Christmas: Muslims and the Messiah

A Sermon Preached by Dr. James Flamming
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Morning Worship
December 1, 2001

Text: Phil. 2: 6,7

Years ago, the wrapping paper view of religion was that all religions were the same, just packaged different. People would say, "as long as we believe something, we are all going to the same place." That rings a little hollow since September 11. It does matter what a person believes about God, because what a person believes about God ultimately affects how we treat others. It is a wonderful time for Christians to understand the uniqueness of Christ and indeed what the coming of Christ is all about. We call this season Advent. It comes from the Latin word adventus which means arrival or coming.

What is Advent? What is it about? You see, it is possible to know about something without really understanding it. A sixth grader gave an answer on a history test to the question, "Who was William Shakespeare?" The sixth grader wrote:

"The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in 1564 supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies and hysterectomies, all in Islamic parameter."

Islamic pentameter. The correct phrase should have been iambic pentameter, a style of poetic verse. But we might forgive the student because words like Islamic, or Islam, or Muslims have found more interest among us than ever before.

There are many things we have in common with Islam. They believe in one God and we believe in one God. They believe in what we would call the Ten Commandments, and so do we. They believe in prayer and we believe in prayer. They look upon the Koran as Sacred Scripture and we look upon the Bible as Holy Scripture. They have a holy day - Thursday/Friday - just like ours is on Sunday. They are evangelistic and missionary. There are now more Muslims in our country than there are Episcopalians.

But the center of the Muslim faith and the center of the Christian faith are very different. Their faith is centered in a book, the Koran. Our faith is centered in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. For a Muslim for God to become like us would be to compromise completely who he is. But for those of us who are Christians, this is the good news unto salvation:

God, for the love of us, has become like us
so that we can become like he is.

As Henri Nouwen has said in The Wounded Healer, "The folly of our age is that we think we can be led across the desert by someone who has never been there." We experience in our walk with Christ One who has been there. He knows the way.

The faith of those of us who are Christians centers on what God did for us in Christ. As the text from Philippians says, "He did not hold onto his Diety, but he became like us, he took the form of us, he even became a servant of us. He even died on a cross for us." That for a Muslim would be an unthinkable heresy.

The Castle

Let me put the matter in the form of a parable. Handel's Messiah will be sung as always this Christmas. A sixth grader in that report I gave you earlier was asked on a test, "Who was Handel?" He answered, "Handel was half German, half Italian, half English. He was very large." Handel was very large when he put together the Messiah. The Hallelujah Chorus becomes ecstatic with King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

So, let me use a Kingly analogy. Kings live in castles. Pretend with me that our King above all Kings, Jesus the Lord, lived in a castle in heaven. Now what do you think our Lord did? Did he say, "I'm glad I have a moat around this castle so I can be protected from evil. Hey, you out there. Pull up the drawbridge. Don't let any strangers in, they might be evil. I don't want any evil to get anywhere near this castle. I want nothing to do with the outside world because there are some evil folks out there and I want to remain pure."

No, no, no. It is not like that. It is like our Lord said, "These are people I have created. Let down the drawbridge. Open up the gates. Invite those who will come. Let us feast at the table of heaven." Like Psalm 23 says, "He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies and anoints our head with oil and our cup runs over." God says in Isaiah 55, "Come, even if you have no money and even if you don't have the right clothes, come, buy, and eat."

Wow! Isn't that good news. If you think that is good news, say, Amen.

That is good news. But that is not the best news. The best news is that our Lord said goodbye to the castle. He waved goodbye to the gates. He walked across that drawbridge. He looked at the moats of protection and kept walking. And where was he headed? To us, to me, to you, and how often we treat him as the enemy. But he comes nevertheless.

Our Lord knew, with all of the heavenly knowledge catalogued in his brain,
that we would never find him if he did not first of all find us.
He knew we would never come to him did not he first come to us.

The reason that Muslims don't celebrate Christmas is that Jesus is for them just a prophet. But for those of us who have experienced the fullness of God through Christ, our faith rests on this: our Lord Jesus is not only fully human, but also truly God. Christmas is for us the celebration that

•  Christ left heaven's castle to become Savior for all people everywhere;
•  Our Lord left the banqueting table of heaven so he could break bread with us on earth;
•  Jesus walked across the drawbridge of protection and instead risked the cross which became our bridge into heaven.
•  He emptied himself of his rights, that we might gain righteousness.
•  The Savior did not save himself, as people in castles are wont to do, but became like a servant so our salvation could be secured.

Our Part

So, what is our part?

Our part is to leave the castles of protection we have built within our own hearts. How often we have said to God as we raised the drawbridge of our hearts and minds, "Don't call me, I'll call you if I need you."

We say to ourselves, "I have plenty of time. I'll get around to God tomorrow." We are passive. We do nothing. We sit. We may even squirm. But we do nothing. This may be a sickness unto spiritual death.

See, God will forgive our wrong choices and empower us to begin again.
God will forgive our sins and remember them no more whispering in our souls, "We will do a new thing together."
God will forgive our failures and say, "We will learn from them, keep going."
But God does not empower the person who will not try, will not trust, will not move, will not decide.

The sin God rebukes is not trying and failing, but failing to try.
The sin God rebukes is not trusting and falling and trusting again. What God rebukes is the one who neither trusts nor falls, but sits and sits and postpones and postpones.

The Baby at Bethlehem

Move now, from the castle parable, to the baby in the manger. I want to ask you a personal question. Have we been through Christmas so often, that we have lost the wonder, the incredible miracle of it all. Who would have thought that heaven's desire would be captured through a baby laid at the doorstep of the world.
What an incredible strategy, God's breakthrough!
Had God come with armies, we could have fought those armies.
Had he come with threats, we could have rebelled against those treats.
Had he come with superior knowledge we could have, like Adam and Eve, said we will become like that.

But what do you do with a baby? You love him.
In swaddling clothes? You want to give to him.
In a stable? You can never say, "I've had it too tough. No place for me."

At his coming
He didn't send his entourage to make sure everything and everyone was ready for his coming,
He didn't even send out invitations with RSVP to heaven's E-mail address;
he was born like we were born, overlooked except by his family; he was
nursed like we were nursed,
grew like we grew,
stretched like we stretch,
was tempted like we are tempted,
got tired like we get tired,
left home like we leave home,
struggled with his destiny like we struggle with ours,
was misunderstood like we are misunderstood,
died like we will die.

He took it all upon himself. God in Christ has been there. He knows the way. Therefore he can say, "Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (Rev. 3:20)

Maybe the question is, "Will we make room for the Christ this Christmas?"

At the Contemplative service last Thursday, the readings were about Advent. Loretta Ross-Gotta wrote of Mary, the mother of Jesus, "she offered only space, love, and belief. . . Yet, she delivers Christ who then delivers us." Then Loretta then encourages us to be something special this Christmas. And what is this something special she suggests? "Be a womb. Be a dwelling for Christ."

Be a womb. The words caught me by surprise. My manhood never thought about being a womb. Physically it would be impossible. But spiritually that makes all kind of sense. Christ can grow within our lives as he grew within the womb of Mary. Be a womb for Christ. This Advent season let the Christ grow within you, let him move, and kick, and make us conscious of the one living within us, that we may be transformed.

So on this day We come to celebrate around His table. Our Christ left heaven's banqueting table so that he can break bread with us. Our Lord even identifies himself with the commonest of human foods, bread. "This is my body which is broken for you." And he speaks of his gift in terms of the most essential element of life - blood. "This is the New Covenant in my blood."