Matthew 11:1-6 December 7, 2008
“The Christmas Gift of Freedom”
Rev. Meagan M. Boozer
Two weeks ago, we started our journey to the manger with a suggested Christmas list for ourselves. On our list of what we want for Christmas was:
The wisdom to know what should be first in our lives, and the courage to put that first thing first,
The gift of patience and power to always be gracious and loving,
The gift of the fullness of the presence of God in our lives.
What a wonderful Christmas it would be if we would ask and then choose to receive these three gifts: the wisdom to know what should be first and then the courage to put first things first, the gift of patience and the power to always be gracious and loving, and the gift of the fullness of God’s presence right here, right now. I’m not just flapping my lips up here. Let me say this again: the wisdom to know what should be first and then the courage to put first things first, the gift of patience and the power to always be gracious and loving, and the gift of the fullness of God’s presence right here, right now.
Let us pray: O God, help us to know, really know that you must be first in our lives, and help us to know how to put you first. Gracious Lord, we don’t want to be short with people. We want to be gracious and loving. Always. Help us use restraint and time well before responding in ingratitude and anger. Help us to want to be gracious and loving, and help us live it out – no compromises. And Heavenly Father, we seek your presence in our lives right now. We need you. We cannot live apart from you and be at peace within ourselves. We seek the fullness of your presence for there is nothing else worth seeking with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. Speak now your eternal word that does not change. We pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Last week we looked at the choices of the prophet Isaiah and Mary, the mother of Jesus – major life choices that were an expression of the hope they had in God. We saw in the Scripture how they were tuned in to hearing God’s voice, how they were willing to follow through on what God told them to do. They weren’t “almost” followers – they were true followers, and it was clear by the way they responded to God’s voice. (When people look at your life, do they see an “almost” follower or a true follower of Jesus?) Finally, we learned that though both Isaiah and Mary were coming up against life-threatening opposition, they trusted God’s power to get them through. Isaiah and Mary were hope-filled followers of God. We need hope in our hearts – the kind of hope that only Jesus can give us.
And so to end the sermon last week, I challenged all of us with the following questions:
What tough decision is before you?
What do you know you have to do that you don’t think you can do?
To whom do you need to speak God’s truth this Christmas?
Do you feel a sense of urgency about these things even though you know there will be opposition?
I am repeating these questions because we need to be asked them again in order to free us up enough to be able to put first things first, to be gracious and loving, and to live in the fullness of God’s presence.
Today, I want us to consider another gift God gives to us. Jesus places hope in our hearts to do the hard things, and hope that in so doing, we might find freedom from the things that have us in chains.
There’s a passage in the Gospel of Matthew that shows us John the Baptist, not an “almost” follower of Jesus, but an all-out devoted follower having some doubts. We all have times of doubt that mess with our hope and that mess with our confident assurance in the freedom that is ours through Christ. Listen with me to this story in Matthew 11:1-6:
1When Jesus had finished giving these instructions to his twelve disciples, he went off teaching and preaching in towns throughout the country.
2John the Baptist, who was now in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, 3“Are you really the Messiah we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep looking for someone else?”
4Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him about what you have heard and seen— 5the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. 6And tell him: ‘God blesses those who are not offended by me.’”
Have you ever expected one thing and gotten another? Maybe you wanted a blue bike for Christmas and you got a red wagon instead. May you were hoping to get this really cool cell phone, but instead you got the basic model without all the bells and whistles. Maybe you planned an outdoor wedding and it rained the whole day. Maybe you were sure your insurance was going to cover 80% of your new prescription cost, and instead it only covered 20% while you had to pay the 80%. Maybe you thought life was going to be better, easier, more fun – and instead you’ve found that it is hard, hard, hard.
John the Baptist (a cousin to Jesus) and many others were sure that when the one who had been promised for thousands of years finally came (the promised Messiah), he would come in like a mighty warring King and immediately set things aright. Things were as messed up then as they are now.
And then a baby is born in Bethlehem under a mysteriously new star. Hope begins to grow in the hearts of the faithful. Could this really be the One? And so they wait, and they watch. They hope, and they pray. They begin to decide in their hearts what things should be first on this Messiah’s list of things to do; they aren’t thinking “gracious and loving,” they are thinking “divide and conquer!” They aren’t seeking the fullness of His presence; they want only the demonstration of His power. They want freedom from Roman oppression. And what does Jesus the Messiah spend his time doing? 1When Jesus had finished giving these instructions to his twelve disciples, he went off teaching and preaching in towns throughout the country. The instructions he gave to his 12 disciples (as we read in Chapter 10) was to go out and cast out evil spirits and heal the sick. So, after he empowered them to perform this ministry, he went off teaching and preaching in towns throughout the country!
Have you ever experienced impatience with someone? “Just get on with it,” we say through clenched teeth. What if you were sitting in prison with the expectation that the promised Messiah was walking around out there and NOT taking seriously not just your captivity but the captivity of your entire nation? How would you feel about him? And so after John the Baptist had a visit from some of his disciples on the outside and heard the report on Jesus’ activity, his dissatisfaction found a voice in this question: 3“Are you really the Messiah we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep looking for someone else?” You can hear the impatience, the frustration, the cynicism, and the doubt in this question. “What’s the deal here? Are you the One we’ve been waiting for (we thought you were), or have we been taken for fools? Are we still waiting for the conquering King, or are you the One – though seemingly insensitive to our excruciatingly urgent need for freedom?”
Jesus answers clearly and completely: “The blind are seeing, the lame are walking, the lepers are being cured, the deaf are hearing things they’ve never heard before, people are being given new life – because the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness is being preached to the poor.” It’s like Jesus says back to John, “Don’t allow your limited expectations to blind your eyes and stop your ears: I’ve come to bring complete freedom for captives of all kinds, and I am using the weapon of God-infused love, not the expected weapons of earthly warfare.”
I read a story of a 12-year-old boy out in Southern California who had been brought to the hospital. He had been thrown off a horse. The boy was so traumatized by that scary experience that he had become the victim of an emotional paralysis. He was paralyzed in a prison of fear. His eyes were open, but he stared straight ahead. He made no recognition of anyone else, and he would not move or speak. The doctors said there was nothing physically wrong with him. He had no cuts or bruises or broken bones. No concussion. The diagnosis was that he had literally been “scared stiff,” frightened into some kind of psychosomatic paralysis. Day after day, he lay in that bed. Nothing could reach him.
Finally, one day one of the nurses had a moment of inspiration. She brought in a happy, healthy 6-month-old baby. She laid the baby on the bed of the 12-year-old boy. The baby started cooing and patting at the little boy’s stomach. Then, the baby crawled up and began to touch the boy’s face.
Suddenly, the little boy smiled, and then he hugged the baby and patted him and kissed him on the top of his head. Just like that, he came back to life. He began to talk and respond and recognize people, and in just a few days the doctors let him go home.
Do you remember the plight of Terry Anderson? Terry was serving as the chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press when he was kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon on March 16, 1985. He was held captive until his release on December 4, 1991.
One reporter said to Terry, “You have said that you don’t hate your captors. Can you help us understand that?” Anderson replied, “I don’t hate anybody. I’m a Christian . . . and it’s really required of me that I forgive, no matter how hard that may be, and I intend to do that.” He was also asked, “Did you ever lose hope?” Terry answered, “Hard question . . . Of course, I had some blue moments, moments of despair, but fortunately, right after I became a hostage, one of the first things that fell into my hands was a Bible. Over the last 6 and a half years as a captive, I have spent a lot of time with the Bible, and that helped me so much because it is about hope; it’s about trust in God, and that’s what gave me the strength to make it through each day.”
We heard over the course of the presidential campaign about John McCain’s ordeals as a POW. Do you remember how he was given the opportunity to be freed, but he chose instead to remain in captivity because he cared more about loving the brotherhood of his fellow prisoners then he cared about his own physical freedom.
How about that great story in the book of Acts (chapter 16) when Paul and Silas were in prison? 23They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. 24So he took no chances but put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks.
25Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26Suddenly, there was a great earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! 27The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself. 28But Paul shouted to him, “Don’t do it! We are all here!”
29Trembling with fear, the jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down before Paul and Silas. 30He brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31They replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with your entire household.” 32Then they shared the word of the Lord with him and all who lived in his household. 33That same hour the jailer washed their wounds, and he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. 34Then he brought them into his house and set a meal before them. He and his entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God.
Jesus, coming into this world in the form of an innocent baby, who can take our defenses down with a single toothless smile, Jesus came to set us free! He came to set us free not from the circumstances we’ve gotten ourselves into right here, right now. We’re in the messes we’re in because of the choices we’ve made and the choices others have made for us or against us. Paul and Silas, Terry Anderson, and John McCain were prisoners. Captives. But you can tell that they were still free, can’t you? Free indeed. And that’s what happens when we reach out for Jesus in the midst of our circumstances and hold on to him, and allow him to touch our faces like that little baby touched that 12-year-old boy who was scared stiff. We can be FREE in here (in our hearts) to keep first things first, which (if you haven’t figured it out by now) is to keep GOD first in our lives, which then enables us to be gracious and loving all the time, which then opens us up to be filled and to keep on being filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Jesus came to set us free from selfishness, to set us free from hate, to set us free from the prison of unconcern. Jesus sets us free from the burden of guilt and shame. Jesus sets us free from the shackles of sin. He sets us free from living in fear. Because of him, we can choose to turn away from living in destructive patterns. Because of him, we can choose LIFE – abundant life! Listen to these words of Jesus from John 8:31-36:
Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. 32Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.” . . .
34Jesus said, “I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. 35A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. 36So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.”
This Christmas let’s allow the Son, our Savior, to truly set us free.
(To the reader: At this point, members of the congregation were given time to check off those things on a list that enslave them. We then brought them forward, put them in a wrapped red box (to represent the blood of Jesus), then we closed the lid and put it under the Christmas tree as a gift to God. Our gift to God is the admittance of our slavery to these things, and our reaching out to him to set us free.)
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we confess that we have allowed these chains to hold us back from the life you died to give us. We confess that we have allowed these things to control us. We confess that a lack of faith in you is sin. We recognize that you have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and discipline. Thank you.
And so, as our Christmas gift to you, to the people in our lives, and to ourselves, in Jesus’ name, we renounce the hold these things have had on our lives. In Jesus’ name, we break the chains, smash the shackles, and lift our arms in victory! Like Paul and Silas, we choose to praise you no matter what our circumstances, trusting you to see us through as we put you first, as we choose to be gracious and loving to those around us no matter how they treat us, and as we choose, even now, to receive the fullness of your Spirit in our lives. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
“The Christmas Gift of Freedom”
Rev. Meagan M. Boozer
Two weeks ago, we started our journey to the manger with a suggested Christmas list for ourselves. On our list of what we want for Christmas was:
The wisdom to know what should be first in our lives, and the courage to put that first thing first,
The gift of patience and power to always be gracious and loving,
The gift of the fullness of the presence of God in our lives.
What a wonderful Christmas it would be if we would ask and then choose to receive these three gifts: the wisdom to know what should be first and then the courage to put first things first, the gift of patience and the power to always be gracious and loving, and the gift of the fullness of God’s presence right here, right now. I’m not just flapping my lips up here. Let me say this again: the wisdom to know what should be first and then the courage to put first things first, the gift of patience and the power to always be gracious and loving, and the gift of the fullness of God’s presence right here, right now.
Let us pray: O God, help us to know, really know that you must be first in our lives, and help us to know how to put you first. Gracious Lord, we don’t want to be short with people. We want to be gracious and loving. Always. Help us use restraint and time well before responding in ingratitude and anger. Help us to want to be gracious and loving, and help us live it out – no compromises. And Heavenly Father, we seek your presence in our lives right now. We need you. We cannot live apart from you and be at peace within ourselves. We seek the fullness of your presence for there is nothing else worth seeking with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. Speak now your eternal word that does not change. We pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Last week we looked at the choices of the prophet Isaiah and Mary, the mother of Jesus – major life choices that were an expression of the hope they had in God. We saw in the Scripture how they were tuned in to hearing God’s voice, how they were willing to follow through on what God told them to do. They weren’t “almost” followers – they were true followers, and it was clear by the way they responded to God’s voice. (When people look at your life, do they see an “almost” follower or a true follower of Jesus?) Finally, we learned that though both Isaiah and Mary were coming up against life-threatening opposition, they trusted God’s power to get them through. Isaiah and Mary were hope-filled followers of God. We need hope in our hearts – the kind of hope that only Jesus can give us.
And so to end the sermon last week, I challenged all of us with the following questions:
What tough decision is before you?
What do you know you have to do that you don’t think you can do?
To whom do you need to speak God’s truth this Christmas?
Do you feel a sense of urgency about these things even though you know there will be opposition?
I am repeating these questions because we need to be asked them again in order to free us up enough to be able to put first things first, to be gracious and loving, and to live in the fullness of God’s presence.
Today, I want us to consider another gift God gives to us. Jesus places hope in our hearts to do the hard things, and hope that in so doing, we might find freedom from the things that have us in chains.
There’s a passage in the Gospel of Matthew that shows us John the Baptist, not an “almost” follower of Jesus, but an all-out devoted follower having some doubts. We all have times of doubt that mess with our hope and that mess with our confident assurance in the freedom that is ours through Christ. Listen with me to this story in Matthew 11:1-6:
1When Jesus had finished giving these instructions to his twelve disciples, he went off teaching and preaching in towns throughout the country.
2John the Baptist, who was now in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, 3“Are you really the Messiah we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep looking for someone else?”
4Jesus told them, “Go back to John and tell him about what you have heard and seen— 5the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor. 6And tell him: ‘God blesses those who are not offended by me.’”
Have you ever expected one thing and gotten another? Maybe you wanted a blue bike for Christmas and you got a red wagon instead. May you were hoping to get this really cool cell phone, but instead you got the basic model without all the bells and whistles. Maybe you planned an outdoor wedding and it rained the whole day. Maybe you were sure your insurance was going to cover 80% of your new prescription cost, and instead it only covered 20% while you had to pay the 80%. Maybe you thought life was going to be better, easier, more fun – and instead you’ve found that it is hard, hard, hard.
John the Baptist (a cousin to Jesus) and many others were sure that when the one who had been promised for thousands of years finally came (the promised Messiah), he would come in like a mighty warring King and immediately set things aright. Things were as messed up then as they are now.
And then a baby is born in Bethlehem under a mysteriously new star. Hope begins to grow in the hearts of the faithful. Could this really be the One? And so they wait, and they watch. They hope, and they pray. They begin to decide in their hearts what things should be first on this Messiah’s list of things to do; they aren’t thinking “gracious and loving,” they are thinking “divide and conquer!” They aren’t seeking the fullness of His presence; they want only the demonstration of His power. They want freedom from Roman oppression. And what does Jesus the Messiah spend his time doing? 1When Jesus had finished giving these instructions to his twelve disciples, he went off teaching and preaching in towns throughout the country. The instructions he gave to his 12 disciples (as we read in Chapter 10) was to go out and cast out evil spirits and heal the sick. So, after he empowered them to perform this ministry, he went off teaching and preaching in towns throughout the country!
Have you ever experienced impatience with someone? “Just get on with it,” we say through clenched teeth. What if you were sitting in prison with the expectation that the promised Messiah was walking around out there and NOT taking seriously not just your captivity but the captivity of your entire nation? How would you feel about him? And so after John the Baptist had a visit from some of his disciples on the outside and heard the report on Jesus’ activity, his dissatisfaction found a voice in this question: 3“Are you really the Messiah we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep looking for someone else?” You can hear the impatience, the frustration, the cynicism, and the doubt in this question. “What’s the deal here? Are you the One we’ve been waiting for (we thought you were), or have we been taken for fools? Are we still waiting for the conquering King, or are you the One – though seemingly insensitive to our excruciatingly urgent need for freedom?”
Jesus answers clearly and completely: “The blind are seeing, the lame are walking, the lepers are being cured, the deaf are hearing things they’ve never heard before, people are being given new life – because the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness is being preached to the poor.” It’s like Jesus says back to John, “Don’t allow your limited expectations to blind your eyes and stop your ears: I’ve come to bring complete freedom for captives of all kinds, and I am using the weapon of God-infused love, not the expected weapons of earthly warfare.”
I read a story of a 12-year-old boy out in Southern California who had been brought to the hospital. He had been thrown off a horse. The boy was so traumatized by that scary experience that he had become the victim of an emotional paralysis. He was paralyzed in a prison of fear. His eyes were open, but he stared straight ahead. He made no recognition of anyone else, and he would not move or speak. The doctors said there was nothing physically wrong with him. He had no cuts or bruises or broken bones. No concussion. The diagnosis was that he had literally been “scared stiff,” frightened into some kind of psychosomatic paralysis. Day after day, he lay in that bed. Nothing could reach him.
Finally, one day one of the nurses had a moment of inspiration. She brought in a happy, healthy 6-month-old baby. She laid the baby on the bed of the 12-year-old boy. The baby started cooing and patting at the little boy’s stomach. Then, the baby crawled up and began to touch the boy’s face.
Suddenly, the little boy smiled, and then he hugged the baby and patted him and kissed him on the top of his head. Just like that, he came back to life. He began to talk and respond and recognize people, and in just a few days the doctors let him go home.
Do you remember the plight of Terry Anderson? Terry was serving as the chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press when he was kidnapped in Beirut, Lebanon on March 16, 1985. He was held captive until his release on December 4, 1991.
One reporter said to Terry, “You have said that you don’t hate your captors. Can you help us understand that?” Anderson replied, “I don’t hate anybody. I’m a Christian . . . and it’s really required of me that I forgive, no matter how hard that may be, and I intend to do that.” He was also asked, “Did you ever lose hope?” Terry answered, “Hard question . . . Of course, I had some blue moments, moments of despair, but fortunately, right after I became a hostage, one of the first things that fell into my hands was a Bible. Over the last 6 and a half years as a captive, I have spent a lot of time with the Bible, and that helped me so much because it is about hope; it’s about trust in God, and that’s what gave me the strength to make it through each day.”
We heard over the course of the presidential campaign about John McCain’s ordeals as a POW. Do you remember how he was given the opportunity to be freed, but he chose instead to remain in captivity because he cared more about loving the brotherhood of his fellow prisoners then he cared about his own physical freedom.
How about that great story in the book of Acts (chapter 16) when Paul and Silas were in prison? 23They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. 24So he took no chances but put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks.
25Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26Suddenly, there was a great earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off! 27The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself. 28But Paul shouted to him, “Don’t do it! We are all here!”
29Trembling with fear, the jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down before Paul and Silas. 30He brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31They replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with your entire household.” 32Then they shared the word of the Lord with him and all who lived in his household. 33That same hour the jailer washed their wounds, and he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. 34Then he brought them into his house and set a meal before them. He and his entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God.
Jesus, coming into this world in the form of an innocent baby, who can take our defenses down with a single toothless smile, Jesus came to set us free! He came to set us free not from the circumstances we’ve gotten ourselves into right here, right now. We’re in the messes we’re in because of the choices we’ve made and the choices others have made for us or against us. Paul and Silas, Terry Anderson, and John McCain were prisoners. Captives. But you can tell that they were still free, can’t you? Free indeed. And that’s what happens when we reach out for Jesus in the midst of our circumstances and hold on to him, and allow him to touch our faces like that little baby touched that 12-year-old boy who was scared stiff. We can be FREE in here (in our hearts) to keep first things first, which (if you haven’t figured it out by now) is to keep GOD first in our lives, which then enables us to be gracious and loving all the time, which then opens us up to be filled and to keep on being filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Jesus came to set us free from selfishness, to set us free from hate, to set us free from the prison of unconcern. Jesus sets us free from the burden of guilt and shame. Jesus sets us free from the shackles of sin. He sets us free from living in fear. Because of him, we can choose to turn away from living in destructive patterns. Because of him, we can choose LIFE – abundant life! Listen to these words of Jesus from John 8:31-36:
Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. 32Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.” . . .
34Jesus said, “I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. 35A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. 36So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.”
This Christmas let’s allow the Son, our Savior, to truly set us free.
(To the reader: At this point, members of the congregation were given time to check off those things on a list that enslave them. We then brought them forward, put them in a wrapped red box (to represent the blood of Jesus), then we closed the lid and put it under the Christmas tree as a gift to God. Our gift to God is the admittance of our slavery to these things, and our reaching out to him to set us free.)
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we confess that we have allowed these chains to hold us back from the life you died to give us. We confess that we have allowed these things to control us. We confess that a lack of faith in you is sin. We recognize that you have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and discipline. Thank you.
And so, as our Christmas gift to you, to the people in our lives, and to ourselves, in Jesus’ name, we renounce the hold these things have had on our lives. In Jesus’ name, we break the chains, smash the shackles, and lift our arms in victory! Like Paul and Silas, we choose to praise you no matter what our circumstances, trusting you to see us through as we put you first, as we choose to be gracious and loving to those around us no matter how they treat us, and as we choose, even now, to receive the fullness of your Spirit in our lives. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
