. The church is a people
called-out to do his work, but God is free to work any time and any place. And
who knows what good he is working right now? So we have the ultimate promise for
someday, and we have the on-going work of God in history that would take our
breath away if we could glimpse it all at once, and … we have our part to play.
How does Jesus overcome the darkness? He enters it. He also sends his people
into it. Pentecost—the beginning of the church—is when he does to us what he did
to himself at Christmas. “Go into all the world.” “You will be my witnesses.”
“You will do the works that I have done, and greater.” The world is a mess. Does
Jesus pluck me up out of the mess, clean me off, and then set me on a shelf
somewhere so I won’t get messy again? No, he picks me up, forgives me, heals me,
starts the process of transforming me into him, empowers me with his Spirit,
promises to always be with me, and then sets me right back down in the mess
again! Why? So that I can reflect his light and dispel a bit more of the
darkness. As long as the world is a mess, Jesus wants his people to be right in
the middle of it, not being swallowed by the darkness, but overcoming it with
his light.
And of course, all this is done in very practical ways, through deeds of love
and mercy. Things like the angel tree, visiting the sick and lonely, hosting the
homeless with Interfaith Hospitality Network, standing up for truth, sharing the
Good News, and much, much more. On Christmas Jesus entered the world’s darkness,
and he has never left it. When he ascended to the Father, he sent his Spirit to
empower his people.
We human beings will never set things right. We are not capable of creating
utopia. We are not even good at approximating the kind of peace, justice, and
well being God desires for us. Most people can’t get their own life in order,
much less solve the world’s problems. We need a Savior. Jesus is the Savior.
Because of him we do “live in hope of deliverance from the darkness that
surrounds us.”
Unfortunately, the darkness does not just surround us. It is within us. You and
I are part of the problem. We need delivering not just from whatever lurks “out
there,” but even more from what dwells deep inside us where we often dare not
look.
There is such darkness in the human heart! David confessed in the psalm: “I was
born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me” [Ps 51.5]. Was he morbidly
pessimistic? No. Just honest and clear sighted. If you are honest and clear
sighted you know what he meant. Anyone who believes his or her own heart is all
light and goodness has been blinded by the darkness. You think you do not need
grace, or at least not much of it, because you cannot see—or you refuse to
see—the condition of your soul. You need a Savior. That is why God sent you one.
We live by the grace of Christ. His grace is our hope of forgiveness. His grace
is our hope for deliverance. Sometimes it strikes us like lightening, and we are
changed in an instant. More often, deliverance is a process of slow growth, like
our growth from infancy to adulthood. In either case, the breakthrough comes
when we surrender to God. It is not enough to try to obey. We must surrender
ourselves completely to his will. This is not usually easy. In fact, I have
discovered a paradox with respect to growth in Christ. The closer I get to him,
the more I realize how far I still have to go. When I go to him in prayer, I
understand what David meant. I realize that I am a scoundrel—and the son of a
scoundrel. My father before me was a scoundrel and his father before him—all the
way back to Adam. By the grace of God I am also a son of God, adopted according
to the promise of John 1.12: “But as many as received him—that is, Jesus, the
Savior—who believed in his name, to them he gave the right to become the
children of God.”
Luther said we are both sinners and saints at the same time. Because of this I
very often find my heart conflicted. I want to please God and honor God. I want
to do what is right. At the same time I am conscious of hate and fear and
selfishness in my heart. I fight against them. Sometimes I grow weary in the
struggle, and I wonder: Will I ever be holy? Will I ever break free from the
many-tentacled grip of sin, escape from the darkness within, and be free? God
has promised to make us perfect and complete when he raises us on the great day
of resurrection. I know too that he does not wait until then to begin the
process of transformation. Even the struggle against the darkness within is part
of that transformation. Better to realize it is darkness and fight it than to
wallow in it. In my impatience, wanting to love God with my whole heart and my
neighbor as myself but finding it difficult to do that consistently, I have to
trust my Savior. My final healing and salvation do not depend on my own moral
fortitude or self-discipline. They depend upon his grace, upon the sufficiency
of his sacrifice for me, and upon his determination to see me through to
completion.
His grace is greater than my sinfulness. His love is greater than my hate and
fear. His life is greater than my death. His light is greater than my darkness.
That is why we call Jesus Savior, because he saves us. He delivers us from the
darkness that surrounds us and the darkness within us. I have been talking about
myself, but what I say is true of everyone. No one here loves God and neighbor
perfectly. Every human heart is conflicted. Which will win—the darkness or the
light—is determined in every case by one thing: Do you know the Savior? He is
the light. Without him, you are lost to the darkness. Yet the darkness cannot
overcome him. With him, you are delivered. “For freedom Christ has set us free,
therefore do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
“The angel said to them: ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news
of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a
Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find
a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was
with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory
to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’
Amen.
rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
December 24, 2006
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