Christmas Eve
December 24, 2004

In the Manger Lies God with Arms Wide Open.

  Listen to the lyrics of a song titled With Arms Wide Open by a group called Creed.

Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I closed my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open

Well I don’t know if I'm ready
To be the man I have to be
I'll take a breath, take her by my side
We stand in awe, we've created life

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
Now everything has changed
I'll show you love
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open

If I had just one wish
Only one demand
I hope he’s not like me
I hope he understands
That he can take this life
And hold it by the hand
And he can greet the world
With arms wide open...

  Singer Scott Stapp is obviously very happy about the birth of his son. He wants his son to know that he is loved and wanted, that he will care for him and show him everything about life in this world. And he hopes his son will understand so that his life to be better than his own. He welcomes his son with arms wide open.

  To welcome someone “with arms wide open” means to embrace him, to receive him with joy and enthusiasm. It shows that you are open and ready to share your life. But we don’t always stand with arms wide open, do we? In fact, sometimes we stand with arms closed. Folded arms often signal that we’re not completely at ease with others, not completely open or accessible to them. I’d say that most of the time we stand with our arms closed. Something stands between us and other people; we’re on our guard, separated and alone in many ways. Worst of all, we sometimes close our arms to those for whom we should open them wide. Our parents, friends and spouse, even our children. How many unwanted children were born or aborted this year, children whom no one welcomed with arms wide open?

  How do you think God stands before you? Do you think of him with arms crossed eyeing you with a bit of suspicion or outright dissatisfaction? Or do you think he stand with arms wide open ready to embrace you? Perhaps you don’t really know for sure or worse, don’t care! This very night, Christmas Eve, there are millions of people who don’t know whether God stands with arms wide open ready to embrace them or closed ready to expel them. There are single mothers struggling in poverty who feel as though God forgot about them. There are well paid executives at a party seeking to drown their sorrow in alcohol as they see their wife attending to another man. These and millions of others in situations unknown and unimaginable to us see only closed arms, the closed arms of people and of God. Who loves them? Who sheds tears of joy for them? Does God?

  In Eden, God once crossed his arms and shut us out. He expelled Adam and Eve from paradise lest they, now corrupt through sin, eat from the tree of life and live forever in that sin and corruption. We still live with that sin and corruption. We live in a world of gross material inequality and we can’t figure out how to change that. We live in a world full of pain and disease where we cringe every time a medicine is pulled from the shelf. We live in a world where tonight, some of us, instead of spending a nice comfortable evening with family and friends, will nervously guard against or hide from the next suicide bomber. The world seems full of closed or threatening arms rather than wide open, welcoming arms. Surely there is no God of love! There must only be a God who still stands at the entrance to paradise with his arms crossed ready to chase us away should we approach him.

  But wait. Centuries before Creed sang With Arms Wide Open, God said it in different words, some of which we just read.

Isaiah 7:14 All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel—‘God is with us.’

Matthew 1:20-21 “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to go ahead with your marriage to Mary. For the child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Isaiah 9:6 For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. And the government will rest on his shoulders. These will be his royal titles: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Luke 2:10-11 “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news of great joy for everyone! The Saviour—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David!”

John 1:12-13 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan—this rebirth comes from God.

  Well I just heard the news today, It seems my life is going to change. So sings Scott Stapp. The birth of his son will change everything! “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news of great joy for everyone! The Saviour—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David!” So sang the angels at the birth of Christ because the birth of the son of God changed everything for everyone!

  In Jesus, God laid aside his glory and humbled himself. In Jesus, the invisible, immortal God took on our flesh and our condition. In Jesus, God provided the sacrifice that paid for our offences and reconciled the world to himself. In Jesus, God opened the door to heaven and prepared a place for you and me. For in the manger lay not just a baby, but God with arms wide open.

  Our dilemma is no longer an angry God barring the entrance to paradise. He does not ask anyone to make up for Adam and Eve’s rebellion. He does not ask you and me to somehow make up for our sins. He never has and never will. He took care of that himself. God appeased his own anger and satisfied his own justice. Our dilemma is rather that we don’t understand that God lies in the manger with arms wide open. We don’t know that he reconciled us to himself. We still think of God as the angry judge or a puritanical moralist who would turn us away. I don’t mean to imply in any way that God is ready to embrace our sin and rebellion or any form of our corruption. That is not so. However, he stands before you with arms wide open so that he might change everything for you. God’s Spirit will transform you now and change your body at the resurrection. He really does lie in the manger with arms wide open.

  In the song, Stapp sings, I hope he’s not like me, I hope he understands. That is God’s desire for you and me too, that we understand. He wants us to understand that we can greet him with arms wide open. We can embrace Jesus who saves us from our sins and changes everything.

  We have all embraced other things that cannot replace God. Instead they make a mess of our life. Yet, even now Jesus can set you free from whatever you have embraced, from whatever now holds you in its grip. It may be an addiction to some substance. It may be the prison of trying to live up to some standard of this world. It may be despair because your health is failing. It doesn’t really matter. What we suffered in this life will not keep us from the love of God in Christ. What the world thinks will not commend us to him. What will matter is whether we saw him calling us with arms wide open. He will take care of the rest.

  So look to the manger in Bethlehem and see the baby Jesus come for you. Go to him; trust him. See God in the flesh calling you with arms wide open.