This is the gospel.  God became like us so that we might become like him.  In Christ, God took on our form, lived in our world, suffered our wounds, died our death, and did it all so that we might have the life only his resurrection could give.  This is very good news!  It means that God is more concerned about and more committed to who we are becoming than what we have been.  So committed to it, indeed, that he gave away his son Jesus in order to make it possible for us to become a part of his new family. 

The God who created limitless eternity, limited himself to time for a moment in time so that we might live with him in this moment and when time is no more.  He put himself into and through the very system he created.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  A woman was pregnant for nine months and gave birth to a child who needed to be diapered and nursed.  That child grew to become the savior of all humanity.  It’s an incomprehensible thought, really, that the God who created all that is would take on his own creation’s form to save it.  To know that truth in a life-changing way demands that we trust more than we can know.

Jerry Poteet was asked by someone in the class he was teaching last Sunday, “When did Jesus know he was God?”  Jerry gave the only answer faith allows.  “I have absolutely no idea,” he said, and then proceeded to lead the class toward a deeper faith in a God they could not understand but could trust.  The question, “What did Jesus know and when did he know it?” is not ours to answer, only whether we will trust a love we cannot understand.

A wonderful modern day parable of this is Ron Howard’s film, A Beautiful Mind.  The heart of the true story is about John Nash, a schizophrenic genius in mathematics, whose life is transformed by his discovery of the one formula he cannot work.  The formula he calls “love’s mysterious equation” which cannot be understood or solved, only trusted.  At the heart of the gospel’s mysterious equation that cannot be solved, only trusted, is a baby born in a manger who is no one less than God in the flesh.  Maybe that’s why God came to us a baby born in a manger.  It’s hard not to trust a baby.  It’s hard not to trust someone who bleeds like we bleed, cries like we cry, gets hungry like we do, in the end even dies like we do, just for us. 

That kind of sacrificial love can’t be explained.  In some ways, if it could be explained, it couldn’t be believed.  It’s the same “mysterious equation” that puzzled me just the other day.  I’m standing in front of the mirror reflecting out loud what I must resolve and then actually do in this new year to make myself more lovable when Nancy announces to me that there is nothing I can do to make myself more loved.  How much richer?  How much thinner?  Neither, she says.  That’s it.  That’s the mysterious equation.  There are never enough “lovables” to equal being loved.  I can’t figure that out.  In fact, I don’t want to figure it out.  If I could understand it, if it made sense, I wouldn’t have to do the only thing that makes love’s “mysterious equation” so potently life-changing, simply trust it.  So it is with the coming of God in Jesus. 

There is still so much mystery in that “equation” of love.  The mysterious equation of “while (in the process of becoming something other than what he intended) while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)”!  Yet, God wasn’t trying to give us something we could understand.  When he gave us a baby who had to be diapered, nursed at his mother’s breast, who could cry when sad, and even be stripped naked to die bleeding, just like us, he wasn’t giving us something to figure out, he was giving us someone to trust.  He became like us so that we might trust him and, by faith, become like him.  “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.”  God’s DNA, if you will, his very character recreated in us. 

If there is a more potent word of hope than “become” does anyone know what it is?  It is the lean of hope, toward what we are becoming, that keeps us from giving up on life altogether.  To fret over what we have been and what we have done is to lean toward despair.  To lean on faith is to lean into what we are becoming.  Maybe that’s what the apostle Paul meant when he said that he was “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, (pressing) on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14).”  He wasn’t saying that he couldn’t remember.  It wasn’t that he had become selectively forgetful, as we are prone to do.  It was that he chose to frame all that had been in terms of what, because of Christ, would yet be. 

Country and Western crooner Trace Adkins, sings, “All I can do is all I can do.  All I can be is all I can be.”  For one, like Paul, I’ve had enough of “all I can do” and “all I can be.”  I’m ready, hungry, desperately needy for what only Christ can help me become.  I’ve seen what I can make of life.  I’m leaning toward hope, leaning on the hope of this one promise, “to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”  A better translation is “power to become (NRSV).”  Power – to become!  Enabled.  Something that happens when God does what only God can do after we’ve done all we can do. 

At Bruce McIver’s funeral, George Mason told of once when Bruce was facing, yet one more time, the possibility of dying at any moment.  His daughter Shannon asked him if he knew for certain that when he died he would be in heaven with his mother and their dear friend Grady Nutt who died in a plane crash in 1982.  That doesn’t seem like much to ask, does it?  Especially from a man like Bruce who had preached the gospel of hope to thousands for decades.  But, Bruce told Shannon that he didn’t know because he hadn’t been there yet, that he hadn’t lived the end of the story.  He went on to say, however, that he knew enough about Jesus not to worry about it.  He wasn’t expressing doubt.  Bruce knew and was willing to say what so many of us secretly fear.  We don’t know.  But, he went on to affirm that, even when we don’t know, especially when we don’t know, we can still believe.  That’s not intellectual resignation.  That is faith resigning itself to something only hope can give and intellect never could.  As George Mason said, Bruce wasn’t one to demand certainty when simple assurance would do. 

At the funeral Cynthia Clawson sang Softly and Tenderly, and I couldn’t hold back the tears.  I wasn’t crying for Bruce.  It was just that I had just stood in front of the mirror resolving to be more lovable and had heard Nancy announce love’s mysterious equation to me.  Now, here I am at Wilshire.  What will I say when all these people ask me, “How’s it going?” like they always do.  Going back to Wilshire is a lot like going back home.  You know how it is when you go home.  You just want to impress those who once sent you off to do your best.  Those wonderful people always say, when they see us, “We sure miss you, Nancy.”  Or, “Nancy, you sure look good.”  They just ask me, “How’s it going?”  How can I look just right and say it just right so they will know that, I’m fine, I’m in control, I’ve got it all together, that I’ve done well with their dreams for me? 

I’m sitting there stewing in all that anxiety when Cynthia sings words that ring in my memory from earliest childhood, “Oh!  For the wonderful love He has promised.  Promised for you and for me.  Tho’ we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon, Pardon for you and for me.”  Something about Bruce’s simple assurance and the mercy and pardon of Jesus touched a raw nerve in me.  The raw nerve of emotional and spiritual weariness that comes from trying to make of things what I can, of all I can do and all I can be.  Of trying to prove myself more lovable.  I’m so very ready, more than ever in my life, just to see what God’s mercy can make of me.  At a funeral of all places, new hope dawned on me, yet again.  Kind of like the sun keeps rising no matter how dark it ever gets.  After all this time Jesus is still interested in giving it a try, with me.  He is still interested in, committed to, what I can “become.”  What we can become!!  And, what we can become is part of an ever-growing new family of God. “Power to become children of God.”

Some friends of mine had a miserable Christmas.  It was her parents’ turn to have the family.  Lots of young grandchildren with grandma and grandpa.  Their nine-year-old son was offended, however, when one of his cousins cussed in front of him.  He had asked for Christian CD’s for Christmas.  Somehow or another, a cussin’ cousin and Christian CD’s didn’t mix.  Now, I understand the child taking offense.  His parents have been teaching him better, as they should.  What I don’t understand is the response of his parents to offensive family.  Surely there is more to this story than I know.  But, what I do know is that, upon hearing the cussing, they packed their bags and left two days early, vowing never to return.  Now, you do understand that I only make this observation because I am a perfect parent!  But, I couldn’t help but wonder.  What if this boy’s parents had used this as an opportunity to teach him another way than to leave when hurt, like to love when cursed?  What if they had tried to teach him that, you never walk out, especially on family, just because people don’t say it just so and do it your way.  What if they had used this chance to teach him that family isn’t like a bad date?  You can’t just go home early if you aren’t pleased.  What if they had just read the Christmas story a little more closely?  The story of how God does family. 

When we cursed God and should have died, God didn’t pack his bags and leave, vowing never to return.  Instead, he packed himself into a baby’s skin and moved in!  So anxious was he to move in that he even took the last reservation available, in a stable.  This is the story of all stories.  God is so committed to us, to what we can become, that he moved in when, by every reason logic could give, he should have moved out.  And, even when we killed him, he rose from the grave and promised to return, yet again.  This is the gospel.  No matter what we have been or done, God is so very passionately committed to who we can become that he keeps moving in when he should have moved out. 

There is nothing any of us have ever added to love’s mysterious equation that changes what God makes it equal.  No matter how we may have cursed his plan, through selfishness, hatred, prejudice, pride, abortion, addiction, divorce or whatever that will ever alter the fact that we have never made ourselves so unlovable that we are not loved.  And, not only loved but, by his grace, enabled to still become what he meant us to be all along.  What do we do with a love like that?  Stand at a distance from it until we figure it out or, swept away in its mysterious power to change us forever, just trust it? 

Did you hear about the little boy, about five, who climbed into Santa’s lap at our Christ in Christmas celebration?  “What do you want for Christmas?” Santa asked.  What would you expect a five-year-old to say?  A five-year-old with little to nothing to begin with.  “What do you want for Christmas?” Santa asked.  And, all the little boy said was, “Love.”  So, Santa asked, “Who from?”  And, the little boy said, “Anyone.”  That boy needs a family.  Don’t we all?  A family that will never walk out on us.  A family that won’t quit loving us no matter what.  A family that is more interested in what we are becoming than what we’ve been.  A family like, like the one God is making. 

This is the gospel.  God became like us so that we might become part of his family. 

What will we do with a love like that?