December 24, 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In places where there are public displays of nativities, there\u2019s been a rash of thefts of baby Jesus\u2019. If you Google \u201cstolen Baby Jesus\u201d you will see pages and pages of stories about disheartened and disappointed churches having the holy infant stolen right out of the manger, leaving all the characters looking at nothing but straw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The police say that most of the thefts are pranks giving the thieves bragging rights on Facebook only to be arrested afterward. There are others who steal baby Jesus\u2019 out of anger against Christianity. There are plenty of people who want to remove Jesus from the public eye, and stealing a plastic Jesus is nonetheless symbolic of a desire to get rid of him before he and his followers cause more trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s an actual company that is offering to install free GPS trackers in baby Jesus\u2019 used in outdoor displays. So just imagine the shock and horror of some poor mother, who answers the doorbell only to find the local minister or priest standing on the doorstep, along with Officer Joe Friday. \u201cJust the facts, ma\u2019am,\u201d says Joe. \u201cDo you have a teenage son? We have reason to believe baby Jesus is hiding in his room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dangerous Baby<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, nobody likes to have things stolen. (You can ask Pastor Visal about his car!) And theft is certainly wrong, but the theological question we want to ask is about which is worse: stealing Jesus, or just leaving him alone, secure in the manger?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the challenges of preaching a word on Christmas Eve is that everyone knows the story\u2014Mary and Joseph, no room at the inn, a baby born in a barn, shepherds, angels. We know it well, or at least we think we do. We come to church on Christmas Eve expecting to see Jesus in the manger, and we\u2019re happy about that. Who doesn\u2019t love babies? Who doesn\u2019t love this scene? Why would anyone want to wreck that by stealing him away?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the truth of the story is\u2014and what we often miss\u2014is that there were people who wanted to steal the real baby Jesus right after he was born. The gospels make it clear that the arrival of this baby, while a joy for many, was a threat to many more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew tells us the story of Herod the Great, who was so threatened by the possibility of a rival to his throne that he ordered all the babies in Bethlehem under 2 years old to be taken from their cribs and killed\u2014a lot of empty mangers and empty homes were left behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And while Luke\u2019s story is not so violent, Luke implies that the baby Jesus is still vulnerable. The story starts with Caesar Augustus, the self-proclaimed divine ruler of the Roman Empire, ordering a census. Augustus didn\u2019t know that Jesus, the Messiah, God\u2019s anointed king, had been born in Bethlehem, but had he known he certainly would have made sure that the Bethlehem baby didn\u2019t live to see adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Call these people who steal baby Jesus\u2019 what you will, but maybe those who want to eliminate Jesus from public view out of anti-Christian angst actually get the story of Christmas better than most of us because they know what Herod knew and what Augustus would have known: This baby is dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why So Dangerous<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But why is this baby so dangerous? This is the real back story of Christmas. The child who is born in the manger will grow up and be a threat to the status quo, a threat to those who wield power through the force of arms or the force of their bank accounts. This child will expose the inner thoughts of human hearts and call people to a way of living beyond themselves. He will talk about a God who is intimately involved in public, in politics and with people, rather than a God who is merely private, quiet and spiritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus will preach about a kingdom that has nothing to do with power, wealth and military might, but everything to do with servanthood, sacrifice and suffering. He will act as though that kingdom was already becoming a reality. He will spend his time eating and associating with people on the margins of society\u2014the sick, the poor, the outcast, the prostitute, the tax collector\u2014while rebuking the religious, the elite, the insiders. He will challenge the powers of sin and death by taking them on directly, all the way to the cross. You can\u2019t defeat someone who wants nothing from the world, who practices what he preaches, and who is willing to die while forgiving his tormentors. Such a person is dangerous to the status quo and must be removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly, the world seems to get this, but many Christians do not. We want Jesus to stay right where he is\u2014in the manger. We are tracking Jesus with our GPS to stay in the manger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want a Jesus who stays within our own set of doctrinal boundaries, a Jesus whom we can keep privately and quietly on display at church while we ignore him the rest of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want a Jesus who matches our expectations, and who blesses our political agendas\u2014a personal Jesus who orbits around us, our purposes and our needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want a baby Jesus we can admire rather than the living and active Jesus who cares less about our religious expectations than he does about the world\u2019s redemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The truth is that while some people might be stealing Jesus, we who claim him must actually go a step further and let him run loose in our lives. The manger-born baby, God\u2019s Word made flesh, came to change the world and us along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God\u2019s goodness and love is poured out to us in Jesus, and when that love runs loose in us then it will find its way outward in good works toward others. We receive a gift and we pass it on. We don\u2019t hold on to Jesus; we share him with the world. There are many like the Herods and Augustuses of the world who do not know love, but only power. Like Jesus, we are to love them anyway, even when they try to steal our joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus is Free<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus doesn\u2019t need to be protected, guarded, tracked by GPS or defended; he just want to be followed. And if we follow him, he will take us out among those who need the gift of his love the most: people who do pranks, people who clamor for attention, people who are angry at the world and angry at God, people who are broken and have no happy in their holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a love that\u2019s dangerous because it calls us to risk ourselves in service to the world, but that\u2019s where Jesus\u2019 love goes\u2014toward those who have none. The prophet Isaiah was right, \u201cA little child shall lead them\u201d (Isaiah 11:6<\/a>).; one who is born not only to be admired in a manger, but to be \u201cWonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace\u201d (Isaiah 9:6<\/a>). We don\u2019t track Jesus in order to bring him back into our lives. Rather, we track him biblically, prayerfully, joyfully in order to see where he wants to lead us into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a church in Missouri who has had their baby Jesus stolen out of their outdoor nativity every year. Rather than to devise a way to keep the manger occupied perhaps by nailing Jesus down or tying a chain around him, the pastor wanted to find a way that symbolized the season that Christmas is really about giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, the church has a nativity display, but in the manger there\u2019s no stature or doll of baby Jesus. Instead, there are hundreds of ornaments depicting the baby and a sign that says, \u201cFree, take one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christ is a gift. He doesn\u2019t belong to us so no one can steal him from us. Jesus Christ is a gift to be shared away from the manger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We come as your faithful to Bethlehem, O God, and gather in awe around the manger of the Christ child. We look with thanksgiving at this gift of love and unlimited possibilities. And yet\u2026we pause in our wondering and ponder the manger without the baby. Lead us to catch a vision of the new life possible when we share this baby born in Bethlehem. Let it be that we are the ones to let Christ loose in our lives that others might be found. We pray in the name of the one who came that we might know what a life of love looks like, Jesus, the Christ, the baby in the manger. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" December 24, 2012 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. In places where there are public displays of nativities, there\u2019s been a