At Christmas
we celebrate the Good News of the birth of Jesus. Isaiah describes it as being
like a light shining in the darkness. The Hebrews in Isaiah’s time, six
Centuries before the birth of Jesus, felt they had been abandoned by God. As a
consequence of their rebellion against God they had lost their spiritual
protection and been conquered and oppressed by other nations. Their punishment
was temporary. The Prophet Isaiah passed on the Good News that God would intervene
in history in the future – through the birth of a child in Galilee (9.1) and “the
government will be on his shoulders” (v. 6) This intervention would “shatter
the yoke that burdened them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their
oppressor” (v. 4) – i.e. our human fear of death and separation from God. The
Good News was that a saviour would come and redeem individuals from their fear
of death and the sin guilt that prevented them from being in the presence of
God. To understand what God is doing in history, we need to understand why a
saviour was needed, what this saviour needed to do and God’s desire to “make
righteousness”. (Isaiah 61.11)
1. Why do we need a Saviour?
I was brought
up as a cradle Anglican in a more Liberal environment where it was vaguely assumed
that we were all saved by our baptism and only had to live a good life to be included
in the heavenly kingdom. I remember mocking evangelicals who seemed to think
Anglicans needed to be saved. What I did not understand, until I read the whole
Bible myself and became involved in healing ministry, was that:
- God loves us and desires to be in a personal
emotional relationship of love – both on earth and in Heaven
- God is holy
– so holy we would all burn up in His presence
- Sin is a serious problem – pollutes our soul, makes
us unholy
- We cannot ‘do good’ and pay for our sin – without dying
- ‘Banker theory’ of debits and credits is a lie – can’t
work
- We cannot save ourselves – we all need a saviour!
2. What does our Saviour do?
- The natural consequence of sin is spiritual and
physical death
- We all need a Saviour who redeems us - dies in our
place
- This is the Good News of Jesus – Christians believe
that in our Baptism we enter a New Covenant with God who promises to
forgive us when we repent and put our whole trust in Jesus
- Christians are taught about and Baptized into the
life, sacrificial death and miraculous Resurrection of Jesus
- Baptism connects us spiritually and emotionally to
Jesus so that our sin guilt can pass from us into the body of Jesus and be
included in the ‘sins of the whole world’ that he died for on the Cross –
time is different in supernatural dimension
- God’s forgiveness is a gift - Good News of our
Saviour
3. What is God doing in coming to us
as a Saviour?
In the
Readings for last Sunday (Isaiah 61.11) some words jumped of the page like a
light coming into the darkness:
“For
as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the
sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up
before all nations.”
·
Righteousness
means loving, holy and right relationships – in contrast to injustice, violence
and oppression
·
Baptism
Covenant defines right relationship as belief in God the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit as defined in the Apostles Creed
·
Baptized
Christians are to “continue in the Apostle’s teaching and fellowship, in the
breaking of bread and the prayers” (BAS p.159)
·
Right
relationship includes “resisting evil” and, when (not if) we fall into sin we “repent
and return to the Lord”.
·
Right
relationship includes “proclaiming by word and example the Good News of Jesus
Christ” – what we say and do.
·
“Seeking
and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves” (Baptism
Service Promises)
·
“Striving
for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every
human being”
3.
God is “making righteousness” at Christmas by reaching out to us in love and
drawing us into right-relationship
This is the light that came into the
world with the birth of Jesus. God was doing a new thing. God was not sending a
messenger, but coming Himself in human form to establish a New Covenant of
Forgiveness that would enable all humanity, not just the Hebrews, to come into
and remain in a right relationship with Him.
·
A
right relationship that is spiritual as well as physical
·
A
right relationship that is eternal and continues on in another dimension after
our physical body dies
·
This
is the Good News – a Saviour has been born to you!
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