Away in a Manger

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. You know, I thought this song was a lot older than it is. It was actually first printed in a Lutheran children's devotional booklet or Sunday school curriculum in 1885. And I know for a lot of you that's old, but today that doesn't feel that old. Okay, just a side note. But 1885, I thought it was from like the 1600s. And some people thought that this song was actually written by the reformer Martin Luther, but we don't have any record of that. It doesn't go back that far. And yet, I'll tell you, even though there's a mystery or even a controversy over who wrote this and exactly, it has touched. There's no mystery over the fact that it has touched a lot of kids and a lot of adults through the years. And it brings that childlike quality for all of us. Okay, now there's a phrase in it that we're going to tie in with our gospel reading today from Matthew. And that phrase occurs again and again in this song, okay, and I think it brings a juxtaposition of things. I know, what a word, but a putting together of things that is what's amazing about our God and our Savior Jesus. And that is the fact that we have a God who is high and above and beyond and transcendent, and we have a God who is imminent and close and personal. And that is the phrase, the little Lord Jesus. Is that interesting? The little Lord Jesus. Now, some people have used that phrase and think of the baby Jesus, and it's just a cute time of the year because we'd like to keep him as a baby and almost treat him in a childlike way in our lives. And I can't help, I don't know if you thought about this with that phrase, little Lord Jesus, but I immediately thought this week of the spoof movie, any guesses, Talladega Nights, where Ricky Bobby prays this prayer at dinner to the baby Jesus. Pretty funny, huh? Pretty funny. And a lot of people, I think, treat Jesus almost a little like that. He's still not just the eight pound, six ounce baby Jesus anymore. He's a lot more than that. Even in Matthew chapter two, where we get this story of Jesus and his birth, we find out there's a lot more to him than that. And it's that phrase, the little Lord Jesus. And I think last week at Christmas Eve, we talked about what it meant, that term Lord. It's the Greek word, Kyrios, which when the Old Testament was translated into Greek from the Hebrew, it became the equivalent to the name of God in the Old Testament, Yahweh. That's how the rabbinical scholars who translated the Old Testament, they used the word Kyrios for God's personal name. And I don't know if you realize this, but Jesus is called Lord 740 times in the New Testament. I mean, it's pretty obvious that that is a huge emphasis in the New Testament, that Jesus is Lord. And yes, he is the little Lord Jesus. That juxtaposition, which is going to be something that we're going to learn a lot today. So the three things I think we're going to find in Matthew chapter two today are these. One, that the coming of Jesus into this world evokes hostility, not what you expect. Secondly, God works in unexpected ways. And thirdly, the whole Bible is really about Jesus. But let's start with that the coming of Jesus evokes hostility. Now this reading today, Matthew two, comes a little after the wise men or the Magi from the East come. And being wise, well, at least they thought they were wise. They say, hey, there's a new Jewish king, where should he be found? But they go to Jerusalem and to the palace of King Herod. And there they announced to him, hey, can you tell us where is he who was born King of the Jews? We've come to worship him. Now it's fascinating that they would come to worship a king. Do you understand that? We don't usually worship kings, but they were ready to do that. Now Herod, first of all, is shocked to no end with that announcement, but he feigns like he really cares about it. He talks to the scribes. He gets them to tell him, where do you think this Messiah, this king is to be born? And they all agree in Bethlehem because the prophet Micah stated Bethlehem would be the place. So he comes back to the wise men and says, when you find him, you tell me so I can go and worship him too. They leave, they find Jesus, and the wise men got a little wise. They didn't go back to Herod. They took off in a different direction. And most stories in the whole birth narrative of Jesus in Luke and Matthew, and even John's kind of talk about it, are filled with glad tidings and great joy because this is the time of the year. But this story is pretty dark. It's called the slaughter of the innocents. And we see Herod, the madman on the throne trying to get rid of Jesus. It evokes hostility right away. And I think one of the things that we have to recognize is that the coming of Jesus into this world, the light into the darkness, doesn't mean that everything becomes light and bright and be...