Baby Jesus is Missing
Another good one from Newton. After school:
"How was school today?"
"Good. We did our stations. One station had the manger stuff. We played with Mary and Joseph and the animals but there was no baby Jesus."
"No baby Jesus?"
"Yeah, he was missing."
I thought about all the ways I could abuse that in a sermon. "What's missing this year in Christmas is Jesus!" "What gest lost in the merriment is the infant Jesus!" I could guilt peopel into "putting Jesus back in the center of Christmas." It is named after him after-all!
Which brings up a question I've always wrestled with: How do I put Jesus back in Christmas? How do I put Jesus at the center of anything? HE ALREADY IS! I can't put Jesus anywhere in the first place. He is where He wants to be. And one place the bible says he always occupies is the throne. He is before all things, in all things, above all things. He is putting his enemies under his feet until he returns. Whether I acknowledge it is one thing, but it doesn't make it less true. He is glorious, he is in the center, he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the slain Lamb. What I think, where I put him (as if I could) really makes no differecne. Even my "putting him anywhere" is impossible unless he puts himself there first. That is what the Bible says. I'm not making it up.
It really bugs me when I hear people say "ask Jesus into your heart" or "accept Jesus" or "let Jesus..." A Jesus that impotent, who's throne is a bit brittle is not a Jesus I really would ask "into my heart." A Jesus who was rich and full of glory and honor who changed to swim in ambionic fluid, who morphed into an infant of a poor family with a mother of ill reputation, who shut his mouth for years not saying a word about who he really was and gave himself up to religious and power-hungry men (without saying much then either except for something about coming back with his angels in glory), who was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of his Father and will come back with ACDC-like racket to give us as a spotless bride and rich inheritance to his Father...now that's a Jesus I want to change my heart, to accept me, to let me in His kingdom.
Time to open some gifts in his honor!
"How was school today?"
"Good. We did our stations. One station had the manger stuff. We played with Mary and Joseph and the animals but there was no baby Jesus."
"No baby Jesus?"
"Yeah, he was missing."
I thought about all the ways I could abuse that in a sermon. "What's missing this year in Christmas is Jesus!" "What gest lost in the merriment is the infant Jesus!" I could guilt peopel into "putting Jesus back in the center of Christmas." It is named after him after-all!
Which brings up a question I've always wrestled with: How do I put Jesus back in Christmas? How do I put Jesus at the center of anything? HE ALREADY IS! I can't put Jesus anywhere in the first place. He is where He wants to be. And one place the bible says he always occupies is the throne. He is before all things, in all things, above all things. He is putting his enemies under his feet until he returns. Whether I acknowledge it is one thing, but it doesn't make it less true. He is glorious, he is in the center, he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the slain Lamb. What I think, where I put him (as if I could) really makes no differecne. Even my "putting him anywhere" is impossible unless he puts himself there first. That is what the Bible says. I'm not making it up.
It really bugs me when I hear people say "ask Jesus into your heart" or "accept Jesus" or "let Jesus..." A Jesus that impotent, who's throne is a bit brittle is not a Jesus I really would ask "into my heart." A Jesus who was rich and full of glory and honor who changed to swim in ambionic fluid, who morphed into an infant of a poor family with a mother of ill reputation, who shut his mouth for years not saying a word about who he really was and gave himself up to religious and power-hungry men (without saying much then either except for something about coming back with his angels in glory), who was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of his Father and will come back with ACDC-like racket to give us as a spotless bride and rich inheritance to his Father...now that's a Jesus I want to change my heart, to accept me, to let me in His kingdom.
Time to open some gifts in his honor!