Sermon Tone Analysis

The proclaimation of a mute causes fear, wonderment, and anticipation for the mystery of God.

Are we able to embrace the wonderment of the mystery of God this Christmas?

The mystery of God can only be embraced by those who embrace mystery.

Jesus directed us to be like children because children embrace mystery, they are surrounded by mystery.

Children have not yet learnt how to avoid mystery and control mystery, making it submit to their lordship.

This world no longer holds mystery for man when everything we see and do is about calculating and exploitation of that and those around us.

Jesus thus becomes about a means to an end, instead of being the means and end Himself.

We rush by the manger, instead of sitting at the manger in wonder at the mystery before us, God being born as a babe.

God taking on human flesh, His own creation, and moving into the neighborhood.

This is the mystery that we refer to as The Incarnation, God born a man.

A.W. Tozer wrote, “Nobody marvels, because the whole business can be explained.”

(Tozer On the Holy Spirit, 365 Day Devotional, Feb 13th).

Can I marvel at the manger?

Am I able?

Or have I lost the wonder of my faith?

Has reason overtaken my faith in God?

In Christ?

In the Holy Spirit?

Does the Holy Spirit even register in my mind?

Or has he been left in the cold out in the stable because there is no room in my inn?

Tozer made the statement, “I have always claimed that a believing Christian is a miracle, and at the precise moment that you can fully explain him, you have a Christian no longer.”

(A.W. Tozer, On the Holy Spirit, 365 Day Devotional, Feb 13th).

“In our day, we send reason ahead on its little short legs and faith never follows.”

-A.W. Tozer, On the Holy Spirit, 365 Day Devotional, Feb 13th).

Can I look at the manger with wonder?

Can I embrace it’s mystery?

Or have I robbed the world of it’s King?

The Apostle Paul speaks these words,

The moment I can reason the grace of God, is the moment my faith is dead.

For Jesus is an acceptance of a gift, by faith, not through the working of the mind.

Embrace the mystery and wonder of the manger.

To psychoanalyze God’s reason is to trample over His Love, the Gift in the manger.

It’s too search for the bobbitrap in the straw, to seek the string attached to the infant.

What’s the catch?

Where’s the switch?

It’s to echo Zechariah’s question, “How will I know that this is so?” (Luke 1:18).

I am too old, too established, too civilized, too scientific, too educated, too intelligent…too blind.

Salvation arrived in a manger.

He was prophesied and proclaimed.

Zechariah, do you believe?

See the Wonder, welcome the Mystery.

You have sought healing.

You have sought meaning.

You have sought wholeness.

You have sought truth.

You have sought victory.

Have you sought the manger and believed in the Mystery?

The manger holds all the treasure and wisdom, you will ever need, hidden in a babe.

What wonder!

What a mystery!

But yet the rich, the powerful, the influential, the popular, the religious…the blind did not see, did not hear.

But the blind did see, the poor became rich, the lowly became powerful, the humble influential, the simple wise and saved.

Zechariah became mute, because He did not believe the angel Gabriel’s prophecy, God’s words, God’s truth, God’s power…God’s arrival.

God spoke.

After 400 years of silence, God finally speaks.

I would question what I heard and saw probably too.

I would be afraid.

God has not moved or spoken for 400 years and now…He speaks.

Our prayers go unanswered, our hopes up in flames, but God will finally show, He will once again speak…He is speaking, showing…are we hearing, are we looking?

Are we mute, because we disbelieve?

Jesus faith doesn’t walk with my reason.

Hope irreconsiable with science?

Is fact fiction, or fiction fact?

God says,

Zechariah has 9 months to think about the angel’s message, about the angel’s words: fact or fiction.

Zechariah is literally left speechless.

The baby is born, what will his name be?

The name will indicate Zechariah’s belief.

Does God live?

Does God speak?

Does God care?

Does Zechariah believe the Mystery to come?

The boy’s name will be John.

Zechariah believes, his tongue is set free.

Fear comes over the people.

Their hearts are striken.

Does God live?

Has God spoken?

Who will this child be?

What is this mystery?

Zechariah prophecies that John will be called the prophet of the Most High and will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, giving knowledge of salvation to his people and the forgiveness of their sins (Luke 1:76-77).

He believes the Wonder, He believes God’s Mystery.

Have you embraced the Mystery of the manger?

Are you able to wonder at the Wonderful?

Do you have faith to embrace the Faithful?

Have you drawn close to your true Love?

Pastor Deitrich Bonnhoeffer wrote about the mystery of love this,

The greatest mystery is not the most distant star; on the contrary, the closer something comes to us and the better we know it, the more mysterious it becomes for us.

-Deitrich Bonnhoeffer, God is in the Manger; p.20

The more we love God and draw close to Him, the more mysterious He will become for us.

Why?

Because we will truly come to realize how unexplainable He truly is, and how unexplainable His love for us truly is.

This is the wonder, the mystery of the manger and what a mute came to realize…that God came in the flesh because He is near the lowly, loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak, the brokenhearted, the humble and the needy.

God loves humanity.

Amen