[I haven't written many sermons lately, and rarely any more do my sermons speak outside of apologetics purposes anymore. So when I found myself jotting these sermon notes down this sunday, I surprised even myself. This is a little Christmas message about grace] "The Un- Sermon" There is perhaps no subject matter more fundamental to life and reality than the doctrine of God. And the link between God and man is grace alone. So that makes grace the single most important lifeline that man can hold onto. Or, if you think about it another way, God's grace is the ocean where we are all afloat. Were God's sustaining grace not present, then we would sink into non-existence. I'm not merely talking about whether we go to heaven, I'm talking about whether our electrons will still revolve around their nuclei within our every atom; whether or leptons and quarks will continue to exist at a subatomic level; whether our bodily organs will continue to function and cooperate, and whether our solar system will continue its stubborn survival. I'm talking about the very sustaining of our existence so that we don't dissolve into total nothingness. I literally mean the God "in whom we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). I never tire of gazing into the infinite ocean of God's grace. No subject fascinates me more. And since our present life and future hope rest squarely on His grace, we have good reason to wonder at the nature of His grace. Yet, strangely enough, grand-scale realities are sometimes so big that we can't help but miss them. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said, "If you want to understand the wetness of water, don't ask a fish." A fish knows nothing of the wetness of water. Or, to illustrate further, it is like, looking very closely at some writing. An inch away from the page you may still be able to see what it reads. But a micrometer from the page, viewed under the microscope, you might be able to see parts of it, but you can no longer see what it reads. You are literally too close, too submerged in it, to be able to see what it reads. For the fish, this over-obvious reality is water, for us, this over-obvious reality might be the experience of time, or space, or our own existence, or grace. Divine grace is for us like water is to a fish, it is the sustaining environment whereby we "live and move," but the analogy breaks down because for fish and men alike, God's grace is how we all "have our being." It is God's sustaining and gracious activity in our cosmos that gives both fish and men both life and existence. The grace of God is everywhere visible, little seen, ever-present but unnoticed, so obvious it is beyond us. God operates in gracious ways that are just crazy enough to be true. God's grace appears in grand order when a few hundred Israelites in Gideon's army defeat scores of thousands of Midianites (Judges 7). God's grace operates in subtler ways, in gentle healing (Matt 14:14). And God's grace is downright confusing when he engineers pain and suffering in redeeming ways that only a divine Daddy can do. For example, God first gave man the "gift" of death so that we would not have to live forever in our fallen state (Gen 3:22-24). And God tells Paul amidst his "thorn in the flesh," that "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Cor 12:9). God's grace is clearly not the safe and easy doctrine that it often seems. God's grace is grand and glorious, odd and awkward, profound and mysterious. And whatever it is, it is not cheap. I hardly need note Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship" where the author contrasts "cheap grace" with "costly grace." Grace may be free but never for a moment should we think it cheap. And so we come to the point at issue: the Baby Jesus typifies God's grace. Our response to Him is our response to God's grace. Let us dwell first on how the Christ child means grace. The baby Jesus was an infinite treasure to purchase the souls of men from slavery, yet this treasure, we find, is wrapped in burial shrouds, carried by a poor unwed teenager, lain across hay and spittle, away from home, late at night, outside a stranger's hotel, in a barn, in a feeding troth for barn animals. This child is the most important person in existence, and yet His entry into this world is the practical equivalent of being born in the parking lot of a pawn shop and first wrapped in newspaper. The infinite eternal God has here pierced time and space, donned a human nature, and taken on mortality for the express purpose of dying another man's death. And this Christ child has hidden himself in poverty among commoners so that merely mortal men could meet God. This is God's grace at work. Confused yet? Amazed? I say yes on both accounts. Let us look deeper into the story of His birth and see then how God's grace comes to us. 1) Undeservedly--first we can see from Mary and Joseph that they were not especially deserving. Adequate for God's purposes, yes. But Scripture makes no hint that they were sinless nor that they deserved to play the role they did in the redemption of mankind. Circumstantially, they were barely fit for the task. They could not afford to give baby Jesus the best educational opportunities, nor the best food and shelter, nor the most elite social network to get His message out to the world. They had little to give to baby Jesus, but what they had they gave it all. Mary and Joseph both took some miraculous convincing before they would believe that Mary was supernaturally impregnated (Matt 2:19-24; Luke 1:26-38). Yet God endured their doubt and used them anyone. 2) Unnaturally--the Baby Jesus came in a strange way. Not only was this baby born by supernatural implantation, but the baby Jesus was born away from home, amidst hostile governance, to what may have been an unwed couple. The more natural means of child-birth within the Biblical Judeo-Christian tradition is to have one man and one wife birthing the child within the stability of a loving and fruitful marriage. And the more natural and healthy manner is to settle in, and have the child in a stable and settled home--not in transit, with the first few years of His life being lived on the run from hostile governing authorities (Matt 2:13-23). But since this birth was in fact miraculous, it is unusual and almost unbelievable. It is altogether unnatural. 3) Unwelcomed--now Mary and Joseph did, eventually, embrace the the role conferred to them through the angel Gabriel. But, let us remember, that they did not ask for this prestigious position, nor was it an entirely pleasant or comfortable position to be in. Meanwhile most of the world made no effort to welcome baby Jesus. Beyond the supernaturally informed insight of Mary and Jesus, a few shepherds, and perhaps some accidentally faithful Magi, the rest of the world did not recognize or welcome Jesus into the world. As Jesus grew from a child to a man, and as he began His earthly ministry, he would become a revolutionary of the most radical sort. He would so change society and threaten convention that He faced inhospitable and intolerant opposition throughout His earthly ministry. God's grace is largely unwelcomed. Summing up, we see a picture of God's grace. It's the same picture today. God's grace comes unnaturally, undeservedly, and without welcome. Yet we would not even exist to reject His gracious advances were we not already swimming in His grace. Like the ignorant fish we are immersed in God's grace so much that we take it for granted. Reader and listener, let yourself see the grandeur of God's grace and welcome it for all its supernatural and undeserved glory. You are no mother Mary or Joseph, but God wants to show you grace by using you in a bigger plan then you could ever fashion by your own hands. He first wants to save you from yourself and the death you deserve. He then wants to salvage your life and make a miracle worker out of you, a carrier of grace to other thankless wretches like you once were. He even wants to make out of you a masterpiece of praise, an artwork of worship whose very life is an act of adoration towards God. There is no such meaningfulness to be found by our own artifice. We could never manufacture such meaning in our lives. We are made for worship, and no other meaning in life matters so much. Only by God's grace are we allowed and able to worship Him and so discover again for the first time the very reason we were made. God is here extending a gracious hand to you today. Whereever you are in your journey with Him--off the trail, far along it, not even on it--please receive God's grace for the transforming and heart-warming gift that it is. God's grace is but another name for His love. Do not reject the only perfect and infinite love in life. Do not ignore the Christ child and so reject the man Jesus, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and your own only future hope. He has come in love, he has come by grace. Welcome into your life this miracle of love and grace.