Ministries:
Adult | Teens | Children

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Sermon Series:
Following Jesus
Earthly Cross
His Name Is
Apostles Creed
Dealing with Feelings
Jonah
Get Real
Promised Land Living

Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Email:
Pastor Scott Carson

Secretary Patti Hall

PASTOR'S PENS 2007

Grace Church of Burlington December 16, 2007 “The word of God, Jesus Christ, on account of His great love for mankind, became what we are in order to make us what He is Himself.”    s Irenaeus             What’s it like to live with autism? What’s it like to feel the panic of a mind losing control? What’s it like to interpret every stimulus from outside oneself as threatening? These are realities for the autistic and challenges for those who minister to them. It’s a disorder that seems to cut people off from ordinary communication and shows itself in strange repetitive behaviors and sometimes in violent outbursts. How to understand it? How to break through those barriers to communication and connect?             This was the question posed in a discussion in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, participated when he recalled watching a video showing the work of one of the most experienced therapists in Great Britain and heard her talking about what she is trying to do with her methods.             The first thing on the video was a young man, severely disturbed, beating his head against a wall and then walking fast up and down the room, twisting and flicking a piece of string. The therapist’s first response was strange: she began to twist and flick a piece of string as well. When the young man made a noise, so did she; when he began to do something different, like banging his hand on a table, she did the same. The video showed what happened over two days. By the end of the two days, the boy had begun to smile at her and to respond when touched. A relationship had been created. And what the therapist said about it was this: “Autism arises when the brain senses too much material coming in, too much information. There’s a feeling of panic; the mind has to regain control. And the best way of doing this is to close up on yourself and repeat actions that are familiar; do nothing new, and don’t acknowledge anything coming from outside. But when the therapist gently echoes the actions and rhythms, the anxious and wounded mind of the autistic person sees that there is after all a link with the outside world that isn’t threatening. Here is someone doing what I do; the world isn’t just an unfamiliar place of terror and uncertainty, and when I do this, I can draw out an answer, an echo; I’m not powerless. And so relationship begins.” Archbishop Williams then made this observation, “to see this sort of thing in action is intensely moving. This is real mental and spiritual healing at work. But it gives us a powerful image of what it is we remember at Christmas, that at Christmas God broke down the barriers between ourselves and God by becoming one of us, one with us, one alongside us.”             Christmas is not just about a poor couple having to lodge in a stable, the wife having a baby and laying her newborn son in a manger. Christmas is about the Incarnation. Almighty God entered our world. He took on flesh and blood...just like us. When Jesus was born, God was to  be  found  in  that  very  unlikely  place,  a manger in Bethlehem.  It was John’s ringing endorsement that the Word had become flesh and dwelt among us. God was to be found in the very ordinary life of Jesus before His extraordinary ministry had begun. This was God’s way of saying, “You can trust me. I am with you in your daily events, in your places of work, in your homes, in your travel, and in your rest.” But it was assuredly the extraordinary ministry of Jesus where God was to be found: in Jesus’ teaching, in His healing, in His identification with those at greatest risk, and then by His willingness to suffer death as that only sacrifice by which our relationship with God could be eternally secured.             The Apostle Paul puts it so eloquently, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phillipians 2:5-8).             Archbishop Williams concludes, “That’s what begins at Christmas. It is a baby who has to learn how to be human by watching; only this baby is the eternal Word of God, who is watching and learning so that when He speaks God’s transforming Word we will be able to hear it in our own human language. He is God so that He has the freedom to heal, to be our ‘therapist.’ He’s human so that He speaks in terms we can understand, in the suffering and delight in the humanity that He shares completely with us. Now we must let him touch us and tell us that there is a world outside our minds—our pride and fear and guilt. It is called the Kingdom of God.”             My friend, God became one of us so that we could be part of the Kingdom of God, so that all of our sins could be forgiven and we could know that we will spend eternity in heaven. But it doesn’t end with the baby in a manger. That’s just the beginning. Jesus was born to die and eternal life only comes from embracing His cross and accepting His substitutionary death as the payment for our sins. That’s God’s Christmas gift to each one of us. Friend, have you accepted God’s Christmas gift to you?