Christmas - Glad Tiding Of Great Joy

Time of the year – Family, food and fun, but it is also a time to think about the deeper questions of life – but also to ask the question, “is there a purpose to it all?”

• Here’s the question. What is the deeper reason for celebrating Christmas? What is the reason for the season? Do we need it?

• The reason for Christmas goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

• God has offered Adam and Eve a choice pictured by the two trees in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

• These two trees symbolised the direction life would take for God’s newly created children.

• The tree of life represented trusting God to be God, the One who created us and knows what is best for HIs created children.

• The tree of the knowledge of good and evil on the other hand represented God’s created children, to whom God had given freewill, trusting themselves to be their own gods, hence it’s name.

• You will discover for yourself by trial and error what is good and what is evil.

• Well we know the sorry outcome. Adam and Eve listened to the serpent’s tantalising argument and chose to “be like God”, and to trust themselves as to how they were to conduct their lives.

• Like teenagers they thought they new better than their parents how to conduct their lives.

• Along with their regret over their choice, they must have felt a deep anxiety for their future as they were marched by an angel out of the security and safety of the garden.

• Outside the garden they discovered they would live in a totally different landscape to the one they enjoyed in the garden.

• In keeping with their decision to determine for themselves what was good and what was evil, this new landscape would provide them with that ominous prospect.

• There were many good aspects about it, but there were also some very dangerous aspects.

• Dark forces in opposition to God ruled this landscape.

• And instead of having the comfort and security of faithfully relying on their Creator and Father, they would now have to rely on their own wits for survival.

• It was now going to be a fearful existence for mankind, as they not only had to cope with the reality of being cut off from their God but the constant threat of survival, in at times, a wicked and sinful world.

• And as they had effectively cut themselves off from the true source of life, they had no means within themselves to restore the relationship they had enjoyed with their Creator and God.

• Because reconciliation with their Creator required two things; first, punishment for defying their Creator to satisfy the justice of God, and second, their rebirth to new life.

This was now to be the state of affairs for humanit,y except that is, for one thing.

• God does not give up on His created children easily despite their obvious rebellion against Him because fortunately for us, He still loves us.

• He doesn’t like how we treat each other, as He hates sin and evil, but He still loves His children.

• And this is where Christmas comes in.

• God is not going to sit back and do nothing despite His children’s disobedience and rebellion against Him.

• His goal remains the same. He wants to be their God and He wants them to be His holy children.

• What they could not now do for themselves He would now do for them as it was only God who could forgive them and give them access to new life again.

• And He was willing to go to extreme measures and great pain to restore the broken relationship and again give them access to the true source of life.

And so it is with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem we begin to see the reality of God’s plan of redemption taking place.

• Important in the context of the earthly birth of Jesus is the heavenly message the angels brought with them as it gives us an interesting insight into the mind of God and His attitude towards His wayward and rebellious children.

• So the question is, is God mad at humanity, does He want to destroy them for their rebellion as is sometimes portrayed?

• Well let’s look at the divine message that was delivered to the shepherds on the outskirts of Bethlehem as this message gives us a unique insight into the mind of God?

• A group of shepherds were settling down for the night, wrapped in their blankets drifting off to sleep when suddenly all heaven breaks loose.