Main Idea: The message of the manger is that in Jesus there is hope for those defeated by life.

This morning we begin our series for the season of Advent called "The Message of the Manger." In December 2006 I had decided on this particular theme but the messages were different. I was fairly set on what I was going to share with you until one night a few weeks ago when a conversation gave me a whole new direction.

The conversation occurred with a person who has been visiting our church. They have moved to our city after a failed marriage to start fresh and start over. As we talked one evening they told me how that some friends had come to their home to help them move. The question was addressed about where they might attend church. The person commented that they had been finding particular encouragement from a minister whose church is located in another state and is broadcast on cable. The friends immediately began to disparage the theology and motives of this particular minister, especially his seeming avoidance of the harder issues of life. At that point the person said to their friends, "Let me stop you right there. I don’t know about all the things you are saying about him but I know this: My life is hard enough and sometimes you just need a little hope."

It was at that point that I knew the direction for what I wanted to share with you this Christmas season. I want us to see in the infant Christ born in a manger in the village of Bethlehem a message of hope. Lewis Smedes said that the only thing that provides us strength for the journey of this thing called life is the hope that we will make it to the top. He said, "Hope is the fuel for the journey. As long as we keep hope alive, we keep moving. To stop moving is to die of hope deficiency." (Standing on the Promises, p. 9) Because life is often filled with circumstances we cannot control, we must keep hope alive. Yet when life has defeated us, beaten us, exhausted us, keeping hope alive seems impossible. So "sometimes you just need a little hope." That is the message that the manger holds: In Jesus there is hope for those defeated by life.

The first to proclaim this message of hope for those defeated by life was not the infant Jesus himself but his mother Mary. The words she spoke to her cousin Elizabeth declare her joy at being the one through whom this hope would come. Those words were a message that the child she bore would come to reverse the things in life that have beaten us. Thirty years later when this child grew to be a man he would proclaim that in himself there was hope for us to be released from the things in life that control us. Each of us likes to imagine that we are strong enough to handle life and control life. Yet when "Life comes at you fast" you don’t need a credit card but a Savior whose name is Jesus. He has come to offer hope for those defeated by life.

One of the things I continually struggle with at Christmas is this message in the manger that God has a unique concern for those under the weight of life. Those who are oppressed, beaten, defeated and controlled by others or by the things they have brought on themselves. I want Christmas to be about sweet emotion and sentimental memories. I want Christmas to be about happy things and celebration. Yet Mary’s words and Jesus’ words won’t let that happen because they are words that tell us that there can be no celebration unless there is revolution. Unless those beaten down are lifted up and those controlled are set free there is no true meaning of Christmas!

Put yourself in Mary’s place for a moment. She is at this time an unwed mother. She will later marry Joseph and give birth in a place dictated by the taxation demanded by an occupying government. She lived in a land where a military presence was for the sole purpose of controlling the dissidents. Civil war and turmoil were always boiling under the surface. Like half of all mothers who deliver today, she gave birth on the Asian Continent in the far western corner of a world that would be the least accepting of the son she bore. Later, as a family, they would be refugees on the African Continent where most of the world’s refugees are still found today. Through all of this God chose in the very circumstances of the birth of his Son to say, "I care uniquely about those whom life has defeated." His message to them in this baby is "Come up! Come up from your place of defeat to stand with me in a place of hope!"

Mary’s words to her cousin Elizabeth were the announcement that in her Son Jesus there is hope to reverse the things in life that have beaten us. (Luke 1:46-55) As Mary speaks she describes a future where those who were the conquerors have become the conquered. She tells of the proud being scattered (v. 51), of rulers being dethroned (v. 52) and of those who are rich becoming destitute (v. 53b). However, woven into this is a great reversal of life’s circumstances for those who have been oppressed by the proud, the rulers and the rich. She describes the lowly being lifted up (v. 52), the hungry being satisfied (v. 53a) and those who are forgotten are remembered (v. 54).

Now, before we rush to spiritualize these words, I need you to understand these words tell us again that God has a unique concern for those who are suffering regardless if they are Christian or not. Did you ever think that God’s presence might have been more real in the cyclone that tore through Bangladesh killing thousands than in any church in our country? My daughter Amy is practice teaching in Little Rock and has an eight year old African American girl in her class, who calls her "Momma". She kept asking if she could come home with her for Thanksgiving. Amy said that one of the reasons was because the only water she has in her home is the water she gets in a bucket from the neighbors and she washes her two and three-year old brother and sister in it. Could it be that because of her suffering God’s presence was more there than even in this place today? Could it be that God’s presence is more with those who are suffering, regardless of the address – down the block or around the globe—than he is with us here today? If Mary’s words mean anything then they mean that and I just can’t walk away from that.

Mary’s words tell us that in Jesus there is hope that those at the bottom can be lifted up (v. 52). She said, "He has taken princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly." Whenever there is a person who feels they are at the bottom of what life has brought to them, there is hope that they can be raised up. There is also hope for those who are hungry to be satisfied (v. 53a). Mary declared, "He has satisfied the hungry with good things…." Wherever there is a person whose stomach aches because they have no food, there is the hope that that hunger can be satisfied. Whenever a person’s soul hungers for something that will truly satisfy the craving inside them, there is hope. Mary ends her message by saying that for those who are forgotten, they will be remembered (v. 54b). She said, "He has not forgotten his promise to be merciful." Whenever there is a person who feels God has forgotten they even exist, there is hope that they are the center of his attention and concern. All of this great reversal of life is because of a baby in a manger, a feeding trough in Bethlehem, whose name is Jesus.

Pastor and speaker Rob Bell said, "Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. It is what we all heed—hope that comes from not going around suffering but from going through it." (Velvet Elvis, p. 170) Our gift to a world, not just at Christmas but everyday, that is defeated by life is that in Jesus there is hope to reverse all the things that have beaten us. If that is true, and it is, then it is time for you and me to start living like it!

From the time of Mary’s announcement of her Son’s birth, thirty years would roll by. That baby would grow up to be a man who knew that in himself was the promise of hope for all the world. He would begin his mission to fulfill being that promise in his hometown of Nazareth. He stood in the synagogue of his childhood and would declare that in himself there is hope for all needing to be released from what controls them. (Luke 4:16-21) He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come." (v.18-19) After he finished he said, "This Scripture has come true today before your very eyes!" (v.21)

He would say that he offers release from being poor. A person who is poor is a person without enough physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually to sustain their life now or their eternity. Jesus offers the hope of release for a person who is overcome by the sheer weight of being "without." He declared that he offers release from being bound. A person is a "captive" when they have lost their ability to choose for themselves and is under the control of someone else. Jesus offers the hope of release from those things that have bound our freedom. In himself, he offers release from being blind. A person is "blind" when they cannot see the truth, especially the truth found in Jesus Christ. Jesus offers the hope of release from the blindness to truth because he himself is the Truth. The last focus of Jesus’ words was that in him there is the hope of release from being hopeless. A person is "downtrodden" when all of life has crashed in on them and they see no way out, they are hopeless. Jesus offers in himself the hope of release from hopelessness because, "His name will be the hope of all the world" (Matt. 12:21).

Those words that came from the lips of Jesus the man are words that reveal the heart of God. Those words offer hope to those who need to be released from what controls them. Whether it is being without, chained, blind or hopeless, he is their hope for release. The message of the manger is that in Jesus there is hope for those defeated by life.

You may wonder where we fit. It’s this: We, the Body of Christ, the church, are the ones charged with implementing the reversal of those beaten by life and the release of those controlled by life’s circumstances. You have to understand that other than Jesus being born through Mary’s womb nothing changed until the Cross. Nothing changed until the Empty Tomb. Nothing changed until his followers were filled with his Spirit. Then they not only told about hope, they became the hands and feet of hope. They not only told people about Jesus but they became Jesus to people and the world was changed because they became hope to people defeated by life.

Rob Bell said, "I am learning that the church is at its best when it gives itself away…the most powerful things happen when the church…gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return." (Velvet Elvis, p. 165, 167) Let me ask you honestly: Do you believe that? If you do, what would happen if we all lived like it? What would happen if you really believed this Christmas that the message of the manger was that in Jesus there is hope for those defeated by life? What would happen if you really lived like that were true? What if you told someone who was defeated by life that there was hope that the things that had beaten them can be reversed and they could be released from what controlled them? Even more, what if you became that message to someone else? Here is what I believe would happen: I believe you would have to turn people away from this place because they had both heard and seen the truth that in Jesus there is hope for those defeated by life!

The message of the manger is that in Jesus we can both show and say, "Come up! Come up from life’s defeats. Come up from what has beaten you down! Come up from what chains you down. Come up and take my hands so you can stand again!" "Sometimes you just need a little hope!" That’s the message of the manger.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org