Christmas Day December 25, 2017

Christmas Day
John 1:1-18
December 25, 2017

“God Up Close”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We usually get together with family at Christmas, right? Eat a ham or a turkey. Sit around and chat. Play some games.  But family gatherings can be quite a funny thing. We can’t wait to see our family. Love getting together with family, right? All the Christmas commercials with everybody driving in the snow to get to Grandma’s house.

But as it so often happens, before long we’re quite ready to get away from our family. Our few hours or few days with them is very good and then we’re ready to retreat back to our own domiciles. Why is that? We like our family close. But not too close.

And here is where you will run face first into a problem with God. God isn’t going to accept your “close but not too close” policy. That’s not the way He works.

Remember the Garden of Eden. God was close with Adam and Eve. And all was perfect. They didn’t ever think, “Why doesn’t God leave us alone?” Didn’t ever think, “Isn’t it about time for God to go back to heaven?” There was no “too close for comfort”.  Too close was comfort. They were comforted by God’s presence with them.

But then Satan came too close. And after they sinned, they didn’t want God close at all. In fact, when they heard Him coming to see them, they were scared and they went to go hide. And you remember God’s question? “Why are you hiding?”

Do you hear God’s broken heart there? Why do His people hide from Him?  Why do we hide from Him?

It does break God’s heart. It breaks His heart that sinners keep Him at a distance. “You stay over there, God. I’m gonna live my life over here the way I want to and you just stay over there until I need You for something.” You might remember the time when the Israelites had left Egypt and they were camped out at Mt. Sinai. God appeared at the mountain with them. And what did they say afterward? They said to Moses, “You go deal with God and then come and tell us what He said. We can’t handle Him coming near to us.” And our Old Testament reading today was God setting up a tabernacle, this tent “church”, where God could be present with them—close but not too close.

And that truly is the way we like God. Close but not too close. There was a study a little over ten years ago about the faith of American teenagers. Like, “What kinds of things do these kids actually believe?” And two sociologists wrote a book about it. And they concluded that the dominant faith was Deism. Maybe you’ve heard about Deism because many of our founding fathers of this United States were deists, like Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin. It was the cool thing to do in England for a while.

Now a deist is one that believes in a god, but not the God of the Bible. He believes there’s a god in heaven that created everything but that god doesn’t interfere at all in anything in the natural world. He just lets it go on its way.

Now that was found to be the dominant faith of American teenagers. (Not that they said they were deists, but all of their beliefs were actually deist whether they recognized it or not.) They believe in a god. They believe some god exists. But that god never really interferes with anything. That god just wants people to be good people and wants people to be happy people.

That, friends, sad to say is the dominant faith of much of American Christianity and it happens to be something that comes quite naturally to all of us. We say, “Sure, I believe in God.” But does that God do anything in particular? “Well, not really. But He wants me to be happy and do good to others.” Well, that’s a nice god. A god that doesn’t exist.

That’s our way of keeping God “not too close”. We don’t want Him too close. We want a god who just wants us to be happy. Like a really nice Grandpa. But we don’t want Him in our business. We don’t want Him telling us we’re sinners or that we need to repent or go to Church or stop doing evil things that we’re doing. No, that’s too close.

And so, just like Adam and Eve, we pretend that we can hide from Him.  “Oh, I’ll run into these trees over here—God will never find me.” Ha.

Christmas is about God coming to find us. Just like He did in the Garden of Eden. Only this time He came in a way that He would be closer to us than He ever had been. He came to be so entirely close to us that He came in our own flesh and blood.

We think of Christmas as a story of all kinds of people seeking the Baby. All kinds of people trying to find Him. You see the slogan around, “Wise Men still seek Him.” Well, all of that’s kinda true. The shepherds, the wise men, King Herod—they all wanted to find Him.  But, that’s not the real story, you understand. The real story was that God was coming to find us. He was coming to be up close and personal with you and me.

Now that’s gonna ruffle your feathers. I know it ruffles mine all the time. ‘Cause when God gets up close and personal, it’s embarrassing. It’s humbling. “You mean He knows all my thoughts?  You mean He knows what I’ve said and done in the dark?  You mean He isn’t fooled by the façade I show to everyone else?”  No, He’s not.

So guess who’s coming to your Christmas dinner? Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”  Jesus is standing at your Christmas door, just like in the commercials standing at the door of Grandma’s house with the fancy Christmas wreath on the door.  Jesus is standing at your door this Christmas wanting to come in. He came all the way from heaven for you. He came a little baby boy in Bethlehem for you 2,000 years ago. He came as a man to suffer and die on the cross for you. And now He’s standing at your door knocking.

He does this all the time. He’s knocking on your door with His Word. And many times you and I say, “Go away, Jesus. I’m busy doing what I want to do right now. Come back another time. I”ll be there next Sunday. I’ll repent later.”  Close but not too close, right?

But there’s another verse about knocking on doors that we may not like. Jesus says that if we come knocking on His door when it’s too late we will hear Him say, “I do not know you.”

Christmas is God knocking on our door. Getting up close and personal. God wants to be near you. He wants His Word to enter into your ears right here. Because where the Word enters your ear—the Holy Spirit enters your heart. You don’t get much closer than that. That’s a pretty good reason to go to Church, right? To know that God will be standing here knocking on the door of your ears and heart saying, “Let me come in and give you a clean heart and a right spirit.”

God wants to be near you. He wants the body and blood of His Son Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, to enter into you and grant you the forgiveness of sins. He wants you to depart this place in peace with the words of Jesus, “Lo, I am with you always to the end of the age.”

Now we can keep running away. We do that sometimes, don’t we? We can keep running away and saying, “Not too close, God. Too close for comfort.”  Or we can open the door and open our heart and say, “Come in, Jesus. Thank you for coming to find me. Thank you for being born for me. Please forgive my sin. Please give me your Holy Spirit. That I may live close to You. Always.”

Too close? There’s no such thing with Jesus. Keep Him always close with His Word and forgiveness as your constant companion. In Jesus’ name. Amen.