There are certain words in our Christian vocabulary which have “gotten away” from the Main Line Protestant Church and I think it’s time we tried to re-claim and to recover some of them.

Take for example what it means to be “born again.” For some believers, that phrase implies a once in a lifetime “Road to Damascus” conversion experience which provides the litmus test for becoming a “real Christian” and getting into heaven.

But that was not necessarily what Jesus meant when He told Nicodemus that he needed to be born anew (Revised Standard Version) or born again (King James Version) in John, chapter 3. What Jesus said was that unless you are born again…born of water and of the spirit…you cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. (John 3:3-5)

In other words, if you have been baptized, and most of us have, and if you confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of your life, which every member of this church has done (required by our Book of Order), then you and I qualify for being born anew or born again. It might have happened suddenly, or for the majority of Presbyterians, it has happened more gradually through baptism, Christian education, confirmation and public affirmation of faith.

That’s the way it happens in the Presbyterian Church, “decently and in order” as we like to say, and oftentimes with plenty of emotion and ardor. So let’s not be hesitant nor afraid to claim that we are born anew or born again. Because Jesus said that was one way to talk about belonging to God’s kingdom.

Consider another word which we would do well to re-claim and recover - “Evangelical.” There are those who use that word as a label for Christians who subscribe to a list of certain theological and biblical statements. And there is nothing wrong with that; in fact it is good to do that, as long as we remember that the New Testament word “Euangelion” - which translates into English as “Evangelical” - literally means “good news.” And every Christian I know, even the grumpy ones (!), affirms that the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus is good news. So we re all Evangelicals in the best sense of that word, and let’s not be embarrassed to say so.

There are two other words which I have actually heard some folks complain about, saying that Main Line Protestant Church preachers, including Presbyterians, don’t mention much anymore, and those words are “sin” and “salvation.”

A wife came home from church one Sunday and told her husband, who was sick in bed, about the worship service. “What was the sermon about?” the husband inquired. “It was about sin” the wife replied. “What did the preacher say?” asked the husband. “He was against it,” answered the wife. And all at once, the husband felt better.

My friends, make no mistake about it. What the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans, chapter 3, is absolutely true - All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The theological definition of sin is “Separation from God.” That has been our human dilemma and condition since the Garden of Eden, and we as Christians believe that through the incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmas, God came to us in person, in the person of Jesus, to offer us the gift of salvation.

Through His love and grace and forgiveness, we can be saved from the power of sin, healed in our hearts and souls and bodies and restored to a right relationship with God again. That is the meaning of salvation, and if we ever lose sight of those words - sin and salvation - we might as well close the doors of this church and go home. Because that is the core message of the gospel.

Now there is another word which I want us to think about on this third Sunday in Advent, and it is, perhaps, one of the most difficult of all for the church to re-claim. The word is “humanism,” and that word has gotten a bad name down through the centuries of Christian history.

During the Renaissance, which began around 1350 in Italy and lasted for 300 years, “the previous Medieval conception of the world, in which God was the master of all things, gave way to an anthropocentric, that is, humanistic view of life, in which man became the measure of all things.” (From “Christianity Through the Centuries” by Earl L. Cairns, Zondervan Publishing House, 1996, page 253)

As the movement called Humanism gathered momentum through art and literature and scientific discoveries about the earth and the solar system, the traditional views which had been held by the church were challenged and debated all across Europe.

Moreover, as explorers brought back reports from far away places like Asia and Africa about non-Christian religions and different forms of spirituality, scholars and students in the universities and divinity schools began to question the doctrines and dogmas of Christian theology and Biblical interpretation. (Ibid, page 377)

Then, following the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and early 17th centuries, a re-emergence of humanistic philosophy and intellectual discovery gave birth to the Age of Enlightenment. A deeper division than ever before developed between science and religion, and prominent thinkers like Kant and Hegel, who would later be succeeded by Marx and Darwin, questioned the very existence of God as they lifted up the power and potential of the human mind and body and spirit.

In our modern era, especially during the twilight years of the twentieth century, people began to talk about secular humanism. And again, that word humanism was used to describe negative forces in our culture which were set over and against the church and the Christian faith.

Sermons were preached in pulpits across this country and a myriad of books and articles were written by Biblical scholars and theologians, defending our religion against the so-called secular humanists like Madelyn Murray O’Hair who took prayer out of the public schools, the Ten Commandments out of courthouse rooms and had Christmas crèches removed from town squares and other public places.

So looking back over the past 700 years, this word humanism has developed a bad name and negative reputation. Humanists during the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, and secular humanists in modern times have been seen and described as the adversaries of everything we Christians hold dear and deep in our hearts. Why, therefore, would anyone in their right mind want to try to re-claim or to re-define that word, Humanism, for the church and for all those who believe in and seek to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives?

Well, I can think of only one reason, which is that the word human is holy to God. In the Book of Genesis, chapter 1, the Bible tells us that God created man in His own image, male and female He created them. And God blessed them…and saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good! (Genesis 1:27-28, 31) That means we human beings have the divine image of God imprinted upon our souls. Since the dawn of creation, God’s Holy Spirit has been alive and at work in us.

And because God so loved the world He made and all the people in it, knowing that we needed to be saved, at one decisive moment in time and history, He became one of us! That is the meaning and mystery of the prologue to John’s Gospel, proclaiming that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

So what we celebrate at Christmas is God becoming human through the incarnation, the birth of Jesus. And that little child born in Bethlehem should be a sign to all of us that the word human is holy to God.

Somehow, down through the ages, we in the church have allowed that word to get away from us. For more than seven centuries, humanism has been defined as something over and against us. But if we believe what the Book of Genesis, the Gospel of John and all the rest of the New Testament says is true, then it would appear that God has always had a better idea in mind - call it Christian Humanism, wherein God’s divinity has been revealed once and for all through the humanity of His Son our Savior Jesus. He became what we are - human - so that we could become more like Him - holy. And it might be that the time has come for us as Christians to re-claim the word humanism and never again let it go by default to the other side.

Now if all of this sounds like fighting theological windmills to you, let me say in closing what it means to me. Since we, all of us, have been created in the image of God, and because God loves each of us through His Son Jesus, then you and I who believe in Him have been called to embrace every one of us as sacred children in God’s great human family on earth. We are sisters and brothers one with another, even when it is difficult to be so. I read just a week ago that Madelyn Murray O’Hair ‘s diaries were auctioned off so that her estate can pay the Internal Revenue Service what is due to them. She has disappeared somewhere, but in her diaries, page after page after page after page, these words are written over and over again. “Somebody, somewhere, please love me.” We are, whether we like it or not, sisters and brothers one with another, and that little Child born in Bethlehem has come to love us and to draw us all together.

So as we make our way toward Christmas Day, listen to these words from Henry Van Dyke and I hope and pray that they will guide you to the manger where the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth:

Are you willing…

  To stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;
  To remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old;
  To stop asking how much your friends love and to ask yourself whether you love them enough;
  To bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts;
  To trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it so that your shadow will fall behind you?
Are you willing to do these things for a day?
Then you are ready to keep Christmas!

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.