Meeting Carry Grant

Is That It ?


Rev. Dr. Eddie Bromley Grace Church 28 December 2008
Luke 2:8-35 and Mark 6:1-6
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Luke 2:8-35
The Shepherds and Angels
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
15 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17 After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, 19 but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20 The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.
Jesus Is Presented in the Temple
21 Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived.
22 Then it was time for their purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. 23 The law of the Lord says, “If a woman’s first child is a boy, he must be dedicated to the Lord.”[a] 24 So they offered the sacrifice required in the law of the Lord—“either a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”[b]
The Prophecy of Simeon
25 At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him 26 and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, 28 Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised. 30 I have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared for all people. 32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
33 Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, the baby’s mother, “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, but he will be a joy to many others. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. 35 As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”
Mark 6:1-6
Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. 2 The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?” 3 Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary[a] and the brother of James, Joseph,[b] Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
4 Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” 5 And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.

L: The Word of God for the people of God
P: Thanks be to God!
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Where would God do something great and amazing?
This is a question I would like you to consider. If God were going to do something earth-shaking, history making where might He do it?
Christmas is easy to love; after all, it is about the birth of a baby, and only an old Scrooge would be able to resist getting a little misty-eyed over holiday that celebrates the birth of a little baby. So we’re glad to come with the shepherds, the wise men, and the angels to Bethlehem, because we all love looking at new little babies.
But if we take it even the least little bit seriously that God intended to change the world this way, we might be inclined to ask, “Is this it.” Is this really the way God intends to right all that is wrong about the world? Is God’s plan really going to be successful making the nations of this world his kingdom by sending a little baby? You have got to be kidding. Is this really it? A little peasant couple in an almost refugee-like setting in a backwards little town at the far edge of the empire; this is how God intends to get the job done?
We could almost believe the story if were at least had happened in place of more notoriety, someplace less…well, common.
But, what happens when something great and beautiful turns up in a very common place?
Joshua Bell emerged from the Metro and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript—a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money and began to play.
For the next 45 minutes, in the D.C. Metro on January 12, 2007, Bell played Mozart and Schubert as over 1,000 people streamed by, most hardly taking notice. If they had paid attention, they might have recognized the young man for the world-renowned violinist he is. They also might have noted the violin he played—a rare Stradivarius worth over $3 million. It was all part of a project arranged by The Washington Post—"an experiment in context, perception, and priorities—as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste. In a banal setting, at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"
Just three days earlier, Joshua Bell sold out Boston Symphony Hall, with ordinary seats going for $100. In the subway, Bell garnered about $32 from the 27 people who stopped long enough to give a donation.
Video: Joshua Bell Playing in a Washington D.C. Metro Station
If the Christmas story seems a little hard for us to believe, imagine how hard it was for those who had lived as neighbors to Jesus and his family to have believed.
The people of Nazareth had known Jesus his whole life. They had known his earthly parents. Their kids had played with Jesus and his siblings, their fathers had done business with Joseph, and the women had talked together as they worked with Mary. That a local Jewish boy from the neighborhood would make good was easy enough to believe, but that he would be the Messiah? No way.
Nothing blinds us to something really special like being familiar with it.
Linda Dupree writes:
As the only English teacher in a small rural school, I had the mixed pleasure of teaching my own three sons. They begged me not to call on them in class, use them as examples, or tell any family stories—to which I agreed. On the first day of class, they each invariably would choose a seat in the far corner and refused to make eye contact. I left them alone. But making it to the high school English class was a rite of passage for the rest of the students, who were eager to participate in Mrs. Dupree's class. I watched as my children began to see me through the eyes of others. One day my oldest asked me in puzzlement, "Mama, do they know who you are?" I'm sure he was referring to the fact that I was "just" a mother. To which I responded, "Son, do you know who I am?"
Linda H. Dupree, Goldonna, Louisiana

My wife, Stacy recently had a similar experience. A couple-friend of ours has six children, two biological and four foster children. Five of them are special needs children. So, as you can believe, the couple very seldom has any time alone. Baby sitting is especially hard to come by due to the nature of the situation. But, since Stacy is a Physician’s Assistant, our friends feel comfortable leaving the children with us, knowing that Stacy would be able to handle anything medical that might come up.
But the children do not know Stacy as a Physician’s Assistant. They know her as Aunt Stacy or Mrs. Stacy. They know her as someone dear to the family not as someone with an expertise in medicine.
Recently when we were baby-sitting these children, one of them started to develop a bad cough; Stacy went into the cabinet and found a medicine that would be suitable for the child. Not recognizing the medicine as one she would normally take, the child said, “You had better call mommy first and make sure it’s a good idea to give me that medicine.”
Objecting the Idea of Incarnation
The word incarnation literally means to put flesh one, to become human. It is the central teaching of the Christian Faith, that the Divine, Eternal Son of God, set his glory aside and became human about 2000 years ago in Israel.
A lot of people have a real problem with this teaching and they raise a lot of objections like, why didn’t the Lord become a female instead of a male? Why didn’t he become African instead of Jewish? Why didn’t he become white or Chinese? Why Israel? Why not someplace more central like Rome or some place more populated like India? Why 2000 years ago? Why not sooner or later?
But to raise the objections is to raise an objection to the whole idea of God becoming human. If God was going to become one of us, the Lord had to be either male or female, he could not be both. He had to be of some ethnicity, for there is no such thing as a non-ethnic person. He had to be born somewhere at sometime, if he were to become a real human being. In order to become a real human being, which was crucial to his mission, he could not born at all places in all centuries. The Incarnation had to happen some particular place at some particular time.
We have trouble with the particularity of the Incarnation not just because we don’t expect things like that to happen in ordinary places; we have trouble with the Incarnation because we don’t expect things like that to happen.
The extraordinary event catches us completely off guard. Though the following story hardly compares to the Lord becoming human, a story told by the great actor Cary Grant shows us just how unprepared we are for special things to occur.

The great star of the silver screen, Cary Grant once told how he was walking along a street and met a fellow whose eyes locked onto him with excitement. The man said, "Wait a minute, you're ... you're--I know who you are; don't tell me--uh, Rock Hud--No, you're ..." Grant thought he'd help him, so he finished the man's sentence: "Cary Grant." And the fellow said, "No, that's not it! You're ..." There was Cary Grant indentifying himself with his own name, but the fellow had someone else in mind.
John says of Jesus, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him" (John 1:10 NIV). And even when Jesus identified who he was--the Son of God--the response was not a welcome recognition, but rather the Crucifixion.
Robert F. Simms, Boone, North Carolina. Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 4.
Gene Weingarten, "Pearls Before Breakfast," The Washington Post (4-10-07); submitted by Stephen Nordbye, Charlton, Massachusetts


So come with me this Christmas to a little ordinary town on the far edge and backwaters of the Roman Empire, and I will show how God started the revolution of Kingdom through the birth of a little bitty, ordinary looking baby!