Word of Salvation – Vol.24 No.06 – November 1977

 

High And Low At Christmas

 

Christmas sermon by Rev. J. F. H. VanderBom, B.D. on Psalm 113

Scripture reading: Luke 1:46-55, Psalm 113

Psalter Hymnal: 332; 346:5; 296:2,5a,8b; 134; 411:1,2

 

Congregation,

Why are we here this morning?

The purpose of our Sunday church service is not in the first place to listen to a sermon, or to pray and to learn the commandments, or to hear some teaching from the Bible.  No, the first aim of our coming together on the Lord’s Day is to WORSHIP.

How rarely are we aware of this.  But God and His holy angels are listening in.  This morning they look at us, and wonder: are these people truly praising God?

Because this is the purpose of our lives.  We should be excited about our God!  We should sing!  This is business Number One of the Church.  We should be God’s singing servants.  The Psalmist says:
PRAISE THE LORD!
PRAISE, O SERVANTS OF THE LORD,
PRAISE THE NAME OF THE LORD!  (vs.1)

However, this is not an easy job.  It is easy to say let’s buy a Christmas tree and let’s now sing a few carols.  But we all know that to truly sing the praise of God can be so very difficult.

True, God is waiting to hear you.  He wants to have your voice completely for His glory.  The Church should be a Salvation Army choir.

But Luther told us already that it is much easier to talk about your sins and miseries than to praise the Lord.

A boy can be excited about his car or boat, and a girl about her outing and her new dress.  But it seems to be super-human to be excited about God.  Our horizon is so narrow.  Who is excited about the Lord?

We’d better listen and learn from the Psalmist:
PRAISE THE LORD!  PRAISE,
O SERVANTS OF THE LORD,
PRAISE THE NAME OF THE LORD!
BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD
FROM THIS TIME FORTH AND FOREVER- MORE!
FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN TO ITS SETTING
THE NAME OF THE LORD IS TO BE PRAISED..!

These verses make you aware of the fact that the Bible is a very special Book.  Nowhere else in the world do we find a book like this Book, that so often tells of the glory of God.  There are no people on earth like the people of the Church, who are willing, and learning HOW to praise Him!  This Old Testament Psalm 113 is only prophecy.  It speaks of an even better future: the Name of the Lord shall be praised from this time forth and forevermore, and from sunrise to sunset, that is, always and all over, universally!

This means: whoever you are, and whatever the colour of your skin, God has made you solely and wholly for this purpose of His praise.  Jesus said: out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou dost prepare praise!  We cannot start early enough to learn to sing of our Redeemer.

Well, why should we praise God?  Two reasons are mentioned in the Psalm.

FIRSTLY, because of His greatness:
THE LORD IS HIGH ABOVE ALL NATIONS,
AND HIS GLORY ABOVE THE HEAVENS!
WHO IS LIKE THE LORD OUR GOD,
WHO IS SEATED ON HIGH,
WHO LOOKS FAR DOWN UPON THE HEAVENS
AND THE EARTH?  (vss.4,5,6).

In the first place we must praise God for His greatness.  God is so great that we should really be amazed that we can talk to Him at all!  Or: how do we dare to?

However, more often than not we are not amazed at all.  We come to church, sit down and listen, or doze off.  Who of us is amazed at the greatness and majesty of Him Who called us here?

Sometimes we hear people mentioning God’s Name and questioning His Word in a manner that makes us wonder: do they know what they are talking about?  The Lord is so great… do you know what He is like?  The Psalmist says: He has to bend down to have a look at us!  He is great, and His seat is so high that He has to look far down upon the heavens and the earth.  Yes, the millions or the billions of people are so far away from Him that God would have to get on His knees to observe them.

A modern theologian has declared that we are wrong in saying that God would be up-there in heaven.  The scholar would de-mythologise the Bible.  He says that it is ridiculous to believe that God would be sitting on a seat ‘up-there’.

This modern theologian has told us little news.  Just as little news as the space traveller who observed that he hadn’t found God in the sky.  The matter is as simple as this – God is much greater than even a theologian or an astronaut can fathom.  They are far too small to see God!

In speaking about the greatness of God, nobody can compete with the old Bible.  Solomon knew: even the heavens cannot contain Him; far less can the temple, or church, made with human hands.  Isaiah declared: The whole world is like a drop on a bucket, or dust on scales.  In God’s eyes we are infinitely small.  He can hardly see us.  He has to use a microscope.

Yet, this is the miraculous message of the Psalmist: the God who is so great, Who has His throne on high, has found pleasure in doing exactly that odd, incredible thing: He has been stooping down, bending over, to look down from the throne!  For what purpose?  For no other than to make friendship with the lowest!

WHO IS LIKE THE LORD OUR GOD,
WHO IS SEATED ON HIGH,
WHO LOOKS FAR DOWN
UPON THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH?

Here we listen to the Christian Church speaking from experience!  It is not with the high and mighty that God is concerned, says Hebrews 2; not with angels, but with the seed of Abraham, with the strugglers and the slaves of Israel.

O come, let us adore Him – in this glorious miracle: living on high and looking very low!  You wonder how it is possible for Him to find me in my hiding place!

We come to our SECOND point.
Why should God’s servants praise the Lord?
Firstly, because of His greatness.
SECONDLY, because He is a God Who bends down!

Sometimes we don’t seem to realise the greatness of this wonder.  Then it may help to ask ourselves the very strange question: What would I do if I were God?

This is of course, a silly and most impossible idea.  Yet there are moments when we hear people arguing: If I were God…!

Now, brother, sister, what would you like to do if you were God?  You know, there are many examples around of people who have climbed the ladder with the one ambition: to be big!  Or making lots of money and gaining high positions for what?  Only to be big, and then: not to be available any longer!

THE LORD IS NOT LIKE THAT!!

God is not like the Dutch migrant who had done so well that he felt like pretending he couldn’t speak his old language anymore.  His English was still atrociously bad; but he was not available to his old friends anymore.  He was too big, and wanted to forget where he had come from.

God is not like that!  The everlasting, ever-living God Who has His throne on high, lives to love, and He loves to care.  He is the God of compassion.  His friendship is for those who fear Him!  He is pleased to seek what is small.  The Psalmist mentions two examples.

Of course, there are lots and lots of examples of God’s compassion and care.  The Psalmist just mentions two illustrations.
Number one in verse 7:
HE RAISES THE POOR FROM THE DUST
AND LIFTS THE NEEDY FROM THE ASH HEAP,
TO MAKE THEM SIT WITH PRINCES,
WITH THE PRINCES OF HIS PEOPLE.

Those who have seen places like Aden and Calcutta, or the cities of Latin America, with children dying in the street and the miseries of beggars, outcasts sitting on ash heaps, will understand what is meant.  God cares for beggars and for those who are not accepted by the well-to-do’s.  He is the God of ‘Empty Hands’ (the motto of our World Diaconate Relief).  The poor man who couldn’t get warm had to gain his warmth from the ashes, from the dust on which the sun had been shining during the day.

The Psalmist praises God that He cares for people when no one else would care!  He cares for poor Lazarus!  He says: these beggars are still My creatures!  He gives poor Lazarus a place with the high nobility of heaven!  Jesus Christ is the great Relief-bringer!   Mary had this in her song:
His mercy is on those who fear Him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm,
He has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts,
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree;
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich He has sent empty away.

The second illustration is: the barren woman.
HE GIVES THE BARREN WOMAN A HOME,
MAKING HER THE JOYOUS MOTHER OF CHILDREN!

It is a notable fact that the woman’s position in Old Testament times was not very attractive.  The Bible gives several examples of widows who were despised and also of women who couldn’t have any children.  Nobody showed any interest in them.  But God knows.  He sees the sorrows of the lonely woman.  He restores them to real life!

Now we hope and trust that you have made a wonderful discovery!  Congregation, friends: Psalm 113 tells us the story of Jesus!  Or, if you wish: this Psalm is an Old Testament Christmas Carol!  We have been told this morning that we, God’s servants, must be ready for the great Song!

Imagine, how ages ago, long before our Lord was born in a stable, the Psalmist was already excited about that God who is very high, and yet has been looking down low.  Long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the Psalmist began to sing, because he knew already what Paul would write about the style of His coming:
Have this mind among yourselves,
which you have in Christ Jesus,
Who, though He was in the form of God…
emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant!
Somebody has called this: the style of His coming!

In how many Old Testament stories do we read of the style of His coming, and of a God Who is not interested in the outside, but Who looks at people who are miserable and poor.  God is the God of the Exodus, and of the Passover.  When the needy seek Him, He will mercy show!  He was the God of Joseph, the rejected one, and of David, who was persecuted.  And remember Hannah, the despised woman of the Old Testament.  Remember Mary, who was overwhelmed, and who in her song came close to the words of Hannah’s song.  Why did the Lord’s angel come and choose her?  What was the secret?  How could He Who lives on high find her in her low estate?  Mary had been pondering all these questions in her heart.  She had been puzzled and upset.

But her answer was her Song.  And the singing couldn’t be silenced!

Similarly, your answer and my answer to the secret of Christmas should be a Song.  For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.  So that by His poverty you may be rich!

When Jesus saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion.
He said: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me
to bring good tidings to the poor and down-trodden.

So we have all come together to praise our God.  You may have your fears, your sorrows, your worries.  But God and His angels are listening and waiting.

Have you seen that great and mighty God, stooping down?  And are you one of those who, even in the night, have learnt to praise Him?

Brother, when you know Him, then you will be truly excited about Him!  For He opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

So then, let us make this time of Christmas a time of humble and adoring praise!
For great things He has done for me.
He is Mighty, and: Holy is His Name!

Jesus, Thou art all compassion;
Pure, unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation!
Enter every trembling heart!

AMEN.