The Boy with No Dragon Tattoo -- FPC sermon excerpt

This Christmas, you might see a girl with a dragon tattoo.

Not in holiday decorations, but in a movie.

Based on an international best-seller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be released December 21, and promises to be a holiday blockbuster. The story is a mystery, revolving around disappearance of an heiress. A crusading journalist and a young female hacker try to solve it, stirring up a stinking cauldron of personal and industrial corruption.

The hacker is the girl with the dragon tattoo. Named Lisbeth Salander, she is a pierced and tattooed punk prodigy. She works for a security firm, and her boss describes her as the most able investigator he has ever met. She always comes back with something different from what he expects, usually by getting under the skin of the person she is investigating.

While security firms are usually conservative and stable, Lisbeth Salander projects the opposite image. She is a thin, pale woman with short hair and a pierced nose and eyebrows. On her neck is a wasp tattoo, and on one arm and ankle are tattooed loops. And on her left shoulder blade?

You guessed it. A dragon tattoo.

And yet, in spite of her appearance, she possesses a unique gift.

Christmas is also a mystery story, although we do not usually look at it this way. We think we know all about the birth of Jesus, how and where and when and why it happened. But do we? And do we know the true identity of the one who was born?

The boy with the tattoo?

He does not have a dragon tattoo, that’s for sure. The Bible says that Jesus fights and conquers the great dragon, “that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). But Jesus is a marked man, and part of the mystery of Christmas is figuring out what his markings mean.

The apostle Paul tells the Christians in Rome that the coming of Jesus is “the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages” (16:25). This mystery included human sinfulness, a stinking pot of personal and communal corruption. At the heart of the story are the numerous attempts that people made over the years to find forgiveness and new life — attempts that include sacrifices in the temple, religious rules and regulations, personal piety, and philosophical inquiry. All of them fell short. All of them left people feeling unforgiven, unfulfilled, discouraged, and disconnected from God.

Then God disclosed something: The identity of his son. This boy, says Paul, “was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:3-4).

Jesus is both son of King David and son of Almighty God. Fully human and fully divine. A boy with the ability to solve the most difficult of human problems.

Suddenly, we have a savior who is as human as we are — aware of our temptations and sympathetic to our struggles. But he is also completely divine, able to forgive us and reconcile us to our Creator. He is able to repair the relationship with God that has been shattered by sin.

Jesus can do this because he is a marked man — he carries the mark of the nails in his hands, marks that are still visible after his resurrection (John 20:25-28). Jesus went to the cross for us, taking our sins upon himself, and then he was raised to show God’s victory over sin and death. He was resurrected to show that new life is always possible, both for him and for us.

Jesus is a boy with no tattoo. His only mark is the scar of the cross.

Peace Packages -- FPC sermon excerpt

A Hollywood studio lamp, straight out of the 1940s. An eight-foot tall architectural model of the Eiffel Tower. A space pen that works upside down and underwater.

Are any of these items on your Christmas list? If so, Santa is going to have to visit Restoration Hardware.

This high-end store is where people go when they want to step back in time, and buy an item that reminds them of some golden age from the past. Paris in the 1880s. Hollywood in the 1940s. The space race of the 1960s. It’s a very cool place — I love to wander through it.

At Restoration Hardware, people look back with longing, feeling that something precious has been lost. They want a missing treasure to be restored.

And so do many of us. We look to the past — to our childhoods, our college years — and search for something to complete us.

Now maybe we don’t feel the kind of void that can be filled by a Hollywood floor lamp, crafted of solid aluminum and steel, retailing for $1,995. Yes, that’s right — one lamp, two thousand dollars. Must be a good one, but it is not going to give us the light we need.

Our darkness is not going to be eliminated by a Hollywood floor lamp. Wandering through the darkness of daily life, we stumble and fall, hurt ourselves and others, crash into obstacles and leave a trail of debris behind us. We long for a lantern that will light our path, a beacon to guide us and lead us home. And so we light a candle — an Advent candle. This is done on the first Sunday of the Advent season, and again on the second, third, and fourth.

Each Sunday we light another candle and look for the coming of the Lord. We want the Lord to restore us. Restore our hope. Restore our peace. Restore our joy. Restore our love.

We know we need restoration. Not Restoration Hardware.

Psalm 85 begins with a line that was spoken by the people of Israel, back in their homeland after a time of exile in Babylon: “Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob” (v. 1). The people are thankful that their long captivity is over, and that God has forgiven their iniquity and “pardoned all their sin” (v. 2).

But still, something is missing.

The emptiness they feel is very similar to the void that remains deep within us after we earn a degree, start a job, move into a bigger house, or drive a new car off the lot. We know how fortunate we are. We appreciate God’s favor toward us. But still we wonder why everything we thought we wanted still isn’t enough. We wonder why good fortune in this life gives us everything but a sense of peace.

Saint Augustine had it right when he said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you” (Confessions, Book I, Chapter 1).

True peace will escape us until our restless hearts begin to rest in God. Serenity cannot be granted by a diploma, a promotion, a McMansion, or a luxury sedan. It comes to us as a gift from God, and it includes forgiveness of sin and the restoration of our relationship with the Lord.
True peace comes as a peace package.