Jesus Grown Up, Faith Grown Bigger
by Connie Frierson
Colossians 1: 15-20
Graham advised me to make this sermon simple. After the rush and frenzy of the commercial season this is the Sunday for the true faithful, the troopers of the faith who turn out even on the day after the big day. Graham went on to suggest that I use a film clip or keep the sermon to a few good stories. In that vein I scanned through my brain for popular films with theological importance. And I came up with Talladega Nights, The Legend of Ricky Bobby. As you can see my treasury of film clips isn’t as esoteric as Grahams.
In this silly movie there was one theological idea that is worth sharing. Ricky Bobby is a stock car driver and an idiot who enjoys unreasonable success. This movie owes an apology to all things southern and I can’t actually show the clip because there is just no way to clean it up. But here is the scene. Will Ferrell who plays Ricky Bobby is offering a prayer at the dinner table. Ricky loves the Christmas Jesus best, so he begins his prayer to “Dear tiny Jesus, with Golden Fleece diapers and tiny, fat balled up fists.” Ricky Bobby’s wife interrupts and reminds him, “Jesus did grow up you know. You don’t always have to call him baby.”
“Oh no,” says Ricky Bobby. “I like the Christmas Jesus best.” So he goes on, “Dear 8 lb. 6oz. newborn infant Jesus. Don’t even know a word yet. Just a little infant, so cuddly, but still omnipotent… Thank you for all your power and your grace, dear baby God. Amen.”
I think Will Ferrell might be on to something here. We like the baby Jesus best too. We sing, “Away in a Manger no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.” We sing, “Silent Night, Holy Night…Holy infant so tender and mild.”
So this morning let’s think together about this love of the baby Jesus and wonder a bit if we aren’t drinking a little too much eggnog, thick and sweet. Is there a problem with our ideas about Jesus? It seems this Sweet Baby Jesus can be both a good and bad thing in our relationship with God.
What is good about a swaddled savior? The good is that God came down, lived in the neighborhood, and dwelt among us, as the First Chapter of John says. A baby Jesus who is allowed to grow up knows what it is to be fully human, is no stranger to family dynamics, bullies next door, greedy tax collectors, oppressive Roman armies, sickness, friendship, love, loss and even death. If we let the baby grow up, we know God to be with us in a brand new way. That fabulous, precious baby Jesus is a way of knowing a God, who knows us.
The nuclear scientist, Robert Oppenheimer said, “The best way to send an idea is to wrap it up in a person.” John Yates of The Falls Church in Virginia tells a story about a little girl who understood the same profound idea that Oppenheimer quote. The little girl said, “Some people couldn’t hear God’s inside whisper, and so he sent Jesus to tell them out loud.” Our God came in person, so that we can know God, in the person, of Jesus Christ.
The only problem with the sweet baby Jesus is when we limit him to babyhood. If we limit Jesus to babyhood, Jesus never grows teeth. A Jesus with out teeth is small, personal and powerless. The danger is when we make our God so personal that we distort who God is. Ricky Bobby’s baby Jesus really had very little power to save anyone in his golden, fleece diapers. Ricky Bobby’s baby Jesus was all about helping Ricky Bobby. That Baby Jesus would never ask you to love your neighbor as yourself, take up your cross and follow him, give to the poor, heal the sick, care for our planet or be a servant to all. The teaching of a grown up Jesus are challenging and following that Jesus changes us and shakes up our world.
So what is the solution to having a baby Jesus and a baby faith? The solution is we need a bigger Jesus. We need to search for the grown up Jesus and even beyond that earthly Jesus. We also need to at least begin to conceive of the Jesus who is God, the Jesus that is the Christ. We can’t box up the Son of God in a cradle. Our passage today Colossians 1:15-20 allows us to glimpse a Christ that is beyond a baby, beyond a man, beyond even a personal savior. Colossians 1 is like the antidote to too many Christmas cookies. The Ancient Hymn of Christ in our scripture this morning is Jesus who is the Christ, a savior on a cosmic scale. This is the Jesus who doesn’t just save us, but saves the world, who remakes a new earth and even a new heaven. This Jesus is the image of an invisible God. This Jesus allows us a glimpse of the power of creation that is beyond our little lives, our parochial concerns and our limited view. When you tinker with your spiritual life you are entering into God’s world on a grand scale, not our own small scale.
Jesus shows us an invisible God. How can we wrap our heads around that? Because we are physical creatures we need to conceive of God in images, in metaphor and things we do know. That is why we love the baby Jesus. We know how to love babies. But how shall we glimpse the invisible God and love a God beyond our understanding?
I think science might help, specifically the science of comets. Scientists believe that comets are like underdone leftovers. Comets are bits of gas and dust that form our solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Comets are little frozen storage containers of the original matter. So they are like little frozen time capsules. Astronomers and physicists believe that if we could capture just a little of a comet before it is burned up in our atmosphere, that we could learn some fundamental answers to how planets were born. NASA has been working on this. In 2006, NASA completed a mission to retrieve comet dust. They created an armored spacecraft with a cosmic catcher’s mitt to go out and catch the comet dust. Then the dust is tucked into a reentry pod and landed in January 2006 in the Utah desert. Decades of research will surround this little teaspoon of space dust. From that tiny bit scientists will draw conclusions about how the earth was formed.
It is the same with God. A single solitary person called the Christ can tell us what we need to know about the invisible God. The meaning of life, my life, your life all of life, is held in one life of Christ. Jesus is our face for an invisible God. Flesh and blood and a life lived and died can tell us about an infinite and eternal Spirit. We learn about God’s love in that little baby and in the man, Jesus. But even before that, “For and by him all things were created.” This is Christ the creator, beyond Jesus the man. Christ is the head of the church, not just our little church, but churches outside these door, and across time. Christ is all the fullness of God dwelling inside of him.
How do we begin to get this glimpse of a bigger Jesus, a bigger God? One of the ways we do this is to pray and meditate on the foundations of our faith in the bible. If you want a bigger God to empower your life, even take over you life, look to scripture. One of the ways we want to help you do this in the New Year is to encourage a practice of reading and praying through scripture. In the next week if you are a church member you will receive a letter and a pamphlet “A 2010 Bible Reading Guide.” The letter outlines how you might use this pamphlet. The very first reading on January 1st includes our passage today from Colossians. By reading, meditating and letting these words work on us, we can begin to see a bigger God and grow into a bigger faith. A bigger faith can respond to bigger challenges. A bigger faith can look beyond our own needs to the needs of others.
So if you want to glimpse God, if you want to grow in faith, look at the baby in Bethlehem. Look at the life and teaching of Jesus. See the compassion of a God who comes to us. Experience the forgiveness he offers. Be awed at the creation he made. Catch a comet’s tail and study the complexities of a world born of God breathed dust. This is the far-reaching aspect of glimpsing a Christ bigger than a baby faith.
My wish for you this Christmas season is that you have all the fullness of Christ in you, that you recognize, treasure and nurture an awareness of that thimbleful of God in us that is Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
