Upside Down Expectations
Jesus turned everything upside down. That’s what Jesus did when he made the move from heaven to earth. He turned everything upside down.
Everything people thought would happen, everything everyone expected to happen, everything that they had hoped for, prayed for, Jesus turned every thing upside down.
If you had been living some 2000 years ago, if you were a part of the people of God, the people of Israel who were living in a dark time under Roman oppression, if you had been among those who had been hoping and praying for God to come and make things right but it had been some 400 years since there had been a word from God, a prophet from God, you might, at some point, have thought to yourself, life just isn’t turning out the way I thought it would. Things aren’t working out the way I expected.
And I just wonder…
Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like your life hasn’t turned out the way you expected?
Every Thanksgiving, this movie premieres again.
It’s in black and white. It was first released on December 20, 1946. But the storyline is so compelling, so powerful, I always want to watch it again. Typically, I don’t like to watch a movie I’ve already seen. But when it comes to this movie, when it comes to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” there’s just something about it that makes me want to watch it again and again.
As the story goes, George Bailey is feeling the same way a lot of us feel sometimes. He had big plans, he had his future all mapped out, he knew what he wanted to do in life, and he knew who he wanted to do it with. He wanted to travel the world, marry the love of his life, build things, and be someone important in the world.
But instead, he finds himself stuck in the little town of Bedford Falls running his father’s Building & Loan. He’s stuck while he’s watching everyone else succeed. He did get to marry the girl of his dreams, but otherwise, his life is filled with unmet expectations.
Unmet Expectations
We live in a world filled with people filled with unmet expectations.
So many people are frustrated, angry, disappointed, and anxious because things haven’t worked out like they expected.
Things didn’t turn out the way they wanted. They didn’t do what they wanted, what they thought they should do. They didn’t say what they thought they would say. They didn’t get the job. They didn’t get their way. They didn’t have a good hair day! They spilled their coffee. They felt down. Their team didn’t win. Amazon sent their package to the wrong address! They didn’t get what they wanted for Christmas last year, and they don’t think they’ll get it this year!
The pressures of life keep building around us and sometimes, we don’t know what to do.
The pressures of life kept building around George Bailey until… he gets to the point where he starts to believe the world would be a better place without him.
But then, something happens that turns everything in his life upside down.
And something happened for us some 2000 years ago that turns everything upside down as well.
An Unexpected Location
This story starts in a little town called Nazareth. I know, you thought the story started in Bethlehem. We’ll get to Bethlehem soon, but before we get there, we have to start here.
Truthfully, nobody thought this story would start in Nazareth. Nazareth was barely a town. It had about 1500 people.
I grew up in Montgomery, AL, and sometimes, when we were on a road trip somewhere and we were taking the backroads, we went through a little town called “Slapout, AL.” That was the name of the town. Slapout! It had one stoplight. It was a speed trap. The speed limit dropped from like 65 to 25, and there was always an officer there waiting to pull you over! I looked it up, today Slapout, AL has a population of 5700 residents. That’s almost four times bigger than Nazareth!
Nazareth was tiny. They didn’t have a Buc‑ee’s there! I don’t think they even had a gas station. Just one red light. If you were driving through and you blinked, you probably missed it. The nearest big city to Nazareth was Sepphoris. It was about four miles northwest of Nazareth, and that’s where you went if you were going into town. That’s where you bought groceries. That’s where you went to Wal-Mart. Sepphoris was the capital city of Galilee. No doubt, when Jesus was old enough, that’s where Joseph and Jesus picked up work as carpenters.
It was here in Nazareth where the story starts. It was here in Nazareth that an angel made an unlikely visit in an unlikely place at an unlikely time to an unlikely person!
If you have your Bible or the YouVersion app, you can find this story in Luke 1. 26.
Luke 1.26-38
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.
Right off the bat, everything about this story seems unlikely and upside down.
Angels don’t make appearances in places like Nazareth. Nobody makes an appearance in Nazareth! It’s barely a dot on the map!
Mary is poor and powerless.
She isn’t even fully married yet. She’s engaged – which in her culture was a binding contract. But her and Joseph were not yet husband and wife.
Everything about this seems upside down. But Gabriel finds Mary, and he has Good News to share.
An Unexpected Announcement
28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
Everything about this seems upside down.
Virgins don’t have babies.
Unlike other biblical characters, Mary hasn’t been praying for a baby.
Luke writes that Mary was confused and disturbed. Really!? Thank you, Luke, for that valuable insight! 🙂 Absolutely, she was confused and disturbed. Nothing about this made sense to her, and what’s more, she never expected this.
No doubt, Mary expected to get married to Joseph. He was a carpenter. He was a good man by all accounts from a good family. They would get married and have a family. He would work, she would stay home and care for the kids, that’s what people did. They would raise their kids to know the Lord. Maybe they would stay in Nazareth. Maybe life would lead them somewhere else.
She didn’t have all that figured out yet, but she wasn’t worried about it. She’s minding her own business one day when all of a sudden she gets a visit from an angel of God! Talk about an unmet expectation! Turning your world upside down! Mary’s got more questions than answers at this point. Here’s the first one!
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. 36 What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. 37 For the word of God will never fail.”
Some manuscripts say: “For nothing is impossible with God.” – v37
Mary doesn’t lack faith, she doesn’t need a sign, she just doesn’t understand what’s happening, what Gabriel is saying, and how this would even work. And God, in His grace, assures her through his angel, Nothing is impossible with God.
I’m sure, even after hearing that, Mary still had more questions than answers. What would it feel like for the Holy Spirit to come upon her and for the power of the Most High to overshadow her? How would she explain this to her friends and family, to Joseph? When was this going to happen? What did she need to do next?
Who did she need to tell next? It sounds like she could talk to Elizabeth, she would understand and believe Mary’s story! Even if no one else did, maybe Elizabeth would. She had questions, I’m sure. God was turning her world upside down, I’m sure. But she also had faith.
Luke writes…
38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
Everything the angel just said would turn everything about Mary’s life upside down, it would turn the world upside down, but it’s exactly what had to happen in order for God to set the world right side up!
Prophet, Priest, or King
What many people were hoping for, were expecting, was for God’s Messiah to come as a prophet, or maybe a priest, or maybe even a King!
If God’s Messiah had come in the spirit and power of Elijah, calling down fire from heaven, challenging kings, and calling out the evil around them… they would have rallied around his cause and jumped on the bandwagon.
If God’s Messiah had come with the authority of a priest like Samuel, announcing the will of God and leading the people to do what was right, the people would have lined up in a procession behind him to worship God in the Temple.
If God’s Messiah had come with a sword in his hand like King David, evicting the Romans from their city and reclaiming their status as a sovereign nation, an army would have gathered in an instant to go to battle and fight the good fight.
But when it was time for God’s Messiah to come, God didn’t send someone, God Himself came. And when God came, he surely was a prophet, a priest, and a king, but he was more than that. He was the Son of God. He was born of the virgin Mary.
The Holy Spirit came upon her, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. The baby born to her was holy, and he was called the Son of God. For the word of God will never fail. For nothing is impossible with God.
Back in Nazareth
Just a few years later, after His baptism and having spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting, being tempted, and never sinning, Luke writes that Jesus came home one weekend to Nazareth.
Luke 4.16-21
16 When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. 17 The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
19 and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.”
20 He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. 21 Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”
Jesus came to turn the world upside down, and as He did, He was setting the world right side up!
The poor would hear the Good News of the great love of God!
The captives would be released!
The blind will see!
The oppressed will be set free!
And the year of the LORD’s favor has come!
Right Side Up
What do you need Jesus to turn upside down so things will be right side up for you?
George Bailey, haunted by the endless list of unmet expectations, nearly gave in to believing the lie that his life didn’t matter. He was stuck in this small town. Nobody knew he existed, and he felt like nobody cared. But an angel by the name of Clarence gave George an unexpected gift.
He gave him a glimpse of what the world would have been like if he had never existed. Slowly but surely, George began to see something he couldn’t have seen before. He began to realize something he had never realized before. His life had made a difference.
Here’s what I want you to know: Jesus came to turn the world upside down so He could set things right side up. Sin broke everything. It broke creation. It broke relationships. It broke the relationships people have with people and people have with God. But it didn’t just break us and break the world.
The problem isn’t that we’re broken and we need a fixer. The problem is that we’re sick and we need a Healer. The problem is that sin is a killer and we need a Resurrector! And that’s exactly why Jesus came into the world.
That why He was born in a manger some 2000 years ago. That’s why He healed the sick, the lame, the deaf, and the blind. That’s why He raised the dead. He turned everything upside down so that he could set everything right side up! So that we could be well, so that we could be whole, so that we could be alive, so that we could walk with Him.
George Bailey had to have a near-death experience so he could know how much his life mattered.
Jesus had a death experience; He literally died and rose again, so that you would know how much your life matters!
And He invites you, in this crazy upside-down world, to die to yourself with Him so that you can be resurrected to new life with Him. He came then to the world so that He can come to you now and set things right side up.
Jesus turned everything up side down so He could set things right side up.
The Upside Down Life
When you are baptized into Christ, you enter into the baptized life. You enter into a way of living that will look upside down to the rest of the world.
Normal people don’t love their enemies. Normal people don’t give their money away and live generously. Normal people don’t worship a God they cannot see and put their hope in a crucified King.
But normal people don’t experience the kind of love we experience, they don’t have the kind of hope we have, they’ve never known the joy we know. Jesus has turned our lives upside down, and now we’re right side up, walking with Him every day.
And by the way, that’s the Good News. It’s not just that Jesus came, that He died and rose again. It’s not just that we’ve been saved from our sins. That’s Good News! Absolutely.
But here’s the rest of the story. It’s the rest of the Christmas story. It’s God with us! Immanuel. God is with us now! That’s the Gospel. That’s the Good news. That’s why we have a reason to sing, and that’s the real reason we love Christmas. It’s because we’re reminded, God turned the world upside down so He could set things right up FOR US! Because God is for us!
This Christmas, can I ask, What do we need to turn upside down?
Don’t go down the rabbit hole of greed this Christmas. Don’t let consumerism consume you this Christmas. Turn all that upside down and let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Like Mary, let’s respond with faith in every circumstance, in every situation.
Like George, remember that life matters. And how you live the life you live matters.
And like Jesus, let’s turn the world upside down together with faith, hope, and love as we live for Him!
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