People Want Change or Do They? What Really Brings Change? This Does.

Oh, how I remember that question.  Do you remember that question, the one that stirred your heart at this season of the year?  As a kid, just thinking about that question excited me.  Have you guessed it, the question?   What do you want Santa to bring you this year?      

Every kid loves that question.   Sure, there’s Rudolph and the cookies and the lights and the trees.  And let’s not forget the whole reason for the season, Jesus and the manger and all.   But the whole Santa coming with the loot holds every kid’s attention.   Is Santa going to bring you what you most want?   Is that Lego set going to be there or that DVD or that Princess doll or whatever?  Heck, that was part of the excitement, not sure what was going to be there, but hoping that your dream gift would be.  I still remember last year, when our son, Patrick got the Polar Express train set.  He had hoped that Santa would come through, but still wasn’t sure.  And when he ripped open the big box and found that train, wow, you should have seen the joy.   By the way, it lasted about six weeks, and now the train is gathering dust in a toy drawer.   But for six weeks, it was awesome.   

But do you think about that question a lot now?   No, probably not.  Granted, Santa doesn’t seem to bring as much when you get older.  But more than that, you know.  Even if Santa loaded you up, even if he left you one of those Lexus cars with the bow they advertise on TV these days, you know.  Even that wouldn’t make that much difference.  Sure, it’d be nice.  It might bring you some joy.  But it wouldn’t last.  Eventually the joy, the thrill would fade away.

But that doesn’t mean that you don’t yearn.   If you’re honest, you yearn as much, maybe even more than you did as a kid.  It’s just that your yearnings have gotten more complicated, more difficult.  Heck, you may not even be able to figure out what you are yearning for.   But you know this.  Inside, you still hunger for something more.  And you know whatever it might be Amazon doesn’t sell it or for that matter any store.  You yearn for something bigger than that. 

Maybe you call it peace or joy or hope or love or purpose or meaning or healing or simply rest.  This yearning goes by many names, and even if you can’t name it, you sense it’s there. And what do you do with that?  What do you do with those yearnings?  Do you simply give up on getting those yearnings met?  Or is it possible that question growing up about Santa wasn’t that far off?      What if, in the expectant heart of that childhood question, you find the very heart of what Christmas is truly about?   In these words, God shows you the way to that answer.  So, let’s listen and hear what that answer is.

Luke 3:1-6 

What do all these adult, complicated, difficult yearnings have in common?  In each one, folks are yearning for change.  You and I are yearning for some deep profound change somewhere, one that could never fit under a Christmas tree.  And here, God tells you some incredibly good news.  God tells you that what you yearn for, what everyone yearns for, that’s exactly what Jesus brings.

In the story of Jesus’ coming, John the Baptist acts as Jesus’ advance man.  John prepares the way for the coming of the main act.  And it’s here in this story that John first shows up.  And from that beginning, John makes it clear.  Jesus has come to bring change, serious change, deep-down, shaking of the foundations change. 

Do you see how the story sets that up?  First from the beginning the story tells you how things are.   It gives you the powers that be, Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas, Caiaphas.  In all those names, that’s what it tells you.  Here are the way things are.  Here are the people in power.  But then these words from the prophet Isaiah deliver a very different message. The mountains are coming down.  The low places will be lifted up.  The crooked will be made straight.  The rough roads are going to be smoothed out.   Now, the prophet Isaiah isn’t talking geography.  Isaiah is talking world-shaking change, change that overturns the powers that be, change that radically transforms the way things are. 

God is telling you here.  What you yearn for, the sort of change that transforms the world; that transforms you; that’s what Jesus brings.   Jesus brings change.   Great!  Jesus brings change, the change we yearn for, the change that saves us from ourselves; the change that gives joy, peace, life as God means it to be; the sort of change that saves the world.  What wonderful news.  What Santa can’t bring, Jesus does.  Yea! 

But if Jesus brings the change, then where is it?   A lot of mountains in our world still need to come down, a lot of mountains in our lives.   And you’ve likely got some low places that could lifted up too.  So, if Jesus’ coming brings change, where is it?     

It’s actually happening right now.  And it’s been happening, ever since John first showed up on the scene.   The problem isn’t that change isn’t happening, it’s that folks don’t understand what change truly is.  

When people think of change, big change, the sort of change they yearn for, they think they know how it has to happen.  It will happen like it did in that old movie, Big.  Sheesh, I’m stunned that Big is now an old movie.  I am getting so old.   

But have you ever seen that movie?  What happens is this.   This little kid, Josh, goes to this carnival, and finds this magical wish machine.   And he wishes to be big.  Then boom, overnight, it happens.  He’s big.   But here’s the problem, he may have been big on the outside.  But inside, Josh is still the same little kid.   Now, what looked like a big change wasn’t that deep a change at all.    Still it sure looked like deep change.  It fooled his mom.  It fooled his best friend, at least for a while.  It even fools a big toy company, and the actress Elizabeth Perkins.  But here’s who it didn’t fool.  It never fooled Josh.  He knew.  This magical change wasn’t any real change at all.

Yet, folks still get fooled into yearning for that, for that magical change.  You yearn for more peace or joy, and you expect Jesus to zap you, and boom, it’s there. You yearn for a solution to a challenge in your life, and then look for Jesus to present it to you under the tree with a bow attached.    Heck, you yearn for everybody in the world to be fed.  So you  send the wish  to Jesus, and the next day, every starving village gets a country buffet, and a Sizzler to book.   But that’s not change.  It’s magic.  And magic is not real.  Even in a movie, it’s not real.          

And sure, we all know that, but we can still get caught in that sort of magical thinking.   If I walk around the block, then that will burn off that thousand calories of ice cream I just ate.  Or how about this one?   Hey, if I stay up late to watch this movie or see the end of this game, I can squeeze eight hours of sleep into five.  I’ll just sleep really, really intensely.  

But magical thinking does more than deceive you into adding some pounds to our waistline or giving you a day of sleep deprivation.  It prevents you from experiencing what true change is all about.  And that can even destroy you.  

When folks talk about how their addictions began, you often hear something like this.  Suddenly, with this drug, life seemed so much easier.  I felt more comfortable, more at ease, more secure.   It was magical.  It was as if the drug had magically transformed them, had changed what they yearned to see changed.  But that wasn’t real.  Once the high wore off, things hadn’t changed at all, except maybe to get worse.  But that magic seemed well, so magical. So, their life started to have that as its sole focus, to keep that magic going, no matter what it cost them in terms of their family, their relationships, their work, even their very life.   And they began to live out that painful definition of addiction, where you need more and more of something to make you less and less happy.

Now don’t think this sort of addiction stays limited to alcohol or some other drug. You can see people trying to get change through some sort of magic solution all the time.  If I get more money or work a little harder or find a different partner or a new job, you name it, then things will be different, then the change I yearn for will come.   But does it ever?    Things may look different.  The surroundings may be nicer, but change, real change?  That hasn’t happened at all.   It’s all an illusion.  Too often people look for a change of scenery, when what they need is a change of self. 

And that is the change that Jesus brings.  That is the change that John is proclaiming.  Someone is coming who is bringing real change.    You see.  Jesus doesn’t just bring the illusion of change.  Jesus isn’t magic.  Jesus brings the real thing.   Jesus will bring the mountains down.  He will raise the valleys up.  He will make the crooked straight.  He will make the rough way smooth.   But if Jesus brings this real change, this change that people so yearn for, why doesn’t everybody go for it?    Why instead do you and I so often get caught up in magical thinking instead? 

God answers that question here.  It comes right in the middle of the words we read.  “He (John) went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”   In English, we don’t have a good word for what is translated here, repentance.  When folks think of that word repentance, they usually think of some regret about the past or some change in future behavior.  But the word here, the Greek word metanoia means far more than that.  Metanoia means a profound change, a change in our perspective, a change in our goals, a change in our mind, in everything about our life.   Metanoia means a completely new-minded way of looking at, of living life.

And that folks may not always be so excited about.   So, folks want change yes, but they’re not so sure about being changed.  They want what change brings.  But they’re not so sure about paying what change costs.   Sure you want the new, but letting go of the old?  I don’t know.  So, folks stay caught up in the magic.  After all, magic may not bring real change, but it doesn’t call for real change in folks either.  So, when it comes to fully facing what real change brings, often people choose to stay with the illusion, with the lie. 

I recently started wearing a fit bit.  And I’m loving it.  But I discovered some painful realities.  It’s not magic.   Even if I get my 10,000 steps, it ain’t going to burn off that late night candy bar.  If I want to really get to my goal weight and stay there, things are going to need to change.   I can’t indulge my every appetite.   I’ll need to get back to that gym and keep getting back there week after week.  And even then, the change will be slow.

And the change that John is proclaiming here goes way deeper than dropping a few pounds.   John is talking about change that goes to the very heart of who you are.  And when you realize, you can be tempted to not go there, to stay in the illusion of change rather than face what real change means. But life, real life, won’t be found in the magic, in the illusion.   And if you expect it from there, you are expecting magic to do what magic can never do.  

So how does Jesus bring you change?   Jesus does bring. it instantly.  But that instant change still takes a lifetime to sink in.   What do I mean?   Do you know that famous Bible story where Charlton Heston (oops I mean Moses) parts the waters of the Red Sea? Now when the Israelite slaves goes through those waters, they become free.   When their Egyptian masters perish in the waves behind them, God has liberated them.  In those moments, God delivers them out of slavery.  But it will take a lifetime for God to get the slavery out of them.  

And in Jesus, God delivers you even more profoundly.   In Jesus, you can know that you are loved, that you are valuable, that you have infinite worth.  Why? The creator of everything became you, a human being. And that change wasn’t some magic trick.  No God got vulnerable.  God suffered.  God even died.   But all of that tells you, that this love isn’t an illusion.  It’s real.  It’s a love sealed with God’s very life, God’s flesh and blood.  And why did God do that?  So, God could bring you home, so God make you his beloved child, so that you can know whatever happens, this love will never change. You get it.  You are invited.  You are welcomed.  You are loved.  You are truly, infinitely, totally, completely loved. And the more you know that, the freer you become, the more you become.  And as that change comes, it goes deep down, right to the foundations.  And as by God’s love and grace, you come to believe that love, to trust it, to rest in it, then you discover joy and hope and love and meaning not just for yourself but for others, for this entire world.  You discover it not because of anything you’ve done, but because you have come to know, what God in God’s amazing love has already done for you.