God in the Ordinary

Prayer

Out of the Ordinary

Years ago, when I was in college, I had the opportunity to go on a weeklong backpacking trip in the mountains of south-central Colorado through Young Life’s Wilderness Ranch. It was an amazing and challenging experience - whole week in the mountains with just the gear on your back. In that entire time we only encountered one other person - strangely enough, it was a shepherd. He was on horseback, herding his sheep around.

It sticks in my memory because it was such an usual sight - have to say, I don’t come across a whole lot of shepherds. Not too many of those around as far as I can tell - well, at least not in this part of the world - or in this time in history. Of course, in the time of Jesus (which would have been about 4-6 BC, a little over 2,000 years ago), in the ancient near east, shepherds were all over the place. Just another ordinary occupation of the time. Not a highly regarded one, but a common one nonetheless.

That’s part of what I want to draw your attention to tonight as we reflect on the story of the birth of Jesus, this amazing miracle of the Word becoming flesh, God becoming like one of us. Because there’s so much about this story that’s absolutely ordinary, including a group of shepherds working the night shift, tending their flocks.

Now, absolutely, there’s some things going on here that are amazingly extraordinary - chief among them is the appearance of the angels to the shepherds. It’s hard to fathom what that must have been like - to be sitting there, per usual, through the long hours of the night, watching sheep - not the most exciting job in the world. Then, suddenly the heavens up, a glorious figure appears making the grand announcement of the birth of Jesus - good news of great joy, in the town of Bethlehem the Savior has been born.

Then, to emphasize the point, a host of angels appear, proclaiming the glory and greatness of the Lord, because his great plan of salvation for all of humanity is finally being put into play - it’s happening! Then just as suddenly, the angels return to heaven and the night turns quiet again.

But the thing that catches my attention is the sign the angel gives the shepherd as evidence of the birth of the Lord, the promised Messiah - “You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Which is exactly what they find - a newborn baby, there with his mother and father, Mary and Joseph, all wrapped up and lying in a manger.

Reason I point that out is how ordinary the scene is. I mean, it’s a little strange that the baby Jesus is lying in a manger, an animal trough - not usually where they kept babies. But, after all, they had enough difficulty finding a place to stay in a town crowded due to the census ordered by Caesar. And those are the types of circumstances where you just make do, figure out what works.

But other than that, it’s just another precious newborn being oooed and aaahed over by his beaming parents. If the shepherds hadn’t received the incredible message, it would have not been a big deal, other than the news of the birth of a baby is always fun. After all, as far as we know, no one else noticed anything remarkable going on - other than the shepherds talking about it, the rest of Bethlehem went on, life as usual.

We see the same thing with the story of the wise men coming to visit Jesus in Matthew 2. It’s interesting to consider that the star that directed them towards Bethlehem, that was in the sky for all to see. The wise didn’t live in the area, they came from “the east.” From another country - they traveled a long way to get there. They passed by a lot of people who were oblivious. Perhaps there were others - maybe lots of other - who noticed the star. Look at it, I’ve never seen that before. Or look how bright that star is.

But other than that, no one paid any attention. After all, there are thousands of stars in the sky, just another one. Even after the wise men travel to Jerusalem announcing that they’ve seen the star, asking about the newborn king of the Jews, no one else bothers to go check it out. They just go on with their lives as usual.

Out all of the thousands and thousands of people in that whole region, it’s only a group of shepherds and three Magi who go to see the baby Jesus. Just to be clear, they didn’t come visit at the same time, likely, the Magi comes months, even a couple of years later - Jesus may have been a toddler by that time.

You would think that Mary & Joseph would be inundated with visitors, by the hundreds, the thousands. If they had, they might actually have been rather underwhelmed to be honest. They would have just seen a young couple living in humble circumstances, trying to make the best of it, as they raise what would have seemed like an ordinary young child.

God in the Ordinary

And this leads me to the point I want to make tonight - what the story of Christmas, the birth of Jesus reminds us of: God comes to us in the ordinary. In the regular stuff of life. You don’t have to climb the highest mountain - where he’ll be sitting up at the top, waiting (which is really good news, I was doing some seriously huffing and puffing climbing a hill on our trip to the Seattle area). We don’t have to look for some big miraculous sign. It’s right here in the ordinary, day-to-day aspects of life that God comes to us - if we have eyes to see it.

One of the things we see in the Gospels is how much Jesus had the eyes to see it. He saw the hand of the Father in every aspect of life. He recognized this as a God-soaked world - that you can really see signs of God everywhere. As the cherubim who appeared to Isaiah in a vision declared, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.” God’s glory is everywhere - in the most mundane, most ordinary things.

Jesus pointed this out constantly in his teachings - He would point to the birds all around - “Look at the birds of the air; they do not reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” When Jesus looked at the birds, he didn’t just see birds, he saw God at work, God’s faithful and gracious provision. Birds don’t store food up, and yet God makes sure they are fed.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there - he recognizes what this demonstrates to us about the Father - “Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” In other, in the most ordinary of creatures - birds, Jesus sees the heart of God, how God he is to provide - and if that’s true of birds, how much more must it be true of us, since we are far more precious to God than birds. How freeing that is for us, I need not worry, my faithful Father is looking out for me. Which is exactly what Jesus is teaching here - because he sees the hand of his Father in the ordinary.

And Jesus is constantly doing this - to teach about the kingdom of God, he points to seeds and soil. He points to trees. To fields. To the growing wheat. Ordinary things, things that people in that day and time saw everyday. Things that we can still very much relate to as well.

And the invitation from Jesus is for us to discover him in all the ordinary aspects of life. He wants us to know him, to experience his love and his goodness, how faithful and gracious he is, the healing, saving work he can bring into our lives. So he constantly pointed to the most ordinary of things as a way to help us see him.

When he encountered the Samaritan woman at the well, asking her to help him get a drink of water. She was confused that he would even be speaking to her, considering the circumstances (Jew vs. Samaritan, man and woman), and he tells her that if she had any sense of who she was talking to (after, he looked like just an ordinary guy), she would be asking him and he would give her living water, water that would, as Jesus says, “become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus is inviting her to discover God in the ordinary, in water, something we all use on a daily basis. We all know the experience of thirst, of wanting that deep sense of a thirst satisfied. Jesus is saying you will find that in me, it will well up inside of you, eternally. I can give you this, this fullness of life. Every time we engage with water, we can be reminded of this wonderful truth.

In the same way, Jesus declares to us, I am the light of the world. You cannot get more ordinary than light. In just a few moments we’re going to light all of the candles we have, turn down the room lights in order to let the light shine in the darkness. So that we might see better God in something as ordinary as light. So we can be reminded, as Jesus tells us, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

All so we can know, when we have those periods of darkness - and we will have them - everyone does. I certainly have. I’ve had those moments when I’ve felt utterly alone, where hope for the good seemed so far away, that things were not going to get better - which is awfully bleak to consider. That’s darkness. Those are exactly the times when we need to know what Jesus promises us - that the darkness will not overtake us, we don’t have to be consumed by it - because we have the light of life. We have Jesus with us, the light that shines in the darkness, so we never have to walk in darkness.

In a few moments we’re going to engage in another ordinary activity. Something ordinary Jesus gave us in order to see him. We’re going to have Communion. We’re going to share some bread and wine (ok, grape juice). Common food items shared around the world and throughout history. And Jesus commands us, Do this - break this bread, share this cup - in remembrance of me. Remember me. What I did for you. Why I came in the first place - to offer myself as a sacrifice of sins. To save you, rescue you, from brokenness and despair and bondage and death. Good news of great joy for all the people.

Over and over again God comes to us in the most ordinary aspects of life. Things that are around us every day. The cup of water we drink, sating our thirst. The warm water of the shower washing away the grime. The lights we flick on in order to find our way through the darkness. The bread we eat, nourishing our bodies. The wine we drink in joy and celebration. A baby all wrapped in swaddling clothes, the promise of life. It’s God’s way of saying here I am. Know me. Know the life I long to give you. Experience the healing I can bring. The joy I want to fill you with.

There are signs of it all around. In the most ordinary things. Because Jesus wants us to have the extraordinary - the full and forever life he came to give. The full and forever life he alone can give. I would like to offer an invitation that if you would like to experience the full and forever life that Jesus offers, you can pray to receive it right now. It’s a gift that Jesus offers, available to us anytime. We’d certainly love to talk to you about that.

Closing Prayer