Main Idea: The Shipwrecked at the Stable are those whose passion for Jesus Christ compels them to challenge things others accept without question.

We continue our series for Advent that I am calling "Shipwrecked at the Stable." We have described those who are shipwrecked at the stable as those for whom Jesus Christ and nothing else truly satisfies. The shipwrecked are those who see the world in a different way but especially see the season of Advent and Christmas for the radical message of both hope and warning that it is. We are those who, as Brennan Manning says, come to the stable and "kneel in the presence of mystery." We are those who see as well the scandal and shock that Bethlehem truly was. Manning writes, "Sadly, Christian piety down through the centuries has prettified the Babe of Bethlehem. Christian art has trivialized divine scandal into gingerbread crèches. Christian worship has sentimentalized the smells of the stable into dignified pageant…Pious imagination and nostalgic music rob Christmas of its shock value, while some scholars reduce the crib to a tame theological symbol. But the shipwrecked at the stable tremble in adoration of the Christ-child and quake at the inbreak of God Almighty." (Watch for the Light, p. 189)

Yet, being people who tremble and quake at the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is not the accepted emotion at Christmas. What is accepted is that we are sentimental and emotional rather than stunned and shocked by the reality that the God of all creation became an embryo. This embryo became the one who made his first appearance bearing the fresh blood and fluid of the one who bore him into our history. That is why the Christian tradition of Advent has been to remind us of the forcefulness of the message of the Gospel by hearing the words of John the Baptist.

John the Baptist would be the voice of God calling people to prepare their hearts for the appearance of Jesus Christ. For many months prior to Jesus’ public ministry John challenged things that people in his day accepted without question. Yet John’s voice would be silenced for its offensive words to civil rulers and he would be placed in prison. While in prison, John himself began to question things about Jesus he himself had accepted without question. What I want us to see today is that the shipwrecked at the stable are those whose passion for Jesus Christ compels them to challenge things that others accept without question.

Matthew 11 is a critical point in the plot of Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew 5-7 comprises in great detail the words or the message of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew follows this with stories of ten miracles that Jesus performed that covered a large group of random diseases as well as raising a little girl back to life. This provides Jesus’ disciples with both the ability to hear his message as well as see his miracles. Prior to Jesus beginning his ministry through both his words and his actions Matthew records John the Baptist being put in prison (Matt. 4:12) but he waits until Matthew 14 to tell us the reason for his being put in prison. He says, "For Herod had arrested and imprisoned John as a favor to his wife Herodias (the former wife of Herod's brother Philip). John kept telling Herod, "It is illegal for you to marry her." Luke adds that he rebuked him as well for "all the other evil things he had done" (Luke 3:19).

The basic problem was that Herod was having an immoral adulterous relationship with his brother’s wife. Now I doubt if John had somehow known this secretly but most likely it was public knowledge. It would have been the accepted behavior of the day for leaders to act without any sense of fidelity to their spouse—male or female. Yet, for John, his passion for the truth of God would not allow him to accept this behavior without question. Probably for good measure he threw in a few more "issues" for which Herod was guilty and publicly challenged his behavior. You don’t challenge the powerful publicly without a price so John ended up in prison.

While John was in prison Jesus was beginning to fulfill his own ministry. He spoke words about turning the other cheek and not judging others (Matt. 5:38,7:1). He spent his time healing all kinds of sick people and raising a little girl back to life. John hears about this mission from his disciples and is obviously struck by the contrast between what he predicted Jesus to be and what he was hearing about Jesus. John had proclaimed of one coming with judgment and punishment, not words of gentleness and actions of compassion. All of the emotions of fear and doubt come crushing in on John and he tells his disciples to go and ask Jesus, "Are you really the Messiah we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep looking for someone else?" (Matt. 11:3)

Why did John ask this question? I believe either he was himself doubting or he wanted to insure his own disciples of Jesus’ identity. Whichever it was, the ministry of Jesus that John and his disciples had heard and seen was not the kind of Messiah they expected. They expected, especially John, a Messiah of wrath, anger, strength and power. Instead, they got a man who said some shocking things but had made little progress bringing the powerful to their knees.

Jesus’ response, though, was loving and supportive. He told those who questioned him to tell John all that they had heard Jesus say and all that they had seen Jesus do (v. 4-5). Then he adds, "And tell him God blesses those who are not offended by me" (v. 6). The word Jesus used is the word "scandal," meaning something that causes you to stumble or creates an offense. Jesus is telling John, "Your accepted expectations of what I would be can’t stand in your way of accepting who I am." While he was the Messiah, Jesus had predicted he was also the God who would leave John in prison and allow him to die. Jesus boldly challenged John’s personal accepted expectations of who he imagined Jesus to be.

After John’s disciples leave, Jesus speaks words of powerful affirmation to the crowds around him about John (Matt. 11:7-15). He contrasts John and his message to the appearance and lifestyle of those who were in power. Herod had coins minted with his face on one side in flowing robes and reeds swaying in the wind on the other. John was the exact opposite—living in the wilderness, wearing outrageous clothes and eating strange food. He asks them, "What was it that you expected to see? If you had a concept that a prophet of God would be anything other than someone others would call abnormal then you missed it." John was the one, the only one sent to prepare the way for the Messiah!

Jesus questioned the perceptions that people had about the kind of man John was. They may have had the perception that the person who was the one to prepare the way for the Messiah would be more tame and civilized instead of the barbarian that John was. They had become accustomed to their prophets being more like candidates for "The Apprentice" rather than participants of "Survivor." They had forgotten the fear Elijah created in King Ahab, the shock of Isaiah walking around basically naked for three years, or the constant weeping of Jeremiah. Jesus reminded the people that John the Baptist challenged the accepted perceptions of what a spiritual person would be.

Before Jesus is finished he speaks directly to his own frustration with the accepted demands of the generation about what kind of Messiah they really wanted. He compared them to children who can’t make up their mind about what they want. "I played happy music and you wouldn’t dance so I played sad music and you didn’t cooperate either." He tells them John was the ultimate example of someone whose passion for God caused them to refuse the comforts of life and you thought he was possessed by a demon. Then he comes along and enjoys life to the full and you reject him as a drunk, a traitor and immoral. He is saying, "Your demands only show you will never be satisfied because you will never be satisfied with just me!" Jesus challenged the accepted demands people made on John’s lifestyle and his also.

So where does all of this leave you and me as we prepare for the coming of Christ at Advent? It tells us that just as John and Jesus challenged the accepted behavior, expectations, perceptions and demands their culture placed on them, so we will challenge the things others accept without question in our culture. There is a verse that I want you to see. Look at Matthew 11:11,"I assure you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the most insignificant person in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is!" Jesus affirms that when it comes to greatness in the things that matter most that John the Baptist is the ultimate example. Yet he adds that when people just like you and just like me dare to be consumed with the same passion for Jesus Christ that John had then we—as insignificant as we are—are measured at a higher value than John!

Brennan Manning says that "the single most important consideration during the sacred season of Advent is intensity of desire…An intense desire is already the sign of his presence in our hearts. The rest is the work of the Holy Spirit." (Watch for the Light, p. 2) How do we show our passion? We show it by our willingness to be a voice like John’s and a life like Jesus. Alfred Delp says, "Woe to an age when the voices of those who cry in the wilderness have fallen silent, out-shouted by the noise of the day or outlawed or swallowed up in the intoxication of progress, or growing smothered and fainter for fear and cowardice." (Watch for the Light, p. 92). We are that voice, this season of advent, that challenges the things others accept.

What do we who are the shipwrecked challenge? I believe we, like John, are to be a voice that challenges accepted behavior. There is always a danger when you dare to raise a question about accepted behavior. The reality is that there are some behaviors that our culture has come to accept that are gross aberrations from what you and I understand as anything resembling a biblical moral standard. We accept as normal a media so focused on sex—of any and all persuasions-but then that same media pretends to still be offended a year later by a "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl. We accept as normal the violence of "M" rated video games then pretend to be shocked when entertainment becomes reality in a sports arena or in our streets. Challenging accepted behavior isn’t just comfortable with only popular issues to oppose but seeks to be willing to be a voice, God’s voice, that calls out in challenge to those things others accept without question.

I believe, as well, that we will, as Jesus, challenge the accepted expectations of the faithful. You and I must admit that there are things that we expect Jesus to be. This last presidential political campaign found both political parties proclaiming that each had identified the true essence of Jesus and sought to represent that to the faithful. What you and I need to understand is that Jesus Christ will not determine his nature, character or identity based on a political opinion poll. Neither is He subservient to your expectations or mine. When you and I are willing to accept Jesus without our expectations in our hands but rather throwing them at his feet, then we are in a position to challenge the accepted expectations of who others say Jesus is.

Another thing we will do is challenge the accepted perceptions of those who are searching. People have a fixed image of who they believe Jesus is based on their perception of spiritual things. For some, Jesus is the Jesus of their definition of the way they see the world. They go out searching for a Jesus they have created in their mind. It was interesting that both Time and Newsweek’s cover stories last week were on the birth of Jesus. The articles raised, once again, the endless questions about the things you and I accept as true. I want to ask: "Who did you expect to find in the manger? Did you expect to find a little family that you could put on Oprah or make the Barbara Walters’ list of fascinating people for 2004?" We are those who ask those who are searching, "Who did you expect to find in the manger? God in human flesh or a human of your own making?" The shipwrecked challenge the perception of those who are searching.

There is one more thing that you and I will challenge and that is we will challenge the demands of those dissatisfied with spiritual tension. Our generation can’t make up its mind what it wants from Jesus. We think we want a Jesus who is strong and full of judgment and wrath until it makes us uncomfortable because it exposes our own sins. Other times we want a Jesus who is soft on the rules and just likes to be one of the "guys". Then when we think someone else is getting away too easy, we want "The Terminator," not the "Tenderhearted." We can’t demand of Jesus that he neatly fit into our performance expectations. He is both the Jesus of absolute resistance to sin; yet he is also the Jesus who is full of grace. We must live with that tension in his nature and challenge the accepted demands that others and we might make.

I’ve been reading the first installment of Bob Dylan’s autobiography called Chronicles: Volume One. Dylan, as most of you know, was a musician whose music challenged the accepted behaviors, expectations, perceptions and demands of a culture in the 1960’s. Songs like "Blowin’ in the Wind," "Times They are a Changin’," "With God on Our Side" and so many others touched a nerve in people then and now that made them question the things they had previously accepted without question. Over time Dylan’s music and the message conveyed by the lyrics became a monster that Dylan couldn’t control. He was seen to be the prophet for a generation whose popularity drove him into seclusion and fear for his life and family.

What’s interesting, though, is that the nerve that his lyrics struck suddenly became something he wanted to disown: "It seems like the world has always needed a scapegoat—someone to lead the charge against the Roman Empire. But America wasn’t the Roman Empire and someone else would have to step up and volunteer. I really was never any more than what I was—a folk musician who gazed into the gray mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze… I wasn’t a preacher performing miracles." (Chronicles by Bob Dylan, Simon and Schuster, 2004, p. 116)

The truth is once you are shipwrecked at the stable and are so captured by the passion of Jesus Christ and you dare to challenge the things others accept without question—there’s no going back and saying, "I really didn’t mean it!" Delp says, "We must not shrink from or suppress the earnest words of these crying voices, so that those who today are our executioners will not tomorrow become accusers because we have remained silent." (Watch for the Light, p. 94)

Shepherds who heard the words of the angel, "This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12), would find that baby and "spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child…" (Luke 2:17). Seeing the child, they could not be silent. Once we are shipwrecked at the stable our voices cannot be silent either—we will challenge the things others accept without question.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org