Today’s message is based on Matthew 11:2-11 and titled “The Gift”
Two young boys were spending the night at their grandparents’ house the week before Christmas. At bedtime, the two boys knelt beside their beds to say their prayers. The younger one began praying at the top of his lungs:
“I PRAY FOR A NEW BICYCLE…”AND I PRAY FOR A NINTENDO…”
His older brother leaned over, nudged him and said, “Why are you shouting? God isn’t deaf.” Then the little brother replied, “No, but Grandma is!”
Christmas is only 10 days away. On that morning, children and adults will be unpacking their Christmas “gifts”.
According to a study by the National Retail Federation, Americans are projected to spend more money on gifts this year than any other time in history.
According to a Gallup study, American adults are projected to spend an average of $856 on gifts.
Growing up in Holland, gifts were exchanged in the evening of December 5th the day of Saint Nicholas.
It was not uncommon for the gift to have a rhyme attached to it.
Speaking of rhymes, the other day I read a story of a lady who wanted to buy Christmas gifts for her circle of friends. But she had been too busy to buy gifts.
As time was running short, so close to Christmas, she decided to give up on the gifts, and instead buy everyone a beautiful Christmas card.
She went to the local gift store, and hastily went through the Christmas cards that were left, and found a box of fifty, just exactly what she needed.
She didn’t take time to read the message, but liked the picture, portraying the spirit of Christmas, and she thought this is just perfect. She signed the back of each of the cards with “Merry Christmas”.
After the holidays, she cleaned some papers off her desk and ran across the one leftover card that she hadn’t sent. For the first time she looked inside the card and she actually read what it said.
It had a simple little rhyme: This Christmas card is just to say, a gift is on the way
Can you imagine receiving a message with the promise that a gift is on the way???
What an exciting prospect that must be. This is exactly what happened when God made the promise that a gift was on the way. He used the prophet Isaiah to deliver that message 2800 years ago.
The equivalent of that Christmas card is a message found in Isaiah 35 Earlier, Art read from Isaiah 35: Here is your God. He will come and save you.”
5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
What a delightful message that must have been, but it took a long time of expectedly waiting before this gift was delivered.
Our opening hymn this morning was “Come thou long-expected Jesus….. For centuries the Jewish people were anxiously waiting, and expecting the arrival of the Messiah as had been foretold, all the way back in the 8th century BC by Isaiah.
But God does things on his timeline, not ours, and 800 years later he sent his only begotten son to dwell among the people, in other words: his “Gift” to the world.
The bible mentions “Gift” 58 times, but it is most cited in the Gospel of Matthew and Paul’s letter to the Romans.
Today’s reading in Matthew 11:2-11 depicts the arrival of “The Gift” from heaven, and the manifestation that Jesus was indeed the Messiah as had been foretold by the Isaiah.
This reading can be found on page……… of your pew bible.
But before reading the word of God, please bow down in prayer.
Guide us, O God, by your Word and Spirit, that in your light we may see light, in your truth find wisdom, and in your will, discover your peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Matthew 11:2-11
2When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John, what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
7As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness, to look at? A reed shaken by the wind?
8What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10This is the one, about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11Truly I tell you, among those born of women, no one has arisen, greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he………………..
Verse 2 starts with when John was in prison. You may wonder: who is john?…… John the Baptist was a cousin of Jesus and born only 6 months earlier as an only child, to Zecharias and Elizabeth.
John was a teacher and prophet; he had a following of Israelites hungry and thirsty of the soul, and anxious for the anticipated arrival of the Messiah.
John received the word of God in the wilderness, to spread the message of repentance and love of others, by sharing with the less fortunate in society.
The place where he baptized was in the exact same location where Joshua had led the Israelites through the Jordan into the Promised Land 1400 years earlier, after spending 40 years in the wilderness…….
John the Baptist played a key role in the launch of Jesus’ ministry. Let me illustrate this role with the following analogy:
Did anyone see the 49er game last Sunday beating the New Orleans Saints 48-46? What an epic game that was. One of the keys, to the 49er success this year, is their amazing running record, second only in the NFL this year.
But no one can touch the record, of Emmitt Smith the all-time leading rusher in NFL history. He played for the Dallas Cowboys for 13 seasons including 3 Super Bowl victories.
Smith was the only running back to ever receive a Super Bowl MVP award.
Emmitt Smith had a carrier total of 18,350 yards running, 164 TD’s and was inducted in NFL Hall of fame in 2010.
Lesser known is the fullback, Daryl Johnston, who was the lead blocker, opening up the lanes for Emmitt Smith. He was the one who paved the way for Smith to run all these yards.
So it was with John the Baptist who paved the way for the Lord, as prophesied in Isaiah 40: clear the way of the lord, in the wilderness make smooth, in the desert a highway for our God.
But in verse 2, John had been arrested and thrown in prison for condemning King Herod, who had divorced his wife and then unlawfully took Herodias, the wife of his brother.
John asked Jesus in verse 3: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?
John knew that Jesus was the Messiah. Here he is confined in a prison cell, and he started to wonder if he perhaps was wrong.
The Jewish people in those days had a perception of the Messiah as the powerful warrior who would kick the Romans out the land of Israel and establish his Kingdom.
But Jesus, indisputably answers John’s doubts in verse 5 reporting on the amazing things he has done, when he said: “the blind receive their sight”; this is a true testimony of the sanctity of Jesus.
Nowhere else in the bible, is there a recording of the blind being healed, except for Jesus performing this miracle on 4 separate occasions in Matt 9:27, Mark 8:22, Mark 10:46 and John 9:1.
Then he says: the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.
Every one of these compassionate acts is a solid proof that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the one Isaiah had predicted was to come in that delightful message in Isaiah 35:5.
In other words, Jesus was not the warrior Messiah that most had been expecting, but rather he was “The gift” to mankind, “The Gift” to the world.
In verse 7-9 Jesus poses some rhetorical questions by asking the crowd, what they thought of John the Baptist. Why were they so interested in him? He was a humble prophet who spoke a piercing message.
Jesus pointed out that John was more than just a prophet because he served as his forerunner.
Jesus proclaimed, that John was the greatest prophet, which is pretty amazing when we consider Moses, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah or any of the other prophets.
John had the distinct privilege, of introducing the Messiah to his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters, but also to the world.
In verse 11 Jesus said: the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist. How can that be?
He was underscoring the extraordinary privilege of being in the kingdom.
John paved the way for the coming of the messiah, but those in the kingdom, actually experience the glory of heaven.
To use another football metaphor, they get to celebrate the touchdown in the end zone and share the glory with the rest of the team.
Even the least in the Kingdom have a better understanding than all the prophets combined because they know the love of God as he showed it on the cross.
This is where “The Gift” comes into the picture.
Jesus said in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Jesus is “The Gift” and he, in turn, is one who provides “The Gift”
He is “The Gift” that keeps on giving.
Paul calls it “the unspeakable gift of God” in 2 Cor. 9:15
And in Romans 6:23 Paul wrote: the Gift of God is eternal life
The timing of the gift is everything; let me illustrate this with a true story that I heard on my way home Friday night:
The wife of a policeman in Iowa was doing some early Christmas shopping in June 1977, looking for an appropriate gift for her husband.
She found what she was looking for but the price was out of her range and there was only one left.
So she said to the salesperson, can you put this away for me, I will pay you some money now, and will pay you monthly until I pick it up for Christmas.
The salesperson looked her in the eyes, and said it is fine that you pay monthly until Christmas, but take this gift with you now; you never know what might happen between now and Christmas.
When she came home she was so excited, she couldn’t wait until Christmas, and gave “The Gift” to her husband that day.
Fast forward to October 1st, 1977, when the policeman responded to a robbery call, at a drug store in Bettendorf Iowa,
He walked over to the suspect’s car when suddenly the door opened and the suspect pointed a 45 caliber gun and fired from about three feet away dead center in the stomach of the policeman.”
Later that morning two officers stood at the doorstep of his home to break the bad news to his wife. When she saw the grave look on the officer’s faces, she broke down in tears.
They said, her husband is in the ER, with a huge bruise on his belly but that he will be released in hours.
The gift she had bought and prematurely given to her husband was a bulletproof vest, and it saved his life.
It is like that, with “The Gift” from God, this is the free gift that will save your life forever.
Paul wrote in Romans 6:23: but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But in order to accept this free gift we need to surrender and give ourselves to Christ.
Surrendering in light of adversity it is not easy,
Let me illustrate this with an example:
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Humboldt County experienced what they called a bomb cyclone. The winds were so strong it knocked out power to thousands of homes including ours.
It took multiple days for the PG&E crews to restore all the power lines.
For us, it meant Thanksgiving without electricity. Our little generator kept the food in the refrigerator and freezer from spoiling, but the rest of the house was cold and dark.
As the day went on, we eventually surrendered to making the best of it, as it was getting dark, we got a fire going in the woodstove, ready to bundle up to read a book.
But then, when we were no longer expecting it, the whole house lit up at once, like a flash from heaven, when suddenly the power came back on again. It truly felt like free gift.
Often we don’t realize all the things we take for granted and we should be thankful. What a joyous moment it was, to have a warm and well-lit house again
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 9:15 – Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
Surrender to Jesus, and ask him to come in your heart.
He will respond, and he will provide you with the gift, that is so powerful, it dwarfs any Christmas gift you will ever receive.
He said in Luke 11:9 ask and it shall be given
Don’t wait any longer with asking.
Do it today and he will come into your heart and soul.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:14 small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life.
When the inevitable time comes, he will lead us through the narrow gate, into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Thank you,
God bless you
Merry Christmas
Amen
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