Oxgoads no more
December 7, 2011
Two years ago, in good Puritan style, I preached at my local church the Sunday before Christmas and took as my text Judges 3:31. It was simply where I had arrived in my exposition of Judges and I saw no reason to deviate from my plan; and, as it happens, I did manage to extract the Christmas message from it, though I would now have to consult my notes to be able to tell you how.
This year I intend to break from my current series on 1 Timothy and bend to the rhythm of the year. I confess that this is partly due to self-indulgence: as I love to sing Christmas carols because they often embody the deepest truths of the Incarnation in their poetry in a way one finds in no other hymn, so the Sunday before Christmas and, this year, Christmas Day itself, offer superb opportunities for expounding the truth of the Incarnation.
But how does one do this? How can one find words adequate to bear the weight they must carry to express such a deep truth? Like making analogies from nature with the Trinity, is all talk of the Incarnation likely to mislead more than help? Would silent adoration of the mystery be a more appropriate response than the stammering and lisping of words which always reach towards but never seem to grasp this, the holy of holies?
The problem is not just metaphysical, not simply a question of how one can talk about infinite God entering finite human existence (`Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man', to use Wesley's beautiful phrase). In this it is akin to the cross as Paul articulates it in 1 Corinthians: it is foolishness and a stumbling block. Foolishness, because the very idea of the sovereign creator and ruler of the universe being born of a teenage virgin in a stable in a tiny nation of no account at the far end of the Mediterranean is utterly ridiculous. Indeed, one might say that it looks very much like proof that God cannot exist -- at least, that is, God built according to our specifications and requirements. An offence because I do not need salvation, especially salvation brought by a pre-modern peasant's child in some backward place nobody would otherwise ever have heard of.
Yet this is where the glory of preaching and hearing the word of God comes into play. Preaching is proclamation, and proclaim we must, however inadequate we might think our words and our delivery are. Preaching is not a carefully worked-out philosophical defence of what God must be like if the advent of Christ is to be true. Nor is it an attempt to make Christianity look sophisticated or moral as the world understand these things. Least of all is it stand-up comedy designed to entertain those who might otherwise seek their fun elsewhere. Its agenda, especially at Christmas, is not to be determined by unbelief or what the hipsters in the Village will tolerate or what the brain's trust at MIT think is plausible. Preaching at Christmas is akin to Lk. 2:8-12. It is the announcement of what God has done, that he has come in Christ, and that thereby his grace has abounded and overflowed to those who deserve it not.. Our task as preachers is to do simply that: proclaim the advent of the Christ. Can there be a greater privilege, a more awesome responsibility, or a greater delight?
This year I intend to break from my current series on 1 Timothy and bend to the rhythm of the year. I confess that this is partly due to self-indulgence: as I love to sing Christmas carols because they often embody the deepest truths of the Incarnation in their poetry in a way one finds in no other hymn, so the Sunday before Christmas and, this year, Christmas Day itself, offer superb opportunities for expounding the truth of the Incarnation.
But how does one do this? How can one find words adequate to bear the weight they must carry to express such a deep truth? Like making analogies from nature with the Trinity, is all talk of the Incarnation likely to mislead more than help? Would silent adoration of the mystery be a more appropriate response than the stammering and lisping of words which always reach towards but never seem to grasp this, the holy of holies?
The problem is not just metaphysical, not simply a question of how one can talk about infinite God entering finite human existence (`Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man', to use Wesley's beautiful phrase). In this it is akin to the cross as Paul articulates it in 1 Corinthians: it is foolishness and a stumbling block. Foolishness, because the very idea of the sovereign creator and ruler of the universe being born of a teenage virgin in a stable in a tiny nation of no account at the far end of the Mediterranean is utterly ridiculous. Indeed, one might say that it looks very much like proof that God cannot exist -- at least, that is, God built according to our specifications and requirements. An offence because I do not need salvation, especially salvation brought by a pre-modern peasant's child in some backward place nobody would otherwise ever have heard of.
Yet this is where the glory of preaching and hearing the word of God comes into play. Preaching is proclamation, and proclaim we must, however inadequate we might think our words and our delivery are. Preaching is not a carefully worked-out philosophical defence of what God must be like if the advent of Christ is to be true. Nor is it an attempt to make Christianity look sophisticated or moral as the world understand these things. Least of all is it stand-up comedy designed to entertain those who might otherwise seek their fun elsewhere. Its agenda, especially at Christmas, is not to be determined by unbelief or what the hipsters in the Village will tolerate or what the brain's trust at MIT think is plausible. Preaching at Christmas is akin to Lk. 2:8-12. It is the announcement of what God has done, that he has come in Christ, and that thereby his grace has abounded and overflowed to those who deserve it not.. Our task as preachers is to do simply that: proclaim the advent of the Christ. Can there be a greater privilege, a more awesome responsibility, or a greater delight?
