Messages at Christmas almost always deal with one of two questions:

• How did the Son of God come to earth?
• Why did the Son of God come to earth?

       To the first, followers of Jesus, the Son of God, have uniformly given one answer, i.e., incarnation.  Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah and God the Son, became physical -- fully human while remaining fully God.  Jesus was born through a virgin mother named Mary in Bethlehem. 

       To the second question, the answer the Bible gives is not what we usually hear in our culture.  In our culture, Christmas is usually thought of a special warm feeling that everyone should have and that we wish we could make happen all through the year.  It’s a feeling somehow conveyed by a poor couple welcomed by a hospitable innkeeper giving birth to a lovely child who never cries and who is born among lovely cows chewing grass.  It’s a feeling that we need to embrace and pass on to others because its warmth can melt the frozen hearts of people like the Grinch or Scrooge.

         So, it’s a warm emotion we should embrace and then be motivated to go out and can make the world a better place.  The world’s version of Christmas suggests this message might be passed on through the story of a manger – but just as well through Santa Claus bringing gifts to children, Rudolph the Reindeer rescuing an entire island of misfits, or even through Buddy the Elf getting a hard-hearted businessman to sing.

       We may get this all mixed up at times.  But we usually think, “It doesn’t matter as long as we get the Christmas Spirit and work to make the world a better place.”  Look at just one song that tries to drive this message home:

Here comes Santa Claus right down Santa Claus lane.

He doesn't care if you're rich or poor -- he loves you just the same…
Santa knows we're all God's children -- that makes everything right
So, fill your hearts with Christmas cheer ‘cause Santa Claus comes tonight.

Peace on earth will come to all, if we just follow the light,

So let's give thanks to the Lord above 'Cause Santa Claus comes tonight.

       Now, I don’t want to be a Grinch in my sermon this morning.  I’d rather people have this warm spirit than not to have it.  I’d rather have people singing than swearing.  I’d rather have us all work to make the world a better place than to be self-centered in all we do.  But, the problems we have in our world are not simply due to a few Grinches and Scrooges.  The deepest needs of our hearts will not be satisfied by seeking to fill them will a self-generated feeling of peace on earth and goodwill to all.

     And, I believe, when we go to church at a time when the whole world is trying to celebrate Christmas, we simply must look at why the Son of God came to earth – according to God’s own Word.   And the “why” question is always answered in the Bible with a set of related words all starting with “r”:  Rescue – redemption – re-creation -- reconciliation.  All these words refer to taking things from a state of being messed up to a place of flourishing and beauty.  And, as we are being guided this Advent season 2011 here at LAC by Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we’ll look briefly at the word he used repeatedly in the first chapter, i.e., reconciliation.

#1:  Reconcilation:  What does it mean?

       It is restoring things to their intended and proper relationship.  The Bible indicates that broken relationships are at the heart of the world’s woes.  The Bible opens with God creating the world that, when he finished, was very good.  Beautifully, Genesis 2 describes a garden-like existence in which only one thing is not good, i.e., the man made in God’s image did not have anyone like himself with whom he could have a relationship.  God had eternally existed in loving relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  So, people made in God’s image could not really live well without relationship too – so Eve was created and all was very good.

       The most basic relationship for a life of peace on earth and good will was the relationship to God.  In Genesis 2, that was good – God walked with the two people.  He was their God.  But, the people chose to become their own gods and disobeyed God – which set of a chain of broken relationship with cosmic consequences.  So, now, in our natural state, we are broken from God – people are broken from one another – and the world is out of order.

       So, God came to earth in the person of Jesus to make all things right.  That’s the good news that Paul is teaching in Colossians 1 – good news that he declares in v. 6 is for the whole world.  And, in  v.20, eventually all things in the universe will be made right – reconciled.  Evil will be judged.  The universe will again declare the glory of the Maker.  So, the word “reconciliation” in the Bible has a cosmic dimension to it – everything is now out of sync and God came to make all things right.  It also has a very human dimension to it:  our relationships among people in our families and our circle of relationships are not all they should be.   

       And, it has a very personal dimension to it, i.e., we individually need to be reconciled to God.  In Col. 1, we learn that the “why” of Christmas has to do with the reconciliation of all those things.  Jesus came to restore all those things to their intended shalom – to what God meant his world to be. 

       So, reconciliation has a global aspect and a very personal one.  It is about people’s relationship to God, our relationship to other people, and our relationship to the world God has put us in.  With that in mind, now let me do what my Mom called meddling a bit with our personal lives. You and I individually are not all we were made to be.  That brings me to my second point:

#2:  Reconciliation :  Why do we need it?

       Jeff Jones often tells me that the first steps required in solving a problem are 1) identifying what the real problem is and 2) owning what the real problem is.  He points out that sometimes develop elaborate and costly solutions that are unnecessary, expensive, and don’t solve the problem at all.  I know he’s right. 

       Carol Kenyon sent me some personal examples of this.   One of them was calling the doctor about her 4 year old son's ailing knees years ago.  She thought it was a symptom of some type of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Then finding out he had been repeatedly jumping off the hood of their car in the back yard, attempting to fly.  All the medicine for arthritis in the world probably wouldn’t have solved that. 

       Or, I was also told about the situation of Salton City – near Niland – in the CA desert.  A variety of water sources -- streams, tributaries and run-off water from the mountains -- had led to a body of water there. In the 1950s, a developer thought that it should be as lucrative a community as Palm Desert and Palm Springs.  So, additional water was redirected to form Salton Sea.  Fish of all sorts were brought in. Hotels and restaurants were contracted, streets built and a mega-resort community was envisioned.  But, they failed to realize several problems -- like seismic activity due to several faults (like the San Andreas Fault), which has led to tornado mud pools.  Or, the bigger problem was the inability for water to flow out leading to a Dead Sea-like stagnancy.  The fish died.  Countless kinds of activity developed.  The hotels, restaurants and most of the people moved out.  Now, this area still may thrive someday – but it will only do so if the real problems are identified and remedied.

       There are countless examples of this in medical diagnoses, building construction, politics, etc.  But, I think you get the point.

       Now, look at the Bible’s analysis of our personal problem in v. 21:  You were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  Ooh – that’s exactly what the way we don’t want to talk at Christmas.  This is the very problem we don’t want to identify and own up to.  And, at least in part, the pseudo-Christmas messages filling our culture see people not getting along, people abusing others, wars among us, countless people with no peace on earth and good will… We all know something is wrong and want to have at least one season when we can experience something better.  So, we’ve built this whole culture around addressing the problem.  But, the root problem isn’t addressed so, at the end of the day, little changes.

       Christmas is all about God’s solution to the real problems that people have.  God loves people and came to deal with the real problem.  We need forgiveness of our pasts – and we need God back again in our lives.  Life begins when we are reconciled with God.  Remember Col 1: 13-14: God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

       And, this need of rescue and forgiveness is true of us all.  Ebenezer Scrooge needed it – but so did Bob Cratchet.  The Grinch needed it but so did Mary Lou Who.  Walter Hobbes needed it but so did Buddy the Elf.  And, our reconciliation begins when we acknowledge our problem and own it – saying, “It’s true of me.  I need to be forgiven and reconciled to God.”

       I was reading an article recently in which the writer was reflecting on how people all over our nations were insisting that the crimes of Rod Blagojevich, Conrad Murray, Casey Anthony, etc. need to be punished thoroughly.  He said it surprises him to discover over and over that people intuitively believe that evil must be punished.  He said, “Think of it.  We live in a world in which people often say they believe in no moral values.  But, no society seems to sustain that conviction.  Something inside us insists that there is no justice without evil being punished and goodness rewarded.”

       And the Bible agrees.  It’s diagnosis of our problem is something that rings true – “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23).”

#3:  Reconciliation:  How is it achieved and received?

       Let’s go back to v. 20:  God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things… by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

       Peace through blood.  I cannot sugarcoat this.  Paul is referring taking us back to the Book of Leviticus to help us grasp this.  That book is very repetitive telling us God is holy and just and that evil will not be allowed to go unpunished.  But, sinful things cannot rescue themselves.  Drowning men cannot pull themselves out of the whirlpool by grabbing their own hair.  So, they were to bring lambs without any blemish as a sacrifice.  In Lev. 16, we have Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, described.  A day was called for in which the blameless would be sacrificed on behalf of those blemished by sin.  It all was pointing to the one sacrifice that would be enough for all.  Jesus, God’s Son, would come to earth, live a sinless life and die – the sinless for the sinful – so that we might be reconciled to God.

       So, Jesus came to this world but his own did not receive him.  But to all who do receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gives the right to be called the children of God.  You must entrust your sins to him and ask him to forgive you.  Then, entrust your life to him and ask him to remake you.  He will be faithful to forgive your sins and to cleanse you.  “Jesus alone lived the life we should have lived (but non of us has) and then died the death we should have to die (but now do not have to).  But you must place your faith in Jesus.  Your must become a Jesus-follower.  Then, you will have peace with God and begin to live.

       We will talk about what happens to us when we take this step of faith.  But, as a foretaste, see v. 22:  God has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.  We will become, what Paul says in v.28, i.e., complete in Christ.  And we will use all the energy God gives us to tell others about him and to show them the love that has been shown to us. 

       When we truly take this step of faith and receive this gift of reconciliation, we become thankful people.  We become people like Paul was.  Paul never forgot that he was a product of God’s love and grace.  He never took on an attitude of entitlement.  Never made excuses.  And that’s what you and I need to remember every time we gather here.  We must know, “If there is hope for me to be reconciled then there is hope for anyone!”  When you know that deep inside, that reality will change your life.     

       This is the why of Christmas.  The great carol gets it right:  Peace on earth and mercy mild will be experienced – when God and sinners are reconciled.