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What if Jesus Hadn’t Come?
A Sermon Preached by Dr. James Flamming
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va.
Dec. 26, 2004
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 9:15
Paul sends a Christmas card to his friends in Corinth for
their generous offerings. They have given over and above. But then he remembers
the greatest gift of all, the gift of Christ’s coming. He breaks out in a
hallelujah: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
How would you describe this indescribable gift we have been
given in Jesus Christ our Lord? David Jeremiah suggested a way to open it up. He
asked, “What if Jesus had never come? What would be the difference in our world
if Jesus had never been born? What if Bethlehem had never happened?”
Jeremiah told of a minister who had a dream. In his dream
it was as if Christ had never come. He drove to the church but there was no
church. He picked up his Bible and it stopped at Malachi. In his dream he was at
a freshly dug grave. As many ministers do, he took some dirt and sprinkled it on
the grave. Ordinarily he would say, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead through Jesus
Christ our Lord.” But in his dream all he could say was, “Earth to earth, ashes
to ashes, dust to dust.” That was the end of it. If Jesus had not come there
would be no resurrection.
Let me ask you. If Jesus had never come, if Bethlehem had
never happened, how would it affect you? As I have thought on that question the
answers cascade through my mind. I really believe I could speak all day in
answering that question. Don’t worry, I won’t. But I share with you what means
so much to me. Let me begin with a big word, incarnation.
I. The Incarnation
Incarnation means in the flesh. A theology professor
explained it in a very homey, even homely, fashion. He said to remember
chili-con-carne, chili, con (with) carne (flesh). Incarnation means God has come
in the flesh. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
This is what separates us from all of the other religions.
They are horrified at the thought that God could become man. But we believe, we
really believe, in Jesus the Spirit of God invaded human existence. You say, how
could God be here and still up in heaven. Spirit is like electricity. Just
because you have electricity in your house doesn’t mean it is absent from the
power plant. We believe, that God experienced what it is like to be human, and
can identify with where we are. It matters if you’ve been there.
One of our members does a lot of work with those who have
little or nothing. She decided one Sunday to dress like they dress and sit out
in front of a church as the services were about to begin. This was not a church
is an affluent part of town but a church in a poorer section of town. As the
people came to church that Sunday she sat there, in her rags, in her posture of
extreme poverty. She said that the hardest thing was that they never saw her,
not really. She was not a real person to them. They walked by. They never
glanced, never looked, never invited, never helped. She was not treated as a
nobody, but more like a nothing. She realized as never before what it must be
like to be completely overlooked, treated as if you weren’t even there. It
matters, you see, if you have been there.
Incarnation means that Christ came from heaven’s glory and
put on our clothes. He walked our paths. He worked like we work. He experienced
the stresses and strains of life like we do. He experienced the rejection we
feel when someone walks out on us or turns their back on us. On that cross he
drank the cup of suffering to the full.
Many people today feel trapped. Think of all of the
“givens” that Mary and Joseph had to deal with. Their baby was about to be born
and they had to go to Bethlehem, a trip of 90 miles, on a donkey. They had to
deal with:
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a census Caesar Augustus wanted for who knows
why;
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a village inn with a no vacancy sign out front;
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a paranoid King Herod out to destroy any
pretenders to his throne.
Talk about being born into a tough situation! But you see,
that is precisely the point. If Christ is born in that kind of situation, he is
not afraid nor ashamed to come and enter ours, no matter what it might be.
Isaiah’s words 600 years earlier were fulfilled in Jesus:
(Is. 43:1-3)
“This is what the Lord says . . .
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be
with you.
And when you pass through the rivers, they will
not sweep over you
When you walk through the fire you will not be
consumed, for I am
The Lord your God, your Savior.”
All of that is fulfilled in Jesus the Lord.
II. A Spiritual Kingdom
If Jesus had not come we would know nothing about a
spiritual kingdom that lives within us. The Old Testament knows much about
kingdom, but it is the kingdom of Judah, or Israel, or Babylon, or Assyria, or
Rome. Then came Jesus talking about a spiritual kingdom. “My kingdom is not of
this world,” he said, “my Kingdom is within you.”
We are disadvantaged here. We have never lived in a Kingdom
under a King. Kingdom is hard to put our arms around. I like John Ortberg’s
definition. “Everyone has a kingdom,” he said. “It is what we can control.”
For a while in life we think we can control our kingdoms.
Then there comes a time when we realize we can’t by ourselves control the
Kingdoms we have created for ourselves. Even if we do control them, do they have
any eternal meaning? When things fall apart, what do we do? Work harder? Try
again? Despair? Withdraw? Fight? Flight?
Jesus gave us a better way. He spoke of a spiritual
kingdom, God’s kingdom. Jesus said that when we relate to God as King of our
lives, our kingdoms find a place in his kingdom, and our relationship to him
becomes a personal, intimate affair.
Brennan Manning spoke recently at St. Giles Presbyterian
Church. The Holy Spirit is doing some incredible things in bringing people
together from all walks of life and all denominations. Here I was with a good
number of you, in a Presbyterian Church, listening to a Roman Catholic speak on
the Grace of God. God is doing some amazing things in our days and we do well to
recognize it.
Brennan Manning in his book, The Ragmuffin Gospel ,
laid the issue right out on the table. “At the risk of sounding like a country
cracker cowboy preacher allow me to raise some intimate, personal questions
about you and your relationship with Jesus of Nazareth. Do you live each day in
the blessed assurance that you have been saved by the unique grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ? . . . If not, you probably belong to the brotherhood of the
bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out. You may feel like a charred log in a
fireplace, totally drained of energy, and unable to light a fire in yourself.
Your personal resources appear to be exhausted. . .”
He went on to say that the first step toward
rejuvenation begins with accepting where you are and exposing your poverty,
frailty, and emptiness to the love of Christ that accepts everything. The
next step is to take ten minutes and pray over and over again the first
words of the most famous chapter in the Bible. “The Lord is my shepherd. In Him
I lack nothing.”
Where would we be if Jesus had not come? I mention one more
thing. Jesus introduces us to God’s love which takes the initiative
III. Love that Takes the Initiative
In the Bible God’s love for us begins with paradise, Eden
we call it. He gave Adam and Eve everything, even choice, and hoped for the
best. But they wanted more, wanted to even be like God. You remember Adam and
Eve were banished from the garden. God said, ‘Okay, lets make a covenant
together, you and me. You will be my people and I will be your God.” But we were
unfaithful at every turn and protested that we did not know what he wanted. So
God said, “Okay, I will give you some guidelines. Here are Ten Commandments. I
will engrave them in stone so you won’t forget them.” But we did forget and
broke them as well. So God said, “Okay, I will make it really very simple for
you. Boil it all down to two: “Love God with your heart, mind, and strength and
your neighbor as yourself.” But we have never even come close. People ask me
sometimes why after 2000 years we still have wars and strife even though Christ
came offering peace. I reply, “We haven’t even caught up with Moses yet, let
alone Christ.”
Yes, God’s love affair with us has been a rocky road. Yet,
every time it seemed all was lost God stepped into the breach, taking on more
and more until, with the birth of Jesus, he took it all. Talk about lowering
yourself. He is a shameless lover, willing to reduce himself to a helpless thing
in diapers if it will help us love him the way he loves us.
Ted Loder, in his book of Christmas stories, pictures a
young family making their way to Bethlehem also. The husband’s name is Amos. The
wife’s name is Leah. Leah travels to Bethlehem under great protest. Her daughter
Deborah is sick with fever. It is a hard journey. She mumbles again and again,
“Why does that Caesar need to know about us. We’re nobody to him. As for paying
taxes, we don’t have anything that could be taxed.”
When they got to the registration place the Roman soldier,
bored with the whole event, spoke as he wrote down, “Amos of Gadera, the
fourteenth man on this day, with four male children and three female, and his
wife, the ninth woman.” It was hard, bare, and distant – “and his wife, the
ninth woman.” It was as if she didn’t even have a name.
Now the challenge was where they would spend the night.
Only the rich could buy their way into the inn and even it was full. A man told
Amos there was a place out of the cold in a cave where animals sheltered. So
they went. Already it was crowded. They found a corner place and settled in. She
held her daughter who had a fever hoping she would go to sleep.
Then, over into another corner of the cave this woman
started to make sharp cries. Leah knew what that meant. What a place to have a
baby! But she knew herself well enough to know she would have to help. That was
what she did and did well at Gadera. Even though Deborah, her daughter, seemed
no better, she had to do what she had to do.
She found the young mother. The pain was so intense, for it
was her first child. It was not an easy birth. She was glad she was there. She
knew how to help and what to do. The husband had located some soft clothes and
she wrapped the new born in them and handed the baby boy to his mother. Then
magic happened. She thought, there is nothing like seeing what happens between a
mother and a baby in the first few minutes. It can’t be duplicated anywhere. A
mother and her new baby.
The woman looked up from her newborn and asked what her
name was. She told her, “Leah.” The mother smiled, and held her baby out from
her and said, “Leah, this is Jesus.” Leah went back to their little corner of
the cave and held her daughter Deborah in her arms, remembering the first time
she had held her. But the words kept ringing through her mind, “Leah, this is
Jesus.”
What would our world be like if Jesus had never been born?
What if Jesus had never come? In the deepest recesses of our hearts we would
never have heard our names like, “Leah, this is Jesus.” When the Scripture says,
“God is love,” it means God will take the initiative.
Paul sums it up so well: “Thanks be unto God for his
unspeakable gift.”
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