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December 25, 2005
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God is With Us
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Always Winter, Never Christmas"
Luke 19: 1-10
- Today we have been repeating a refrain that Christmas is all about Giving.
We have opened packages, found multiple gifts in each box and been able to share these with people around us. None of the packages had gifts for every single person, however, all of the packages had gifts for some, for each of us does have gifts for some others but never for everybody.
Today, as the song has said, we have remembered the real gift is Jesus. He is the gift once received who empowers us to share with others. To receive Jesus changes our lives from what life was like before we encountered and received him.
Before Jesus, the bible says, we are dead, living without hope and without God in this world.
Indeed, our lives were like the country of Narnia in CS Lewis' book now made into a movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Before Jesus we are trapped in death, in winter. This is the situation which Lewis wonderfully describes as being always winter and never Christmas.
Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with CS Lewis or the Chronicles of Narnia, let me give you a brief introduction. CS Lewis was a brilliant scholar and professor at Magdalen College, Oxford, in England for four decades in the mid-1900s. He wanted to experiment with the question, "If there was another world, how might God go about redeeming it?" Out of the question he imagined a world, locked in winter because of the control of a white witch who makes it always winter and never Christmas.
As a children's story, this description captures the worst case scenario - all the cold and darkness without any of the hope offered by Christmas, the celebration of Jesus.
The redemption of Narnia comes with the arrival of Aslan, the Son of the Great Emperor across the Sea, the Christ figure in the story. The old prophecies have said that when Aslan comes, when he has "landed" again, the hold of winter will break. The believing animals walk by faith in Aslan and look forward to his coming. The old prophesies also say that the four thrones at Cair Paravel will be filled by four children who will reign as kings and queens of Narnia. These four children stumble into this land entering through a wardrobe (hence the title) in their great Uncle's cavernous house.
The animals of Narnia had one hope: that Aslan would return. Here the story resembles both our current hope for the return of Christ and the ancient Jewish hope that Jesus would come the first time. But as in this story the life under the rule of the white witch is dismal indeed until broken by the great lion, so we live without hope and without God in this world until Jesus breaks the hold of the winter of sin in our lives.
Hence how this description of always winter, never Christmas means that there is something always horrible and never any joy or relief to life.
- Although Lewis did not intend to write Christian Allegory (along the lines of Pilgrim's Progress), his story does parallel Christian life - for in it are graphically pictured the need we have for redemption, the hold of the enemy upon us, and the source of redemption in the Son of the Great Emperor across the Sea, for us the Lion of Judah, Jesus.
As the thaw begins in Narnia Christmas comes in the character of Father Christmas who seems to be a further personification of God, being a kind of Holy Spirit who brings essential gifts the children will need for the fight ahead.
Herein I find such a parallel. This is part of what we have been enacting today - the idea that what we receive is then available to be passed on to others who also have needs.
So, the whole story of Narnia becomes then a parable for the Christian life which I find depicted in a graphic way in the life of Zaccheus.
Now, Zack was a "wee, little man" who was not just a tax collector, but the chief tax collector who lived in Jericho.
Jericho was a wealthy district in Israel. It was famous for its date palm trees and balsam trees goods from which the Romans shipped around the world on their worldwide trade routes making the area famous. It was called "a divine region" and "the fattest in Palestine" by an early Jewish Historian (Josephus) (quoted by: Barclay Luke, p. 243).
So, Zaccheus as a chief tax collector would have been very, very wealthy. He had tax collectors working beneath him and would have had a part of their profit. All profit made by tax collectors was in charging rates far above the amount required by Rome. The tax collectors were vassals of Rome in a sense, and seen as enemies of Israel.
Zaccheus was the Donald Trump of Jericho. He would have been hated to the extent that he was wealthy. He had made himself an outcast of society by working against the very people who were his neighbors. Going into public for him was itself a courageous action, for the people would be eager to prod, elbow or push him to the side being a "small" man.
So as an isolated, lonely, wealthy, miserly old man, Zaccheus is like a New Testament Scrooge, a man for whom it was always winter and never Christmas, bah humbug!
It is clear that this guy was not happy. He was searching for something, for he wanted to see this man who was heralded as a "friend of tax collectors and sinners," who had healed the blind beggar Bartemaeus on the outskirts of Jericho, and now was walking through the town.
Zaccheus shows a level of desperation - even that he would go into public, but especially that a man of his wealth would "run" (at all), that is a very undignified thing for the wealthy. On top of that, he went and climbed a tree. The Sycamore-fig or mulberry-fig tree was like the English Oak, a favorite wayside tree, which was very easy to climb, with its short trunk and its wide lateral branches forking out in all directions (Barclay: Luke, p 244).
These actions show that already the thaw had begun on his soul. Already the Holy Spirit had stirred his heart to want to see Jesus, to be curious, to want "Christmas" not just winter. Something had already begun, hence this run and climb.
- But when Jesus reached the spot under the tree Zaccheus had climbed he stops, looks up at Zaccheus and says the most surprising thing ever heard: "Come down, I must stay at your house today."
So, more than just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector and what audacious thing does Jesus say, "I must be your guest today."
In the Middle East if you offered and someone received even a drink of water it was a social contract of friendship for one year. But if you eat a meal with someone, then you are required by custom to be friends for life, for "sharing a meal, or breaking bread together, means lifelong friendship" (Charles Page II, Jesus & the Land, Nashville, TN: Abingdon, c.'95, p. 108, ubp).
So, Jesus was seeking the man whose life had never had Christmas by offering his friendship, lifelong friendship to him. The crowds are shocked. But Zaccheus is saved by the Lord's offer, offering to share all that he has with others. And Jesus says, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."
So, prior to his coming, Zaccheus was a lost sheep. He was a sheep, called by God but had not heeded the call. But today, he was found, rescued, restored to relationship, redeemed, and bought back. Look, the fruit of redemption is the end of winter in Zaccheus' soul.
- Friends as we celebrate the day and remember the Lord who makes it possible, the purpose is for people who are yet lost to be found, for lives where it is always winter to finally celebrate Christmas, for death to be exchanged for life.
Sometimes it is easy for us to make Jesus religious - the thing we do on Sunday, the prayer we pray before meals, the cross we wear around our necks, instead of allowing Jesus to be our lives. He is the one pouring gifts into us for us to share. He is the one whose birthday we celebrate.
Happy Birthday Jesus… (sing)
Happy Birthday Jesus
I'm so glad its Christmas
All the tinsel and lights
The presents are nice
But the real gift is you
Happy Birthday Jesus
Jesus I love you!
(no author or copyright information available)
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