What Child is This?

Christmas Mixtape is what we call our series in Advent this year. Merry Christmas, everybody. My name is Rene. I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. Before we plunge into the brief message for today, I just want to extend on my own behalf and also on behalf of the church, all of our love and compassion and support to our Jewish friends all around the world as you start Hanukkah. You have our prayers and we all want to be instruments of God's peace to you and to the whole world. Amen church, that is what we stand for.

Well, Christmas Mixtape is our Advent series and what this is all about is this. We're looking at the stories behind familiar Christmas songs as kind of a path into less familiar Christmas scriptures. Maybe parts of the Bible that you wouldn't normally look at at Christmas, but they're really all about Christmas when you think about it. And this morning we're looking at "What Child Is This," which is exactly what our Christmas pageant volunteers will say when a parent is late picking up their kid. What child is this? And it's the title of a great Christmas carol.

Before I get into this, I have a question though. How many of you are excited about hearing the totals for the food drive today? We are going to reveal it at the end of my message. So hang on to that.

For now, grab your message notes, open your Bibles, if you got them, to Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 through 20 in the Bible. Now, before I get into this, have you ever left church and thought to yourself, what was that sermon actually all about? And maybe you're in line at Carpo's or something later and somebody says, what was the sermon about at church today? I can't really remember exactly what it was about. Listen, I have felt that way when I preach the sermon sometimes.

So I just want to kinda give you a heads up. The sermon today, well, it's about Jesus. Literally, that's all it is about. So when I pose a question to you about anything in the sermon, you will answer back "Jesus," all right? Let's just try this. What is the sermon about today? Jesus. Let's try it one more time. What's the sermon about? That's right, every time I ask you a question, unless I make a mistake, that's gonna be the answer in today's sermon.

So we're gonna talk about what child is this. Here is the story behind the song. The year is 1865, and the place is a foggy Glasgow, Scotland, which is a commercial sailing hub. And a man named William Chatterton Dix is working there as a maritime insurance salesman. Bill loves selling insurance. Bill wants to be the best insurance salesman in Glasgow. Bill's making a lot of money. He's successful in his field. Bill is not particularly religious at all.

And then when he's almost 30 years old, he is stricken down with a near fatal illness. He thinks he's gonna die. He's confined to bed for months. He gets severely depressed. But as is so often the case, when we go through tough times, we can find that they make us better, that they lead us to God. How many of you have found that your tough times have actually brought you to a better place in life?

It was the same thing for him. When he's in bed, confined, thinking he's gonna die, he has a spiritual awakening. He becomes an avid reader of the Bible. And during those months his focus totally shifts. He starts writing songs full of joy. Like this one he wrote, you might recognize it. He wrote it during harvest time that year. "To thee, O Lord, our hearts we raise in hymns of adoration. To thee, we bring songs of praise with shouts of exultation."

His songs are just radiating joy even though as far as he knows he's not gonna survive to the end of the year. And then as fall turns to winter, he decides he wants to write a Christmas song. And he decides to imagine being one of the shepherds, walking up to the animal stall where the baby was born. And they're walking up tentatively, the angels told them to come to a manger. And as they approach, they wonder, what child is this?

Why were we pointed to this baby in this feeding trough? What child is this who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping? This little baby, whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch over their flock are keeping. Well this, this, this is Christ, the Messiah, the King whom shepherds guard and angels sing. So haste, haste to bring him laud, this babe, the son of Mary.

He's just full of sort of meditative joy, thinking about who this baby would grow up to be. And then he looks for a melody to match his words. And he decides to use the tune for the English folk song "Greensleeves." Already very well known, in fact, William Shakespeare refers to Greensleeves, not once but twice in his play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, so we know it was already very popular centuries before William Chatterton Dix wrote his lyrics, but he discovers that it's a perfect match.

Now, some people believe that Greensleeves was written by Henry the Eighth for Anne Boleyn, believe it or not. My wife, Lori, is sitting right here and her family is related to the Boleyn family, so it's like I'm married to a princess. I knew that already, but now it's like verified. But it might at first seem incredible. Henry VIII wrote the melody to Greensleeves? That's stupid. Well Henry VIII was actually like a professional musician, very accomplished, played several instruments like the lute, the harp, the flute, composed a lot of music. In fact he even started the famous Christ Church Choir at Oxford which is still going to this day. Now we can't be sure that he wrote the melody to Greensleeves.

Wherever the tune came from, the lyrics to "What Child Is This" are really asking the question, who is Jesus Christ? What child is this and what man is this? And that is a really great question. Well, that's a great question because if we just think of Jesus as a good teacher, a good example, or essentially a glorified social worker, right, that he might kinda be vaguely inspiring, but not really life changing. But if I think of him as God on earth, that is when everything changes.

Jesus seen as God's son, who came from heaven to earth to redeem the planet and to empower us to live a different way, that transforms lives. Who transforms lives? Jesus. That's right.

You know, I think of Melody. I was talking to Melody Anderson in between services. So Melody tells me, three years ago, she was on the floor of a prison cell. She was in withdrawal from drugs, she was desperate. And in that moment, she didn't know where else to turn, and just cried out in desperation, "Jesus, I don't even know if you're real, but Jesus, I need you." And guess what? Jesus met her there in that prison cell and Jesus changed her.

She wasn't changed by an idea. She wasn't just changed by a social worker. She didn't just need an example. In fact, that actually would have been kind of demoralizing because who can live up to the perfect example of Jesus Christ? What Melody needed was somebody who loves her. What Melody needed was somebody who could infuse her with the power to change. And she found that in who? Jesus, the actual living Jesus.

That's what's energized Christianity from the very beginning. You know, I get to travel all over the world to meet our global ministry partners all over the world. This January, I'll be in Egypt, I'll be in Indonesia. And I've met people in Africa, in Asia, on almost every continent, every continent but Antarctica, who are believers. And when we meet, there's something we have in common. And it's not just like, greetings fellow member of a shared theological heritage. It's like, we know the same guy. You know? We both met this person, Jesus, and we both love this person. And that's what unifies us over all language, over all culture.

And I gotta tell you something. You've heard me say this before. It's my pet peeve as a pastor. This is why I think it is so tragic when I hear Christians today get distracted from a simple focus on the living Jesus by, you name it, right, politics, controversy, culture war issues, conspiracy theories, religion even, things that divide us instead of uniting us in Christ, things that distract us instead of focusing us on Jesus.

Now listen carefully, that's not just a modern 21st century problem. That was happening in the first century, within just a few years of Jesus Christ. And we know this because in the Bible in the New Testament, there's a very ancient letter to the people called the Colossians. It was written by a church leader called the Apostle Paul, way back in about AD 60. It was sent to these Roman Christians who lived in a city called Colossi.

Now here's why this is relevant to today. They started out with a simple focus on Jesus, but they soon added to Jesus all kinds of other rules and rituals and regulations and requirements. And what this all added up to was just sheer exhaustion. And I should know because I've been there.

Maybe you can relate to this, but I started out as a child with a simple faith. Jesus loves me, this I know, and that saw me through some really tough times in our family. But then, ironically, when I became a pastor, I became distracted from that simple focus on just Jesus, on the wonder, the beauty, the awe of Jesus by, you know, am I studying the Bible enough? Am I praying enough? Am I doing enough good things? Am I a good enough person? I feel like such a failure all the time. I had the Colossian problem.

You could sum up the Colossian problem in two words: Jesus plus. And the Apostle Paul's solution is Jesus is enough. He writes them, guys, guys, guys, time out. I can see your joy is just leaking away. I want you to reset your mind on just the beauty of Jesus. The Christian life is not about trying harder to be a better person. It's about being transfixed by the beauty of Christ because you know the truism. You will move toward whatever you focus on. You will move toward whatever captures your imagination.

And so he's saying, I want to bring you back to just the beauty of Jesus, of what child this is, what man this is. And the way he does that is with a song lyric. It's in our Bibles as Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 through 20. At the very beginning of his letter to them, he stops and he just writes lyrics to a song. All the scholars say that these were some of the very, very earliest lyrics to a hymn that your brothers and sisters in Christ sang 2000 years ago. And I love that Paul is bringing the Colossians back to the beauty of Jesus through the beauty of art, through music, before he ever lectures them. It's just so fantastic.

Now it's hard to tell in English, but in the original Greek these words just flowed like poetry. And I want you to notice a word, a concept that Paul repeats over and over and over. It's three letters.

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, powers, rulers, authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, in him all things hold together. He's the head of the body, the church, he's the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that in all things, everything, he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross."

Amen. So what's the word here that he repeats? The little three letter word over and over again is all. All, all, all. This is a profound passage about the all sufficiency of Jesus Christ. And I want to dive just a little bit deeper into it and look at five things Paul just revels in here. And I hope they blow your mind as much as they blew mine when I was studying for this. I'm just gonna really focus on the first one and fly through the other four. Let's break this down.

Paul says, number one, Jesus is the God-revealer. The God-revealer. Did you notice he said he is the image of the invisible God? Now this word image comes from the Greek eikon or icon. Guess what English word we get from that? Yes, icon. It means perfect representation. In other words, when I look at Jesus, I see what God is like.

Now, what does that mean? How do I see the invisible God visibly in Jesus Christ? I want to take you back 1500 years before Jesus to Exodus chapter 34. Moses is burned out and he says, God, you know what's gonna keep me going? I need to see you, God. I need to see your glory. I need to see your essence. I want to peer into your soul, God. And God says, okay. And it says, God passes by Moses and kinda bares himself to Moses and says, this is who I am at my essence.

Exodus 34, verse 6: "God proclaims the LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." That is God's self description. Isn't that cool? This is what God says about what God is like. This is God on God.

Now I wish we could do a word study of this whole thing, but I just want to look at the first adjective here because all the rest are like this. It says, compassionate. Check this, this is so cool. I never knew this until I did a word study on this. In the original Hebrew language, this word is derived from the word for womb. What a beautiful picture. This is talking about the deep, tender love rooted in a mother's natural bond to the baby in her womb.

What does this mean? I want you to think about how much expectant moms love their babies who haven't even been born yet. Our daughter-in-law Anna gave birth to a grandchild of ours in September, number seven. And here's what I noticed. Anna already loved that baby before she was even born. Before she held her in her arms, before she napped on her chest, before she had done anything adorable, before she had told her, "I love you, mommy," before she had learned to read, performed at a piano recital, been in a cute Christmas pageant at Twin Lakes Church, gone to university, gotten a good job, been promoted. Heidi had done nothing to earn Anna's love. Anna loved Heidi before Heidi knew Anna loved Heidi. Anna loved Heidi before Heidi knew Anna existed.

And that is a picture of how much God loves you. You don't have to do anything to earn God's love. He just loves you. God loved you before you knew he loved you. God loved you before you knew God even existed. He loved you before you did anything right. He loved you before you did anything wrong. There is nothing you will ever be able to do to make God love you less. There's nothing you have to do to make him love you more.

Listen. God cherishes you with a love so deep, the only place we even see little hints of it on this planet is in the love of a mother for the baby in her womb. That is awesome. Similarly God is merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love, forgiving.

And so do you see when it says back in Colossians that Jesus is the image of the invisible God and that all of God's fullness dwelt in Jesus? It means in Jesus, we see all of those attributes in a person perfectly. Touching lepers and welcoming little children and hanging out with the social outcasts and feeding the hungry and healing the sick. There is a life changing view of the beautiful love of God in Jesus Christ.

And one reason this is so crucial is this. Listen, your behavior will reflect your object of worship. You say, well, what are you talking about? Whatever captures your sort of imagination, you're going to act like that person. You're gonna reflect their personality. So if your god is cruel, you're gonna be cruel. If your god or your idol is selfish, you're going to be self-serving. Consequently, I can't think of anybody I'd rather have capture my imagination than Jesus Christ. Amen? Because who is the God-revealer? Jesus. That's right.

You know, that's why we feed the poor as a church. Jesus did. That's why we love people different from us. Jesus did.

And not only is Jesus the perfect God revealer, and we're gonna pick up the speed here, Jesus is the creator. He says, "By him all things were created." Heaven and on earth, all things, every wave, ultimately. Every bird, every butterfly, every flower, every sunset, every star and every glance of every newborn. He created. The point is anything you love about creation, that was his work. And then he came to us as a child himself.

Alan Sandage is a legendary scientist, one of the greatest astrophysicists in the world down at Caltech, and when he was younger, he was an atheist. But the more he learned, the more he felt uncomfortable with that and saw it as really reductionist, and finally he became a Christian. And he said in an interview, "The world's too complicated in all of its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. I simply do not now believe that my old reductionist philosophy can explain everything. The more one learns, the more unbelievable it becomes unless there's some kind of organizing principle or architect." For believers, it was this need for a creator that ultimately led him to Christ.

And this has real personal implications for you and for me. Like if you think you're too far gone, right? There's no hope for you. Listen, if Jesus made the universe, he can make something new out of your life, amen? So who is the God revealer? Who is the creator?

And then number three, Jesus is the sustainer. He says, he's before all things, in him all things hold together. Every atom, he holds it together. And part of what this means is when you feel like I gotta hold it together, I'm falling apart. If Jesus has the power to hold you together, and he's the one who holds the universe together, then you know he has the power to keep you from disintegrating.

And Paul's really on a roll now, because let me ask you, who is the God revealer? Who is the creator? Who is the sustainer? And then Paul says number four, Jesus is the King. The king of what? Of all, of everything. The head of the church, the beginning, the firstborn, and in everything supreme. Like the song says, this is Christ the King.

Now, what difference does this make to you? Well, that's a defiant statement of hope because that means that every negative thing that can grab the headlines, right? Every dictator, every disaster, every dilemma, every disease will one day be undone forever because Jesus rules even over them. When you read the headlines today, or you got the doctor's report Friday, or you heard bad news and your heart sank, know this. Who will make all things right one day? Jesus.

That's right, and then look at where the song lands. I love this. Jesus is the reconciler. The reconciler between humans and God. Watch this, "For God was pleased to have all of that fullness that we've just been describing, all of it dwell in him." Wow, why?

So that through him, I mean, God could have come to earth with all of that, the creator, the sustainer, the God-revealer, and come to earth to just say, well, I saw it, somebody sent me something this morning. It was a t-shirt that they saw on Amazon that you can buy and it has Jesus and on the t-shirt it says, "Frankly, you are all disappointments." Right? He could have showed up with that message. Just gonna judge you all.

But instead, through him, he came to reconcile to himself all things. And here's what's incredible, don't miss this. It says God was pleased to do this. Pleased. God says to you, pleased to know you, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

Now, we've been seeing a lot of the word all here, but remember, this includes me, this includes you, and you, and you, and you. In the next two verses, look how Paul shifts. In every verse so far, he's been saying all. He created all things, he holds all things together, he reconciled all things, but he switches from all to you here.

Colossians 1:21-22: "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." Some of you remember thinking of God as the enemy. "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish, free from accusation."

Those three things, holy, without blemish, free of accusation, that is not something you have to aspire to. That's true of you right now. He sees you as holy, right now, because you're covered with Christ. That is awesome. That means God doesn't want you to carry a load of guilt around. You know, imagine a giant blackboard with all of your sins written across it. Don't worry, I can't see it, but you can imagine that, right? And what this means is God comes along with a giant cross-shaped eraser and erases it all.

You know, if your self-talk is always critical, accept this. God's forgiveness, in Jesus. That's why this child came.

Now, if you're taking notes, I want to suggest something. Take a pen and go back over your notes and change the word the in each point to my. Jesus is my God revealer, my creator, my sustainer, my ruler, my reconciler, because the point of all this is not for you to know some Christological aspects of theology. It's for you to know this Jesus.

And in fact, I want to give you an experiment. Take these notes, put these truths up in your bathroom mirror, in your Bible, by your bed, wherever you're gonna see them. And at least once this week, read back through Colossians 1:15 through 20, because Jesus is all this for you. And if you do this, if you read these over every day, what's gonna happen is your wonder at this beautiful thing is going to grow. And when you come back next weekend, when you come back from the candlelight services, you are going to find yourself at times in tears at the beauty, the beauty of Jesus Christ.

What child is this? The baby in a manger, not just a guru, not just a spiritual being, but God.

I'll close with this. Our own kids' Christmas pageant today, oh, so adorable, man. I was just grinning ear to ear the whole time. Two grandsons in the Christmas pageant, incidentally, two of my seven. But it reminded me of the well-known book, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by Barbara Robinson. How many of you have seen this book, read this book or movie? Oh, man, there's so many people here that are gonna be happy that I recommend this to you. This is a strong recommend. You gotta get this, you gotta read it.

It's a short kids book, but it's so clever and so hilarious. It's the story of the Herdman kids at Christmas. The little girl who's called Beth Bradley in the story is the narrator. She's a goody two shoes kind of a church kid and she says, this is how it opens, "The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars, even the girls, and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain in Fred Shoemaker's old broken down toolhouse."

And the worst of the Herdman gang is Imogene, the oldest and the leader of the gang, Sister Imogene. But somehow the Herdmans bully their way into the church Christmas pageant that year because they hear there are snacks involved at every rehearsal. The problem is they don't know anything at all about church or the Christmas story. Nothing. And so the other kids are trying to explain it to them and they don't get it.

And the day of the Christmas pageant finally arrives, everybody's dreading it, thinking the Herdmans gonna ruin the whole thing. And a few things pop up that they do, like Gladys Herdman who plays the angel, instead of saying, "Hark!" to the shepherds, she says, "Hey! To you a Christ is born!" And the people sitting there go, "Well, that's kind of probably what it sounded like." Look at the shepherds, they're afraid of Gladys. They were afraid of the angel.

But nothing really bad happens until the pageant concludes with the congregation singing "Silent Night." Things take, well, a surprising turn. The narrator writes, "Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened. Imogene Herdman was crying. In the candlelight, her face was all shiny with tears. And she didn't even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there, awful old Imogene, in her crooked veil, crying, crying, and crying."

She had just caught on to the idea of God and the wonder of Christmas. And Imogene, so struck by the wonder of it all, that when she goes backstage she can't see where she's going and walks right into a closet and gets a black eye. And the narrator says, "Christmas just came over her all at once. Like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying and walking into the furniture."

She suddenly got, what child is this? Who is the one who created it all, who holds it all together, and who came to reconcile you to God? Who is that person? Jesus. Amen.

When you get that, "the King of kings salvation brings, then let your loving heart enthrone him."

Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you today that you didn't leave us alone, but you yourself came to us in Jesus Christ to reveal God to us and create a new creation in us. So may we receive you into our lives and then just beam with your love to the world. In the name of Christ the beautiful King we pray, and all God's people said, Amen.