Anti-Venom Serum
Sermon
Humming Till The Music Returns
Second Lesson Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany
Years ago, when we lived in Alberta, Sunday nights were very special for us. I was always exhausted by the time Sunday evening came around. For a few hours I was finished with study and visits and preparations and worship services. Brenda and I would make a pizza together. Sometimes we would invite our friends over for a game of cards. Then, late at night, I would turn on the radio.
We couldn't get many stations out on the lonely prairies, but if the weather was right, some late Sunday evenings we could pick up a signal from Calgary. At 10 p.m. each week there was a science fiction radio drama I really enjoyed. I would sit for an hour in a dark room with my eyes closed, caught up in another world, and carried along by other voices stretching the limits of the universe.
Although most of the stories they told were good for an hour's relaxation, one episode was so startling that I've never forgotten it. It was broadcast on the Sunday night before Christmas.
Two great races of powerful beings from the far side of the universe were on the move. One was a family of wise and intelligent and kind beings who shared community and warmth and love. They had enormous abilities of mind and physical force, but they tempered these great strengths with gentleness and a desire never to coerce others, regardless of their capacity to do so. This was a race of beings that loved the light and the beauty of life. They spread from planet to planet, unfolding the mysteries of the galaxies with child-like wonder.
But there was a dark side to this story. Generations before a mutant strain had appeared. One branch of the race lived in the shadows. They had grown to love power and might, and they had begun to use it in cruel and evil ways. They saw the stars as theirs to control, and the planets as their laboratory for demonic alchemy. They raced into space with conquest and gluttony on their minds. They loved the darkness, and wherever they went murkiness and gloom seemed to settle over the landscape.
At this point it seemed like just another ordinary science fiction tale, with powers of good and evil about to be pitted against each other. Then came the twist in the drama. As these two great races spread throughout the reaches of space, they were always in tension with one another. Where the race of Light appeared, stars and planets came to life and thrived. Where the race of Dark slipped in, horrors of pain and evil would follow.
Then, one light year, these two extraterrestrial civilizations entered the Milky Way galaxy. They each colonized planets and built their outposts in space. Some worlds blossomed with life, while other worlds slipped into the shadows of decay and terror.
Suddenly the race was on for the third planet from the sun in a little solar system flung far to the edge of this galaxy. When the forces of the Dark Race landed first, claiming it for their own, they found something quite astounding: the planet was already inhabited! There were creatures of many kinds flying above in the skies, and swimming through the seas, and lumbering across the plains and forests. Earth was already occupied!
Not only that, but it was such a delightful place: watered and weathered, peaceful and promising, friendly and fortunate ... It seemed like a garden spot of paradise set apart from the rest of the reaches of space.
Now, the Dark Race was invisible to the inhabitants of Earth. They lived in another dimension of time and space. But the Dark Race functioned like a virus. It invaded the minds and hearts of humans on Earth, turning their thoughts toward evil, and causing their actions to mimic its own corrupt self. Wars broke out, greed contaminated, power trampled, and disease ran rampant.
In horror, the Bright Race looked on from a distance as shadows and sickness and somber whimperings spread over planet Earth. Theirs was an eternal vow to turn back this evil plague, yet theirs was also an eternal vow not to do so by force. What could they do to rescue these helpless human creatures? How could they break the stranglehold of this crippling virus that had invaded the realms of Terra?
In worlds of their own, the Bright Race devised a plan. It wasn't foolproof, but it was the best they could come up with. They would scour the earth for a suitable young woman, someone still tender enough not to be hardened deeply by the Dark Race, someone who might work with them in this incredible venture. One of their own would transform its being in such a way that he would be able to communicate with her. He would explain to her their designs and hopes.
Their scientists, he would report, would take some of the genetic materials of the Bright Race and fuse it, in her body, to one of her own eggs. Together they would bring to life a new human baby uncorrupted by the Dark Race, unscathed by the Dark Mind, unallied with the Dark Will. Her child would teach people the ways of Light and Love and Laughter. Perhaps, one day, the wealth of his character would overpower the virus of evil addiction that enslaved the human race.
Now, can you see me there, lost in thought on that Sunday evening, shadows surrounding me in this lonely prairie outpost? In a sense I was hearing the Christmas story I had always known, but told, in this drama, from a perspective I had never thought about. How did the world look to God? What was happening throughout the universe on that dark night in Palestine? What did the demons think of these unfolding events, and where did the angels dance as they gazed in awe?
In the short brush strokes of an hour's poetic drama a new portrait of Christmas night was painted on the canvas of my mind, stark and fresh from its unique vantage point. In a sense, this is what Paul does for us in Galatians 4:4-7.
Rescue Mission
For one thing, he portrays the story of Christmas as a rescue mission. There is something desperate about what is taking place. On our Christmas cards the scenes of Bethlehem always look so calm and bright, shining with peace and light. Yet Paul reminds us of what broods in the heavens. Think of God, watching the darkness sweep the universe! Think of God, seeing the mutant evil that overtakes his delightful angel creatures! Think of God, observing the havoc wreaked on earth as Satan takes the warfare of the heavens and brings it to this pristine outpost of God's creative delight on the far side of the universe! Think of God, marking the growth of the cancerous virus progressively blighting planets and star systems, and now ruining one human society after another!
What is God to do? What will be the outcome of all of this?
George MacDonald points us in the right direction in his children's tale known as "Papa's Story." The children beg their father, one cold winter's night, to weave again the spell of story-telling around them as they sit by the fire.
Papa agrees and tells of a shepherd who brings his flock home late on a stormy night. One lamb is missing, though. So, after supper, the shepherd calls for Jumper the dog, and the two of them brace for the cold and wind and rain. Out in the hills they roam, calling for the wee lamb.
Young Nellie is snug in her bed at home, but every moaning of the breeze echoes with her father's distant voice, and every whining of the woods is a challenge from the darkness that he must fight. She is frightened, for him and for Jumper, and for the little lamb they seek.
Suddenly, however, there he is! Father is home, and Jumper too! They have found the little lamb and have returned it to safety in the fold.
But how weary Father looks! And how torn and cut and dirty and bleeding is Jumper!
When little Nellie returns to bed, her sleeping brings a dream. She dreams that she is Jumper, and that the little lamb is her lost brother Willie. You see, a year earlier young Willie left home. He wanted to get away, needed his own space, he said. He couldn't stand the discipline of his father and had to find his own fortune.
Now Willie lives in Edinburgh and never writes. They know, though, from the scuttlebutt of traders and friends, that he has become a shadow of himself, cruel and greedy, filthy of body and mind, constantly drunk and lost in a mad world of sex.
In Nellie's dream she is Jumper, searching through the storms of Edinburgh's wilder haunts for the little lamb with Willie's face.
When she wakes next morning she knows what she must do. She acts on her dream and goes to Edinburgh to find her brother. Through hours of struggle and pain she finally reaches him. He, of course, doesn't want to see her. Surrounded by his jeering and taunting pals, he laughs at her foolish begging.
Nellie weeps at his harshness. Then she calls him by name. She tells him of his mother's broken heart. She gives him a letter of love, written in his father's hand.
The scenes of home wash young Willie's mind, and the disease of wantonness sickens him. He is led by his little sister back home.
Papa tells a nice story. But there are two footnotes. First, the story Papa tells his children that night is actually the story of his own life. It was his own dear sister Nellie who, one day years before, came looking for him in the shadowed dens of Edinburgh.
Second, George MacDonald gives the story a subtitle. He calls it "A Scot's Christmas Story." And so it is, for the story of Christmas is not first of all a bland tale of pious peace and raucous good fortune. Rather, it is a rescue story. A rescue story always told best in the first person. Jesus came from home looking through the streets and alleys of earth's slums for me! For you!
Christmas is a rescue story. And if you know who you truly are, if you know what life has made of you, then you know that this story is your story.
Cosmic Significance
But there is more. Christmas is not only a rescue story; it is also a story of cosmic significance.
Did you ever wonder at the telling of this tale, what was happening on the other side of the heavens? Can you see the Council Room of the Trinity and the animated debate charting the progress of this great Civil War of the Universe? Reports come in daily, carried by messenger angels from distant galaxies. How far has the shadow spread? How deeply has the Evil One infiltrated the remaining ranks of heaven? How many stars sputter out under his darkness? And how long will the universe stand the strain before cracking in two?
At the Council Table the Three take stock of the situation. War rages at great cost of Life and Joy. How will the Dark Side be stopped? Where will they find a way to limit its power?
All the possibilities are debated. All-out armed conflict? No, for then We become like them, and the universe is lost to evil. Uneasy coexistence? No, again, for the Dark Side is a cancer, and it grows on what is created good. It feeds on what is now beautiful, and unchecked it will destroy all that remains of Light and Life.
Then One of the Three speaks. "What we need, Father," he says, "is a serum that will kill the poison and restore the life in the universe in stages."
All nod. But how could this be done? Where is such an anti-venom serum to be found?
Then the One speaks again. "Take me, Father," he says. "Inject me into one small world. Give me one tiny community to work in, and see if we cannot make a crack in the Enemy's armor."
So they pick a site. They plan a strategy. They form a plan. And when they emerge from the Council Room the target for their efforts has been selected. It will be the third planet from the sun in the rotating array of the solar system in a galaxy some call the Milky Way.
Here the Great Three will perform their one act of courageous hope. They will inject the Son as anti-venom serum into this tiny world. Then they will wait to see whether the universe reacts to this microscopic drop of medicine.
Why did the legions of angels hover over earth that night? It was to celebrate this new offensive in the War of the Worlds, to be sure. But more than that, every conscious mind in the universe followed the story. Every watchful eye in the galaxies turned toward Earth, for here was the test of the ages. Could the Three stop the power of the Dark Side with this single injection? Would the Serum of the Son render harmless the Venom of the Evil One? Could the Cancer running amok in the universe be tamed?
In silence the galaxies waited the outcome of the divine experiment unfolding on planet Earth.
Think not, this day, only of yourselves! Think not that this is a wonderful time for families and friends! Think not, alone, of the joy that you have received from the Baby of Bethlehem!
Sometime, in these dark winter's days, think of the angels whose fate falls with these events. And think of the planets whose destinies are determined by these happenings. And think of the values of Life and Love and Laughter that you hold so dear, and know that if this experiment fails the universe will never again be home to them!
Be careful what you think about this twist of history, and do not limit too soon what it means for the universe!
Costly
One more thought: this Rescue Mission with Cosmic Significance is Costly. It is extremely costly. Lost in the partying and the caroling and the smashing noise of the season, do you see that one little thing?
Max Lucado tells about the destruction brought by an earthquake in Central America. Buildings collapsed, roads buckled, and homes twisted apart. One woman was with her daughter in their apartment when the shock waves hit. Their high-rise smashed to the ground like a fort made of sticks. Together they were trapped in the rubble, pinned by concrete slabs and razor-sharp splinters of wooden beams.
For several days they lay there in the darkness, crying out in pain and terror. When will the rescuers come? Will they ever be found? Does anyone know that they are trapped here, alive in this tomb of death?
The mother slips in and out of consciousness, agonized by the twisting of her limbs and the fractures in her bones. Her six-year-old daughter lies next to her, sometimes screaming in suffering, sometimes whimpering in fear. "Mommy! I'm so thirsty, Mommy! I hurt so much, Mommy! When are they going to find us, Mommy?" But there are no answers, and there they lie.
Then the mother sees that her daughter is failing. The days are too long. The nights are too dark. Her little body can't take the shock much more. She needs a drink! She needs nourishment or she will die!
Pinned as the mother is, she gropes for a shard of broken glass. With great effort she manages to grasp a jagged piece with her mouth. Determinedly she works it like a knife against her own skin. When she draws blood, she presses the cut over her daughter's mouth. With her own life-fluid she keeps her daughter alive.
When the rescuers finally break through, this mother is near death, and they cannot save her. But she has given her daughter new life through blood drawn from her own veins.
Now look again at Bethlehem, and see it from the perspective of the heaven. What takes place here? Is it the whimsical comedy of a church school pageant with boys in bathrobes and girls wearing ill-fitting angel-ware? Is it the hilarity of the holidays, decking halls and trimming trees? Is it the mad rushing of shopping and partying and gift giving? Is it even the quiet sanctimoniousness of organized church services and majestic choral performances?
Take one more look from the darkness of deep space and you know that it is not. Why did the angels hover over the earth that night? Because, in some horrendous grimness of the seizures twisting through the universe, the Trinity in Heaven's High Council Room planned one last measure in the fight to save the cosmos from the spreading blight of the Dark Venom. In a small miracle of grace, a tiny dose of Anti-Venom Serum was injected into the leukemic blood of earth at Bethlehem.
Is the desperate measure working?
You will have to search your own heart to find the answer.
We couldn't get many stations out on the lonely prairies, but if the weather was right, some late Sunday evenings we could pick up a signal from Calgary. At 10 p.m. each week there was a science fiction radio drama I really enjoyed. I would sit for an hour in a dark room with my eyes closed, caught up in another world, and carried along by other voices stretching the limits of the universe.
Although most of the stories they told were good for an hour's relaxation, one episode was so startling that I've never forgotten it. It was broadcast on the Sunday night before Christmas.
Two great races of powerful beings from the far side of the universe were on the move. One was a family of wise and intelligent and kind beings who shared community and warmth and love. They had enormous abilities of mind and physical force, but they tempered these great strengths with gentleness and a desire never to coerce others, regardless of their capacity to do so. This was a race of beings that loved the light and the beauty of life. They spread from planet to planet, unfolding the mysteries of the galaxies with child-like wonder.
But there was a dark side to this story. Generations before a mutant strain had appeared. One branch of the race lived in the shadows. They had grown to love power and might, and they had begun to use it in cruel and evil ways. They saw the stars as theirs to control, and the planets as their laboratory for demonic alchemy. They raced into space with conquest and gluttony on their minds. They loved the darkness, and wherever they went murkiness and gloom seemed to settle over the landscape.
At this point it seemed like just another ordinary science fiction tale, with powers of good and evil about to be pitted against each other. Then came the twist in the drama. As these two great races spread throughout the reaches of space, they were always in tension with one another. Where the race of Light appeared, stars and planets came to life and thrived. Where the race of Dark slipped in, horrors of pain and evil would follow.
Then, one light year, these two extraterrestrial civilizations entered the Milky Way galaxy. They each colonized planets and built their outposts in space. Some worlds blossomed with life, while other worlds slipped into the shadows of decay and terror.
Suddenly the race was on for the third planet from the sun in a little solar system flung far to the edge of this galaxy. When the forces of the Dark Race landed first, claiming it for their own, they found something quite astounding: the planet was already inhabited! There were creatures of many kinds flying above in the skies, and swimming through the seas, and lumbering across the plains and forests. Earth was already occupied!
Not only that, but it was such a delightful place: watered and weathered, peaceful and promising, friendly and fortunate ... It seemed like a garden spot of paradise set apart from the rest of the reaches of space.
Now, the Dark Race was invisible to the inhabitants of Earth. They lived in another dimension of time and space. But the Dark Race functioned like a virus. It invaded the minds and hearts of humans on Earth, turning their thoughts toward evil, and causing their actions to mimic its own corrupt self. Wars broke out, greed contaminated, power trampled, and disease ran rampant.
In horror, the Bright Race looked on from a distance as shadows and sickness and somber whimperings spread over planet Earth. Theirs was an eternal vow to turn back this evil plague, yet theirs was also an eternal vow not to do so by force. What could they do to rescue these helpless human creatures? How could they break the stranglehold of this crippling virus that had invaded the realms of Terra?
In worlds of their own, the Bright Race devised a plan. It wasn't foolproof, but it was the best they could come up with. They would scour the earth for a suitable young woman, someone still tender enough not to be hardened deeply by the Dark Race, someone who might work with them in this incredible venture. One of their own would transform its being in such a way that he would be able to communicate with her. He would explain to her their designs and hopes.
Their scientists, he would report, would take some of the genetic materials of the Bright Race and fuse it, in her body, to one of her own eggs. Together they would bring to life a new human baby uncorrupted by the Dark Race, unscathed by the Dark Mind, unallied with the Dark Will. Her child would teach people the ways of Light and Love and Laughter. Perhaps, one day, the wealth of his character would overpower the virus of evil addiction that enslaved the human race.
Now, can you see me there, lost in thought on that Sunday evening, shadows surrounding me in this lonely prairie outpost? In a sense I was hearing the Christmas story I had always known, but told, in this drama, from a perspective I had never thought about. How did the world look to God? What was happening throughout the universe on that dark night in Palestine? What did the demons think of these unfolding events, and where did the angels dance as they gazed in awe?
In the short brush strokes of an hour's poetic drama a new portrait of Christmas night was painted on the canvas of my mind, stark and fresh from its unique vantage point. In a sense, this is what Paul does for us in Galatians 4:4-7.
Rescue Mission
For one thing, he portrays the story of Christmas as a rescue mission. There is something desperate about what is taking place. On our Christmas cards the scenes of Bethlehem always look so calm and bright, shining with peace and light. Yet Paul reminds us of what broods in the heavens. Think of God, watching the darkness sweep the universe! Think of God, seeing the mutant evil that overtakes his delightful angel creatures! Think of God, observing the havoc wreaked on earth as Satan takes the warfare of the heavens and brings it to this pristine outpost of God's creative delight on the far side of the universe! Think of God, marking the growth of the cancerous virus progressively blighting planets and star systems, and now ruining one human society after another!
What is God to do? What will be the outcome of all of this?
George MacDonald points us in the right direction in his children's tale known as "Papa's Story." The children beg their father, one cold winter's night, to weave again the spell of story-telling around them as they sit by the fire.
Papa agrees and tells of a shepherd who brings his flock home late on a stormy night. One lamb is missing, though. So, after supper, the shepherd calls for Jumper the dog, and the two of them brace for the cold and wind and rain. Out in the hills they roam, calling for the wee lamb.
Young Nellie is snug in her bed at home, but every moaning of the breeze echoes with her father's distant voice, and every whining of the woods is a challenge from the darkness that he must fight. She is frightened, for him and for Jumper, and for the little lamb they seek.
Suddenly, however, there he is! Father is home, and Jumper too! They have found the little lamb and have returned it to safety in the fold.
But how weary Father looks! And how torn and cut and dirty and bleeding is Jumper!
When little Nellie returns to bed, her sleeping brings a dream. She dreams that she is Jumper, and that the little lamb is her lost brother Willie. You see, a year earlier young Willie left home. He wanted to get away, needed his own space, he said. He couldn't stand the discipline of his father and had to find his own fortune.
Now Willie lives in Edinburgh and never writes. They know, though, from the scuttlebutt of traders and friends, that he has become a shadow of himself, cruel and greedy, filthy of body and mind, constantly drunk and lost in a mad world of sex.
In Nellie's dream she is Jumper, searching through the storms of Edinburgh's wilder haunts for the little lamb with Willie's face.
When she wakes next morning she knows what she must do. She acts on her dream and goes to Edinburgh to find her brother. Through hours of struggle and pain she finally reaches him. He, of course, doesn't want to see her. Surrounded by his jeering and taunting pals, he laughs at her foolish begging.
Nellie weeps at his harshness. Then she calls him by name. She tells him of his mother's broken heart. She gives him a letter of love, written in his father's hand.
The scenes of home wash young Willie's mind, and the disease of wantonness sickens him. He is led by his little sister back home.
Papa tells a nice story. But there are two footnotes. First, the story Papa tells his children that night is actually the story of his own life. It was his own dear sister Nellie who, one day years before, came looking for him in the shadowed dens of Edinburgh.
Second, George MacDonald gives the story a subtitle. He calls it "A Scot's Christmas Story." And so it is, for the story of Christmas is not first of all a bland tale of pious peace and raucous good fortune. Rather, it is a rescue story. A rescue story always told best in the first person. Jesus came from home looking through the streets and alleys of earth's slums for me! For you!
Christmas is a rescue story. And if you know who you truly are, if you know what life has made of you, then you know that this story is your story.
Cosmic Significance
But there is more. Christmas is not only a rescue story; it is also a story of cosmic significance.
Did you ever wonder at the telling of this tale, what was happening on the other side of the heavens? Can you see the Council Room of the Trinity and the animated debate charting the progress of this great Civil War of the Universe? Reports come in daily, carried by messenger angels from distant galaxies. How far has the shadow spread? How deeply has the Evil One infiltrated the remaining ranks of heaven? How many stars sputter out under his darkness? And how long will the universe stand the strain before cracking in two?
At the Council Table the Three take stock of the situation. War rages at great cost of Life and Joy. How will the Dark Side be stopped? Where will they find a way to limit its power?
All the possibilities are debated. All-out armed conflict? No, for then We become like them, and the universe is lost to evil. Uneasy coexistence? No, again, for the Dark Side is a cancer, and it grows on what is created good. It feeds on what is now beautiful, and unchecked it will destroy all that remains of Light and Life.
Then One of the Three speaks. "What we need, Father," he says, "is a serum that will kill the poison and restore the life in the universe in stages."
All nod. But how could this be done? Where is such an anti-venom serum to be found?
Then the One speaks again. "Take me, Father," he says. "Inject me into one small world. Give me one tiny community to work in, and see if we cannot make a crack in the Enemy's armor."
So they pick a site. They plan a strategy. They form a plan. And when they emerge from the Council Room the target for their efforts has been selected. It will be the third planet from the sun in the rotating array of the solar system in a galaxy some call the Milky Way.
Here the Great Three will perform their one act of courageous hope. They will inject the Son as anti-venom serum into this tiny world. Then they will wait to see whether the universe reacts to this microscopic drop of medicine.
Why did the legions of angels hover over earth that night? It was to celebrate this new offensive in the War of the Worlds, to be sure. But more than that, every conscious mind in the universe followed the story. Every watchful eye in the galaxies turned toward Earth, for here was the test of the ages. Could the Three stop the power of the Dark Side with this single injection? Would the Serum of the Son render harmless the Venom of the Evil One? Could the Cancer running amok in the universe be tamed?
In silence the galaxies waited the outcome of the divine experiment unfolding on planet Earth.
Think not, this day, only of yourselves! Think not that this is a wonderful time for families and friends! Think not, alone, of the joy that you have received from the Baby of Bethlehem!
Sometime, in these dark winter's days, think of the angels whose fate falls with these events. And think of the planets whose destinies are determined by these happenings. And think of the values of Life and Love and Laughter that you hold so dear, and know that if this experiment fails the universe will never again be home to them!
Be careful what you think about this twist of history, and do not limit too soon what it means for the universe!
Costly
One more thought: this Rescue Mission with Cosmic Significance is Costly. It is extremely costly. Lost in the partying and the caroling and the smashing noise of the season, do you see that one little thing?
Max Lucado tells about the destruction brought by an earthquake in Central America. Buildings collapsed, roads buckled, and homes twisted apart. One woman was with her daughter in their apartment when the shock waves hit. Their high-rise smashed to the ground like a fort made of sticks. Together they were trapped in the rubble, pinned by concrete slabs and razor-sharp splinters of wooden beams.
For several days they lay there in the darkness, crying out in pain and terror. When will the rescuers come? Will they ever be found? Does anyone know that they are trapped here, alive in this tomb of death?
The mother slips in and out of consciousness, agonized by the twisting of her limbs and the fractures in her bones. Her six-year-old daughter lies next to her, sometimes screaming in suffering, sometimes whimpering in fear. "Mommy! I'm so thirsty, Mommy! I hurt so much, Mommy! When are they going to find us, Mommy?" But there are no answers, and there they lie.
Then the mother sees that her daughter is failing. The days are too long. The nights are too dark. Her little body can't take the shock much more. She needs a drink! She needs nourishment or she will die!
Pinned as the mother is, she gropes for a shard of broken glass. With great effort she manages to grasp a jagged piece with her mouth. Determinedly she works it like a knife against her own skin. When she draws blood, she presses the cut over her daughter's mouth. With her own life-fluid she keeps her daughter alive.
When the rescuers finally break through, this mother is near death, and they cannot save her. But she has given her daughter new life through blood drawn from her own veins.
Now look again at Bethlehem, and see it from the perspective of the heaven. What takes place here? Is it the whimsical comedy of a church school pageant with boys in bathrobes and girls wearing ill-fitting angel-ware? Is it the hilarity of the holidays, decking halls and trimming trees? Is it the mad rushing of shopping and partying and gift giving? Is it even the quiet sanctimoniousness of organized church services and majestic choral performances?
Take one more look from the darkness of deep space and you know that it is not. Why did the angels hover over the earth that night? Because, in some horrendous grimness of the seizures twisting through the universe, the Trinity in Heaven's High Council Room planned one last measure in the fight to save the cosmos from the spreading blight of the Dark Venom. In a small miracle of grace, a tiny dose of Anti-Venom Serum was injected into the leukemic blood of earth at Bethlehem.
Is the desperate measure working?
You will have to search your own heart to find the answer.
