Main Idea: The message of the manger is that the only status that matters is what God thinks of us.

John Ortberg tells the story of a priest named Father Damien who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao—a village on the island of Molokai, in Hawaii, that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony. For 16 years, he lived among them. He learned to speak their language. He bandaged their wounds, embraced the bodies no one else would touch, preached to hearts that would otherwise have been left alone. He organized schools, bands, and choirs. He built homes so that the lepers could have shelter. He built 2,000 coffins by hand so that, when they died, they could be buried with dignity. Slowly, it was said, Kalawao became a place to live rather than a place to die, because Father Damien offered hope.

Father Damien was not careful about keeping his distance. He did nothing to separate himself from his people. He ate from the same bowl as the patients. He shared his pipe. He did not always wash his hands after bandaging open sores. He got close. For this, the people loved him. Then one day he stood up and began his sermon with two words: "We lepers…." Now he wasn't just helping them. Now he was one of them. From this day forward, he wasn't just on their island; he was in their skin. First he had chosen to live as they lived; now he would die as they died. Now they were in it together. (John Ortberg, God Is Closer Than You Think (Zondervan, 2005), p. 103-104)

One night 2000 years ago God came to Earth as a human, a baby, and through the first cries from his tiny mouth the message was: "We lepers…." I am one of you. Now he wasn't just helping us. Now he was one of us. Now he was in our skin. Now we were in it together. It is this mystery we face at Christmas. We come to Christmas all eager to revere and marvel at the charm of a lonely little peasant couple having a baby at such an inconvenient time and in such an inconvenient way. Yet when we are confronted with the full truth of what that manger says to us about God and about ourselves, we are repulsed.

The words of Max Lucado describe the mystery: "God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother. God had come near. The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. He who was larger than the universe became an embryo. And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created."

Our culture is a place where position and power mean everything. We strive for one more rung on the ladder of achievement to one more event on our social calendar imagining that it will raise our level of popularity. What Christmas and this manger force us to hear is that for God position, power and popularity meant nothing when it came to people and his purpose for them. What Christmas and this manger force us to hear about ourselves is that we never stand taller than when we decide that the only status that matters is what God thinks of us. Can you hear that message from this manger? Can you see in this baby God’s complete humiliation of himself? Can you live with that? Until you do, you miss the message of the manger. For our sake God did not just come near to us, he came down to us.

It would be Luke who would give us the details of the birth. Luke tells us that all of this occurred during the rule of Caesar Augustus (Luke 2:1). Caesar Augustus was the nephew of Julius Caesar. He was, as far as the pomp and pageantry of other world rulers, a rather simple man. Yet by this time in his rule he had achieved in the mind of the empire the status of a god. Altars were set up in homes; he was given the name "Savior," "Bringer of Glad Tidings," "God the Son of God." Some believed that in him the long awaited Messiah had come, bringing peace and happiness to mankind. In fact a new priesthood was established to guide the worship of Caesar Augustus. It is an astounding contrast that while one man is proclaimed to be God, God humbled himself and became one man. While one man is being declared by a human empire to be the Savior of the world, the true Savior of the world is welcomed by animals, angels and outcasts. Luke describes it simply, "She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn." ( Luke 2:7)

While Luke provides the narrative of the birth of Jesus it would be Paul who would describe its meaning for us. Paul explains to a church having trouble over status that what happened in Bethlehem was God’s way of showing us that the only way up is the way down. (Phil. 2-5-11) He describes this action of God humbling himself by explaining that Jesus released the status he possessed, "Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God." (V.6) Paul is telling us that there was never a time that Jesus was not identical to God. Some translations use the word "form" which meant all the characteristics that would lead a person to describe God. That’s what Jesus was. He then asserts that his equality or identity with God was not something he desired to use for his own advantage, "…he did not demand and cling to his rights as God." So he "made himself nothing" or "emptied himself," which does not mean that he stopped being God. No it meant that he released the right or authority that he had to be equal with God. He let it go, poured it out so that there would be nothing that would restrict him from giving himself totally in behalf of others. The status he possessed, he let it go…to accomplish for us what was needed.

As a result Paul continues, "…he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form." God’s desire for Jesus was that he enter this world at the lowest position possible-a slave! (v. 7) Again saying that Jesus became a man it doesn’t mean that he ceased to be God. It means that he added humanity to his divinity. He did it in such a way that the overwhelming characteristic about Jesus was that he had the attitude of a slave. He entered life as a person without advantage, rights or privileges for the sole purpose of putting himself at the service of all people.

Just when you think there is no lower level to which a person could go, God finds one: The Cross! "And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross." (v. 8) He was God, became a man, with the heart of a slave but the final step down was to be killed as a criminal. He "humbled himself" by obeying God so fully that the public shame and humiliation of the Cross was the final blow that signaled how low God was willing to go for us.

As a result, though, of Jesus’ humiliation he received the highest possible position from God (v. 9-11). "Because of this, God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." In the Resurrection and Ascension God elevated his Son to a "super exalted" position. It means that he added to his nature the honor of what his humiliation secured for us. He was given a position to which there are no possible rivals.

Do you see that in the manger? There in that rough stone feeding trough is a message for us. Jesus had equal status with God and he let it go. He endured the ultimate humiliation possible and chose to take that on himself. As a result of his willingness to lower himself the highest-status possible became his because for Jesus the only status that mattered was what God thought! The message to us is the same: You have to come down if you ever have any hope of being lifted up!

How do we "come down" to bend low and peer into this manger and see this tiny baby? How do we make sense of his cries, the smell of the animals, the exhaustion of a mother having birthed her first child, the confusion of a husband who knows he is truly not the father? What word to us is here? This manger raises some questions we need to ask ourselves as we struggle for position, recognition, achievement, prestige, rights and success in any area of our lives.

Let me ask you is there anything you think is beneath you? Mike Rowe has a show on the Discovery Channel called "Dirty Jobs". His job is to travel the US in search of the dirty, smelly, disgusting jobs that people do everyday, meet the people who do those jobs and for a time do their job with them. You know great jobs like the Road kill Recovery Center in Illinois-just think about that. What he does for a TV show is how some people make their living. There are things that he does that make you want to say, "I could never do that!" Yet are there things, maybe not jobs but attitudes where you say, "I could never do that because of who I am? Doing that would mean the ultimate in humiliation for me." It is to that place of pride that the message of the manger speaks the loudest. The real challenge is: Can we hear it? Am I willing to come down as low as God did for me?

One question this raises is: "Can I let go?" Can I let go of the rights and recognition I think I am deserved? Can I let go of the struggle for achievement that I assume is so vital for my survival? Can my ego take such a hit that you could say, "It really doesn’t matter anymore."? Think about the position you want and the rights you think are due you, then take a Christmas card with a nativity scene on it. Look at that manger and ask, "Is what I want an obstacle to God’s best for me?" Then let it go—you can’t climb over it!

Another question is this, "How low, or how far, am I willing to go to achieve God’s best for me?" What is it you say you will never do? What is it you say you could never do? Does it mean that I walk away from a career it has taken me a lifetime to achieve? No, not unless you are miserable. The lowest you can go may mean to stand before God and humble yourself before him. You may not need to change positions; it is just a different person in that position. That’s a question the manger causes us to ask. "How far will I go to humble myself?"

There’s still one more question that comes to mind from the manger. It’s this: Will I let what God thinks of me be the only status that matters? I am not saying that what others think of you is not important. It’s that what others think of you is not the ultimate issue. What is ultimate is that regardless of what others think, I can stand before God and say, "I have done what you wanted me to do!" Then regardless of your status, up or down, you are a success. When he is pleased with you, what do the opinions of others really matter?

Will I let go? Will I humble myself? Will I let what God thinks be most important?

Can you come down low enough to hear the message of the manger? That message that says lowering myself in humility is actually raising my status in God’s eyes? That’s how Jesus did it. Paul writes in Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Mike Flynt has always loved football. Raised in Odessa, TX, he was on the Odessa Permian High School championship team in 1965. After graduation he had several scholarship offers but ended up at Sul Ross State in Alpine, Texas. While his career on the field excelled, his actions off the field were a problem. He was the captain of the team but was kicked off in 1971. After graduation he went on to become quite successful as a strength coach for several major university football programs. Yet there was one thing that haunted him and that was he felt like he had let his teammates down by the foolish decisions he made.

This past summer at a reunion of his college team Mike discovered that he had one year of eligibility left. So at age 59, a grandfather with an AARP card, Mike went out for football, joining his old team as a Sul Ross State Lobo. Because of his conditioning, he actually made the team. On October 13 Mike made a key block on a field goal that allowed the Lobos to defeat Texas Lutheran 45-42 in the third overtime. His team, his wife, son, daughter, grandson and the fans mobbed Mike. Mike said, "We won this tonight for each other, that’s what matters. I’m glad my family was able to be part of this and see this. That’s important to me personally. From a team standpoint, it’s their victory." (AP, 10/13/07)

There is another part to this story that was the key to Mike’s achievement. It wasn’t his conditioning or his determination. No, it was that along his journey a man who refused the authority of others yielded his life to the person of Jesus Christ. For Mike, his lifelong fulfillment of a dream became real because he yielded his longing for achievement to Jesus. His way to the top started at the bottom. He had to come down, not just down to the level of an 18-year old and being coached by men much younger, but down in humility before Christ alone.

"She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the village inn…And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross." Come down to look long in the manger. Look at the baby wrapped in cloths lying in that manger. Hear God say, "This is how low I was willing to go for you." He has humbled himself and come down. He invites us to join him. That’s the message of the manger: "Come down!" because the only status that matters is what God thinks of us.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org