Worship by Numbers

Image: Gregory Szarkiewicz / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son…

How Well Do You Read Signs?

Many years ago, I was driving with a few friends in my car. We had just eaten dinner in a restaurant in an unfamiliar town, and were headed home. But none of us knew exactly how to find the freeway onramp. So we drove in the general direction of the freeway, and looked around hoping for a road sign to tell us how to get on the freeway.

We got to the freeway, turned in the general direction of home, and came upon just such a sign. As I followed the signs to the freeway onramp, a disagreement started among the passengers in my car. At almost every sign, every intersection and every turn, they thought I went the wrong way, because they did not immediately see the onramp.

I was confident that I was reading the signs correctly, so I just kept telling them that I was going where they signs said to go. After about 4 or 5 signs, going straight, making turns, we made a final left turn into a dark coul-de-sac that looked like a very wrong turn into a short dead end street. But guess what?

The onramp was actually right there at the end of this “dead end” street.

I followed the signs to the onramp without one wrong turn. But from the first sign, everybody was in disagreement about what the signs really meant.

I find it very interesting that four intelligent adults, all licensed drivers, can see four different meanings in a set of directional road signs that were specifically designed to mean only one thing. If it had not been pitch black dark that night, we might have imagined that we could “find our way” to the freeway onramp without much help from the signs. This would have been wrong.

This was a very confusing route! We only found the onramp so quickly because we followed the signs exactly. We never would have found such an out-of-the-way onramp by ourselves. Never.

So, how shall we interpret this sign, that the Lord Himself has given us?

What does it mean that the Lord Himself has given us a sign?

What does it mean that a virgin will bear a son?

God sent His Son, Jesus, to show us Himself. To show us the Way to God. To glorify God. That is what Jesus Himself says over and over again throughout His life and ministry.

He who has seen Me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one.
~John 14:9, 10:30

As we argue about the theology of eternal life, and bicker about the doctrine of divine election and free will, let’s not miss the one, plain, simple message in the sign.

And It’s so easy to miss…

The sign is not there primarily to give us more fuel for our theological debates. The sign is there to show us Jesus. To tell us which way to go to find Him.

If you are looking for the way to the freeway onramp, you can get there by following the signs. Likewise, if you want to find eternal life in God, you might consider looking for signs that tell you how or where to find Jesus, or which way to go.

If that describes you, then look no further. The way to Life through Jesus is signified in every manger scene, every advent wreath, every gift given, and even in every Christmas decoration. The signs are all around us.

The funny thing about signs in general, and this sign in particular, is that people who are not looking for the sign, don’t see the significance of it. They only see the thing of which the sign is made. They only see the baby in the manger. They don’t see Him as the One who was born King of all creation.

The wise men were following the star… that led them to Jesus. The shepherds followed the angels’ advice, looked for the the baby in the manger… and found Jesus. The baby in the manger was a sign for them. A sign that signified something about the infinite God being born into a finite human body, in order to unite His infinite being with our finite beings. Call it salvation. Redemption. Eternal Life. The Kingdom of God. Heaven.

The baby in the manger is still a sign by which we can find Him. He shows us the way to eternal life. It is not a dead end street. It is the onramp. He is the way, the entry point, to the kingdom of life.

My friends were fooled because the way we were going looked wrong to them. They believed circumstances rather than the signs. But we cannot find our way by circumstances; they aren’t always accurate. That is what the sign is for. The sign accurately tells us the path’s ultimate destination. It tells me where I will end up if I follow the signs.

The Isrealites followed the signs to their messiah for thousands of years. Those signs led some of them to Jesus. He is the way to eternal life.

A good theological argument can be fun, or terribly boring, depending on your tastes. And I’m not saying that we should not discuss, and even haggle over, our beliefs. The ability to define and share our mostly dearly-held beliefs is probably a good thing. And for those inclined toward healthy debate, I say go for it.

But don’t miss the main point of the sign just because you are still arguing about how or when the host becomes Christ’s body after you eat it. I’m just saying: Follow the signs. They lead to Him.

If these theological issues are still relevant when we “get there,” I’m sure He’ll explain them to us. But until then, …

Let us celebrate His birth with the angels on high.

He has given us great reason to rejoice!!!

And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them;
and they were terribly frightened.

~Luke 2: 9-14

Glory to God in the highest!
May God grant you a heart of worship!

Worship by Numbers
Ramona Denton

Joy is the most infallible sign of the Presence of God.
~Teilhard de Chardin

All children wear the sign: ‘I want to be important NOW.’ Many of our juvenile delinquency problems arise because nobody reads the sign.
~Dan Pursuit

There are many excuses for the person who made the mistake of confounding money and wealth. Like many others they mistook the sign for the thing signified.
~Millicent Garrett Fawcett

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Inspirational. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.