Prepare the Way Series: Welcome! Micah 5:2-5
Introduction
Don’t raise your hands, in case we have some home burglars among us, but how many of you have a key hidden somewhere around your house that is available for use by people who are close to you, people you want to come into your house if they need to. I guess the garage door opener code has changed that for a lot of folks. Now we just share the code. I have some good friends in Bowling Green who to this day I could go to their house, locate their house key in the secret place and be welcome in their house. All of my children and many of my family members know the garage door opener code to my house, even my mother-in-law. When we have the key, we have access. When we have access, we enjoy the benefits and blessings of the place into which we enter.
If there is anything I want you to leave with today in the few minutes we have together is this: Through the Church, even today, the keys to the kingdom of God are available to you. If you will take that key and enter in, your life will be transformed. A whole new world that you could not have imagined for yourself will open up. The coming of Christ opens up this new world, this new life, to you.
Keys it the Scriptures
In the Scriptures, “key” is used in a figurative sense to refer to the means of entry into a deeper spiritual realm, as entry to a place closer to God. God is said to control entry to the rains from the sky, when he opened the door to rain in the time of Elijah (Luke 4:25). Revelation 11:6 also says that in heaven is the key to opening and closing of the heavens. Jesus tells Peter in Matthew 16:19, that he holds the keys to the kingdom of God, to bind and loose things. To make things happen. In Luke 11:52, Jesus speaks of a key to knowledge that is available to us. As Christ comes into the world, so comes the key to power and knowledge, the key to how to live a meaningful, purposeful, effective, even joyful life.
The Three Comings of Christ
During the previous three Sundays of Advent we have talked in some form or fashion about three comings of Jesus. We said that the word Advent means coming. The first coming of Jesus we remember each Christmas Day, when Christ came to us as the humble child born in a stable. The second coming of Christ is his return in glory and power when all things will be fulfilled, and a new Heaven and a new earth will be revealed to us. The third coming, we said, is the continual coming of Jesus Christ into our lives, even today, even now. Just now, the Light of Christ, the Spirit of the Creator, the loving Divine Person who formed the earth, formed you, your ancestors, your homeland, all of history, is coming into your life even now. Christ stands before us with an unclenched hand holding a key to a life full of joy, peace, purpose and power. At Christmas we are invited to reach out our hand and take this key, because it will open a whole new world, a deeper world, a richer experience, and salvation, a healing salve, for your life.
The good news from the prophet Micah this morning is that this Christ, who is always coming into the world and into our path through the Holy Spirit, is available everyone. He will come in due time if we await his coming into our life, and then, when we reach out and accept the life that Christ offers us, we will discover that we have a Good Shepherd who will stand and shepherd you, provide security and safety and work greatness through your life.
Accessibility of the Continually Coming Christ
First, let’s look at the accessibility of Christ. Christ is accessible, so we must make ourselves accessible to him.
Micah reminds us that we must live lives of openness and welcoming the continually coming Christ. Behold! Watch! Have ears to hear! These are all instructions from Christ to us if we are to experience him fully. Attentiveness to the Spirit. The keys of the kingdom are available to you. You must be bold enough and brave enough to take them.
Micah says though you are small among the clans, from you will come a ruler. Judah was among the smallest of the tribes of Israel, but it would become one of the most significant, as the birthplace and native home of Christ. We can then understand that no matter how insignificant or powerless we may feel in our lives, yet we if we engage life with courage, honor, and a noble stance, we invite same holy power into our lives. The first shall be last, our Savior taught us. Unto the least of these, he reminded us, belongs the kingdom of God. As Christmas approaches, we should remember that if we make the pursuit of power, privilege and possessions are central life focus we miss the point and the blessing of life. Those things may come to you in life, but your first obligation is to live life courageously, honorably and nobly, following the gentle and powerful way of Christ, and Christ will come to you more and more. Deep calls unto deep.
Strength with the Good Shepherd
Second, as Christ comes into our lives more and more as we make ourselves accessible and open, we discover that we have a Good Shepherd who watches over us. As we said last week, this is no weak, frail shepherd. Micah, as Zephaniah said last week, is a shepherd but he is also a warrior. Listen to the words Micah uses to describe the shepherd Jesus Christ: He stands, strength, majesty, greatness, raises up, a fortress. These are kingly words, descriptors that signify a warrior. And, as we said last week, this warrior, when we open our lives to the presence and power of Christ, live and moves and fights alongside us. We battle with the Divine at our side. The prophet Zephaniah said, he is mighty to save. Christ is mighty good, but is also good and mighty.
Christ, Our Mighty Fortress
And because his a good shepherd and mighty warrior, Christ surrounds us with safety and security. He is our mighty fortress. He is our rock. He is our hedge of protection against the fiery arrows of the Evil One.
In Psalm 46, the Psalmist says: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging…7 The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
You have a fortress around you, and even as people or life aggress against you, yet you will live securely, he will be your peace, and he will raise up commanders against them. You will be able to marshal force and power from within that you never knew you had before when you call upon the name of the Lord.
Conclusion:
The king is coming. He has come in a manger. He is coming again in glory and power. And through the Holy Spirit, he is coming now into your life, if you will only reach out to Jesus’ unclenched hand and pick up the key.
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