Long Live the Revolution

It's that time of year again. Our mailbox is beginning to fill on a daily basis with cards from friends all over the world. In some cases, the only reason to call them friends is just exactly because we DO get a card once a year. After dozens of cards year after year I've actually begun to notice what they say. Some say "Peace on Earth", or "Joy to the World". Others say "Glory to God in the Highest". The generic ones, usually from friends we always wondered about anyway, say "Peace", or "Happy Holidays". But of course perhaps the most common is the old standby we always use as the season's greeting: "MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Do you ever find that worn out? Has it lost it's umph for you? Have you ever wished for something snappier to say? I'd like to suggest today that we might all change our season's greeting this year.

36 years ago this month I was a college student myself. I had shoulder length hair, wore the same overalls and combat boots every day and changed my bed linen once a semester. It was pretty disgusting. In those late sixties, Vietnam and revolution were all in the air. Those friends who didn't get stoned every weekend drilled with the Weathermen in the university gym and burned down government buildings instead. And some did both! Classes were cancelled for weeks and no one got grades the following semester because others of my friends had occupied the adminstration building armed with automatic weapons. I trust no one here today is getting any ideas! That year, I got a REALLY interesting Christmas card. It's one that caught my attention. I'd like to suggest today that we change our season's greeting. Try it, you might like it. In large red block letters on a black background it said simply "LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!"

Christmas really IS a revolution you know. In fact it is the greatest revolution EVER. It is the revolution to end ALL revolutions. And I don't know about you, but that excites ME! Even 36 years later, I'm young enough and alive enough..believe it or not...to WANT to be part of a revolution. Like all its lesser imitations, the Christmas revolution TURNS THINGS UPSIDE DOWN, OCCURS IN TIME, and is GOOD NEWS FOR THE HURTING.

I - TURNS THINGS UPSIDE DOWN

First, it TURNS THINGS UPSIDE DOWN. There's a ride at 6 Flags Magic Mountain near our old home in California called "Revolution". You can imagine what it does. It propels you on rubber tires over a steel tube through an entire loop, upside down at such high speed you feel like you want to throw up! It was great! My kids and I did it over and over and over, forwards and even backwards until we really DID get sick. Two summers after I got that college Christmas card, as part of my Air Force boot camp, I took an orientation flight in a jet trainer. Several thousand feet above a tiny fishing boat over the Atlantic , the pilot conned me into pulling back hard on the stick and we looped the loop! Talk about upside down! Talk about sick! Christmas is all about the beginning of an upside down kingdom.

Jesus' famous 3 temptations reveal him to be the revolutionary He really was. Satan tempted him to be a messiah of power. In the fourth chapter of Matthew we read how first he tempted him to economic power. "Turn that stone into bread!" (Matt 4:2&3) Jesus' people, the Jews, were poor. How tempting it must have been to do the Right Side Up thing and provide for himself as well as for them. Second, Satan tempted him to political power. From the top of that tall mountain overlooking the Jordan Valley he said, "Bow down and I'll give you all these countries you can see." (Matt 4:8&9) It would have made a lot of sense to throw off the political domination of Rome. Satan's Right Side Up approach was just as tempting to Jesus then as it is to many of us today. Third, Satan tempted him to religious power. Standing on the pinnacle of the temple, he said to Jesus, "Cast yourself down in the middle of your people. When the angel stops your fall and you float into their midst, the people will KNOW you are the expected Messiah." (Matt 4:5&6) Can you imagine the sensation he would have made had he agreed to this one? I mean he really WAS the Messiah that His people had awaited for millennia. And the glory was his perfect right! Many of us might still want to say that he’d have had a more powerful impact had he been more impressive!

But Jesus resisted the Right Side Up approach every time. He resisted because He is a revolutionary. Revolutions turn things UPSIDE DOWN. It's Out with the Old and In with the New. Christmas is all about revolutionizing the human situation. The OLD way was the way of PRIDE. That's how it all got bad in the very first place. The new way is all about the opposite. The revolutionary way is all about being BROKEN.

That's the heart of the Christmas Revolution. It's all about Christ's BROKENNESS in response to our PRIDE. Oddly enough, one of the best Christmas passages I know, is NOT in the gospels, but in Philippians. In chapter 2, Paul uses a word that gets at it good. It's 'KENOSIS'. Jesus emptied himself and took on the form of a servant. Christ was BROKEN for us. Christmas is all about the revolutionary upside down idea of squeezing GOD into a LITTLE BABY. Now THAT'S radical. It's all about the first becoming last and the last first. It's all about PRIDE overcome by BROKENNESS. It's all about POWER replaced by a MANGER.

II - OCCUR IN TIME

Revolutions turn things upside down, but they also occur in time. Some of you political scientists out there may need to correct me, but I think there are at least two ways of understanding the chronology of revolutions. They all occur in time, but some, perhaps like the French one, seem to focus on dramatic events, while others, perhaps like Marxist ones, seem to focus on a long term process. Both of these features seem true of the Christmas Revolution.

Christ's life was full of dramatic upside down EVENTS. The birth event was scandalously upside down. The temptations were too, as we have seen. The Sermon on the Mount was perhaps the most revolutionary speech ever given. And the event on Golgotha has boggled minds and changed the world ever since. These were all revolutionary events because they were BREAKING events. They showed Jesus broken, and call us to be broken. They took supernatural courage. And likewise, the revolutionary event of broken will which we call "personal conversion" also takes supernatural courage. Are you radical enough for that conversion?

But revolutions are also long PROCESSES. The Chinese continue to talk about their revolution, DECADES after the dramatic events of the Long March. And old Fidel can still be heard even today talking about those who defend or betray the revolution in Cuba . On September 11, 2001 , Bin Laden & Al Zaqarwi showed they understood the place of dramatic events in revolution. But today it’s clear they also understand that a revolution takes time; and they are in it for the long haul! Whatever we think of their goals, the Marxists and Jihadists understand that revolutions are much much more than just dramatic events. Revolutions are an ongoing, day to day struggle. This side of revolution transforms just as effectively--perhaps even more effectively--than dramatic events. This side of revolution is what lets a tiny pale green shoot eventually split a giant grey granite. It is the side of revolution that lets silky water cut the Grand Canyon . This is the Christmas revolution that breaks our will every day for a life time. This is our sanctification. And it takes supernatural patience. It means forfeiting our rights, laying down our self, submitting to others. How sad that today Muslim extremists seem to understand these twin aspects of revolution better than we Christians who ought to be the revolutionary leaders of humanity. Are you radical enough for THIS part of the Christmas revolution?

III - GOOD NEWS FOR THE HURTING

But finally, real revolutions are always GOOD NEWS! And here is where the distinctive light of the Christmas revolution burns brightly through all others. If the revolutionary message of Jesus Christ doesn't feel like good news to you today, then my friends, I wonder if you really understand the revolution at all. Are you hurting today? Do you feel anxious about exams? ashamed of what you’ve been found doing this week? stupid? inadequate? panicky? lonely? ugly? rejected? If so, there's GOOD NEWS IN THE AIR for you. There's a revolution in progress. It can transform your life. All it takes to join the revolution is to GIVE UP; and accept Christ's broken submission to cover your own failures.

Revolutionaries believe REAL PEACE can only come by revolution. The Christmas revolution is no exception. Only through this revolution can REAL PEACE be found. Are you radical enough for this revolution? If you are, I invite you right now to join the UPSIDE DOWN REVOLUTION begun by a baby and continued by his Spirit today.

Let me close with the words of someone perhaps familiar to some of you from his album, Nothing But a Burning Light. Bruce Cockburn joined the Revolution and described it all much better than I. After I read these words, I will pause for some silence. If they speak to your heart, I invite you to give up, let your heart be broken, and join that Revolution too, simply by trusting Jesus.

And there are others who know about this miracle birth.
The humblest of people catch a glimpse of their worth.
For it isn't to the palace that the Christ child comes,
But to shepherds and street people, hookers and bums
And the message is clear if you have ears to hear,
That forgiveness is given for your guilt and your fears.
It's a Christmas gift that you don't have to buy.
There's a future shining in a baby's eye.

Like a stone on the surface of a still river,
Riding the ripples on forever.
Redemption rips through the surface of time,
In the cry of a tiny babe!

NOW LORD, THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON, OUT OF OUR BROKENNESS, WE TRUST IN YOUR LOVE.

LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!!