Sermon preached by John A. Huffman, Jr.
December 24, 2005
Copyright © 2005, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

The angels that night declared to the shepherds, "'Do not be afraid; for see-I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord'" (Luke 2:10).

Some seven hundred years before, the prophet Isaiah made this prediction, "For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this" (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Throughout these four weeks of Advent, we have been looking at Isaiah's four names for Jesus.

We have seen how Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor-the one who helps us with the Decisions of life.

We have seen how Jesus is the Mighty God-the one who helps us with the Demands of life.

We have seen how Jesus is the Everlasting Father-the one who helps us with the past, present and future Dimensions of life.

And tomorrow morning at our 10:15 worship service, we will see how Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace-the one who helps us with the Disturbances of life.

Tonight, I would like for you to look at the theme Jesus Is . . . WONDERFUL!

Yes, that's true. Stop and think about. Jesus is wonderful in so many ways.

The Hebrew meaning of wonderful is quite profound. It has many dimensions to it. In its simplest form, it means "being unique and different."

Jesus certainly is unique and different.

Jesus is wonderful, unique and different in the way in which He touches your life and mine.

Jesus is wonderful in the way He CAME.

Max Lucado, in his book titled God Came Near-Chronicles of the Christ, captures the uniqueness of His coming in what he calls "Mary's Prayer."

God. O infant-God. Heaven's fairest child. Conceived by the union of divine grace with our disgrace. Sleep well.

Sleep well. Bask in the coolness of this night bright with diamonds. Sleep well, for the heat of anger simmers nearby. Enjoy the silence of the crib, for the noise of confusion rumbles in your future. Savor the sweet safety of my arms, for a day is soon coming when I cannot protect you.

Rest well, tiny hands. For though you belong to a king, you will touch no satin, own no gold. You will grasp no pen, guide no brush. No, your tiny hands are reserved for works more precious:

to touch a leper's open wound,

to wipe a widow's weary tear,

to claw the ground of Gethsemane.

Your hands, so tiny, so tender, so white-clutched tonight in an infant's fist. They aren't destined to hold a scepter nor wave from a palace balcony. They are reserved instead for a Roman spike that will staple them to a Roman cross.

Sleep deeply, tiny eyes. Sleep while you can. For soon the blurriness will clear and you will see the mess we have made of your world.

You will see our nakedness, for we cannot hide.

You will see our selfishness, for we cannot give.

You will see our pain, for we cannot heal.

O eyes that will see hell's darkest pit and witness her ugly prince . . . sleep, please sleep; sleep while you can.

Lay still, tiny mouth. Lay still mouth from which eternity will speak.

Tiny tongue that will soon summon the dead, that will define grace,

that will silence our foolishness.

Rosebud lips-upon which ride a starborn kiss of forgiveness to those who believe you, and of death to those who deny you-lay still.

And tiny feet cupped in the palm of my hand, rest. For many difficult steps lie ahead for you.

Do you taste the dust of the trails you will travel?

Do you feel the cold sea water upon which you will walk?

Do you wrench at the invasion of the nail you will bear?

Do you fear the steep descent down the spiral staircase into Satan's domain?

Rest, tiny feet. Rest today so that tomorrow you might walk with power. Rest. For millions will follow in your steps.

And little heart . . . holy heart . . . pumping the blood of life through the universe: How many times will we break you?

You'll be torn by the thorns of our accusations.

You'll be ravaged by the cancer of our sin.

You'll be crushed under the weight of your own sorrow.

And you'll be pierced by the spear of our rejection.

Yet in that piercing, in that ultimate ripping of muscle and membrane, in that final rush of blood and water, you will find rest. Your hands will be freed, your eyes will see justice, your lips will smile, and your feet will carry you home.

And there you'll rest again--this time in the embrace of your Father.

Yes, Jesus is wonderful, very unique and different in the way that He came as a baby, God incarnate through the womb of a woman.

How wonderful was the way He came, this Wonderful Counselor, this Mighty God, this Everlasting Father, this Prince of Peace!

Jesus is wonderful in the way He catches our attention.

I was quite struck this week when I read that the Holly Grove Home has closed. This facility for 125 years housed children, abused, at risk, whose families had all but given up on them. Some 20,000 in all had sought its safe embrace. One of these was none other than Marilyn Monroe. In 1935, an aunt brought little 9-year-old Norma Jean Baker to the orphanage, where she lived in a girls' residence hall whose windows overlooked Paramount Studios.

The closing of this institution reminded me of the story I shared with some of you several weeks ago of a pastor named Henry Carter. His church sponsored a home next door. In an article he wrote for "Guide Posts Magazine," he describes how tough Christmas is for some of these youngsters. Three quarters of them go home at least overnight. The ones who remain react to the empty beds and the changed routine.

Carter tells how he was busy working on his Christmas Eve meditation, when the housemother came and told him about little Tommy. Distressed that he had to leave the sermon preparation but trying to be helpful, he followed her from his office in the church next door to the home and up to Tommy's bedroom. The housemother pointed to one of six cots in the small dormitory. Tommy had crawled under a bed and refused to come out. Not a hair or a toe showed underneath.

Carter describes how he addressed himself to the cowboys and bucking broncos on the bedspread; how he talked about the brightly lighted tree in the church vestibule next to the door, and the packages underneath it and all the good things that awaited Tommy out beyond that bed.

But still no answer.

Carter, who himself was so frustrated by the time this was costing, dropped to his hands and knees and lifted the bedspread from the floor. He writes:

Two enormous blue eyes met mine. Tommy was eight, but looked like a five-year-old. It would have been no effort at all simply to pull him out. But it wasn't pulling that Tommy needed--it was trust and a sense of deciding things on his own initiative. So, crouched there on all fours, I launched into the menu of the special Christmas Eve supper to be offered after the service. I told him about the stocking with his name on it provided by the women's society.

Silence. There was no indication that he either heard or cared about Christmas.

And at last, because I could think of no other way to make contact, I got down on my stomach and wriggled in beside him, bedsprings snagging my suit jacket. For what seemed a long time I lay there with my cheek pressed against the floor. At first I talked about the big wreath above the altar and the candles in the windows. I reminded him of the carol he and the other children were going to sing. Then I ran out of things to say and simply waited there beside him.

And as I waited, a small, chilled hand crept into mine.

"You know, Tommy," I said after a bit, "it's kind of close quarters under here. Let's you and me go out where we can stand up."

And so we did, but slowly, in no hurry. All the pressure had gone from my day, because, you see, I had my Christmas sermon. Flattened there on the floor I realized I had been given a new glimpse of the mystery of this season.

Hadn't God called us, too, as I'd called Tommy, from far above us? With His stars and mountains, His whole majestic creation, hadn't He pleaded with us to love Him, to enjoy the universe He gave us?

And when we would not listen, He had drawn closer. Through prophets and lawgivers and holy men, He spoke with us face to face.

But it was not until that first Christmas, until God stooped to earth itself, until He came to dwell with us in our loneliness and alienation, that we, like Tommy, dared to stretch out our hands to take hold of love.

This is how God catches our attention. He literally came down in the Person of Jesus Christ and crawled under the bed with us, flat on the floor beside us, lovingly, longingly, snuggling there waiting for us to reach out and place our outstretched hand into His open palm that waits so patiently.

Jesus is wonderful in the way He empathizes with us.

The story of Advent is the story of love. The Christmas story is that of God coming down in human form identifying with us, not just getting on the floor on our level, but feeling what we feel, suffering what we suffer, agonizing with what we agonize, being tempted as we're tempted.

You may be familiar with the story of Father Damien, the Roman Catholic who moved to Kalawao, a village on the island of Molokai in Hawaii, to serve as pastor and priest to lepers. That area had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony.

For 16 years, Father Damien lived in their midst. He learned to speak their language. He bandaged their wounds. He embraced the bodies that no one else would touch, preaching to hearts that would otherwise have been left alone. He organized schools, bands and choirs. He built homes, so that the lepers would have shelter. He built 2,000 coffins by hand, so that when they died, they could be buried with dignity.

Slowly, it was said, that Kalawao became a place to live rather than a place to die, for Father Damien offered hope.

Father Damien was not careful about keeping his distance. He did nothing to separate himself from his people. He dipped his fingers into the poi bowl along with the patients. He shared his pipe. He did not always wash his hands after bandaging open sores. He got close. For this, the people loved him!

Then one day, he stood up and began his sermon with two words, "We lepers. . . ." Now he was no longer just helping them. Now he was one of them. From this day forward, he wasn't just on their island; he was in their skin. First he had chosen to live as they had lived. Now he would die as they had died. Now they were together.

One day in the town of Bethlehem of Judea, God came to earth and began His message, "We lepers. . . ." Now He wasn't just helping us. Now He was one of us. Now He was in our skin. Now we were in it together.

That's true empathy.

The Bible says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Jesus is wonderful in the way He rescues us.

C.S. Lewis was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. You and I know him now because his Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe has just been produced by Disney and is playing to crowded theaters. In addition to his wonderful fiction, this Oxford and Cambridge don was noted for his brilliant apologetic writings about the Christian faith. Having lived his university days as an agnostic, even an atheist, he had ultimately been "surprised by joy," and much to his own amazement, came to a personal saving faith in Jesus Christ.

In one of his books titled Miracles, he describes Advent, incarnation, what Christmas is all about in this graphic description of "God Descends to Reascend."

In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders. Or one may think of a diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to colour and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing that he went down to recover. He and it are both coloured now that they have come up into the light: down below, where it lay colourless in the dark, he lost his colour too.

Yes, that's what Jesus came to do.

He came to rescue us from our boredom.

A cynical Bertrand Russell said, "At least half the sins of mankind" are caused by boredom. Jesus came to help you see yourself as unique and special, to give you purpose and meaning for life in which you no longer have to "amuse yourself to death" in order to enjoy some semblance of life.

Jesus came to rescue you from your bondage to and the consequences of sin.

On the cross, He bore the weight of your sin and mine, those things you've done you shouldn't have done and those things you've left undone you should have done. We all are in the same boat. We may have different besetting sins, but none of us is perfect. And the Bible says that sin has created a chasm between God and humankind. All of our good works, all of our religious practices, all of our philosophical speculations cannot bridge that gap. There's only one bridge, and that is the cross of Jesus Christ. The ground is level at the foot of the cross, for all of us have sinned and come short of God's glory. God wants to restore that glory in us. He says that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's good news as far as I'm concerned.

Jesus came to rescue you and me from our loneliness.

Henry Thoreau once defined the city as "hundreds of people being lonely together." I used to pastor in New York City. I know the hard feel of the pavement underneath my feet as I'd pass hundreds of people, hardly ever lifting eyes, seldom recognizing anybody. That memory was driven home this week, as I saw news videos of the transit strike. There were those tens of thousands of people walking to and from work, each a human being, each alone, facing the cruel realities of life on planet earth.

And Jesus came to rescue you and me from selfishness.

I've been overwhelmed this week as I've observed brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ caring, sharing, going out of their way for each other. His way is the way of love, not a superficial rhetorical love, but a love that comes at the price of caring so much that He went to the cross for you and me.

This is good news, my friend, as we celebrate this Christmas Eve. We now will quietly sing "Silent Night." As we do it, one of our young people will light the central Advent candle, the Christ candle. As they do it, will you prayerfully open your life to this Wonderful Jesus, the One who is the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Contemplate how unique and different this Wonderful Person is. Surrender your boredom, your sin, your loneliness and your selfishness to Him, finding embrace in the One who descended and ascended on your behalf. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life!" Amen.