Breakfast on the Beach – Entry 14
Luke 2:12 & 34
Christ -- The Sign for All People
This past Christmas season I was looking for new inspiration or at least a new angle from which to view the coming and going of what is probably my favorite two weeks of the year. I like everything about Christmas. I like the lights, decorations, trees, and festivity of almost every public space. I like finding gifts that express my great love and thanksgiving for those in my life. I like Christmas movies (especially Charlie Brown), cookies, cards, and the general sentiment that something is different. There is a communal anticipation, a hope, a looking forward to the morning of Christmas. For a moment, the world seems to pause at Christmas and everyone is aware that the day is different. And on that day, most of all, I like reflecting on the birth of Christ, whether by song or word, late night candlelight mass or rousing Christmas Eve service, gifts or family meals. I like it all very much.
But last year, with two young children, a difficult season of challenges behind my family and I, and expectations for a testing 2009, I was looking for even more.
In my search, my dad and I began discussing the text of Luke chapter two, first reflecting on the repeated and potentially universal use of the word “you” by the angel that appeared to the shepherds and then on the fact that Christ is twice referred to as a “sign.”
In Luke 2:12, the Angel tells the shepherds, “…this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” Then in Luke 2:34, Simeon (whose name also appears to mean “sign” in Greek) says that Christ the child is appointed to be a sign that will be opposed and spoken against.
After reading and re-reading the passages I began to ask myself what it means that Christ is a sign and why the concept is included twice in Luke’s very short account of the most important event in human history. After my dad researched the issue and we discussed it a bit more, I have concluded the following:
In verse 12, the sign that is being given to the shepherds is practical, directional, or for purpose of identification. The word connotes that the angel was trying to give the shepherds information that would direct them to the Christ child rather than any other baby in Bethlehem. But this leaves me wondering why would simple directions have been included by Luke and the Holy Spirit so that the words would be read over and over and over again for all time? Why didn’t the angel say something more profound? After all, this was the announcement of God’s incarnation. Was something more being identified for everyone other than the shepherds?
In verse 34, the word sign means a warning, caution, or point of alarm. In this context it is clear that Christ would be a dividing rod for the national of Israel, but I think Simeon and the Holy Spirit were also making clear that the birth of Christ, the incarnation of God, should be taken as a warning sign worthy of reflective pause because it would divide all of humanity.
In both cases, the word sign had specific contemporary application – simple directions to the shepherds and a serious warning to the Jews. But it also has specific application to us today.
For nearly 2000 years, all of humanity has stopped each year to mark the birth of Christ. History has been defined by the event and at least in America, it is probably the only event that is universally recognized as a practical point of demarcation.
“This will be a sign unto us,” every year, all of humanity will stop for a moment because Christ was born as a baby at a specific time, in a specific place, to a real set of parents. The birth of Christ is a historical fact and, in retrospect, it is apparent that God has made the birth of His Son the singular point of history and the calendar year we now live by.
It appears that God, through his angel, was saying in effect, “Every year you are going to get a practical reminder that 2000 years ago my Son was born, it was important, and I just want to remind you it happened.” You don’t have to read the bible, go to church, or be a follower of Christ to get the sign. God has made it so clear that for almost 2000 years, all of humanity has been reminded, like or not, that Jesus was born.
But it wasn’t just a point to remember. It isn’t just another date like the date Columbus discovered America or your own date of birth. God has given us a practical reminder of one of the two most important facts of history – Jesus was actually born. Because the sign is so very practical, we are given an opportunity to reflect on its purpose. Every year all of humanity is given the chance to pause and reflect on the warning that Christ was and is. He changed everything. When His human story began, the story of humanity dramatically shifted. Every year we are given the chance to stop and reflect. We can take notice and bow to His lordship, or we can ignore the warning, overlook the opportunity, and move forward as if nothing important has happened.
On a night 2000 years ago God became man. Every year He points us to it and thereby provides an annual opportunity for the lost to see Him, the sick to touch Him, and the broken to feel Him. Every year most of us just overlook the sign. Like the countless numbers of people in Bethlehem at Christ’s birth, we walk right by the manger, never stopping to consider that God just made himself man so that man could be reconciled to Himself.
The birth of Christ is a stop sign. A stop sign is a practical sign. It has a specific color, shape, and wording that conveys information in a relatively universal way. But it is also a purposeful sign that conveys a warning of danger. We don’t just stop at a stop sign because we recognize its practical attributes, but because we recognize that if we don’t, we are in danger.
At Christmas, God has given us a practical opportunity to stop and reflect on the sign of a human child, helplessly wrapped in clothes and lying in a feeding trough. We are given a practical sign to differentiate Christ’s birth from all others. The Angel told the shepherds exactly which child to look for and in so doing told us to do the same. Christmas, in all its secular glory, remains the greatest single evangelistic event on earth. No matter what the effort, it is simply not possible to take Christ’s name and the historical fact of His birth, out of the word Christmas. God, in his infinite wisdom, created Christmas so that every year His creation would get a practical reminder that His son was born.
As such, God has created an annual indelible warning sign for mankind to stop and take caution that we remember that Christ’s human story commenced and therefore all of mankind must either line up behind Him or against Him. Each year all humanity is warned that there is great danger in failing to stop and consider that the birth of Christ changed everything, for everyone, for all time. Every year God asks afresh, “What will you do with my baby?”
