God Speaks so He doesn’t Have to Shout
Notes
Transcript
Handout
We often experience things we don’t have words for.
mom and Kate
We often experience things we don’t have words for.
mom and Kate
Have you ever been left speechless?
Sitting reading a journal article. Suddenly the house rocked a little. It shook. The couch shook. The table shook. More rattled really. I stopped everything. I have never experienced the house doing that. Not in that wholesale way. Everything rattled. Robin sat next to me without even noticing.
I asked what was that?
She didn’t even flinch. We live on a busy road with lots of trucks and semis. It was a truck she answered. We both had one experience with two definitions. Something happened that I didn’t have an explanation for.
I had the experience but no words. I had never been in an earthquake before. I had nothing to compare it to. So words were missing. I sat there for a moment to see what would happen. I was a bit surprised. Even a little shocked.
I looked it up and didn’t see an earthquake registered. So the experience wa there but the language was not. My wife looked a bit later and saw that there was an earthquake at that time in that spot. So the event was solved through the experience and external evidence. I didn’t fully understand the experience until I understood the explanation that went along with it.
Sometimes we experience thing so far outside of our understanding that we need a little bit of outside help.
The shepherds we are going to look at today have a kind of experience where they need a little bit of guidance as to what to do and how to respond. When we meet the shepherds they are minding their business and doing their work. They were not expecting anything strange, absurd or outside the normal to happen to them. But it was right into that situation that something absurd and strange happens. Let’s look at the text.
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
An event takes place that they do not have any previous information to. God brings an announcement that the shepherds were not ready for. An event from outside of time itself has entered into our time in such a way that the shepherds, after some coaching are able to not only make sense of, but do something about.
This morning we are going to look at the way that God speaks into our lives and how He provides the right understanding for us to help make sense of our world. Sometimes we face things that we don’t have words for, where language eludes us. We don’t know what to make and either we are left speechless or we launch into a flood of words that tries to cover up for what we don’t know.
Sometimes we need some guidance on what something means. We need someone to fill in the gaps for us, otherwise we can be left speechless and can have a hard time taking a next step.
God shows us what life is, He brings life and light to darkness, gives us His voice and Speaks for us to help us.
God Speaks so we can Speak
God Speaks so we can Speak
The shepherds have this encounter with an angel and are told that there is incredible news, that God Himself has entered into the world and is bringing salvation to humanity.
And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
The angels not only tell them that something has happened, they tell them where to find the Savior. They provide everything they need for the shepherds to do what they need to do next. This is what we can’t miss in the incarnation. That God Himself showed up in the flesh. God has done everything necessary for us to respond.
Look at how God has shown us who He is
Look at how God has shown us who He is
He revealed who He is in Creation
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
We can look around and see that there is an order to creation, what some scientists now call “fine tuning.” We see that there is overlap in the creational structure of genetics in biological life. There is an interconnectedness between human life and the created order. We can look around and see that what has been made has a Maker.
Creation and the incarnation are not two separate events. God governs the universe and that is part of the work of restarting creation in the incarnation.(1) Not only do we have creation to see God’s work, God becomes very specific so that we don’t miss it. It is announced not only that God governs the world but that God would come close in order to act specifically on behalf on humanity.
In the other telling of the Advent Story in the book of Matthew we meet Joseph, Jesus’ father and he encounters and angel who tells him Who it is in fact God is.
But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us).
Humanity, in this case Joseph, is told exactly what God is going to do. When God speaks He gives us enough to be able to take a step. To be able to act. God’s voice is never static, it is not something that is stale or lifeless.
And because God’s voice gives life and is life, because when He speaks He does so sufficiently, we are always able to act upon what He says.
When God speaks, He gives us the ability to speak as well. We share in what He is communicating because when God enters into humanity He is calling us to participate with Him.
Look at what the shepherds do.
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.
The angels had given the shepherds a language to use and understand what was happening. They were able to find the Christ and then communicate to Mary and Joseph what had happened.
We will often be presented with issues and situations in our lives that we wish we could have some kind of angelic visitation in order to understand what is happening. But while we don’t always get that kind of experience we do have God’s communication with us to know where to go and what to do. And it is of great benefit to know God’s perspective, because God shows us where to find life. He shows us where to look. And those places are often not in the areas we would often go to.
If the shepherds had just been told to look for God. Go look for Christ the Lord. Where do you think they would go? They would go to the palace, they would go to the temple. They would find the shiniest of items, the most glittery of paths in order to find “Christ the Lord.”
This is why we need help. Because God is to be found in places we would never look. The Shepherds are given the instructions to find God, the Savior of all mankind “lying in a manger.” It is a place they would never have looked. If they were given a thousand chances they likely would never have chosen to look for God in a manger.
This is why we need the voice of God in our lives. Because He is not always found in the places where we look for life. Just like the shepherds would never have looked in a manger to find God, we would be hard pressed to look for life in the strange places where God dwells.
We wouldn’t look for the face of Christ in the stranger, or the orphan. We wouldn’t want to see Christ in the hungry or the imprisoned. We wouldn’t want to see Christ in our enemy or in our own weakness.
What would God want with our weakness? With our vulnerability and our inability? These are places we would never go seeking God and yet.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
This is why it is so important to hear God speaking. And to hear where He is pointing. Because it is not always to the places we think He is working. He shows us that in the way that Christ shows up in the earth.
And God speaks just like the manger. He is going to show us where life is. He won’t deceive, He won’t manipulate, God speaks plainly. God shows us the avenues of life, not through shouting or coercing but through telling us. He speaks as a friend to another friend. He has revealed His Son out of trust that we would pursue His places of life. We have to trust Him and His word.
We are always trying to make sense and make meaning out of events. We aren’t always sure what it is that something means. We have a conversation with someone that leads us wondering what happens. Or we receive news or a diagnosis that leads us wondering what’s next.
God enters in and directs and guides us toward life. God’s voice takes a normal night and shows us where we can find Him. He does not leave us without the right words or the right way to find life.
The is the incarnation. Because God has come to the earth, we are not left without a way forward. God becoming like us not only speaks life into our normal and material world but we are also given hope because God has come near to the very same creation we wake up to every morning. Christ, in coming to the earth, restructures and reestablishes all of creation. We see, hear, and respond differently based on our connection to God coming to the earth.
In this way our language can become a language praise. When we pay attention to God speaking, even the places of hurt become places of worship. Even the places we never thought able to bear life become places of adoration. When God speaks He does so in a way that we can hear and we can respond. He shows us where life is and transforms our language into language of worship.
Our words become a language of praise
Our words become a language of praise
Look at what happens here. The Shepherds hear from God and because God speaks, He directs. All of God’s words to us are good and life giving. They transform the places and things we think little or nothing of into places of worship.
But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
When we hear from God and follow Him to the places of life, we can’t help but respond in a language of praise. Our hearts and lives fill up to overflowing and as we ponder what God has done, what He has spoken, we enter back into our lives praising God. The directing voice of God leads Mary and the Shepherds to worship.
We don’t just worship on Sundays and call it good. We worship on Sundays so that we can return on Monday “glorifying and praising God for all” we have seen and heard, “as it had been told” to us.
Whether pondering in our hearts or glorifying God in community, the voice of God who speaks and leads will lead us back to worship.
Our worship becomes a way to interact with the world. We look to God who is worthy of everything and anything we can say and who gives us a way forward, who communicates who we are and who we are called to be.
Look at the language of worship at FAC. When you bring in food, you act in worship. When you pray for someone, or when you ask them sincerely, how are you? If you shook a hand and said good morning, you are acting in charity and love to your neighbor, that becomes an act of worship to God.
A church who is listening to and hearing from God will be bursting in the language and the action of worship.
God is speaking this Advent. He, in His incarnation is communicating who He is and what He is calling us to do. Maybe you are in a season like my earthquake where you are without words. God’s arrival provides the words we need to take the next step. Continue to seek Him, ask Him, cry out for His voice. He has spoken and will continue to do so.
(1)Behr, John. 2015. “Saint Athanasius on ‘Incarnation.’” In Incarnation: On the Scope and Depth of Christology, edited by Niels Henrik Gregersen, 87–88. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
