The Sojourner

You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel.  Ezek 47:22 (ESV)

We tend to think of Christmas as family time and indeed much joy is derived by close relatives anticipating getting together for dinner and gift-giving.  The biblical story that inspires this holiday tells us of a God who comes into a world as a sojourner, sometimes referred to as a stranger or an alien depending upon your Bible translation.  The Savior of the world comes to a human-inhabited planet in human garb, but is not welcomed by his own (John 1:11).   Jesus repeats this theme of being on the outside in the parable of the sheep and goats.  The true Israel found a stranger, naked, hungry and thirsty and welcomed him (Mat. 25:35).  The banished ones were those who could not see the sojourner as worthy of their time, their hospitality and a seat at their tables.  

On a crowded plane returning home to Alabama from Chicago, strangers held fast to their seats and with diverting eyes made it difficult for me and Lauren to find a seat (as we returned from visiting Wheaton College). A small inconvenience on a flight is nothing compared to the refusal to welcome and make space for Mary and Joseph as they sought a place for rest on their journey home.   Finally, they find a place among the common livestock of a sleepy village.  It was there in a small and forgotten corner of Bethlehem, that the Savior of the world came as a child, born of a woman, yet son of the Eternal God.  People still refuse to welcome him and to make room for the sojourner who comes to us, more often than not as an inconvenience to our schedules, or an unexpected guest, as Savior and Redeemer.  Even in the season of Christmas, if we are not careful we can ignore him once again.  If we do, then we forget that the stranger who came to Israel is the sojourner who comes to us not to disrupt our Christmas but to give it meaning and restore it to the biblical fulfillment that Ezekiel envisioned as when the stranger is treated as a native-born and the Kingdom is a river that runs to the sea and gives life to all.   

Finally, the sojourner of the Christmas story is the Savior King that awaits us on our journey home.   This season before Christmas has traditionally been a time to focus on what we long for and anticipate.  Not presents under a tree, but the final and blessed home with Jesus, who gave himself on a tree.  J.I. Packer said heaven is “an unknown country with a well-known inhabitant.”  Until then, we all are sojourners on this planet, and from time to time we find welcome among those who realize they are looking toward another home as sons and daughters of Abraham living in a foreign land but looking forward to a city and a home whose “designer” is God (Heb. 11:9-10).   

Justified by Faith for Love's Sake

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16 ESV)

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Galatians 2:20-21 ESV)

We make a decision every morning when we wake up.  It is a choice between two kinds of living and thinking.  One option is to believe that hard work, diligence and seeking to do our best will cause God to love us.   The other option, affirmed by Paul, is to live in light of the cross of Jesus.  It is a grace filled life that enters into whatever a day’s work may bring with the assurance of God’s love.  This is the only option for living in the freedom that came as a gift through the death of Jesus Christ.  How many of us chose the former?   We are bent on the need to perform and somehow we get deluded into thinking there is something we can do to get God to love us more. 

The Gospel breaks through this illusion of work’s value and brings us the promise that the starting point is a grace we do not deserve and lays the foundation for living and working in ways more productive, more rewarding and freeing than under the servitude of our sinful attempts at doing our best.   The life we now live “is by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”   Grace motivates us to be good, not “for goodness sake” as the popular Christmas song puts it, but for love’s sake. 

The puritan Thomas Watson describes this goodness without the gospel this way, “Morality is insufficient for salvation. Though the life is moralized, the lust may be unmortified. The heart may be full of pride and atheism. Under the fair leaves of a tree, there may be a worm... If morality were sufficient to salvation, Christ need not have died. The moral man has a fair lamp—but it lacks the oil of grace."