"Magic, Mystery, Miracle”

In Jesus Holy Name December 24, 2022

Text: Matthew 1:20b-23 Christmas Eve - Redeemer

“Magic, Mystery, Miracle”

Christmas is here. I’m sure you went through rolls of scotch tape in order to decorate all the Christmas gifts. Your scotch tape was probably made by the 3M Company. 3M makes over 60,00 different products. Besides adhesive tape, 3M makes audio-visual equipment and media, medical and dental products, reflective coatings and Post-It Notes. Leonard Sweet suggests that we give our family and friends the real “3 M" Christmas. The real 3M Christmas is one of Magic, Mystery, and Miracle.

Christmas is here. “Immanuel, God with us.” In the manger at Bethlehem we behold the mystery of God “with us”. Leonard Sweet suggests that we give our family and friends the “3 M’s of Christmas. Magic, Mystery, Miracle. (Leonard Sweet, Len talk 144 YouTube)

Christmas season is like riding on a “magic” carpet. We are flying towards a destination that brings joy. Advent has been a time of waiting, a time of deferred gratification. We have been traveling towards Christmas. It is here. We’ve been watching the Christmas lights, inside and outside our homes. Letters have been written, as we hope for a specific gift to appear under the Christmas tree. We anticipate Christmas carols, special fudge, special meals, tamales, special cakes, Christmas cookies, peppermint pretzels, that only come this time of the year. Our taste buds wait for the magic on our tongues.

The mystery of Christmas is the greatest mystery in all of history. We celebrate Immanuel with us. The Divine Creator, the “Logos”, the Intelligent Designer, Christmas is the celebration of Immanuel, God with us found in the manger.

In a way I feel sorry for Mariah Carey. At the same time, she becomes the most loved and most hated person at Christmas. She has the #1 Christmas song of all time. You can’t get the most popular song out of your head. “All I want for Christmas is you.” It’s a relationship. Christmas is about the most important of all relationships, “God with us.”

J.I. Packer, Christian Theologian writes: “The Almighty (God) appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.”

This is the “magic, and mystery, and miracle” of Christmas. Some will say: “I can not accept the miracle.” Really? You drop a tiny seed into the soil, and in a few weeks, with a little sunshine and water you have a full grown radish!! The white and pink flesh, we eat and enjoy, yet no one unravels the mysterious journey from the seed bag into the darkness of the ground to the table. So it is with the miracle of Christmas… God with us. The infant in a manger, later to be buried in the darkness of the tomb, only to be raised in glorious light. God with us. “Joseph, you shall name the baby Jesus for He will save His people from their sins.”

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.

We believe that the “Intelligent Designer of the Universe” 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 all is about is to 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 Christmas.” “Bethlehem and Golgotha, the Manger and the Cross, the birth and the death of Jesus must always be seen together, if the real Christmas is to survive. “O holy Child of Bethlehem cast out our sin.” That is why Jesus was born.

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?