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Have
you seen many Christmas movies this year? I must admit that with this
sermon series on Christmas movies I have been watching them more
closely than ever and have been astounded by the messages of hope,
peace, joy, and love that they carry. These words and their messages
find their best expressions in the Christmas story that was announced
in Nazareth and made its way into Bethlehem – the story that we will
remember anew on Wednesday night right here.
This
week I made my annual journey to Bedford Falls where George Bailey
meets a quirky guardian angel named Clarence. Most of you have seen
the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” where George gets caught in a bind
because of a missing $8,000. All of his life he has been guarding the
pennies of the Building and Loan so that the least fortunate would
have a place to go. Now he is at the breaking point. He grumbles to
Clarence, his newly appointed guardian angel, that he wished he had
never been born. The angel grants him his wish announcing that he has
never been born. He is nobody. He has no identification, no
responsibilities, and no obligations. It is not as good as he thought
it would be. The town has fallen into a depraved state without its
ambassador of mercy. Loved ones are negatively impacted by the void
of which they are not even aware. Clarence assured George, “You’ve
been given a great gift, George, – a chance to see what the world
would be like without you.”
It is
not long before George realizes that he really did have a wonderful
life. He pleads with God, “I want to live again. I want to live
again. I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again.” I
have heard those words dozens of time, as this is one of the most
watched movies in my collection. However, this year they sounded
different. It was as if George was looking at me and reminding me
that It’s a Wonderful Life. Sometimes it is easy to
lose sight of that in the midst of the responsibilities and busyness.
I am
certain that the exiles of Israel had lost sight of the wonderful
life. It had been about 70 years since they had been scattered
throughout the Babylonian empire. Now the Persians were in control
and sending some of the exiles back home. But home was different.
Some of them did not even remember it. The prophet Zechariah assured
them, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” as he announced to them the promise of
the coming king. Listen to his assurance given in Zechariah 9:9-10.
Hear now the Word of the Lord:
9Rejoice
greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your
king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding
on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10He
will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from
Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command
peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from
the River to the ends of the earth.
This
is the word of God for the people of God. In this passage Zechariah
proclaimed to his people that they had a reason to rejoice. Let us
pray.
It’s a wonderful life! Are you in danger of forgetting that?
It can happen to all of us. Today it is my hope that you will pray
even as George Bailey did, “Please, God, let me live again.”
It’s a Wonderful Life when
justice means more than power
Zechariah assured the people that there is a reason to rejoice. They
were to rejoice with gusto and shout aloud because their king was
coming to them. The NRSV states that he comes triumphant and
victorious, but the words used in this passage are usually
translated differently. The word translated triumphant is a
great Hebrew word, tsaddiq, which means righteous or
just. This is the same word used to describe Joseph in Matthew
1:19, “Joseph, being a righteous
man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss
her quietly.”
Last Monday, Tammy and I went to St.
Paul’s United Methodist Church in Houston to hear a lecture by Dr.
Weston Fields on lessons learned from the Dead Sea Scrolls. He said
one thing learned through this discovery of ancient biblical texts was
that Hebrew was actually a spoken language in the first century. For
a long time, the Hebrew language was considered a dead language.
According to Dr. Fields, this confirmation of its use during the first
century explains some of the Hebraic sentence structures and
translated words of the Greek New Testament. One of the examples he
gave of this is the Greek word for righteous which often speaks
of law abiding behavior. However, Joseph was not trying to
abide by the law. If he was he would have exposed Mary to public
ridicule as the law demanded. Joseph sought a way to spare Mary this
level of shame and the reason given for this desire was that he was a
righteous man. Dr. Fields said this problem is eliminated if
one does a back translation, that is translate it back into Hebrew and
then into English. The Hebrew word is tsaddiq and it refers to
righteousness with compassion. Joseph had all the power in the
scenario – he was a man in a patriarchal society, he was the one who
discovered that his betrothed was expecting, and he had the law
squarely on his side. He had all the power, but he preferred justice,
righteousness with compassion. The people of Jerusalem were promised
a deliverer, a king, and he would arrive with justice and victorious.
The bishop in Victor Hugo’s classic,
Les Miserables, possessed this kind of justice. The desperate
thief, Jean Valjean, stole his silver one night and fled. He was
quickly stopped by the police and when brought to the bishop’s house,
the bishop claimed to have given the silver to the man as an
investment in his future. That gift of grace changed the life of a
man destined to be bitter until his death. To the bishop and to
Joseph there could be many cries of, “That’s not fair.” The coming
king described by Zechariah will hear those cries too. He will offer
a woman caught in adultery grace and freedom from her shame. He will
absolve a tax collector, providing that he live justly from that
moment on. He will speak of workers who arrived at the last hour and
received the same pay as those who worked all day. He will be more
interested in justice, righteousness with compassion, than power. For
all of us who have received that touch, It’s a Wonderful Life!
It’s a wonderful life when justice means more than power.
It’s a Wonderful Life when
humility means more than pride
Even if
we accept the more popular reading of Zechariah 9:9 of the king coming
with justice and salvation, we are no less shocked when we read the
next descriptive phrase of the coming king – “humble
and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
This is an overt act of humility. Conquering war heroes rode on tall,
proud horses, not colts of donkeys. The word humble
carries with it the connotation of lowly and afflicted.
This is the passage to which Jesus referred when he requested a colt
for the Palm Sunday procession in Matthew 21:5. I’ve been thinking a
lot about the Advent trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem lately. Nearly
every depiction of this journey has Mary riding on a donkey. I know
there weren’t any photographers on that trip, but I wonder if this was
the way it really was. Even if there was no donkey on that first
Advent season, and I believe strongly there was, the very picture of
the incarnation is filled with humility. The Son of God had so much
love for humanity, that he became like us so that we could become like
him. He not only took the form of humanity, but very humble humanity:
poor, outcast, homeless, from the north (Nazareth) putting him on the
outside of the Jerusalemites and from the south (Bethlehem) putting
him on the outside of all the Galileans. He had every reason to pull
out the King of kings card, but he did not do it, not even from the
very first day of his earthly life. He chose humility over pride and
when we look at his life, we discover It’s a Wonderful Life!
A friend of mine was telling me of a visit
by Tony Campolo to her church this month. She said he spoke of the
difference between power and authority. She remembered two of his
examples – Campolo’s mother and Mother Teresa. Campolo shared that by
the time he was in the eighth grade he had more power than his
mother. He could tell her “no” and there was physically nothing she
could do to make him. However, she had so much authority that he
could not tell her “no” and stick to it. Mother Teresa was always a
tiny woman, but her love for others credited her with more authority
than most people on earth. Campolo explains the difference between
power and authority with these words, “Power
is the use of coercion, while authority is the use of sacrificial
love. In order to fully express love, one must be willing to give up
power. Jesus came as a baby in a manger and not as a Caesar, king, or
president. This is because he came to rule with authority by
sacrificing his life, rather than with power.”
Humility is what produces authority. It is
humility that enables us to serve others without regard as to what’s
in it for us. It is humility that seeks to serve rather than be
served and the great truth is that when humility means more than pride
It’s a Wonderful Life!
It’s a Wonderful Life when peace
means more than prejudice
Zechariah’s world was a factional world. There were many different
groups claiming to be the true Israel. It was more than an issue of
pride – it was prejudice. It was more than a statement of who I am,
it was a statement of who you are. There were exiles returning to
their homeland claiming that God loved them more and brought them
home. Within that group there were priests and rabbis each claiming
their prominence in the faith community and diminishing the importance
of the other. There were those who had never suffered exile, who
remained in the devastated Jerusalem. They claimed to be the true
Israel, making all others nothing more than pretenders or those who
were “less than” them. There were the urbanites of Jerusalem and the
country folks of the outskirts. There were those from the Northern
area of Ephraim and the Southern area of Judah. To this world of
factionalism and skirmishes of prejudice, a king is announced who will
extinguish all elements of war and reign over north, south, east, and
west – from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.
The land long divided will be united.
Unity
was what went through my mind on this year’s journey to Bedford
Falls. In the closing scene all the people who had either touched
George Bailey’s life or been touched by him paraded into the living
room to help the town’s citizen in need. There was Mr. Gower the
druggist, Annie the housekeeper, Mr. Martini, Violet the aspiring
actress, Bert the cop, Ernie the taxi driver, Mr. Carter the bank
examiner, the sheriff, and so many others. His own brother toasted
him as “the richest man in town.” Together they sang in unison,
“Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king.” It’s a
wonderful life when peace means more than prejudice, when humility
means more than pride, and when justice means more than power.
George
Bailey came to realize that life in Bedford Falls was a wonderful
life. He ran down Main Street shouting “Merry Christmas” to the
buildings and all the people he saw, even his nemesis, Mr. Potter.
Here we are just days before Christmas, do you realize that it’s a
wonderful life there in the manger?
“I want
to live again. I want to live again. I want to live again. Please,
God, let me live again.”
The
king would later say in John 10:10, “I
came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” Friends, on
this fourth Sunday of Advent, more than anything I want you to see
that It’s a Wonderful Life! To all those who have become
burdened by the cares of the world, by the responsibilities and
obligations of life, I want you to live again. Discover the justice,
humility, and peace located in the manger. Rejoice greatly! Shout
aloud! Lo, your king comes to you. It’s a wonderful life!
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