You Are Invited... Preparation

Preparation is key isn’t it?

The late Johnny Carson was an amazing entertainer. Every show he hosted gave people the impression that anything could happen. His wit and ability to respond to his celebrity guests were masterful. When asked how his show was always able to feel so spontaneous, his answer was interesting. He said, “We are able to be spontaneous, because we are always so prepared.”

As we celebrate Advent this Christmas season, I invite you to focus on the preparation that went into bringing Jesus into world. When you study through the Old Testament, you can read that everything that Jesus came to do in this world had already been prepared for Him.

People of faith along with the faithless are preparing right now for something in their life to happen. We are built to prepare. God made our brains to have the ability to compute information to help us prepare for every situation in life.

And yet, many of us rarely feel prepared for the situations we face. This is part of the sinful nature of man. We struggle because we don’t know how to prepare.

Without preparation, we lack confidence and peace. Without confidence and peace, we are left open to pain and suffering induced by our bad decisions and the works of Satan.

Today, I want to shed light on just one way that God prepared the world for Jesus Christ and His ministry.

God prepared Jesus to be silent before His persecutors.

Matthew 27:11-14 says, “11 Now Jesus stood before the governor. “Are you the king of the Jews?” the governor asked him. Jesus answered, “You say so.” 12 While he was being accused by the chief priests and elders, he didn’t answer. 13 Then Pilate said to him, “Don’t you hear how much they are testifying against you?” 14 But he didn’t answer him on even one charge, so that the governor was quite amazed.”

As Jesus stood before the Roman governor Pilate, He was questioned about His divinity and position as the holy king of Jews.

While Jesus was the qualified leader of the Jews (And all people), He kept His mouth shut before His accusers. He stayed silent and allowed the judgment of the people to overwhelm His case.

Instead of walking away from the cross, Jesus stared His enemies in the eye with silence.

As a people, we have become expert defense lawyers of ourselves and harsh judges of others.

Jesus responded differently than we would have.

Instead of the vengeful King, Jesus was the suffering servant.

This was God’s plan for the beginning. The messiah, who was born into the world was destined for the cross of calvary. He was elected to die for the sins of man. God’s will would be performed in the blood of Jesus.

Many years beforehand, we can see the Father’s preparedness in the words of Isaiah.

READ Isaiah 53:1-12

1. Ordained to be Outwardly Unimpressive.

Israel knew God to be involved with His people. His mighty hand and outstretched arm had been on display for many years.

In Genesis, He was the creator and director of God’s people who blessed Father Abraham. In Exodus, He delivered His people from oppression in Egypt and pointed them down the road to the promised land. He would continue to perform wonders and keep His people safe and offer grace whenever they fell away from His perfect plan.

Eventually, Israel abandoned God and His plan.

The suffering servant would come from the line of Israel. From the tribe of Judah.

He would represent the people as their savior and messiah.

The messiah that the prophets spoke of would not take on the appearance the people expected in their king.

God’s focus on the messiah would come in the form of a suffering servant. He would not focus on the outward beauty of Jesus, but on the inward holiness.

He would bear what others translations called “griefs”.

Another word for diseases.

His appearance would contradict the normal expectation for a charismatic deliverer.

The people looked upon the servant who carried their diseases with “disgust”.

Princess Fiona waited in her castle to be rescued by her “prince”. Many had tried and failed until Shrek showed up. When she saw Shrek, she saw her own ugliness.

God did not prepare the Christmas story to unfold the way we expected it to be.

Instead, God used an ordinary, poor Jewish family to usher in the messiah.

If we can’t stop and wrap our mind around the humility of Jesus’ earthly life, we won’t be able to fully celebrate in amazement this season.

He was not going to come and liberate the Jews from mighty Rome. He didn’t even come to fight their enemies. He came to fight the enemy behind it all.

Because of how the world reacted to Jesus, we became the enemy.

We rejected Jesus and despised him. We saw nothing when we should have seen value.

God is so confident in His plan to redeem the world, He didn’t even attempt to impress us. He called us to look into what the rest of the world calls the unimportant shadows to find our life. Jesus, in bodily from did not impress. What He came to do in the face of obscurity is impressive.

2. Chosen to Bear Wrath.

Verse 4 shares the experience of this suffering servant.

He, being innocent of sin was treated as guilty. Called a murderer, idolater, fornicator, sinner...

He took upon Himself everything that is wrong with the world. Everything we see in front of us that is unholy and sinful.

The servant bore the disease of mankind and its sins upon Himself.

And on this earth, no one praised Him for it.

Instead, they treated Him as if they deserved punishment.

But verse 4 goes deeper.. The suffering servant and man of sorrows would be struck down by God.

Everything that God does is done in His sovereignty, plan, and will.

When Jesus stood in front of sinners, their accusations and insults were planned beforehand. The way they treated the suffering servant was in God’s redemptive plan.

He took our rebellion and allowed Himself to be pierced, crushed, and punished for the purpose of man’s healing.

Why did God choose things to be this way?

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways”. This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” - Isaiah 55:8-9

God is working from a different platform and frame of mind that goes beyond our understanding.

It was God’s will for Jesus to die. Jesus came to do the will of His Father. His most important role was to be faithful to His Father’s mission.

Even though it resulted in His suffering, Jesus took His peace and placed it on mankind and took our wrath and endured it upon Himself. He was fully willing to follow the will of God.

Are you able to accept His message today in your life and allow it change you?

God chose for this to happen. He chose the cross for His son so that all of mankind (who deserves death and hell) might be redeemed back to Him.

Why did He do it this way? Why did He place His son in the gutter. Because we put ourselves there and couldn’t get out ourselves.

God, the Father prepared His son for the wrath of all mans sin to fall onto Jesus Christ.

3. Commissioned to Be Silent.

The servant, saw our rebellion and our wandering like sheep.

Sheep tend to get lost and be unaware of the consequences of their actions. Israel had wandered away from God.

The suffering servant bore the penalty of their mistakes.

But unlike sheep who don’t know the penalty they face before going to slaughter, the servant walked towards His suffering and death with full knowledge of what was to come.

He submitted Himself to be slaughtered and maintained silence while doing so.

He never plead or complained about what was to come.

“In ourselves we were scattered; in Christ we were collected together; by nature we wander, driven headlong to destruction; in Christ, we find the way to the gate of life.” (John Calvin)

The innocent was punished as guilty. The guilty rewarded as innocent.

What makes a man a godly man? A woman a godly woman? In the lenses of scripture, we find our answer in the way Jesus Christ carried Himself when He endured the cross.

Jesus who had the ability to defend His body, reputation, and honor said nothing because He saw the will of God of His own safety. He knew what His Father put Him on the earth to do.

He didn’t own anyone anything. He willingly laid down His life that no one was able to take away from Him.

The world was screaming and Jesus stayed silent and saved them with His sacrifice.

The world can scream and destroy one another all they want. Jesus is unfazed. He is saving, redeeming, and healing. We, who know this truth are not in the business of explaining the actions of the God’s holy church.

We are making disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, etc.

We are the hands and feet of Jesus that the world desperately needs.

We don’t fight battles the way the world does. We are calculated, focused, and prepared to serve our Lord.

Isn’t it astounding that we can prepare to worship our King this Christmas because He planned and prepared our redemption?