A Christmas Present - Advent Day 12

Have You Been Born Yet?

Galatians 2:15-21   ¹⁵"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. ¹⁷"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Galatians 3:1-6, 13-14, 22-27    ¹You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? ⁵Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard? ⁶Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  ¹³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." ¹⁴He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.  ²²But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. ²³Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. ²⁴So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.  ²⁶You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This Christmas season I want us to remember that the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem of Judea came into this world to be born into each of us.  The heart and soul of the Christmas season is that it is about our heart and soul.  For Paul the Christian faith was more than a code of conduct or a form of worship.  Christianity was first and foremost a life that had happened to him.  “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me,” he would say repeatedly.

There was among the churches in Galatia a group of people who were teaching that Christianity was merely a higher form of Judaism.  They taught that Jesus correctly understood the laws of Moses and the prophets and should be followed as the best way of obeying the laws of Moses and the prophets.  Jesus was offered simply as a life to be followed rather than as a life that was real, intimate and indwelling in the life of the people.  Have we, in our minds, reduced the Christian faith to a philosophy of life to be learned, to a compendium of wise advice to help us cope with life, to a political plan to solve society’s problems, or to a magic spiritual potion that will heal our bodies and spare us problems?  Jesus can help in these ways, but if we look to Him in only these limited ways, we are simply playing with dolls instead of giving birth to new life.  Christianity is first and foremost a life that is given and received.  So we recognize the importance of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “You must be born again,” or literally, “You must be born from above – a life beyond”.  Christianity is first and foremost a life that happens, and it happens by faith.  This faith is a confidence in God.  We call it faith and not confidence because faith is a confidence in spite of. 

Sometimes I think that some of us retreat from the risk of faith by holding on to what we call a simple faith.  But what we really mean is a comfortable faith where we feel we have pretty much learned and know all that we need so we hang an invisible but very clear sign on our life that says, “Do not disturb.”  Birth requires the disturbance of our comfort if we are going to discover the gift of new life.  If some of us retreat into a simple faith, others of us retreat in to a sophisticated faith.  We want the certainty of the latest knowledge, the surety of the most recent discovery for the Bible or from science, from the most recent poll, or the latest guru of educated religious thinking.  We find it very difficult to live in learned ignorance, and to wait for the living truth to be given and to develop in our soul as well as our mind.  Birth is not only uncomfortable.  It can be agonizingly slow in coming, and very unpredictable.  A retreat to a simple faith or a sophisticated faith can both shut out a living faith.  If we can answer it honestly, it may help to ask honestly, “Am I resisting the gift of that life?”

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell