In Jesus Holy Name December 24, 2019
Text: Matthew 1:20b-23 Christmas Eve - Redeemer
“Tis the Season ---Tis the Reason” (note: I added the visual art work Green wreath & Crown of Thorns)
When it comes to Christmas, every preacher faces the same challenge. How do you tell the story of the Creator of the Universe coming into the world to be our Savior and Redeemer….. to people who have already heard it many times. Someone used the title, “Miracle on Manger Street.” That’s clever and catchy, and it’s also appropriate because there really was a miracle on “manger street” the night Jesus was born.
In our society, there are two great religious holidays—Christmas and Easter. The green wreath of Christmas is juxtaposed to the Good Friday wreath of thorns.
For most of us, Christmas is the most exciting season of the year. It’s the time when we gather with family and friends. We sing. We celebrate. We laugh. We exchange presents. For children and most adults Christmas is the climax of the whole year.
And Easter? For most people it’s just another long weekend, a break in the dreary stretch between Christmas and summer vacation
It is the great miracle of the resurrection of Jesus from death and the grave on Easter that gives Christmas its true meaning. If Easter had not happened, Christmas would have no meaning. If Easter had not happened, Christmas would be nothing more than a sweet-sounding fable. If Easter is not true, then Christmas is only the story of an obscure baby born in an out-of-the-way town in a forgotten land 2000 years ago. April 1995 Ken Prichard What Difference does Easter Make?
The secular humanist Tom Flynn said: “I’ve been boycotting Christmas since 1984. To my mind, if Jesus Christ is not your savior, Christmas is not your holiday. He’s right of course. We believe God invaded our world in the form of a tiny baby boy. That’s a stunning thought, if you think about it, which we rarely do. We sing, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the Incarnate Deity,” without pondering what those words mean. It’s easier to sing about Christmas than to
ask what it’s all about. To ask what Christmas is all about is ask about the meaning of the crown of thorns and the wood of the cross.
“The wood of the cradle without the wood of the cross misses the true meaning of Christ’s birth.” “Bethlehem and Golgotha, the Manger and the Cross, the birth and the death must always be seen together, if the real Christmas is to survive. And so we sing: “O holy Child of Bethlehem cast out our sin and enter in.” That is why Jesus was born.
On that first Christmas Eve the owner of the inn had awakened earlier than most in the town. After all, the inn was full. All the beds taken. Every available mat or blanket had been put to use. Soon all the customers would be stirring. There would be a lot of work to do. One’s imagination is kindled thinking about the conversation of the innkeeper and his family at the breakfast table. Did anyone mention the arrival of the young couple the night before? How is the mother and new baby doing? Did anyone notice the unusual group of shepherds visiting last night?
The sun is rising. The night shadows are fleeing. The village streets are no longer quiet. The clutter of shop doors opening can be heard. The bakery shop was already open. The aroma of fresh bread is floating on the wisp of a breeze.
Maybe Joseph still hasn’t figured it all out. The mystery of the event still puzzles him. But he hasn’t the energy to wrestle with the questions. It was a long night. What’s important is that the baby is fine and Mary is safe. As sleep comes, he remembers the name the angel told him to use . . . Jesus. “We will call him Jesus.”
Mary also remembers the words of the angel… “His name shall be Immanuel ..God with us”….she touches the face of the infant-God and wonders. Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in an unusual place…a wooden manger. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter.
In the village of Bethlehem something happened that had never happened before.
Something happened that has never happened since.
We believe that a long time ago, in a forgotten corner of the Roman Empire, in a tiny village where there was no room in the inn, a baby was born to a young couple, who swaddled that baby and laid him in a feeding-trough of wood. Nothing could have seemed more obscure.
I’m pointing out that we believe something extraordinary about one particular baby, born in one particular place to a particular set of parents. That baby—and no other baby—was God, the Creator of the Universe, born in human flesh.
When it comes to Christmas, we confess that behind the carols and candy, behind the decorations and the parties, behind all the concerts and all the sermons, behind all of it lies an undeniable historical truth: that just over 2000 years ago God became a human being in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We not only believe that. We have staked our lives upon it.
And that brings me back to the “Anti-Claus” who said, “If Jesus is not your Savior, Christmas is not your holiday.” He’s right.
If Jesus isn’t your Savior, Christmas isn’t really Christmas to you. It’s just a fun holiday. Christmas rightly belongs to those who worship Jesus as Savior and Lord. It belongs to those whose lives have been changed by the power of Christ.
I know that the wooden manger is as dangerous as a wooden cross. It is dangerous because you can’t put one on government property (or in almost any public place) these days. If you do, you are likely to get sued. Someone is almost certainly to be offended. But the real problem with the wooden manger in which the holy child was placed lies not in any supposed offense, on public property but because the event of Christmas challenges the hearts of men and women to believe in God who died on a wooden cross.
The major problem rests in one fact: The Son of God from heaven comes to earth and is born in a stable because there was no room in the inn. Today the culture still challenges the validity of the wood manger, the wooden cross. The cosmic battle between God and Satan over the control of the human heart is on display in the public square where there is no room for the wooden manger surrounded by statues of Mary, Joseph, cows, sheep and donkeys.
Yet Christmas remains the greatest story ever told. It is a story which begins in the Garden of Eden, the kind of perfect place only a perfect God with an overwhelming love for His children can create. Tragically, the Lord’s love was not returned with the same intensity it was given. When seductive suggestions were made to our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, they thought they could become their own “god” of their world and so they rejected the Creator of the Universe.
As they had been warned, at that moment everything changed. The peace and harmony in all of creation was disrupted. They would never again be able to restore it. Pain, sorrow, heartbreak found anew home, and death began to stalk the globe. The new genetic code of selfishness was passed on to all of us. Selfishness never ends well. Punishment, self-inflicted, follows every human being with no hope of parole. Temporal and eternal death is now our failed future.
Something special happened that first Christmas. The Creator of the Universe decided to write another story, a story with a different ending. The story called for death, but now the death sentence would fall upon the Creator’s very own Son. Through history the Creator promised how it would be. His son would be born in Bethlehem to a virgin named Mary. He would keep God’s laws perfectly, resist temptation, and serve as a perfect substitute. For hundreds and hundreds of years that promise was explained. On the world stage even Caesar and King Herod became players used by the Creator of the Universe to seek and save you and me.
Jesus was born, as promised. He embraced an unclean leper and brushed aside the cold and clammy clutches of death with a word. Look at his story in the Bible. Get a front row seat to the greatest story ever told.
Jesus turned down temptation with a Bible verse. He healed as no other physician could. Hear his words: “I am the resurrection and the life, and those who believe in me will not die but have eternal life.” That is a promise that is irrevocable, irreversible, undeniable. By the Holy Spirit’s power Jesus rose from the grave after his crucifixion, crowned now, not with a crown of thorns but the wreath of glory.
The words of the angel remain true: “I have good news of great joy… a Savior has been born for you.” It’s a story which underlies God’s good news so that our Christmas will not be a disappointment. When you trust in the promises of Jesus your Christmas will be one of security, peace and joy.
This special child born in a Bethlehem stable grew into the
Man whose life was the sacrifice to pay for your broken commandments. His resurrection verified God’s offer of forgiveness and eternal life beyond these earthly cemeteries that dot our countryside. His crown or thorns, His wooden cross, his borrowed grave, the stone door shattered by his resurrection all guarantee that the Creator of the Universe accepted his sacrificial death in our place.
In the end, Christmas must become very personal. What will you do with the wreath of thorns which is connected to the green wreath of Christmas, the birth of Jesus? He will not force his way into your life.
He loves you.
He came for you.
He died for you.
The true hope of the human heart is to know our eternal destiny. The true hope of the human heart is to have peace with God. When our brain waves cease. And they will. When our heart stops beating. And it will. Is there any hope beyond the pretty boxes under your tree? Yes. Our hope was born in the manger, crucified on the wooden cross and the empty stone grave of Jesus. For He rose from death and the grave.
Tis the Season to rejoice and sing. Amen.
