Boy to the World!
John 1:1, 14
Mt. Pisgah Presbyterian Church
December 24, 2011
Roslyn, WA
Dr. James D. Berkley
It was just a couple of days before Christmas. Two men who were neighbors decided to go sailing, while their wives went Christmas shopping. Problem was, while the men were out in their boat, a storm kicked up. It was a dilly, and the sea became very angry—so tossed and troubled that the men were having great difficulty keeping their boat from swamping. As they pitched and dove their way toward the harbor, they hit a sandbar, and the boat grounded. Both men jumped overboard and began to push and shove with all their might, trying to get the sailboat into deeper water.
Finally, one guy, with his feet almost knee-deep in mud, and the waves smashing him against the side of the boat, and his hair whipping wildly in the wind—the guy turned to the other and shouted with a boyish grin, “It sure beats Christmas shopping, doesn’t it!”
Guys! Men! We get some crazy notions in our heads sometimes, don’t we? We’ll do the strangest things and call it fun. If we get an idea, a plan, it’s hard to budge us away from giving it a try.
A son sacrificed
You may have seen a fine presentation on Masterpiece Theater in April 2008, titled “My Boy Jack.” It was a gripping play about the enthusiastic notions of a famous writer, and what they got him. Back in the early days of the First World War, writer Rudyard Kipling was a macho saber rattler, a big booster for the British Empire. He was all for the Great War and was strenuously encouraging men to enlist to go save England in glory.
Kipling had a 17-year-old son named Jack, who was small, slight, and very nearsighted. Jack depended on his glasses and could hardly see without them. But Jack sought desperately to be a bold, boisterous, chip-off-the-ol’-block for his bigger-than-life father. He was earnest and sincere, a fine young man. He tried to enlist in the Royal Navy, but his poor eyesight kept him out.
There seemed to be some vicarious need for Kipling to enter the fray through his son, so he was determined to get his son Jack into the war. And Jack was determined to live up to his father’s dream for him. Kipling pulled some strings, and Jack eventually took training as an Army officer.
Jack proved to be a hard worker. He was gallant and brave. He became a leader among men. His father was proud, as Jack marched off to war in France to lead his unit in the terrible trench warfare, in which killing methods such as machine guns and chemical weapons had advanced far beyond outmoded tactics, leaving piles of maimed bodies as evidence of the mismatch.
Young Jack was in France for only about six weeks before he went missing and presumed dead in his first combat engagement. Word was that he had been valiant in his actions. This tragedy in the trenches grieved and wracked Kipling, who, quite understandably, felt responsible for sending his son to death in a battle in which his eyesight didn’t give him a fighting chance to succeed. The pathos all around this sad story is wrenching.
Kipling went searching for his son, asking men who had fought beside him, “Did you see Jack?” But Jack was never found. Many years later, a tomb of a lieutenant was designated as Jack’s grave, but many contend that it bears the remains of another officer and not Jack. Jack is simply gone, a grievous loss sacrificed to the horrors of war.
Kipling wrote out his feelings in a moving poem, titled “My Boy Jack”:
“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Has anyone else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind —
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
That is all that Kipling had to hold on to: His son “did not shame his kind.” The father’s vainglorious plans of vicarious enterprise for young Jack failed horribly.
A Son glorified
But there was another era, another gaping need, another Father—and a starkly different result. This Father, like Kipling, knew pathos. He knew loss. He knew suffering. But his plan, rather than failing miserably, succeeded spectacularly as a triumph of remarkable love and sacrifice.
What’s more, there was absolutely nothing vicarious about the arrangement when God the Father sent God the Son to our human battle zone to pitch his tent alongside the rest of us. God didn’t send someone else off to war to live and die for us; God came, himself!
Charles Dickens put it this way: “It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.” In this Father’s case, the story wouldn’t be titled “My Boy Jack.” More appropriately, it would be: “My Boy Me!” Jesus is GOD—God with us!
And where Jack Kipling failed, Jesus triumphed. Jack had superb intentions and grit, but he didn’t have the ability to pull off his father’s plans. Jesus not only had perfect intentions; Jesus had absolute ability. Yes, Jesus was born as a helpless baby, like any little newborn son, anywhere. They coo and stare and sleep so adorably, just like Jesus, who began as ill-fitted to take on the horrendous evil of the world as any infant would be now to triumph in Afghanistan. But Jesus did conquer sin and Satan and death itself. Jesus entered the battle and came out the mighty victor. Kipling’s plan failed miserably; God’s plan succeeded magnificently!
Luke recorded what an Angel proclaimed that first Christmas: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”That Son of God is a Savior, not a tragic victim like the son of Kipling, poor, hapless Jack.
But, as happened for Jack, a poem has been written about Jesus—many, many poems to be exact. I love the ancient poem by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, who died roughly 1,600 years ago. It’s called “Of the Father’s Love Begotten”:
Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore.
O ye heights of heaven adore Him;
Angel hosts, his praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before him,
And extol our God and King;
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert ring,
Evermore and evermore.
Christ, to Thee with God the Father
And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,
Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving
And unwearied praises be.
Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory,
Evermore and evermore.
Our response
I love this magical, mystical hour of Christmas Eve. In brief hours, it will be Christmas, the birthday celebration of the One who died to save us and who lives to lead us. Jesus really came. Jesus really lived. Jesus really died and really rose from the dead. Jesus really reigns as King.
Jesus is God’s gift to us: Boy to the world! Now, let earth receive her King!
