CHRISTMAS CONNECTION: A COMING RENEWAL
I Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-44, 50-53.
Main Idea: Christmas connects us with the hope that one day we will be completely new.
Introduction: The custom of giving gifts at Christmas is a very ancient and really a borrowed tradition for Christians. The early Christian church found itself needing a way to change the emphasis of the pagans of giving gifts on January 1. So, through a variety of influences and not so gentle persuasions a compromising date of December 25 was established. They also theologically tied with that date the birth of Jesus and the wise men bringing gifts to the infant.
The tradition of bringing toys at Christmas for children is again a borrowed custom from Europe. When the children of immigrants, particularly the Dutch, came to the United States they brought with them the story and legend of St. Nickalaus or Santa Claus as the gift bringer on Christmas Eve. In typical American fashion the simplicity of a toy for a child at Christmas has become the orgy of spending and consumption that it is today.
Do you remember some of the toys you got for Christmas? Do you know where they are? Some of mine are still around—a Lionel Train set in it’s original box, a mechanical bear that fishes and the remnants of "Custer’s Last Stand" action figure set.
When my brother and I moved my Mom in May to Springdale we went through the cedar chest and found two very worn out toys. They were the stuffed cartoon figures of Yogi Bear and Bobo originally given to me but he adopted them as a toddler and literally wore the stuffing out of them. At some point Mom wrapped them in plastic and carefully tucked them away as a memory. They are really beyond any repair and I wouldn’t want them to be new. They were toys that were meant to be played with and loved to pieces. They are still in that shape—just worn out.
The bodies that God has given to us get in the same shape—used up, worn out and loved to pieces. Sometimes we are born not worn out but not complete or misshapen somehow. Often times our bodies, though tragedy, become scarred or our parts severed and we are not whole. There are occasions when outwardly our body may seem fine but our heart or another organ doesn’t function properly or disease has affected it. There are many things that can affect our body and its function.
For all of us for whatever cause this body ceases to function and we die. Then, like a worn out toy that is saved for a treasured memory is hidden away in a closet or boxed up in the attic, so are we. Our bodies are placed in a box and hidden safely in the earth. The truth is because of the birth of a baby in Bethlehem that may be where our bodies are kept but that is not where they stay.
The marvelous story of the Incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas is that God through Jesus became like us. Yet because of that event coupled with the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead one day we will know what it is to be like Him! The wonderful gift of God to us is the promise that our bodies will be resurrected and transformed when Jesus comes the second time. Christmas is our connection with what we will be.
Paul wrote the Corinthian church about these things when he said in I Corinthians 15:51-52, "But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, the Christians who have died will be raised with transformed bodies. And then we who are living will be transformed so that we will never die." How does all this happen? Well, that is what I want us to study this morning. What I want us to see today is that Christmas connects us with the hope that one day we will be completely new!
How does all this happen?
Now its obvious Paul get a little testy but the truth is we have the same questions as they did in verse 35: "How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?" How? What? I mean I can understand this a little bit if I’m in a box in the ground but what about if I got incinerated in a fire? Or how about those who have been dead so long that they are nothing more than fertilizer? Even if it’s just my molecules, how will I still be me?
Paul answers that by saying, "Open your eyes! The seed you put in the ground doesn’t do what its supposed to unless it dies!" It’s really obvious when you think about it. A seed that you plant in the ground doesn’t become more seed. It is a plant or tree of some type. It’s the same but it came to life because the old seed died. It may come out of the earth different than it went in, but it’s the same.
So it is with our own bodies. We can’t have the new one without getting rid of the old one. Yet the new one has an absolute identity with the old one. You see, who you are is who you are and no one else. Your DA makes you distinctly you even if all there is of you is DNA. God is able to take what scientists still do not understand and create life. That’s what He will do with you and me.
When our kids were younger Kathy would sometimes in October or November have a garage sale. She would pit in the sale the old toys of the girls that they no longer played with in order to make room for the new at Christmas. When we die God is getting rid of the old me to get me ready for the new me.
It can’t happen any other way.
The Corinthians were asking, "What kind of body will we have?" Paul’s answer was, "…what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow but only a dry little seed…" (v. 37). His point is clear: What you put into the ground is not what comes out. You can’t understand the beautiful plant that is going to be by staring at the seed nor can you get a glimpse of what you are going to be by studying what you look like now. What we know is that we will be changed.
It’s interesting how each year toy manufacturers race to see what toy will be the "hot" toy for the Christmas season. One year it was Tickle Me Elmo, this year it’s Pokemon. What is the must-have item in December is often a garage sale item by May. For that reason designers know its got to be a toy that is totally new. It’s still a toy but it is totally new.
When you look at an acorn it looks nothing like the oak tree that will one day grow from it. They are related but different as night and day. Somehow, somewhere within us is the pattern of the heavenly person I will become. Yet I’ll never realize that by imagining I’ll understand it by examining more of the seed of the old me.
Joni Eareckson Tada, who was made a quadriplegic in a diving accident in 1967 writes in her book Heaven, "Somewhere in my broken, paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become. The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous resurrected legs. I’m convinced if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?), the image I’ll see will be unmistakably ‘Joni,’ although a much better, brighter ‘Joni.’ So much so, that it’s not worth comparing. There’s no way I can comprehend it all because I’m just an ‘acorn’ when it comes to understanding heaven. But I’ll tell you this: Whatever my little acorn shape becomes, in all its power and honor, I’m ready for it…I will bear the likeness of Jesus, the man from heaven. Like His, mine will be an actual, literal body perfectly suited for earth and heaven".
Have you ever given a child a gift and you knew when they opened it it was not what they were expecting? I can remember one Christmas my brother wanted a pair of snow boots for a present. Well, on Christmas morning when he opened the present his face didn’t say, "Oh, boy, just what I wanted!" What he got were snow ski boots—which no one in my family had ever seen before! We had a good laugh and they went back to Sears. His old snow boots suddenly looked just fine!
When it comes to our new body that won’t happen. We may like or not like the body we have now but we will be thrilled with the new one! Paul points out in verses 42-44 the problems of our old body and the powerful qualities of our new one to come:
There are a lot of people who long for a new body. My walks through the hospital this week reminded me of that. One struggles to simply breath, another tells me she may never walk again, still someone else fights the effects of a stroke. One loses the battle with disease, one more had a mind that ceases to function properly. People who would give anything for just one day without pain.
We often think of just the biochemical bodies as only being but it is more than that. Again, quoting a story from Eareckson Tada about her visit to a special needs class of mentally challenged children. She told her story about her accident and how she anticipated being made new and whole in heaven. She writes how her comments drew a new level of sympathy. "One girl came up, patted my arm and said, ‘Be careful next time, okay?’ ‘Okay,’ I promised. The class wanted to talk more about heaven. They invented all sorts of wild and wonderful heavenly activities. Riding giraffes. Going on a picnic with Jesus. Petting sharks. Earning lots of money. Shaking hands with Kareem Abdul-Jabaar. I reminded them that was only possible if Mr. Jabaar knew Jesus. It was then suggested that someone should pray for the L.A. Lakers. As their enthusiasm mounted, I finally blurted, ‘Hey guys, I may have a new body, but one day, you will have…new…minds!’ The entire class jumped to their feet and wildly applauded. Amidst whistles and cheers, I went on to say, ‘You will be able to think better than your teacher, here. And you will show your sister how to do her homework, even the hard stuff like math and things. You will think high-powered, super-charged thoughts and know just about everything here is to know. Your brain will burn rubber! Most of all, you and Jesus will be together, and you’ll have lots of things to talk about.’ …I thought I had taught them a lesson about heaven, but they had taught me what it meant to ‘have the mind of Christ.’"
At this stage of my life I realize that the only chance for me to have "washboard abs" is in the resurrection. My body is going to wear completely out. I like the one I’ve got but I can’t wait for the come to come!
In some of the most powerful language ever Paul tells us that what we are now isn’t ready for heaven. We’ve got to have a body that will last and be ready for heaven. That will happen when Jesus comes again. I am real enough for each but I am not real enough for heaven. I need to be transformed.
The Velveteen Rabbit is Margery Williams’ marvelous story about a boy who was given a stuffed velveteen rabbit for Christmas. In nursery the rabbit makes friends with The Skin Horse who has been so loved by the boy there’s not much left. The Skin Horse and the Rabbit had this conversation: "’What is REAL?’ asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room.
‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?’
‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’
‘I suppose you are Real?’ said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
‘The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,’ he said. ‘That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.’"
As the boy grew he continued to love playing and sleeping with the Rabbit. Gradually the Rabbit began to show the signs of wear. On one occasion the boy got scarlet fever and it was decided to remove all the stuffed animals that might be infected. The Rabbit, along with others, was placed in a sack and left out behind a shed. As the Rabbit realized he was alone and would never see the boy again he began to cry. A beautiful fairy appeared and held the little Rabbit close in her arms and flew to a place where real Rabbits were dancing in the woods.
"And she kissed the little Rabbit again and put him down on the grass.
‘Run and play, little Rabbit!’ she said. But the little Rabbit sat quite still for a moment and never moved. For when he saw all the wild rabbits dancing around him he suddenly remembered about his hind legs, and he didn’t want them to see that he was made all in one piece. He did not know that when the Fairy kissed him that last time she had changed him altogether. And he might have sat there a long time, too shy to move, if just then something hadn’t tickled his nose, and before he thought what he wad doing he lifted his hind toe to scratch it.
"And he found that he actually had hind legs! Instead of dingy velveteen he had brown fur, soft and shiny, his ears twitched by themselves, and his whiskers were so long that they brushed the grass. He gave one leap and the joy of using those hind legs was so great that he went springing about the turf on them, jumping sideways and whirling round as the others did, and he grew so excited that when at last he did stop to look for the Fairy she had gone.
"He was a Real Rabbit at last, at home with the other rabbits."
This Christmas you may feel all the reality of a body that is wearing out. You don’t know what it means to be without this body and you are afraid. Kathleen Norris says that, "The Incarnation is the place where hope contends with fear." We don’t need to be afraid. Instead we need to celebrate—celebrate that there will be a new you! When He comes I’ll get to become the Real me!
The next time you pass by a cemetery or go to a funeral and you see the body in the box—remember, that’s where the Christians are till they can become Real! Christmas is our connection with the hope that one day we will be completely new and Real!
Sunday, December 12, 1999
Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor
First Baptist Church
Jonesboro, Arkansas
btippit@fbcjonesboro.org