{"id":33539,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/on-beyond-zebra\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"on-beyond-zebra","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/on-beyond-zebra\/","title":{"rendered":"On Beyond Zebra"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18865.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This morning I want to launch us into the message with a reading\nfrom one of the great minds in theology, Dr. Seuss. I have here a \ncopy of <em>On Beyond Zebra<\/em>, a favorite Dr. Seuss book. I want to read a\nportion of it, so be sure to listen closely, because this is the key to\neverything I want to say. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;Said Conrad Cornelius O&#8217;Donnell O&#8217;Dell, my very young friend\nwho was learning to spell, &#8216;The A is for Ape, the B is for Bear, the C is for\nCamel, the H is for Hair, the M is for Mouse, the R is for Rat &#8230; I know all\n letters like that. Through to Z is for Zebra, I know them all well,&#8217;\nsaid Conrad Cornelius O&#8217;Donnell O&#8217;Dell. &#8216;Now I know everything anyone knows\nfrom beginning to end, from the start to the close, because Z is as far as the\nalphabet goes.&#8217; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor when I picked\nup the chalk and drew one letter more. A letter he had never dreamed of before.\nAnd I said, &#8216;You can stop if you want with the Z, and most people stop with the\nZ, but not me. In the places I go, there are things that I see that I never\ncould spell if I stopped with a Z. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8221; &#8216;I&#8217;m telling you this &#8217;cause you&#8217;re one of my friends, my\nalphabet starts where your alphabet ends. My alphabet starts with this letter\ncalled yezz, it&#8217;s the letter I use to spell yezzametezz. You&#8217;ll be sort of\nsurprised what there is to be found, once you go beyond Z and start poking\naround. So on beyond zebra explore like Columbus, discover new letters like\nwum, which is for wumbus, my  whale who lives high on a hill and\nwho never comes down till it&#8217;s time to refill. So on beyond Z, it&#8217;s high time\nyou were shown that you really don&#8217;t know all there is to be known.&#8217; &#8221; If you\nwant to hear the rest of it, see me afterward, and I&#8217;ll arrange a private\nreading for you. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This morning would you join me on a journey on beyond zebra,\nbecause that&#8217;s where you find Christmas. On the first Christmas, God added a\nnew letter to our alphabet in the Virgin Birth. Why? Because we need that\nletter in order to spell Immanuel, which means &#8220;God with us.&#8221; So if you&#8217;re\nlooking for Christmas, I invite you to join me on a journey on beyond\nzebra. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The birth of Christ is without a category into which we sort\nlife&#8217;s experiences.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What is it Dr. Seuss means when he says &#8220;on beyond zebra&#8221;? I\nthink he means that just as you and I have been given 26 letters in the\nalphabet with which to spell our words, we also have certain mental categories\nthat we&#8217;ve developed through the years into which we fit the experiences of\nlife. For example, we all have a category in our minds for dogs. When we see\ndogs, we fit them into that category. Sometimes, however, we find that we have\na category without any real instances. For example, unicorns and Big Foot and\nfairy tales are flights into fantasy where we have these delightful images but\nno experiences. But what&#8217;s really shocking is when we find a real event or\nexperience that just doesn&#8217;t fit any category we&#8217;ve ever seen before. That&#8217;s on\nbeyond zebra. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A woman told me a while back of having such an experience. She\nwas driving down the street with her  daughter, and as they sat at a\nstoplight, they looked over to one side. There on the street corner was a\nmother hen and her baby chicks, just standing there. And when the light\nchanged, the mother hen jumped off the curb and walked across the street with\nthe light in the crosswalk, and those baby chickens followed along right behind\nher. This woman said that as they watched this happen, her daughter turned to\nher and said, &#8220;This is not normal.&#8221; It was not normal; it was beyond zebra. It\nwas an instance without a category. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The birth of Jesus Christ was like that; an instance without a\ncategory. Oh, it started out as just the opposite. It was your classic boy\nmeets girl. The young carpenter may have carved &#8220;Joe loves Mary&#8221; in the tree in\nthe back yard. Then they were engaged. It was that delightful, magical time\nwhen a young couple could hardly wait. At long last, they were finally to be\nunited in marriage. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve been through that, but I remember\nit. Four months Becky and I were engaged when we were seniors in college, and\nduring that time I had all the symptoms of a man in love: a silly grin, bad\ngrades, an overdrawn checking account. I&#8217;d drive to the store, and when I got\nthere, for the life of me I could not remember why I had driven there in the\nfirst place. Maybe Joseph was that way about Mary. He may have been so\n over her that he kept hitting his thumb when he was working in the\ncarpenter shop because he was distracted with thoughts of her. Such were his\nhopes and dreams of the happiness to come. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But then it happened. Mary turned up pregnant. All of a sudden,\nJoseph&#8217;s garden of love dissolved into a world of hurt and a living hell. Mary\ntried to explain what had happened, and Joseph yearned to believe her, but\nthere was no way that even a heart full of love could dispel all those nagging\nsuspicions in his mind. What Mary was saying was just beyond belief. W. H.\nAuden has Joseph&#8217;s own soul taunting him in a poem: <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Joseph, have you heard what Mary said occurred? Yes, it may be so. Is it likely? No. Mary may be pure, but Joseph, are you\nsure? How is one to tell? Suppose, for\ninstance, well, maybe, maybe not. But Joseph, you know what your world will say\nabout you anyway.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Wanting to believe Mary but unable, unwilling to marry her and\nyet wanting to spare her as much pain as possible, Joseph decides to divorce\nher on the QT. I think you would agree with me that Joseph&#8217;s reaction was just\nas normal as can be. According to his range of experiences, there was only one\nway a woman gets pregnant, and he knew he could not be the father, so of course\nhe was angry and hurt and betrayed. Yet as you look at verse 20, you see that\nthe angel said to Joseph something that suggests the deepest feeling inside\nJoseph was not those things, but fear. He was afraid to believe Mary. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Here we come to an ageless human trait: we human beings are\nafraid of the unknown. Whenever we come up against the unknown, something\npreviously unseen and unheard of, we automatically believe it&#8217;s probably bad or\ndangerous or horrible or false. It&#8217;s that tendency that keeps us from exploring\nnew possibilities and growing in our relationship with God. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">For example, in ancient days there were map makers,\ncartographers, who naturally used the instruments and knowledge available to\nmake their maps of the world. Some of them did a pretty good job, but all of\nthem had one trait in common. Whenever they came to the limits of their knowledge\nof the world, in the margin of the map they would write these words: &#8220;Beyond\nthis there be dragons.&#8221; They could have written there, &#8220;Beyond this is the\nunknown,&#8221; since they knew nothing about those regions. They could even have\nwritten, &#8220;Beyond this lies something desirable and beautiful.&#8221; But no, they\nassumed that beyond what they knew was a place of danger not just possible\ndeath by natural causes, but a grisly death of being eaten by dragons. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Friends, there are lots of people who come to the mysteries of\nthe Bible and the miracle of the Virgin Birth with the same kind of attitude.\nThey populate the unknown with dragons rather than saying it&#8217;s a mystery beyond\nour knowing. They say, &#8220;It&#8217;s just suspicion; it&#8217;s hogwash; it&#8217;s foolishness;\nit&#8217;s a fairy tale made up by people who had such a primitive knowledge of the\nworld that they had no idea of natural law.&#8221; When someone says that, I always\nsay, &#8220;You tell that to Joseph. He knew only too well about the natural means of\nconception, and that is why he resolved to divorce Mary quietly.&#8221; My word to\nyou is, if Joseph could believe in the Virgin Birth, why can&#8217;t you? <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Joseph was not naive, but perhaps the most naive people today\nare those who believe they can still live comfortably inside their Newtonian\nworld governed by the laws of nature. I don&#8217;t want to pose as an expert in an\narea in which I&#8217;m not an expert, yet if you do any reading in modern science,\nyou know that the great big Newtonian closed system we&#8217;ve lived with for so\nmany years is melting before our very eyes like a snowman in the spring\nsunshine. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The big bang theory, Einstein&#8217;s theory of relativity, other\ndevelopments in theoretical physics, the entropic principle of the cosmos, even\nevolution is under attack today, not just from the creationists, but from\nwithin their own  community as well. Parthenogenesis,\nbirth without a natural father, is something you find in nature. So we&#8217;re\nfinding that miracles are no longer the obstacle to faith they once were. We&#8217;re\nfinding that this world is just too wild and crazy and messy and terrible and\nwonderful a place to be shoehorned into the straitjacket of natural law.\nScientists are the first to say today that there are categories beyond anything\nwe have ever dreamed before. And our  secular world is crumbling.\nAs you look around and see people believing in Eastern religions and the\noccult, you realize card carrying members of the 20th century have no problem\nbelieving in miracles. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The miracle of miracles is that the baby inside of Mary was God\nin human flesh.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Even though the Virgin Birth is easier to believe today than\nit&#8217;s been in years, however, people still want to know, &#8220;So what? What does it\nmean? If Jesus was born that way, what does it prove?&#8221; I&#8217;ll tell you, it proves\nnothing. You and I need to realize that. A person could believe in the Virgin\nBirth from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes and still not be a\nChristian. The Virgin Birth is nothing more than a signpost pointing the way\ntoward becoming a Christian. You find Christmas not just by moving beyond\nzebra; you&#8217;ve got to go beyond simply believing in the Virgin Birth to\nbelieving in the message the angel gave to Joseph when he said, &#8220;Not only was\nthis baby, this fetus, miraculously conceived, but the baby growing inside Mary\nis none other than God in human flesh.&#8221; That is the miracle of miracles. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Eavesdrop again: &#8220;All this took place to fulfill what the Lord\nhad spoken by the prophet, &#8216;Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and\nhis name shall be called Immanuel.&#8217; &#8221; That&#8217;s the punch line God with us, the\nincarnation of God in human flesh. Who is this baby? Paul tells us in\nColossians 1:15, &#8220;He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all\ncreation. For in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible\nand invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities;\nall things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and\nin him all things hold together. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased\nto dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth\nor in heaven.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This baby is he who, in the beginning, sent the flaming stars\nand suns spinning off into the limitless reaches of space in that big bang of\nwhich our solar system is nothing but a BB in a boxcar. You and I can no more\ngrasp the totality of this baby with our minds than we can take the Milky Way\nand capture it in a thimble or we can put a lime in a bottle. The angel said\nMary would give birth to an infinite infant, and sure enough, nine months later\na tiny stable contained something bigger than this whole vast, tragic world:\nGod in human flesh. That is the miracle of miracles. That is light years beyond\nzebra. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s also further than many people are willing to go, so\ninstead, when they come to Jesus Christ, they simply subsume him into a\ncategory they already know. Then they pay him a &#8220;compliment&#8221; by saying Jesus is\nthe very best in that category. For example, people say, &#8220;Jesus is the greatest\nteacher this world has ever known.&#8221; They say, &#8220;Jesus is the greatest moral\nexemplar the world has ever known.&#8221; But at no point does Jesus ever escape the\nhuman category and become a class by himself, the unique G. We have no\ncategory for that; we&#8217;ve never seen one of those before, which is exactly how\nmany people reacted when they met Jesus Christ. They ransacked the dictionary\nfor words to describe him. To meet Jesus is like burning your hands on a star.\nEverywhere he went, he moved in an atmosphere of wonder and astonishment. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Did you ever wonder why they wrote these Gospels in the first\nplace? We&#8217;re told they were astonished at his doctrine. They feared\nexceedingly, and they said to one another, &#8220;What manner of man is this?&#8221; Even\nthe disciples were utterly astounded. Finally the chief priests and scribes and\nRoman authorities couldn&#8217;t take him anymore, so they took him out and nailed\nhim to a cross. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Like Joseph, if we do not accept this baby, we will miss\nChristmas, because it is on beyond zebra.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Today you and I are not soldiers who nail Jesus to a cross. No,\nwe&#8217;re innkeepers who have no room for him. When Jesus makes us feel\nuncomfortable, we just put out the NO VACANCY sign. For this strange baby, who\ngrew into a man who doesn&#8217;t fit our preconceived notions of reality, there was\nand often is no room in this world. Yet Joseph knew that if he did not accept\nthis baby, he would lose the love of a good woman. And what&#8217;s more, he would\nmiss Christmas. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So with us if we do not accept this baby, because Christmas is\non beyond zebra. We&#8217;re told that no new being came into existence through this\nvirgin conception within Mary, but that the eternal Being, the second Being of\nthe Trinity, came down into the human race and was born. As John said, Jesus was\nborn not of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God. And as C. S.\nLewis put it so unforgettably, &#8220;Jesus was conceived when God took off the glove\nof nature and touched Mary with his naked finger. Thus, Jesus did not evolve up and out of history; he descended\ndown and into history.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Again as C. S. Lewis put it so fantastically, &#8220;One may think of\na diver first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in , then\ngone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into\nblack and cold water, down through the increasing pressure into the deathlike\nregion of ooze and slime and old decay, and then back up again, back to color\nand light, his lungs almost bursting until suddenly he breaks the surface\nagain, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing he went down to\nrecover.&#8221; That dripping, precious thing is you and me, and Advent is when we\ncelebrate his coming down to us. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Yet even this metaphor breaks down, because when God took the\nplunge, he didn&#8217;t just get wet. He grew gills and became a fish. God became\nhuman, born in the way you and I were born, and raised in a human family as you\nand I were. I believe this is probably the part of the Incarnation we have the\nbiggest problem  not the deity of Christ, but his humanity. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So many of us think of the Incarnation as being like the phone\nbooth in a Superman movie, and Jesus is like Clark Kent, who is dressed like a\nnormal man but then goes into a phone booth and emerges as Superman. Jesus was\nnot a Superman. Jesus did not clothe himself in his humanity in order to hide\nhis deity. Jesus was fully human. The bullets didn&#8217;t bounce off Jesus Christ.\nHe got stickers in his toes; he blackened his finger when the hammer slipped\noff the nail. (He didn&#8217;t say what you and I say when that happens to us, but it\nhappened to him.) He struggled with mathematics, perhaps. He was good at some\nthings, not so good at others. He had real hurts; he cried real tears. Why?\nBecause only as a real man could he save us as we need to be saved. Why is\nthat? Probably no one has said it better than, of all people, Harry Reasoner,\non one of his radio commentaries. Let me read what Harry said: <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;If Christmas is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord\nof the universe in the form of a helpless babe, it is a very important day.\nIt&#8217;s a startling idea, of course. My guess is the whole story that a virgin was\nselected by God to bear his son is a way of showing his love and concern for\nman. It&#8217;s my guess that in spite of all the lip service given to it, it&#8217;s not\nan idea that&#8217;s been popular with theologians.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He&#8217;s right. It&#8217;s a somewhat illogical idea, and theologians like\nlogic almost as much as they like God. It&#8217;s so revolutionary a thought that it\nprobably could come only from a God who is beyond logic and beyond theology.\nNow here&#8217;s the point: it has magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God,\nand almost nobody knows what God is really like. The truth is that among human\nbeings, the idea of seeing God suddenly standing in a very bright light is not\nnecessarily comforting and appealing. But everyone has seen babies, and most\npeople like them. If God wanted to be loved as well as feared, he moved\ncorrectly here. If he wanted to know people as well as rule them, he moved\ncorrectly here, for a baby growing up learns all about people. If God wanted to\nbe intimately a part of man, he moved correctly, for the experience of birth\nand family life is our most precious experience. So it comes from beyond logic.\nIt is either all falsehood or the truest thing in all the world. It&#8217;s the story\nof the great innocence of God the baby, and it has caused such a dramatic shock\nto the heart that if it&#8217;s not true, for Christians nothing is true. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Friend, I&#8217;m here to tell you it&#8217;s true. It&#8217;s all true. Immanuel,\nGod with us. Do you know how much God wants to share his life with you? So much\nthat he comes crawling to you on his hands and knees as a baby. Charles Wesley\nsaid, &#8220;Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man.&#8221; It&#8217;s\nincomprehensible, but it&#8217;s available to anyone who will step beyond zebra. So\ntake a new letter for your alphabet this morning. For without the Virgin Birth,\nyou cannot spell Immanuel, and without Immanuel you cannot have Christmas. And\nif you don&#8217;t have Christmas in your heart, there is no way you&#8217;re going to find\nit under any tree. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">At the time of this sermon, Vic Pentz was pastor of First\nPresbyterian Church in Yakima, Washington. He holds degrees from Pomona College\nand Princeton Theological Seminary. He has served as consultant for preaching\nin Fuller Theological Seminary&#8217;s D. Min. program. <\/span>\n      <\/em>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> Vic Pentz<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">Preaching Today Tape # 63<\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">A resource of\nChristianity Today International<\/span>\n    <\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[3259],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3600,5239],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33539","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-vic-pentz","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-christmas","tax_ctp_tags-virgin-birth"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>On Beyond Zebra - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/on-beyond-zebra\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Beyond Zebra - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This morning I want to launch us into the message with a reading from one of the great minds in theology, Dr. Seuss. I have here a copy of On Beyond Zebra, a favorite Dr. Seuss book. 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