Grace and peace to you from God who comes to us at Christmas time and will come to us again. Amen.
Dear Friends in Christ:
Have you ever feared you might miss Christmas? Or maybe have you experienced Christmas without your family? Perhaps you are experiencing a Christmas like that tonight. If you have ever been in the military or if you are divorced or have lost someone dear to you, perhaps you fear what this Christmas will be like for you?
We have a rather a pretty artistic picture of what Christmas should be in our minds. We picture being at home with loved ones and friends before a crackling fireplace while sitting near a beautifully decorated tree while our favorite Christmas carols play softly on the stereo.
Christmas Eve just isn’t the same without those dearest to us. And yet not every Christmas is perfect or ideal.
Hundreds of fire victims in our community of southern California this year are not in their homes but are elsewhere. Widows are experiencing the first Christmas of their adult lives without the presence of their soul mates. Strangers and newcomers this evening all mindful that this Christmas is not like the one they had in years past. Military families who have loved ones deployed in harms way know how special this night is because it heralds the birth of the prince of peace.
Find him and you will find Christmas. Fail to find him and you will know only Christmas missed.
If you are without your special someone this year, or if you are new to our fellowship, or on a trip that has taken you here, it may lend you some comfort to remember that on the first Christmas Mary and Joseph too were not at home either. They had traveled them more than hundred miles across difficult steep terrain to an isolated village which offered little in the way of commerce and rarely hosted visitors. Only the oppressive hand of Caesar could have forced that journey. The timing could not have been more inconvenient or troublesome or providential. They arrived in Bethlehem just in time for the baby Jesus to be born, thus fulfilling the Scriptural prophecy that Bethlehem would be the place where the Messiah would be born.
This story of Christmas is not just a story. It is the truth as the Bible paints it. It is His story -- the story of the Christ -- and it is history, not just a fanciful tale someone made up.
God’s plan for the birth of the Messiah was revealed on the day humanity first plunged paradise headlong into sin.
That is the way God often works. In the midst of the deepest sorrow and darkness of life, God often provides a gift of grace that is His alone to give. He offers the unexpected. He comes with a Word of grace that is a promise of healing, honor and hope. That He chooses to come often on the heels of shattered perfection says something great about Him. His timing is perfect because He does not want us to miss out on the gift He promised. He comes when, and where, and to whom he is needed the most. And when He comes, He will not be missed.
Are you ready for Christmas or do you fear missing it?
Christmas was not foremost on Adam and Eve’s mind on the day sin entered the world. But it was clearly on God’s mind. Genesis 3:15 records the first words about Christmas, given by God to the world gone awry in the Garden of Eden. God promised that a male child would come forth from woman and that He would crush the head of the serpent and in so doing bruise his heal. (Genesis 3:15)
Many come to church on Christmas Eve seeking what they fear they might miss: Jesus Christ. The true story about Christmas is taught not in the world that has inherited only enmity towards Christ. And that too is something God foretold in his promise of a child who would crush Satan’s head and bruise his heal in the process. God said that enmity, hatred would exist between the offspring of Satan and the divine offspring that would one day come from Eve.
Until the birth of Jesus, every child born in human history had that potential.
God promised that a male child would come forth from woman and that He would crush the head of the serpent and in so doing bruise his heal. (Genesis 3:15)
It was an extravagant gift God promised that day in the garden.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Ge 3:15). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
You may not have realized it before, but for believers these are words about Christmas, not Christ missed, but Christ’s Mass, God’s coming together to be with his people. And He is the reason we are here now waiting still for his return.
Have you ever feared missing Christmas? Have you ever been away, isolated from family or those you hold most dear? Is there someone who will be missed by you terribly this Christmas, so much so that your joy at Christmas is at risk?
Don’t miss out on what God done.
Christmas is too special to miss.
God doesn’t would not want to miss out on any of its joys, not today and certainly not in eternity. Consider his timing. When humanity was at its worst, God promised the best.
That is Good News from God and it says something magnificent about him and his love for us all. His first words about Christmas were given in a garden to two people hiding behind trees. Read the story again for yourself and catch the subtle irony. God did. The scriptures tell us Adam and Eve tried to hid their naked sinfulness behind a tree. Then and there God determined how He would use a tree to hid people from their sins instead of hiding from them from Him.
Christmas connects the Christmas tree to the cross and fallen creation to the God’s love revealed to us in a cradle promised by our Creator.
It is no surprise God fleshed out the prophecy with greater details through the centuries. Isaiah recorded God’s clear promise to a King who was far from being a good or righteous man. God promised Ahaz,
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14
Along the way, even some seven hundred years before Jesus was born, God told the prophets intricate details about where he would be born? How he would come from a virgin? That He would come as a prophet, priest, and king from the house of David? How he would heal the sick, the lame, preach to the poor? How he would die on a tree? Rise again from the dead, and reign for all time.
Christmas is so special that God wanted no one should miss it or his miraculous hand in it.
I don’t know why anyone would want to deny the Virgin birth or any of the other miracles contained in the story. It is all proof of God’s divine hand revealing the truth about Jesus to the world.
To deny God’s hand in the miracles of the story is to deny the truth about who Jesus is and what He truly means to the world.
For the past two thousand years plus, the story of his birth has been told in culture and in the arts, in Christmas pageants, song, and plays. But it is always truly celebrated only by those who love God and do not fear his promise.
Think of those who missed Christ on that first Christmas. They were the hard luck characters in the saga, not the fortunate ones like angels, shepherds, and wisemen. Christmas came near to some, but so close to others that they completely missed it. Think of the innkeeper who told Mary and Joseph, “There is no room.”
There may have been no room in his inn, but there was even less room in his heart. And yet Christ came so very near.
Imagine how the world would record your actions if a young pregnant teenage girl and her older boyfriend came pounding on the door when all of your bedrooms were filled with guests and all you offered them was your garage or your tool shed out back. Child protective services would be having a serious conversation with you the next morning about how your disinterest endangered the life of mother and child.
The story of Christmas is also about Christ missed.
Caesar Augustus issued a decree that all the world should be taxed and ordered that everyone return to his ancestral home town. Caesar Augustus was doing something unexpected by all except God.
Augustus was regarded as a great man. Months of the year are named after both he and his uncle Julius July for Julius and August for Augustus.
Augustus didn’t celebrate the coming of the Messiah, but he and his order are part of the story.
Augustus contributed to the story of Christmas because he ordered the census and the tax.
There is solid doctrine in part in this historical fact. The story of God’s birth is not a story that involves only some, but all. This child born was born for all, from the lowest to the highest, from the humblest of men to the heights of human ego and accomplishment. His coming threatens those who wish to hold on to power instead of embracing him. And so it remains. The enmity between Satan and the child who would crush his head.
Anger towards him results in anger towards his followers.
We should not be surprised that so many would want to miss the truth about Christmas by labeling it merely a happy holiday.
If there is such enmity when Jesus first came into this world, believers should not be surprised when such brutal hostility asserts itself when He comes again.
So it is that some who seek power in the world deny him. They still cannot see power in God keeping his promise or maybe they just fear that he will come again.
And he will. And that too is part of the Christmas saga.
You don’t have to be a genius to see God in a manger. You simply have to come and see Him for yourself. God did not leave anyone out. The Good News of God’s coming is good news for all.
Shepherds came. Stinky shepherds. They came with an angelic invitation. God had come for all. After they came and saw, they went quickly and told all who would listen, doing what the angel commanded: “Go and tell.”
Wisemen came. They came first to King Herod with news of a child whose birth was prophetically heralded by a star given to them as a sign by God. And then they came to Bethlehem.
Herod said he wanted to come but he didn’t. He even said he wanted to come and worship him. He knew God had promised to send a King. Christ was so near to him, so very near, but he missed Christmas just the same.
Herod was sort of like those people who say they want to celebrate Christmas, but don’t even bother to make to worship on Christmas Eve.
Thank God you didn’t miss it. Because God would miss you. And he doesn’t want to miss you or anyone, now or in eternity. His first words about Christmas prove it. He came seeking those who were lost. And He promised He would send a child to bring home God’s children to him.
Welcome to this church and to the family of God, and to the truth of the promise of Christmas.
Jesus Christ is truly God’s unique gift to the world. May you find him where he wants to be found. In the hearts and lives of his people. Merry Christmas.
Amen.
(Note - As the offering is brought forward, children dressed as the wisemen bring the gifts of gold, burning frankincense and myrrh.)
