Christmas in July
Dr. D. William McIvor
July 11, 2004
Presbyterian Church in Sudbury 

Introduction to the Morning Lesson

Today’s text continues right from where we left off last week and Paul writes more about the radical change that Christ brings. He mentions Jesus’ birth, not with any of the details we find in Matthew’s or Luke’s Christmas stories, but in a way that shows how God coming into the world in Christ makes all the difference. So the lectionary assigns today’s text to the first Sunday after Christmas. But I wanted to include it in this Galatians series for two reasons. First, Christmas and the birth of Jesus are not just about December 25th. Christmas really should be celebrated year round because the birth of Christ means God is with us year round.

Second, Paul’s argument in Galatians, as we’ve already seen, is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is pure grace and that is obvious in the Christmas story. The angel announced to shepherds watching their flocks one night, “Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2.10-11) Remember that shepherds were not highly regarded. They were despised and lowly in the culture of that time because their work made it impossible for them to carry out the religious duties required of faithful Jews. So the good news of the angel came to shepherds as a sign that God’s grace isn’t just for good people or religious people. It’s for everyone. Pure grace. So looking at a “Christmas text” in July, when we’re not caught up in the frenzy of the Christmas season, helps us better understand what Christmas really means. Let’s look at the text in Galatians 4.

Galatians 4.1-7 (NRSV)

My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

Introduction

Paul mentions only the barest details of the Christmas story — “born of a woman, born under the law” (which is to say born a human and born a Jew) — and he may not even have known all the details of the Christmas story. But it’s still a story he wants to tell, a story of inheritance, liberation, and adoption.[1] So he piles up three images in the text to show what he means, images that I will just mention briefly.

First is the analogy of a minor child who awaits the time of adulthood when he or she can possess the family inheritance. Second is the image of a slave under the control of the “elemental spirits” of the universe and in need of deliverance. What does that mean? It’s a little hard to say because the word translated as elemental spirits (stoiceia) can mean several things in the Greek language.

• It can mean the basic elements of the universe, that is, earth, air, fire, and water. This is how the Greek philosophers used the word.

• It can mean the fundamental or elementary principles, teachings, rules, or laws of the world.

• It can mean the heavenly bodies, that is, the planets and stars, composed of the basic elements of the universe.

• Or it can mean elementary spirits of the universe as in spiritual entities, such things as demons, angels, gods, or spirits.[2]

What did Paul mean? Remember that a major part of his argument is that gentile Christians did not need to follow Jewish laws and religious regulations in order to be faithful to Christ. Paul would even argue that Jewish Christians no longer needed to follow the law as a precondition of Christian faithfulness. Now that the new day in Christ had come, neither gentile nor Jew should submit again to any kind of elementary teachings of this world.[3]

The third image is orphans or illegitimate children, who remain homeless until they are adopted into a family as full members.

So this text argues that in Jesus Christ all of these demeaning conditions — minor children waiting for an inheritance, slavery to various kinds of this world’s teachings, or orphaned, illegitimate children hoping for adoption — are overcome and done away with by Christ’s grace. The guarantee of this is that “God sent.” God sent the Son and God sent the Spirit. That’s why we can claim our inheritance, our liberation, and our adoption as God’s children. Let’s ponder a bit what this means for us today.

God sent — the Son and the Spirit

It almost goes without saying but we often feel it in the height of the Christmas season and sometimes we even talk about it then. During the holidays it crosses our mind that of all the moments of the year this is the time when we ought to act as free, joyous, and spontaneously happy persons.[4] Instead we often feel caught in our own anxiety. At Christmas the bright lights and happy music often mask an intense loneliness that many people feel. Especially at Christmas we are painfully aware, in our own lives and in our families and neighbors and friends, that there is much brokenness in the world, many strained relationships, and a sad wondering if the good news of Christmas really makes a difference for us.

Paul would say to us, “Yes, dear friend, it makes a difference. It makes a difference because God has sent you the Son and God has sent you the Spirit so you can be in an intimate relationship with God.” And the gift of the Son and the gift of the Spirit let us cry, “Abba, Father!”

You have probably heard many times about the Aramaic word Abba. It means father but in a very particular way. Abba is the father of intimacy, the father of the family, the father who nurtures and loves no matter what. And fortunately today, many Christians have begun to recognize that despite the limitations of our language, there is not just a fatherly aspect to God’s nurturing nature but a motherly aspect as well. God is our Father and our Mother. So to capture the intimacy of Abba, we should probably translate it as Daddy or Mommy. To cry out Abba is to cry out to the divine Parent whose love and affection for us have no bounds.

Scholars debate whether the term Abba was used to address God by anyone other than Jesus and, following his example, by the early Christians. The best evidence seems to suggest that the Abba relationship to God was uniquely expressed by Christ (see Mark 14.36) and then became common practice within early Christian communities, both Jewish and gentile.[5] The importance of this is no where better expressed than in Martin Luther’s commentary on this text.

The great reformer says that believing God’s promise of the Spirit should keep Christians from being overcome by any affliction. But he wrote, “There are many things that hinder this faith in us. First, our heart is born in sin; moreover this evil is naturally grafted in us, that we doubt of the good will of God towards us, and cannot assure ourselves that we please God … Besides all this, the devil our adversary rangeth about with terrible roarings, and saith: Thou art a sinner; therefore God is angry with thee, and will destroy thee for ever.”[6]

You probably know that Luther, for all his emphasis on God’s grace, was always a tormented soul, and never could completely shake the anxiety that he might not be right with God. So when he wrote as I just read, he wasn’t expressing abstract thoughts. He was really writing about his own spiritual agony. And it’s an agony we feel ourselves. For we know in our hearts that our lives often don’t match up to what God wants. Our worldly condition may make us feel illegitimate and spiritually we know we can’t pass muster. So we wonder if God really loves us.

Luther wondered too. So a little later in his Galatians commentary, he connected what Paul said in our text with a similar passage in Romans. In Romans 8 Paul wrote: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs [i.e., groanings] too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8.26-27)

So Luther went on his Galatians commentary: “If we here follow our own sense [and he meant by that our own feelings that God is against us], and [so] believe … we shall think ourselves to be destitute of all help and succor of the Holy Ghost, and utterly cast away from the presence of God. Nay rather let us then remember what Paul saith: that the Spirit helpeth our infirmities; also that it crieth, ‘Abba Father;’ that is to say, it uttereth a certain feeble sighing and groaning of the heart (as it seemeth unto us), which notwithstanding before God is a loud cry and an unspeakable groaning. Wherefore, in the midst of thy temptation and infirmity, cleave only unto Christ, and groan unto him. He giveth the Holy Ghost which crieth, ‘Abba Father.’ And this feeble groaning is a mighty cry in the ears of God, and so filleth heaven and earth, that God heareth nothing else.”[7]

That’s old-fashioned language but the meaning is as fresh as the morning. Because of Christ, the Spirit in us cries unto God. No matter our earthly condition and even when we feel as far from God as it is possible to be, the Spirit of Christ in us cries unto God and, as it were, that is all God hears. That’s how close God is to you and to me.

Conclusion

So I’ll close this morning with one of my favorite Fred Craddock stories, Dr. Craddock being one of the finest ever of American preachers. Fred tells how he and his wife Nettie had just returned from Oklahoma to one of their favorite vacation spots, the Great Smoky Mountains. They were having dinner at a restaurant and early in the meal an elderly man approached their table and said, “Good evening.” Fred said,” Good evening.”

The man said, “Are you on vacation?” Fred said, “Yes,” but under his breath he was saying, It’s really none of your business.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“We’re from Oklahoma.”

“What do you do in Oklahoma?”

Under his breath but almost audible, Fred was saying, Leave us alone. We’re on vacation, and we don’t know who you are. But out loud he said, “I am a Christian minister.”

The man asked, “What church?”

“The Christian Church.”

The old man paused a moment and said, “I owe a great deal to a minister of the Christian church,” and he pulled out a chair and sat down.

Fred said, “Yes, have a seat.” He tried to make it seem like he sincerely meant it, but he didn’t.

The elderly man went on: “l grew up in these mountains. My mother was not married, and the whole community knew it. I was what was called an illegitimate child. In those days that was a shame, and I was ashamed. The reproach that fell on her, of course, fell also on me. When I went into town with her, I could see people staring at me, making guesses as to who was my father. At school the children said ugly things to me, and so I stayed to myself during recess, and I ate my lunch alone.

“In my early teens I began to attend a little church back in the mountains called Laurel Springs Christian Church. It had a minister who was both attractive and frightening. He had a chiseled face and a heavy beard and a deep voice. I went to hear him preach. I don’t know exactly why, but it did something for me. However, I was afraid that I was not welcome since I was, as they put it, a bastard. So I would go just in time for the sermon, and when it was over I would move out because I was afraid that someone would say, ‘What’s a boy like you doing in a church?’

“One Sunday … before I could [get out], I felt a hand on my shoulder, a heavy hand. It was that minister … and I trembled in fear. He turned his face around so he could see mine and seemed to be staring for a little while. I knew what he was doing. He was going to make a guess as to who my father was. A moment later he said, ‘Well, boy, you’re a child of … ’ and he paused there. And I knew it was coming. I knew I would have my feelings hurt. I knew I would not go back again.

“He said, ‘Boy, you’re a child of God. I see a striking resemblance, boy.’ Then he swatted me on the bottom and said ‘Now, you go claim your inheritance.’ I left the building a different person. In fact, that was really the beginning of my life.”

Fred Craddock was so moved by the story that he asked the man his name. He replied, “Ben Hooper.” And when Fred was just a child he recalled his own father telling him about how the people of Tennessee had twice elected as governor a “bastard,” a man named Ben Hooper.[8]

The apostle Paul wants you to know today that in Jesus Christ, no one is illegitimate anymore. Not you. Not anyone else. So claim your inheritance. Because of Christmas you are a child of God. That’s God’s promise to you and God has put the Spirit of Christ inside you. The Spirit in you is praying to God in ways that you cannot even know or understand. But what you can know and understand is that God has entered into our world and into you in Jesus Christ. God is with you and for you. That’s what Christmas means and that’s why we celebrate it even on a hot, humid Sunday in July. Yes, go our there today and claim your inheritance, my friend. Claim your liberation and your adoption. You are a child of God. That’s why we sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”

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