Introduction
The headlines of Monday, December 15, 2003, major newspapers said it all:
LA Times - "Hussein Captured"Chicago Tribune - "US Captures Saddam Hussein"USA Today - "Captured"
After hunting him for more than eight months in over 600 raids, American troops tracked a scruffy and haggard Saddam Hussein to a dirt hole at a farmhouse Saturday night in the town of Ad Dawr, 10 miles south of Tikrit, capturing the elusive dictator without firing a shot.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," a tired but jubilant U.S. civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer III proclaimed.
Earlier in the search one military strategist had said that the hunt for Saddam Hussein was like finding a needle in a haystack, we just have to find the right haystack. The military and CIA recently changed their tactics. They began to question family members, bodyguards, and low ranking officials. And one of Hussein's relatives tipped off the Army leading to his capture in a spider hole next to a hut.
Saddam Hussein offered no resistance. My suspicions are that he was relieved that he was found. He had lived a life of opulence and ease for years. Life on the lam was not for the faint of heart. It was tiring, laborious, gut-wrenching. He welcomed his capture.
Do you know what it is like to search for something?
Former classmates.
House for the Sunday School party.
Addresses to send Christmas cards.
The perfect gift for that special someone.
Lost keys.
Misplaced school assignment.
Mislaid tax returns.
Missing child.
My hunch is that those things want to be found as much as you want to find them.
I. God wants to be found
God is no different. God wants to be found. That's what Christmas is all about: God who was found.
Robert Fulghum, author of All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, writes about a group of neighborhood children playing hide-and-seek outside his home. As he wrote, one kid has hidden under a pile of leaves in his yard just under his window. He has been there a long time; everybody else is found and is about to give up on him. Fulghum considered going out to the base and telling the other kids where the boy was hiding. Then he thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, Fulghum raised the window and yelled, "Get found, kid!"
(Fulghum adds: "Scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It's hard to know how to be helpful sometimes.")
Fulghum then makes the following observation.
"Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is "It" goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.
"Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end."
Never was that more true than that first Christmas. God came to the neighborhood not to play hide-and-seek. He came to play Sardines. And the first to find him, outside his family, were the Shepherds. "They [the shepherds] hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the feeding trough" (Luke 2:16 HCSB). The Savior was not cowering in a spider hole trying not to be found, but out in the open for the whole world to behold.
God wants to be found.
II. The headline news
The headline of the Jerusalem Gazette could have read: "Lowly Shepherds Find Exalted King."
The story could have read: Angels knowledgeable of the whereabouts of the Savior informed several shepherds regarding the precise location last night. The shepherds were outside the town of Bethlehem minding their business.
Except for an occasional bleep from the sheep, the night was quiet. When suddenly the quietness was shattered. An angel appeared announcing that God had come. According to one eyewitness the angel reported where God could be found. One of the shepherds awakened last night stated, "The angel provided God's location - "in the city of David," his purpose for coming - "a Savior, was born for you," the name he went by - "Messiah the Lord" and the sign that confirmed his identity - "a baby wrapped snugly in cloth and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:11-12 HCSB).
Apparently, according to reports, the shepherds were familiar with the location in Bethlehem; they knew from previous writings and informed sources that God would be coming.
After the angel departed, one tired and weary-eyed shepherd in his confusion asked, "What was that?"
According to one onlooker, another shepherd remarked, "I don't know what that was, but it scared me so bad, I almost wet my pants."
Still another flabbergasted by the series of events asked, "What should we do?
After intensive planning and coordination, the operation to find the Savior was dubbed, "Go And See."
One shepherd was overheard to say to the other herd tenders, "I don't know about you, but I'm not going to stand here to debate what just happened. I'm going to Bethlehem and see for my self. Anybody coming with me?"
As quick as a flash, the shepherds left their flock in the open country and searched for the baby until they found him. In a stable, with a pungent stench, the lamb that took away the sin of the world was discovered. The shepherds stumbled on a young girl, Mary, with feet swollen, back aching, leaning back against the wall, with a child wrapped in a blanket at her breast. Joseph, her husband, sat exhausted, silent, and full of wonder at her side.
With barely a ripple of detection, God had come into the world. The shepherds had expected to see angels, perhaps some dignitaries, a high priest or two. But instead they found a few donkeys, a tethered camel, a nervous cow, and some sheep. The shepherds moved closer to the child, held between Mary and Joseph, so, too, in like manner, the animals pressed in toward the child.
Maybe it was due to the cool night air. Maybe it was the first game of Sardines. Regardless, the hunt was over. God had been found.
III. Who
Let's look closely at these sheepherders, who sounding strangely familiar to a story that would later be told by Jesus, left their flock in the open country and searched for the one lost sheep until they found him.
IV. Why?
Why did the angels come to the shepherds of all people?
The angel had proclaimed, "I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people" (Luke 2:10 HCSB). Of course. That's why the shepherds were the first to find the baby Jesus. They represent all the nameless people, all the working stiffs. They embody you and me. The shepherds - these people without names or position or status or privilege - we need not merely be like them. We can be them. We take their place in the story. Name one your name. Give him your face. Enter his place in midnight on the chilly fields near Bethlehem. Make the excited run to the stable. Peer into the manger to see the baby cooing and laughing. Snuggle up close to the others. Feel the warmth of the bodies snuggled close to each other. Kneel over and watch the baby Jesus. Play "peek-a-boo." Giggle when he giggles.
V. How?
Christmas is about finding the best thing. Do you want to find God? The strategy of the shepherds can be followed today.
A. Look for the signs
Nature offers a sign. "Let heaven and nature sing," declares one carol. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of his hands. Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge. There is no speech; there are no words; their voice is not heard. Their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the inhabited world" (Psa. 19:1-4 HCSB).
The human soul offers a sign. Man is a living soul, implanted with the consciousness of God. Anselm, the famous Italian theologian, stated that the idea of God in the mind is proof that God exists. Pascal, the French physicist and philosopher, spoke about the "God-shaped vacuum in every life that only God could fill." The Bible is a sign. The Bible never proves the existence of God. It talks of God as an accepted fact. The opening words are, "In the beginning God..."
Jesus is a sign. Jesus Christ is not only the Son of God, but also God the Son. John, the apostle, wrote, "In the beginning was the Word ... The Word became flesh and took up residence among us" (John 1:1, 14 HCSB)
Christmas is a sign. Christmas is the inaugural day of God coming to us. It amazes me that people don't see Jesus, especially at Christmas. It's not only a holiday; it's a holy day. Commerce stops. Wars cease. Disputes are delayed. Families gather. The activity and busyness that characterizes the Christmas season comes to a grinding halt as though someone pulled the emergency brake.
If that is not a sign, I don't know what is.
An old pioneer traveled westward across the Great Plains until he came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the Grand Canyon. He gawked at the sight before him: a vast chasm one mile down, five miles across, and more than a hundred miles long! He gasped, "Something must have happened here!"
A visitor to our world at Christmas time, seeing the lights, the decorations, the trees, the parades, the festivities, and the religious services, the slow down and stoppage of the world would also probably say, "Something must have happened here!" Indeed, something did happen here. God was found among us. See the signs.
B. Look for him in the right place
Once I was playing golf with a friend of mine. He hit an errant shot into the woods. As we walked off the fairway into the rough toward the woods my friend stopped and began looking for his golf ball. Not wanting to embarrass him but knowing the ball went farther into the woods I began to look for the ball with him in the short rough.
After several minutes of fruitless searching, I asked. "Are you sure your ball is here?"
"Oh, no," he said, "I know the ball is deeper in the woods," pointing toward the trees. "Then why are we looking here?"
"Because the grass is shorter here!" He laughed, then proceeded into the woods.
Sometimes we don't find Jesus because we aren't looking for him in the right place.
The shepherds had the good sense to follow the angel's advice. When the angel said, "You will find a baby wrapped snugly in cloth and lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12 HCSB), they didn't go to the Bethlehem Hilton, or to the mayor's mansion, or to the royal palace. While those places seemed more suited for a king; it wasn't where Jesus was. They searched the stable where they knew there was a manger.
Two thousand years ago, God came in a way no one expected, in a place that was so remote and off the beaten path. Surely, the Savior would be born in a palace or mansion. Or, at least, the Messiah would come in great military might. Or, better yet, he would come to the great city of God, Jerusalem. Not a feeding trough, born of humble parents, as a lowly child, in the off-the-beaten-track-city of Bethlehem.
God came to a manger in a stable. And that is where the shepherds found him.
VI. Now?
When do we begin the search for Jesus? The time is now.
Shortly before his death, ex-Beatle George Harrison was asked about his spiritual journey. The question was appropriate since it was Harrison who introduced the Beatles to Eastern religion in the 60s and (after the group broke up) wrote the song "My Sweet Lord" (a hymn of praise to the Hindu deity Krishna). Until the end of his life, Harrison continued to investigate spiritual matters. He summed up his priorities this way: "Everything else in life can wait, but the search for God cannot wait."
The shepherds would agree. "They hurried off and found" (Luke 2:16 HCSB) God. They departed with haste. They went with speed. They ran. They didn't dawdle. They didn't wait. They saw the signs. Looked in the right place. And found God.
The search for God can't wait. No one lives forever, not even ex-Beatles. Searching for God is good; finding him is much better.
The shepherds found Jesus. Will you?
Conclusion
We can learn about God through nature, his word, and our inner consciousness. However, we can only find and experience God through a personal relationship with his Son, Jesus Christ. To find God, we simply need to confess and turn from our sin and accept Jesus as our Savior. When we do our part, God does his part, that is, he saves us from our sins and gives us the gift of eternal life.
If you have never found God by accepting Christ, you can do so by quietly praying, asking Christ to forgive you for your sins, and inviting him to come into your heart.
Don't say, "I can't ever find anything!" this Christmas. Find God and discover the one thing that means the most and outlasts all the other gifts.