Taking a Fresh Look at the Christmas Story
In 1981, a radio station in Minnesota reported a story about a stolen car in California. Police were staging an intense search for the vehicle and the driver, even to the point of placing announcements on local radio stations to try and contact the thief. On the front seat of the stolen car sat a box of crackers that, unknown to the thief, were laced with poison. The car owner had intended to use the crackers as rat bait. Now the police and the owner of the VW Bug were more interested in apprehending the thief to save his life than to recover the car. So often when we run from God, we feel as though it is to escape His punishment, when we are actually eluding His rescue.
In stark contrast to this mental image of a god hunting to punish someone stands the true Jesus. A loving God who takes on flesh in order to become Savior of the world. As the boy Jesus becomes a man, He enters His years of public ministry. He continues to humble Himself and extends His invitation to every human being to come and be reconciled to God. One such occurrence comes in Matthew 11:28-30. We are not given any details about His body position but it is not difficult to imagine Jesus standing with His arms extended saying, “Come to Me all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” The mental image is not of a stern, heavenly taskmaster who delights in raining on our parade and meting out punishment. But rather a gracious and loving God who gave His life to pay for our sins and who wants us to experience the fullness of life for which we were created.
The invitation that Jesus extends is for those who are weary. The word we translate as weary is a present active participle and might better be translated “those who are laboring.” Contextually we know that the book of Matthew was written primarily for the Jewish people and its author presents an abundance of evidence that proves that Jesus was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. We also know that many of the Jewish people of Jesus’ day, especially the scribes and Pharisees, believed that one’s standing before God was determined by how well they kept the Law of God, the Torah.
This practice of keeping the Law, making sure that you did not even inadvertently break the Law, led to the development of another set of laws called the Mishnah. These laws served as a hedge of protection around the Torah. It is generally accepted that there were 365 negative commandments and 248 positive commandments for a total of 613 commandments from the 5 books of the Law, plus those that were added by the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. In Jesus day, the rabbinical teachings had become so massive, so demanding and all encompassing, that they prescribed standards and formulas for virtually every human activity.
It was near impossible to learn all these traditions and certainly it was impossible to keep them. Yet they believed that to find favor with God, to enter the kingdom of heaven, they needed to have a righteousness derived from keeping the Law. The people were left exhausted trying to fulfill an impossible obligation. The sin of the Pharisees, and the shortcoming of their teaching, was not in the attention that they gave to the commandments of God but in their trusting of the goodness, righteousness, that they believed was generated from their keeping God’s commandments.
Before we are too hard on the Pharisees of the Jesus’ day, we may want to take a moment and reflect on our own lives. The sin of the Pharisees is alive and well today. In the polling of Americans, the overwhelming majority believe that they will go to heaven upon their death because they have lived a pretty good life. They have determined what they believe to be a proper moral code and more or less have sought to live by it. Their trusting in it is no different than those who were seeking to live up to the law in Jesus day. It too leads to a weariness or dullness of the soul.
In the church of Jesus Christ, the same behavior exists but it is not as overt. We say the right words and pretend to experience God’s peace as a result of living in His grace but inwardly we labor, strive and seek to find favor with God and acceptance from others based upon our performance. A condition we call the orphan heart. When we perform well, we feel good about ourselves but the downside to living by our performance is that we never quite measure up. This is especially true when comparing ourselves to God’s standards for righteousness. We look at where we are spiritually and where we would like to be and the seemingly ever widening gap makes us tired, maybe even tired enough to quit trying.
The apostle Paul discovered this kind of thinking in the church at Galatia and addressed it strongly in Galatians 3:1-5. Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely, it was not in vain was it? I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
Like the thief in the opening story we run from God because we do not know His true nature and character. But in re-examining the implications of the Christmas story we can undo our wrong thinking. In the person of Jesus Christ, you have the greatest cheerleader you will ever want to meet. He created you, and He knows everything there is to know about you. He knows all your strengths, all your weaknesses, every experience you have ever had, good or bad and He believes in you because He has a plan and purpose for your life. But you have to accept the invitation to become His disciple, His follower. The promise when we do is we can learn from Him and become like Him in our beliefs, attitudes and actions. It is then, and only then, we find true rest for our souls. May you have a truly blessed Christmas holiday as you consider again the amazing story of Jesus, Son of God, who came to earth and extends the best invitation we will ever receive, come to Me. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Author
Pastor Bruce is the Executive Director of God's Living Stones. He lives in Omaha, NE, with his wife Barb. They have two adult children.
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