1 – In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
2 – (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
3 – And everyone went to his own town to register.
4 – So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
5 – He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a Child. 6 – While they were there, the time came for the Baby to be born,
7 – and she gave birth to her Firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in cloths and placed Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
This is the Word of the Lord….Thanks be to God.
I know this is not news to most of you but my favorite way to escape the inevitable stresses of life is to read. I love books! In fact just the smell of shelves filled with volumes of fiction and non-fiction puts me at ease. I’m not kidding-all it takes is one whiff of a book store or a library and my heart rate slows and my blood pressure lowers. I’ve often thought I would be a much “mellow-er” pastor if I could somehow bottle the air at Barnes and Noble and pump my office full of it. I don’t know if that would work or not but that’s how much I love books.
Well, of all the books I’ve read over the years, some of my greatest escapes from the stresses of life have been provided by those that have been written by C. S. Lewis. Lewis authored over 60 books and I hope that by the end of my life, I will have had time to escape the busy-ness of my schedule long enough to read each and every one of them. I say this because Lewis was a very gifted writer and God has used his writing talents to teach not just me but people all over the world a great deal about His eternal kingdom.
For example, with Mere Christianity, a book that is based on a series of award-winning lectures given by Lewis on the BBC after WWII, with this book countless skeptics and even atheists have been led to faith in Jesus. Many have said that it is the most powerful explanation of Christianity outside of the Bible itself. Thousands of people have gained a great deal of insight into spiritual warfare by reading The Screwtape Letters. How many of you have read that one?
In my opinion Lewis’ little novel, The Great Divorce, is the best book I have read on the subject of Heaven and Hell. It clearly shows how horrible Hell is and how much God wants us not to go there.
As I look back, I think the first Lewis books I read were his only foray into science fiction, his, Space Trilogy. How many of you have read them? Well, those three books are different from all the other sci fi I have read because not only did they entertain me-they also inspired me and helped me better understand the Biblical teaching of creation and the fall.
But you know, if I had to pick my absolute favorite Lewis work, it would be, The Chronicles of Narnia. They have helped me so much in my pilgrimage as a Christian. In writing the seven books that make up the chronicles, Lewis drew on stories written by the children’s authors he loved: Edith Nesbit, Beatrix Potter, and George MacDonald. With all this in his mind he created an imaginary world that he called “Narnia” and filled it with all the creatures from his favorite fairy tales and legends. But as he wrote he was inspired to weave into the story something infinitely more precious to him-his Christian faith.
Through the Great Lion, Aslan, Lewis introduced his readers to the character and person of Jesus Christ-the Son of God, Who willingly laid down His life for sinners and rose from the dead in power and glory. By the way, the name “Aslan” comes from the Turkish word for “lion,” and as I’m sure you know, in Scripture Jesus is sometimes referred to as “the Lion of Judah.”
When the first book was published in 1950 it immediately became a best-seller. Since then more than 85 million copies have been sold. The Chronicles have been translated into 30 languages. Children all over the world have fallen in love with these books. When they were first published hundreds of kids wrote Lewis and he replied to every letter personally.
One worried mother wrote to Lewis about her little boy, Lawrence, who was feeling guilty that he thought he loved Aslan more than he loved Jesus. Lewis wrote back that he should not worry, because “the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did.”
But children aren’t alone in their love of these books. Millions of adults like myself have cherished them as well. In fact I believe C. S. Lewis intended for grown-ups to enjoy the Chronicles because he once said that he believed that a book worth reading only in childhood was not a book worth reading at all.
Now, as you know Disney Studios is doing a series of movies based on The Chronicles. The first, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is due to premier in theaters December 9. Disney has invested over one hundred million dollars in its production in the hopes that it will become their best-selling movie of all time-the first of several films based on these books.
And I believe this is a good investment for them to make. I believe the movie will be very successful-as long as they stay true to the plot-because it is indeed a compelling story. And the reason it is so compelling is the fact that it is a story that is rooted in history.
As Lewis alluded in his letter to that worried mom, in a very real sense The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is a story that really happened. You see, this little book is the Christmas story in a nutshell. It’s the story of Jesus coming into our world and because it is I’ve decided to use it to frame our advent sermons this year.
Lewis underscored this truth that The Chronicles are really a story within a story in another letter to a young fan of the books. He said,
Dear Ruth, Many thanks for your kind letter, and it was very good of you to write and tell me that you like my books; and what a very good letter you write for your age! .I’m so thankful that you realized the ‘hidden story’ in the Narnian books. It is odd, children nearly always do, grown-ups hardly ever. God bless you. Yours sincerely, C. S. Lewis
Well, it is my prayer that Lewis will be wrong about the millions of lost adults who will see his story put to film this Christmas season. I mean, I am praying that God will open their spiritual eyes so they make the connection like little Ruth did-and that this Christmas they will decide to accept “God’s indescribable Gift.” (2 Cor. 9:15) by inviting Jesus Christ into their hearts and lives. I’m also praying that my sermons will help you be a part of that in the life of a friend or co-worker or family member.
Now, for those of you who haven’t read the book let me give you a quick summary. Don’t worry. This won’t spoil the movie for you. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the story of four children named Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy Pevensie, who live during WWII. Like thousands of other children who lived in that horrible chapter of world history, they were taken away from London and sent to live out in the country in various homes so as to get them away from the bombing that occurred almost daily. The Pevensie children ended up being assigned to live with a kindly old professor and his housekeeper, Mrs. Mcready.
While playing a game of hide and seek in his huge house the children find a large wardrobe and discover it to be magical because as they walk through it passing all the coats that hang there, they suddenly find themselves entering the land of Narnia. In that magical place they meet all kinds of creatures, including talking animals, mythological beasts, dwarves-and an evil White Witch who has put all of Narnia under a spell, such that for hundreds of years it has always been winter and never Christmas. The children eventually join Aslan, the Lion, the True King, in battling the Witch and freeing Narnia from her evil grasp.
Now, as I said, during this advent season it is my plan is to use Lewis’ book as a springboard to study the key elements of the Christmas story. I’ve decided to call the sermons that make up this series, The Chronicles of Christmas. And I think Clive Staples Lewis would approve. Next Sunday we’ll see how bound up in the Christmas story is God’s response to our sin. December 18 we’ll build on that fact as we look to the Bible to help us understand that Christmas is also a story of sacrifice. December 24 we’ll focus on the truth that it is a story of love. On Christmas day my plan is to help us understand that Christmas is also a story of the difference Jesus’ coming has made.
And today we begin by studying the amazing and comforting fact that Christmas is the story of God’s involvement in our fallen world. It’s the story of God on the move!
Now, over the years many people have looked at all the suffering and hardship in the world and have a hard time believing God is involved. To them He appears distant or absent.
When theologian and author Thomas Carlyle was well along in years, he became seriously ill and experienced deep depression. A friend was visiting with him one day and the subject of religion came up. The friend said: “I can only believe in a God Who does something.” Carlyle reportedly winced as if in physical pain, and said with a sigh: “But that is just the problem. He does nothing, nothing at all!”
Now-to those who have read his works, it is obvious that this statement is by no means typical of the true depth of Carlyle’s faith. It simply represented the way he honestly felt at that moment as the clouds of depression totally engulfed him. But the fact is many people have felt the same way at some time in their lives. When a nightmarish problem persisted and it seemed that God did “nothing, absolutely nothing at all” they honestly felt that God was, to use H. G. Wells’ bitter phrase, “an ever absent help in time of trouble.”
Well this gloomy outlook is paralleled in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because as I said, before the coming of Aslan it is always winter, never Christmas. We have a slide from the movie that shows this. With this wintry setting Lewis successfully conjures up a sense of despondency and futility, suffering and hardship without relief, gloom and cold with no future warmth of Spring to look forward to.
Early on in the book Mr. Beaver tells the children that Aslan’s coming has been prophesied for hundreds of years, that even now he is on the move, at work ending the queen’s reign. But that’s hard to believe because it doesn’t look like Aslan is on the move. It doesn’t look like he’s involved in easing their suffering. Winter still holds Narnia in its grasp.
Well I think Lewis chose this word picture because winter seems like such a hopeless time. The days are short, the nights are dark and long. Everything looks dead and the cold makes it feel that way. In my mind it’s a great tool for illustrating the seeming “absence of God.”
By the way, did you realize that there is no mention of winter in the Bible before the Fall? In the first couple chapters of Genesis we read about trees bursting with fruit and rivers flowing with water and people who didn’t even need clothes. The world was warm and full of life. God’s presence and creative power was visible everywhere. But then sin came and with it came winter and hardship, a world held in the cold grip of suffering so intense that it makes us wonder where God is and what He is doing.
This morning I want to deal with this issue by answering two questions: “Why is there so much suffering in our world?” and “What is God doing about it?”
So let’s get started. “Why is there so much suffering?” Or, to use Lewis’ words, why does it feel as if, “it is always winter and never Christmas?”
Well, I can think of three basic answers to this question and the first is this:
(1) One indirect reason that we experience suffering is because of the nature of God.
Now, that sounds like a contradiction. I mean how could a just God allow suffering to take place? Well, listen closely and let me explain. The Bible tells us that the nature of God is love. It is His essence. As 1 John 4:16 says, “God is love.”
And because of this aspect of His nature, God values love above all things. In fact, this is why He created us-He created us to exist in a love relationship with Him. But you see, this kind of relationship would only be possible if we were made in such a way that we were capable of loving God of our own free will.
As Yancey says in his book, Disappointment With God, our Creator, “desires not the clinging, helpless love of a child who has no choice, but the mature, freely given love” of an adult. So, as Douglas John puts it, “God’s problem is not that He is unable to do certain things” like stopping all suffering. He could certainly do that. His ability to do so is not the issue. No, God’s problem is that He loves. “And love complicates the life of God as it complicates every life.”
You see, a world without free will and the evil that people choose because of it, would also be a world without love. Sure, there would have been no hate, no suffering. But neither would there have been love, which is the highest value in God’s universe.
Let me put it this way: a world without human freedom would by definition have been a world without humans. So, the source of evil and suffering is not God’s unwillingnessto use His power. It is mankind’s abuse of it’s God-given freedom.
Christian apologist Peter Kreeft writes, “Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there be no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin.” This leads to the second answer to this first question.
(2) There is suffering in the world because of the nature of man.
You see, the Bible affirms the fact that all of us use our God-given freedom to do evil. As the prophet Isaiah said, “All we, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.” And as Paul wrote in Romans 3:23, “All [mankind] has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Well, when we go astray, when we use our freedom to sin, we face painful consequences. And since we live in a fallen but moral universe a person cannot continually sin-they can’t constantly go against the grain-without getting splinters along the way. I’m saying that the truth is many times the suffering we endure in life is because of our own disobedience of God’s loving commands.
When an individual has sex outside of marriage and gets a sexually transmitted disease they suffer-but it’s certainly not God’s fault. They have no one to blame but themselves because they chose to ignore God’s moral law.
In the same way that there are painful consequences to breaking the law of gravity there are painful consequences to breaking God’s law. All of His commands are for our good!
And you know, unfortunately, our sinful choices not only hurt us. They often hurt others as well. When people abuse alcohol and then drive, innocent people are often killed.
When fathers gamble away their income, innocent children go hungry.
When Christian leaders fall into sinful behavior the people who loved and admired them often lose faith in the God their leaders claimed to follow.
The cold fact is that whenever we sin we aren’t the only ones who suffer.
(3) And then a third reason there is suffering is because of the nature of this world.
Romans 8:20-22 says that because of the sin of Adam and Eve all,”…creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice…but by its bondage to decay.” In other words, some of the hardship in the world is due to the fact that when sin entered, a terrible thing took place. Not only did sin touch the creatures but also the creation. And because it did, we have diseases like AIDS and cancer. This is why we have floods and earthquakes and droughts and tsunamis and hurricanes.
Insurance companies refer to these natural disasters as, “acts of God” but that is not really true. These calamities are the end result of the actions of man way back at the dawn of time. You see, sin has tainted our world just as it has tainted our lives and because it has, this is a dangerous world in which to live, a fallen world.
You may remember my telling you of an interview that Philip Yancey conducted with a man named Douglas who had endured a great deal of suffering. His wife had recurring breast cancer. He himself had been in an automobile accident that had taken most of his vision. But when asked how he felt about all this he said,
“We tend to think that life should be fair because God is fair. But God is not life and if I confuse God with the physical reality of life by expecting constant good health, for example, then I set myself up for a crushing disappointment.”
Douglas learned that God is fair, but life in a fallen world is not.
In the first few verses of the thirteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus was asked about eighteen people who were killed when a tower in the village of Siloam fell on them. In His response our Lord inferred that this disaster happened not because of the sin of those who were killed but simply because bad things happen in a fallen world. I mean, thanks to the sin of Adam and Eve this is not a safe place in which to live. And we should not be surprised to hear this because Jesus told us this repeatedly.
In Matthew 24 He said, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen. Nations will rise against nation, .and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” And as Jesus plainly said in John 16:33, “In this world you WILL have trouble!”
As Christians we must let texts like these remind us that it is hazardous to our health to live in this world but must also remember that this world of ours is a temporary world.
The real world-the permanent world-the fair world-the world where there is no suffering or death-that world is yet to come.
So as 2 Peter 3:13 says, “In keeping with [Jesus’] promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”
Mother Theresa, someone who was very familiar with suffering all her life once said, “In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth, a life full of the most atrocious tortures, will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.”
So, suffering happens indirectly because of the nature of God, but also because of the nature of man and the nature of our fallen world.
Okay-everyone satisfied that we have sufficiently answered the first question? Good! Let’s use the rest of our time work on answering the second.
So, how is God involved in the helping us deal with the inequities of life in this fallen world? What has our loving God done, what is He doing about all the suffering we endure?
Well, both the Biblical record and our own experience tells us that there are times when God responds by interrupting the normal cycle of cause and effect and miraculously parts the sea or heals the sick. I’ve told you of the time when I was a little boy and God intervened to save my life. I’m sure others present could give similar testimonies
But this is by no means the only thing God does about our suffering.
(1) For example, sometimes He steps back and lets us learn from our suffering.
You see, God is our Father, and like any wise parent He often allows us to learn through suffering what we refuse to be taught or cannot be taught in any other way. The Apostle Peter is a great example of this principle. On more than one occasion Jesus allowed Simon Peter to have his own way and then learn from the consequences lessons he wouldn’t have learned otherwise.
The most dramatic example of this took place on the night of Jesus’ arrest. As He alerted the disciples of the coming ordeal He specifically warned Peter that he would deny His Lord before morning, but Peter would not listen and made a typical brash promise, “Lord, I am ready to go with You to prison and to death.” When he said this, God did not move in and miraculously step in to stop Peter from denying Jesus. Instead He acted by stepping back and allowing Peter to enroll in that most awesome of all educational institutions: “the school of hard knocks.”
In this case, what God did was allow Peter to endure a devastating experience because He knew he would come out of it a wiser and deeper person. And this is what happened. Just as Jesus warned, Satan did sift Peter like wheat that night. Peter wound up doing the very things he had vehemently declared he would never do, but out of all the hardship and grief that came from his denial Peter became a more humble human being. I mean, the rock-like character that we see walking the pages of the book of Acts did not get that way over night or by accident. No, Peter grew into an apostle because of that peculiar form of Divine help which allows us to experience trauma and failure because through such agony we grow strong.
This form of God’s activity needs to be noted carefully, because more often than not, here is where confusion arises and we complain that, “God does nothing, nothing at all.” What people usually mean when they say this is that God has not intervened miraculously; He has not done in the midst of a crisis what Jesus did when he calmed the sea or raised the dead.
Well, if you wonder why God doesn’t work miracles more often then look again to the example of Peter. I mean, think about it. What would Peter would have become if Jesus had intervened at every junction and always done things for him and never asked anything of him or allowed anything harmful to happen to him? Any wise parent knows the answer to that question. Simon would have remained at the level of infantile dependence all of his life. The surest way to wreck the potential of a human being is always to intervene in that person’s behalf and solve their problems for them. The product of this sort of treatment is a perpetual infant, unable and unwilling to do anything on his or her own.
For decades the bears that live in Yellowstone National Park have feasted on the food scraps left behind by countless tourists. Well, there was a time several years ago when the snows were so heavy that the park was closed to tourists for several months. When it was reopened, rangers found dozens of dead bears, bears who had died not because of the cold but from starvation because they had forgotten how to feed themselves.
Well the truth of the matter is this. The landscape of middle-class America is filled with casualties of this very sort, because we have confused over-protectiveness with love. And in the attempt to keep our children from suffering have kept them from maturing.
Part of the Good News of the Bible is that our Father in heaven is much wiser than many fathers on earth. He knows how to facilitate maturity, which means He is not going to intervene in our lives so often that we become spoiled or our true potential is unfulfilled. As Thomas Williams says in his book on Narnia, “God wants so much for us to share eternal life with Him that He is determined to burn out of our souls everything that is not eternal, even if we are painfully burned in the process.”
And we need to remember this the next time it seems He is “doing nothing, nothing at all.” In these times of temporary pain God may be teaching us eternal truth we can’t learn otherwise.
As Lewis says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain. It is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
So this is one answer to the question of “What does God do about our suffering?” Sometimes He steps back. But the greatest example of God’s involvement in our world .
(2).is when He came down in the form of His Son.
You see, on that first “silent, holy night” God literally joined us in the human struggle. He dared to enter this world the way every one of us enters it and to participate fully in this pilgrimage from womb to tomb. As someone once put it, “In Jesus, God put on the uniform of flesh and blood.” In His incarnation He assumed the limitations of human existence just as we have to. He experienced life and so we can know that He understands what we’re up against.
Think of it. Christmas shows us that God knows firsthand what it is like to be an infant. He understands what it means to be a child, a teenager, an adult. In fact, there’s no experience or problem common to humans that He didn’t face, which means we can be assured that He understands our dilemmas no matter what they may be.
But He didn’t come down just to identify with our suffering. He came down to take the consequence of our sin and suffering on Himself by dying on the cross in our place.
And Jesus’ sacrifice is illustrated-at least in part-in Lewis’ book. Early on in the story one of the children, Edmund, sins by joining the ranks of the White Witch. The law of the land says that anyone who sins must die and Aslan agrees to die in his place. But there is a very significant difference between this and the crucifixion of Jesus. You see Aslan just died for Edmund. Jesus died for all mankind.
Now, please hear this! The very worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the world-the greatest amount of suffering ever endured-was when Jesus, God’s only Son, was crucified. Peter Kreeft writes,
“Just imagine every single pain in the history of the world, all rolled together into a ball, eaten by God, digested, fully tasted, eternally.In the act of creating the world, God not only said, let there be pretty little bunny rabbits and flowers and sunsets, but also let there be blood and guts and flies buzzing around the cross.
[You see] the answer to suffering is the Answerer. It’s Jesus Himself. It’s not a bunch of words. It’s the Word. It’s not a tightly woven philosophical argument. It’s a person, the person. The answer to suffering cannot just be an abstract idea because this isn’t an abstract issue. It’s a personal issue. It requires a personal response.
The answer must be Someone, not just something…”
You know, people question how a loving God could look down and bear all the suffering of the world but the answer to their wondering is to point to the fact that that is exactly what He did. Even Christians sometimes try to get God off the hook when it comes to suffering but God put Himself on the hook, so to speak, when He allowed His only Son to be nailed to the tree.
I mean, the most important thing God has ever done about the suffering of the world is when He sent Jesus to be born that first Christmas night, knowing He would die for our sins. Because, in this act of coming down, God not only did something to help us deal with our temporary existence in this life. Jesus’ birth has also changed eternity for all of who will let Him do so. And that is God doing something of significance indeed!
So, to answer this second question, sometimes God steps back and let’s us learn from suffering. Two thousand years ago He came down to bear to punishment for our sin, but God’s involvement is seen in a third way.
(3) You see, God also indwells and empowers us.
He uses you and me, those of us who have responded to His coming. He uses us to minister to the suffering people of this world. We are His flesh. We are His hands and feet. When we become Christians His Spirit comes inside our hearts and from that moment on we are to see human need as a personal invitation from God to get involved and help.
John Ortberg tells about a little five year old girl who said, “I know Jesus lives in my heart because when I put my hand on it I can feel Him walking around in there.” Well, she has it right. As Christians, Jesus lives in here so when we see suffering and hardship, when we see hurting people, we should respond to His inner nudge in our hearts by helping them in the same way He would. I came across a cartoon this week that features two talking turtles. One says, “Sometimes I’d like to ask why God allows poverty, famine, and injustice when He could do something about it.” The other turtle says, “I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.”
So, fellow Christian, when you see suffering and wonder why somebody doesn’t do something about it, remember: you are somebody. And if we stand there and do nothing we must remember there will come a day when God will ask us why we ignored His inner prompting and did “nothing, nothing at all.”
We have no excuse for inaction because the Bible teaches that God has custom-designed and supernaturally gifted each of us to help the suffering, lonely people of this world. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
About 9 years ago, for a period of 18 months Dr. Charles Bugg served as our interim pastor. I loved his preaching and of all the stories he told one of my favorite was about a girl named Susan. All her life Susan had suffered from low self esteem because she did not like her body which she considered too big-boned and muscular. She repeatedly asked God why He made her this way.
Well, during a revival she felt God’s call to full-time ministry and so she entered New Orleans Seminary and began to prepare for this call. Each day her route to class took her past a house with a big front porch. Every morning and evening she noticed a teenage boy sitting on the porch. When she drove by each day they would always wave at each other and after several weeks of this she felt drawn by God. She felt Jesus moving around in her heart, prompting her to help this boy. So one day she pulled up, introduced herself, and asked permission to take the boy on an outing.
It was then that she noticed he was in a wheel chair. You see, the boy was on that porch each morning because every day before his mother went to work she would roll him out there. And he would spend his days watching cars go by. Well the mother was only too glad to give Susan permission to spend time with her son. The first outing Susan arranged was a trip to the zoo.
She arrived on time and then as she knelt down to pick the boy up and carry him to the car she became aware of how easily she lifted his weight. At this point a God-sent thought entered her mind, “This is why I made you so big and strong.” God’s spirit led Susan to discover that she was custom-designed to minister to this particular lonely teen’s needs and you and I are just as uniquely hand-crafted by God. And when we become Christians the Holy Spirit comes to live in us and from then on He nudges us to use our gifted-ness to help people in need.
Please understand, this is a form of God’s activity every bit as real as His miraculous intervention. Many times when non-Christians ask where God is, when they wonder if God is on the move, if they don’t see Him working, well, could it be because we, His followers, refuse to let Him work through us? Could it be due to the fact that we don’t respond to Jesus nudging in our hearts?
If you are here today and are suffering I urge you to pray. Be honest with God about your feelings and ask for His help. Ask Him to teach you what you need to learn from this time of suffering. If you would like, I would be glad to pray with you.
And then, if you’re facing the trials and tribulations of life without Christ, I invite you to put your faith in Him today. Ask Him to forgive you of your sin and to come into your life as Lord. Trust Him with your life.
Others of you who are Christians may feel God leading you to trust His leading you to join this church and become a part of our ministry to the hurting people who are around us.
Whatever decision you have to make, I encourage you to do so now as we stand and sing.