Continuing our series tonight, Wicked for Christmas.
If you haven't been with us for the series, we've been working
our way through the movies, Wicked and Wicked for good and
using some of the songs in those movies of ways to reflect on the
life of faith. We've had most of the Sundays
we've been doing this, we've had live people singing tonight.
I didn't want to ask. I I thought it would be simpler
for everyone to use a recorded song tonight from the movies
rather than rather than live singers.
I, I know folks have a lot of stuff going on on Christmas Eve,
and so I didn't want to put pressure on anyone to need to
sing tonight. But tonight we're talking about
what we'll be later listening to the song for good, which is from
the second movie. I believe it's the final song.
And but before we get to that, I want to talk about one of the
good things about being a kid, kids.
There's a lot of, you know, being a kids not easy all the
time. There's a lot of struggles that
go along with being a kid. But there's some things you can
do when you're a kid that you can't do when you're an adult.
And one of the best things you can do as a kid, which I seldom
see adults doing, is playing tag, right?
I mean, you don't typically when a group of adults get together,
you don't hear a 40 something person saying, hey, let's play
tag, you're in. You don't typically hear that,
but tag is one of the best games ever.
You don't need any equipment to play tag, right?
None. You can play tag bare feet if
you're tough enough. I was never tough enough for
that. But all you need is space and
people and sometimes the more people the better.
And you know how it works. Who?
What's the part that everyone wants to have when you're
playing tag Bass. No, no, no.
What role? What role do you know?
What person? Who?
What? What's the one thing?
What it you want to be it when you're playing tag?
I don't know who came up with his name, but you just it and if
you're it, that means you have a special power.
You can run around and you can touch other people and depending
on the type of tag you're playing, different things
happen. If you're playing freeze tag and
you're it and you touch people, you have the power to freeze
them. But in the purest form of tag
and the most simple version of the game, the power that you
have as it is that when you touch someone, now they're it.
And they get to chase people and tag them and make them it.
And you just keep passing it around from person to person.
The brilliance of the game. Now I'm finally understanding
it. I'm sure this game was invented
by parents who wanted to wear their kids out because part of
the brilliance of the game is there is no end.
You just keep playing until everyone like, falls on the
ground exhausted or someone says, is it a time for ice
cream? Let's go in and get some ice
cream. It's a great game.
One person touches the others and the next person becomes it,
and so on and so on and so on. There's a lot of, There's a
sense in which life is like this.
It's like a game of tag where one person is it and they touch
others and, and pass that on to others.
And, and I did that too soon. We see that from the time of
Jesus's conception, right? There's Jesus in Mary's womb.
Not exactly. I think she's like 3 or 4 months
along at this time. I can't remember.
She goes to visit her relative Elizabeth, who is also
miraculously pregnant with Jesus's cousin John.
And and she's miraculously pregnant because she is well
past childbearing years, and yet she's about to have her very
first baby. And as soon as Elizabeth hears
Mary's voice, the child within her leaps for joy.
John. He didn't even have to be tagged
by Jesus. You just had to get close to
Jesus and, and, and hearing his presence through Mary's voice,
John leaps for joy. There's a very real sense in
which this is kind of a cosmic game of tag Being touched by the
person who's it changes you. Being touched by Jesus changes
you. Jesus changes us for good.
Knowing Jesus, being touched by Jesus, being in Jesus's presence
changes people for good. We see that over and over and
over again in the Scripture. We see it with Mary as Jesus
comes literally into her life. Then as Mary carries the unborn
child to other people, they're touched by Jesus.
Their life is changed. There's joy in in John's life
before he's ever born just because he's in the presence of
Jesus. Jesus when he, he goes out into
the boat with Peter and James and John and they get the
miraculous catch of fish. And Peter's like, who is this
guy? He's, he's, he says to Jesus,
get away from me, you're holy and I'm not.
And Jesus says, we'll take care of that.
Jesus went to the woman at the well and this woman outcast by
her own community suddenly becomes it and she becomes the
one that brings the other people in her community, Jesus, after
she's touched by Jesus, Jesus touches the lepers.
One of the amazing things about, you know, I don't know about
you. When I was growing up, I, I had
to dress up for church. I'm glad that that's not a rule
anymore. I had to dress up for church
and, and, and, and you ever have anyone here have their parents
ever have the experience of your parents making you dress up?
Anyone ever have that? And what are you told once you
get dressed up? What's that?
They look nice. You get that, But you also get
an instruction. Don't get dirty.
Don't touch anything. No playing on the ground, no
playing on the floor, no crawling around outside in the
grass. Don't touch anything dirty.
Because when you're all cleaned up and you get into something
dirty, what happens? You get dirty.
That's not how it worked for Jesus, the ultimate cosmic it He
was perfectly clean, perfectly holy.
And when he touched someone, no matter how holy or no matter how
dirty or how unholy they were, they didn't make Jesus dirty.
Jesus made them clean. They didn't make Jesus corrupt.
Jesus made them holy. That was the power that Jesus
had. No one wanted to touch the
lepers. They would immediately become
unclean, dirty, corrupted, but Jesus, who could have healed
them with a word without ever touching them because he did
that for people sometimes. Jesus touched the lepers and
healed them and made them clean. Jesus touched with and hung out
the folks that no one else wanted to touch your hand.
At least none of the good people, none of the religious
people wanted to touch want to hang out with.
He hung out and touched the tax collectors.
He hung out and touched the prostitutes.
He hung out and touched the the drunks.
He hung out and touched the folks that that that were
shunned and avoided by all of the good religious people in
society. When Jesus entered their lives,
he changed them and he changed them for good.
Sometimes it seemed even against their will, or at least against
their knowledge and their intention, it didn't.
It's something it didn't seem to matter.
Whatever the reason, you came to Jesus.
And, and I say this just because at the end of Jesus's life on
this earth, when he was being beaten and hung on the cross and
crucified there, those folks touching Jesus, Jesus prayed for
them and asked his Father in heaven to forgive them.
They were blessed. They were changed for good by
Jesus without ever trying to be, without ever trying to be.
The woman caught in the act of adultery brought to Jesus so
that he could sentence her for the sentence her to death.
Because she was brought to Jesus, she was forgiven and went
away, set free. This is what it means to be
touched by Jesus, to be close to Jesus.
Now there is a very real sense. Well, there's there's many
different versions of tag, right?
One of my favorites that contradicting what I said
earlier, I, I did play a lot as an adult.
I wasn't really an adult. I was right.
Just Full disclosure, right now, I'm mentally and emotionally a
15 year old and I have always been a 15 year old.
My sense of humor, everything about me and in most respects in
my brain is about 15 years old. So technically I've never grown
up, but I I as a young adult, I played a game at camp called
BLOB tag. You ever played BLOB tag?
BLOB tag is light tag, only more complicated.
And in this case, the complication makes it fun in a
lot of other ways because you can have a massive group playing
BLOB tag and you're never, it's never too many people.
The difference between BLOB tag and regular tag is that in BLOB
tag, when when it touches someone, that person doesn't
just become it. And then it becomes someone to
be chased. When you're playing BLOB tag,
when it touches someone, you're both it.
You have to stay in contact. If I ran up and touched and we
would join hands and then we would try to touch other people
and join hands with them. And the BLOB just keeps getting
bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until everybody's it.
There's a very real sense in which the life that Jesus calls
us to is like a really good blame game of BLOB tag, that
when Jesus touches us, when we encounter him and he changes us,
he's changing us for good. But not just for our sake, for
our sake, because we all need that, but not just for our sake.
He wants us to stay close to him and then reach out and touch
others and be part of his changing them for good too.
Jesus passes along that power to us.
He did that with his first disciples.
He sent him out into the world 2 by 2 little blobs, but blobs
nonetheless, so that they could go out and change people for
good, Casting out demons, healing wounds, restoring
relationships, helping folks discover and rediscover the joy
and wonder and awesome holiness of God, and making the BLOB
bigger and bigger and bigger. Jesus passes on to us the power
to change others for good. Now we're going to listen to the
song and this is a short message tonight after the song, I'm
almost done. We're going to listen to the
song for good, from the end of Wicked for Good.
And if you haven't seen the movies or the the theatrical
production, the two main characters are Alphaba and
Glenda. And they early on hate each
other, then they become close friends, then they become find
themselves on the opposite sides of the major ideological and
social issue of the Kingdom of God.
And in the end as they are reconciled, I think is maybe the
right word as their relationship and they are physically going to
be separated maybe for the rest of their lives.
They sing this song together. I think it's a beautiful song,
and as we listen to it, I'm going to play a lyric video.
I can't get a video clip of it because the movie's still in the
theaters, but we're going to play a lyric video.
I want you to just watch and listen to the lyrics and invite
you to think about this. Who in your life has touched you
and changed you for good? Let's reflect together.
At this point in the sermon, we listen to the song for good from
the movie Wicked for Good. For licensing reasons, I can't
include it here, but you can find it on YouTube and all major
music platforms. It's a beautiful song about how
two people can affect each other's lives and change each
other for good. I hope you'll listen to it.
Now back to the sermon. As you go into Christmas Day
tomorrow, maybe as you're lying in bed trying to go to sleep
tonight, as you walk through this coming year, when those
people come to your mind, people that have been in your life,
that have touched you in one way or another and you know they've
changed you for good, take a moment and pray a blessing for
them. Take a moment and thank God for
them. Take a moment and receive again
that blessing of having been changed for good.
And then as you take your next steps, as you're getting up
tomorrow morning and walking through this year, ask God, this
God, how can I, how can I be one of your people who when other
people encounter me, they're changed for good too?
This is the gift that we have in Jesus, who was born as one of
us, that he came not not to show off, not to simply display how
wonderful and powerful he is, but to touch us and change us so
that we can be part of changing others for good as well.
In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.