Our Christmas Guest: Reversal
He Who We Thought Was the Guest, is the Host
Luke 1:39-45
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. December 19th, 2021
A few years ago an old friend from undergrad came to visit. At the time I was up in the UP, so I lived far off the beaten track. It wasn’t that often I would get friends from school visiting me up there. It’s hard to have an event in, say, Detroit or Chicago and decide to take a jaunt up to the UP to see me. But he was taking a round trip from Chicago to Boston, and decided to do that the UP way.
I was excited. I made sure to get the house spic and span. I prepared his room for him, cleaning the desk so he had a place to read, putting in new air freshener plug ins, even going through the trouble of dusting. The only problem was me. As it turned out I was in no condition to act as a host. My friend had arrived while I was very sick, and I didn’t even know the half of it at the time. I had been trying to convince myself I was getting better, even when I wasn’t, that my medicine was working, even when it wasn’t. And as the weekend went on, I got sicker and sicker as I couldn’t keep up with my duties as host.
It wasn’t long before he was suggesting what we might do. As I felt like I needed to convalesce it became clear that in some manner our roles had reversed. Though I would have wanted to be the host, directing the entertainment and making sure he was comfortable, I had become the guest who was in need of care.
A grand theme of Luke’s Gospel is such great reversals. Mary’s song, that we heard this morning, is all about reversals. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent empty away. So it is with the invasive grace of God. In Jesus Christ God is literally turning the world upside down, reversing all that we once knew, raising the poor up and bringing the rich down. Because the one who has come to save us all did not come as a King but as the child of a construction worker, and was revealed not to priests but to shepherds in their fields. Christmas morning we may wake up to find the whole world transformed.
Think, as well, of the road to Emmaus. Jesus meets two disciples on the road and they talk about the things that had taken place in Jerusalem. Jesus uses the Scripture to show that the Messiah was to die, and come back from the dead. They beg him to come to their place, that they may act as host for this guest they found on the road. Jesus relents. But as he comes to dinner he is the one who breaks the bread, and in breaking it his identity is revealed. Though he was invited as a guest, it became clear that he was the host, the great host.
So too with us as well. This month we have been talking about hospitality. How we all await a great and terrific guest, and how we must prepare for that guest by tidying up our hearts through acts of repentance. But truth be told, we are not so much waiting for a guest as much as we are preparing for the host. He who we receive as a guest is truly the host. He who comes as vulnerable is truly invulnerable. He who seems to be in need is the one who fulfills our every want. And all that we have been doing, has been as much his doing as our own. We servants would not have been put to this work of repentance, of cleaning, of preparation were we not called to do so by our great host.
If you have been preparing well this Advent season, you are about to experience the great reversal. The guest you have prepared to receive will be your host. The heart-dwelling you’ve prepared may be his throne. And Jesus is the great host, who will work wonders with what you have given him. Who can do far more than we can ask or imagine.
We thought we were in control, but it turns out we were never in control. It is God who is in control, it is God who takes ownership, God who holds the reigns of the universe, who has prepared a place for us as much as we thought we were preparing a place for him. And how wonderful that is. That we may put our hope not in our own work, in our own ability, but in the all powerful and trustworthy God. As we rapidly approach Christmas Day, lets take this moment to wait in awe, of the great reversal God has brought about, of all he may do for us, of all he has accomplished.