THE INVITATION
I was
probably about to turn seven or eight when Mom and I began to talk about having
a party to celebrate. We talked about all the important things: who to invite
among neighbors’ and friends’ kids, and those from my class at school; what
kind of cake I wanted; what games we would play.
When Mom
talked about sending out invitations, I insisted we didn’t need to do
that. I would just tell my friends the
details and they would remember. Mom was
very skeptical, but she let me have my way.
Thinking about it now, it’s surprising that she didn’t just figure out a
way to get those invitations out without my knowing. Maybe she was teaching me a life lesson!
Sometime
during the week of my Saturday party, I did tell everyone, but when the day
arrived, not a single one of those kids came!
If you know any seven or eight year olds, then you know they are not
especially good at remembering things, and certainly not dates and times for a
future birthday party with no invitation to help their moms remember. Whether or not Mom was trying to teach me a
life lesson, I did learn a lesson: Invitations are really important! If you want people to come, you have to give
them more than just a passing invitation they will probably forget five minutes
after you tell them!
Thanks to
Covid (there have been some reasons to be thankful for covid isolation), I
spent a lot more time this Christmas season thinking about the coming of Jesus
and all that it means to me. This was
the first year in a while that I read through all of the book, O Come All Ye
Faithful, a wonderful book I bought years ago, with devotionals related to
the season and the words of the carols, and their history.
I thought
especially of the invitation God Himself gave to the shepherds at the birth of
His Son, from Luke’s gospel, chapter 2, beginning at verse 8:
Now there
were in the same country (the city of Bethlehem), shepherds living out in the
fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before
them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were greatly
afraid. Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you
good tidings of great joy which will be for all people. For there is born to
you this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will
find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.
And
suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising
God and saying:
Glory to
God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men.’
God’s
invitation for the birth of His Son was of such vital importance, He didn’t
leave it to chance. He sent an angel to
announce it! And then he followed it up
with a multitude of angel hosts and the shepherds couldn’t forget it!
I would have
loved to have been there among those shepherds.
Imagine having an angel deliver an invitation from God Himself to
announce news you’ve been waiting generations to hear? But what would have been truly mind blowing
was to then see the heavens rolled back to reveal a multitude of heavenly
host! Whoa!
Pastor John
MacArthur, in his devotional about this carol, says:
The word
“host” is from a Greek word used to describe a military encampment. Christ also used military imagery to describe
angels in Matthew 26:53 (“legions of angels”).
Revelation 5:11 suggests that there is an angelic number too large to
count.
He says the
use of military imagery suggests a host of angels, not in celebratory garb, but
in military fatigues!
That
certainly puts a different slant on the image of a heavenly host of angels,
doesn’t it!
The
shepherds didn’t waste a single second, as we read in John 2:15 and following:
So it
was, when the angels had gone away from into heaven, that the shepherds said to
one another, ‘Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to
pass, which the Lord has made known to us.’
And they
came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe, lying in a manger. Now
when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them
concerning this Child. And those who
heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
The
shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had
heard and seen, as it was told them.
The
shepherds not only responded to the invitation of the angels, they gave their
own invitation to everyone they met concerning this Child, Jesus, their long
awaited Messish.
Invitations
to follow Jesus by faith fill the pages of the New Testament. Here are just three:
1. In John’s gospel, when some disciples
heard Jesus speak, they followed Him and asked where He was staying, to which
He replied, Come and see, and they did!
They spent the day with Him and later told others, We have found the
Messiah (the Christ). And they brought them to Jesus, and they followed Him
as well.
2. John’s gospel, chapter 4 records a
conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at the end of which Jesus
reveals that He is the Messiah she and her people have been waiting for, and
she leaves to tell the others. Verse 39
says:
And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him
because of the word of the woman . . .and they urged Him to stay with
them. And many more believed, not just
because of the testimony of the woman, but because of His own word about
Himself.
3. One of the most precious of the
invitations, given by Jesus Himself, is given in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 11,
verses 28-30:
Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and
learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. For My yoke is easy and My
burden is light.
When was the
last time you received, not just an invitation, but a life changing
invitation? I’m guessing never. The invitation of Jesus to “come and follow”
Him is that kind of invitation. Just
read about His disciples in the gospel accounts, and that of the Samaritan
woman and her neighbors – meeting Jesus filled them with joy, assured them of
forgiveness for their sins, gave them confidence for the future – that Jesus
would never leave or forsake them and would welcome them into His kingdom as
His very own child. Want that? The invitation to put your faith in Jesus
still stands.
I echo the
invitation of the disciples: Come and
follow my Jesus.
This is the
end of 2020 and many of us are saying: Good riddance!! Maybe you have had a heavy burden to carry
this year. Maybe you have lost your job,
had covid, nursed others with covid, lost someone to covid, are feeling the
strain of reduced hours with reduced salaries, or no salary, feel stressed from
trying to do your job from home, and home schooling your children too. Maybe you have carried your burden alone with
no one to walk beside you.
Jesus tells
us in the Matthew verses that He can help us carry the burden. First and foremost, Jesus wants us to know
Him as Savoir from our sins. He died in
our place to free us from the burden of sin’s penalty and daily power. As His
child, He walks with us through life’s trials, carrying the yoke of it with us,
making it lighter. Because He becomes
our strength, He gives us His rest in the process.
Your
invitation has been issued – by Jesus Himself – who says “come and see”.
Read through
the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament of the Bible)
and find out who Jesus is for yourself.
Your
invitation has been issued by the disciples of Jesus and the woman of Samaria
who did come and see and found in Jesus the very One whom they were waiting for
– the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior.
Your
invitation comes from me because I know Jesus as they did and want you to know
Him too.
You may
never hear an invitation from a host of angels, but you don’t need one. Jesus Himself issues the invitation: Come to me, come and see.
Like coupons
you get in the mail however, this invitation does have an expiration date. One day Jesus has promised to return as judge.
Those who have accepted His invitation will be invited into His presence
forever, for He died in payment for their sin, and they stand before Him forgiven
and made right with God. Those who have refused to trust in Jesus and His
sacrifice for them will be condemned to an eternal life separated from Him
forever. It will be an eternal life of
darkness and pain.
You see, your
response to the invitation of Jesus, to come, to believe, to trust in His death
endured for your sake, is not one to be taken lightly, like a missed party
invitation. It’s a life or death decision,
a life changing decision with an expiration date.
I can tell
you from personal experience, you will never regret trusting in Jesus in this
life – and you will have all eternity to enjoy Him and the blessings of heaven.
However, to refuse to trust Him, results in an eternity of regret.
