God’s Redemption                                                               12/20/42

 

Scripture:  Luke 1: 68-79

 

Text:  John 3: 16  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son....”

 

For the past two Sundays we have considered some of the truths apparent in the very beginning of our Bible.  We tried to free ourselves of the difficulty into which people are plunged when they attempt, with simple and literal minds, to read Genesis as history or as exact science.  We tried to see truth through the eyes of those who know poetry and good stories.  And reading the splendid opening chapters of the Bible we found certain great assurances about this world in which we live and of which we are a part. 

 

We found the stirring assurance that the world is a creation, and man the creature, of a great Directive Intelligence.  We have read, again and again, that the world was created good, and that man was created good.  Then we have read farther and found the attempts of the writer of Genesis to show us how evil appeared in the world.  Man, imperfect being that he is, and endowed by his creator with a will by which he may freely choose what he shall be and do, falls into temptation and, if he forsakes divine guidance, follows temptation’s progressive leading, step by step, into wrong decision and wrong acts.

 

The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is more than his imperfect nature can “digest.”  And man brings corruption into his good world.  The moral or ethical evils of his world are of man’s own making.  The wretchedness, the fear, the hatred, the shame, the oppression of human life is of man’s making.  When man becomes careless or when he is ignorant, terrible evils can occur.  When he becomes hateful, proud, headstrong, he can do horrible things to his fellows.

 

When he comes to his senses, he finds that getting himself out of his trouble is like pulling himself up by his own boot straps.  There is no way by which he can cleanse his shame or heal his scars by himself, though he can be cleansed by the grace of God.

 

The book of Genesis goes on, after the third chapter, to describe man’s career.  Ill-will and jealousy soon appear.  There is enmity between Adam’s two eldest sons.  Suspicion and mistrust and jealousy end in murder.  In the light of the goodness of the Creator, mankind grows less and less good until God repents of his creation and decides it were better to wipe out corrupt man.  And, in the story of the flood, he nearly does so.

 

The whole collection of Old Testament books is an inspired attempt to show the relation of man to God, and of God to man.  Man’s early understanding of God is primitive and child-like, as though he thought God were a man walking about in a garden, just like his own creatures.  Later man understands God as the guiding spirit of a particular chosen people.  Still later man thinks of God as the deity of all peoples.

 

In some respects, man develops through the Old Testament.  The character of David is advanced, in some respects, from that of earlier men.  But he is open to the same temptations; finds himself in difficulty and shame and evil just as other men before and since.  Throughout all the narratives, man’s corruption is the result of the errors and wickedness of men.  And man finds no salvation in himself.

 

I was greatly interested to hear a layman say recently that, in his opinion, the present war is not God’s war (Joe Louis to the contrary), but is man’s war, brought on by the mistakes, the foolishness, the stupidity, the cunning, the wickedness of men - all of us included.  He also said that it seemed to him that it is a war between the ideals, or the philosophy, of Jesus Christ, which glorifies God, and the philosophy of Frederick Nietzsche - the philosophy that glorifies man.  The Nietzscheian philosophy, that the physically superior man has a right, by his strength, to rule all others, has produced some terrible things in our world.  The people of certain conquered countries are being allowed to die of starvation without the slightest apparent care of the conquerors.  Innocent people are reported being slaughtered for the sole and simple reason that they happen to be Jews by birth and religious training.

 

The rest of the world is resolved that it will not be ruled, nor dominated, by any people who suppose themselves to be better, by physical breeding, than others.  We do not tolerate such animalistic corruption on the part of man.  Or do we?

 

But what shall deliver man from his own evil?  Shall force of arms?  After all, a victory in arms represents just that - a victory in arms, a demonstration of superior might and the determination to use it.  It is not necessarily good in itself; it could be evil, unless we choose to make it good.  And we have no assurance that we can make it good if we rely alone on our own human judgments and prejudices and passions to make it so.  Strength, talent, ability, can be good only when dedicated to the Source of all good.  The redemption of mankind is God’s affair, and only His grace can accomplish it.

 

We approach the birthday of our Lord in a more sternly realistic frame of mind this year than is perhaps usual.  May we find in it the usual joy of Christmas?  We surely may, if we are willing to see what it means.

 

The book of John has in it the word that God so loved the world (this world which he created good, but which man has so filled with corruption) that he gave his Son.  Could any literary expression be more vivid than these words?  Millions of fathers and mothers today know more than they ever knew before about giving their sons for something tremendously important.

 

Let us not get tangled up now in theological twine about the Trinity or the nature of Christ’s body.  For the present, let us try with single purpose to look at a great spiritual truth.  The Creator, the Highest Good, God, gave to this awful world a perfect life - precious in His sight.  The present horror of this world is brought on largely by those who sneer at that as weakness, and at Jesus as a weakling.  The only lasting hope of this world lies with those redeemed of God who see Christ, not as a weakling, but as redemptive power.

 

How can a world or a cause be saved?  Only by sacrifice.  Even the Nazis know that.  Is it not required by them that an individual life be unconditionally dedicated to the leader or to the emperor?  The trouble with that object of sacrifice is that it is itself corrupt.  To offer a sacrifice “holy and acceptable” it must be offered to holiness - to God himself.  This kind of sacrifice has redeeming, transforming power.

 

Redemption is hard for man.  We shun such stern requirements as honest repentance of our sins.  We would prefer to side-step any consciousness of guilt; we rationalize and justify our mistakes; we ask for miracles to bring us “good” without effort; we will not accept what life is.

 

I have seen a woman, bending over the form of one she loved, pleading for a miracle to save his life, when she knew it was hopeless to expect that life could continue in that shattered body.  Fortunately, she was able thirty minutes later, after it was all over, to accept the fact and make the sacrifice of her own heart; else life must have been terribly bitter for her thereafter.

 

Before the end of a life span that was considerably shorter than mine, Jesus was saying to his disciples in words that picture a terribly stern truth, “This is my body” and “this is my blood”  “shed for you.”  Our redemption is bought at so great a price!  God gave his son!  The son gave everything he had - everything he was, for us!  We are not our own; we are bought with a price.  The only miracle about that, that matters, is that God should have been willing to do it for people poisoned with their own corruption.  Perhaps this solemn sacrifice, and our acceptance of it, is the only thing that will drive us willingly to the sacrifices that we must make.

 

God made a good world, and good people.  Man, by his own error has corrupted the world.  God has redeemed it and does redeem it, and will redeem it!  He has given us hope in the assurance that he is with us in our need redemption.  Immanuel has come!  Christ is born forever!

 

No wonder the shepherds marveled!  No wonder the wise men left their own lands to seek him out!  No wonder the angels sang!

 

Never mind whether they had feathers on their wings or not.  Listen to the music!  Through sacrifice and sorrow and man’s repentance, God’s redeeming love is given.  Music is heard in the midnight; and God will bring the dawn!

 

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dates and places delivered:

 

            Wisconsin Rapids, December 20, 1942

            W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, February 6, 1943