Title: An Amazing Christmas
Introduction:
When we think about Christmas there are a lot of things we can hardly believe, things we kind of place in fantasyland. We can understand why some have made up stories at Christmas, like flying reindeer, Santa Claus, and the tinsel and the Christmas trees. That’s because if you really think about the real Christmas it all seems like another wonderful fairy tale kind of story.
But we need to see that these are real people, who lived real lives, and faced some real problems. And we see God behind all these events of Christmas doing some incredible things in their lives as they face these real issues of life.
Luke shares how things were all set up by God. He tells us about the incredible birth of John the Baptist, and how it fits into the birth of Jesus. He tells how Elizabeth was old and barren, past the age of child-birth, but she was going to have a son. And Mary is young and a virgin, never having known a man in a physical way, and she’s going to have a son too.
But here are two ordinary, righteous people that God was working in and through. Ordinary Mary was betrothed to ordinary Joseph. They would have been happy to just be ordinary husband and wife, living ordinary lives.
But God interrupted the ordinary. He sent His angel, Gabriel. And four amazing things happened to these ordinary people, to Mary. Let’s look at it.
1. An Amazing Announcement vss. 31-37
This is an amazing announcement, isn’t it? Just when we begin to learn enough about God’s system of nature and understand how reliable it is, with the sun rising and setting, when the moon will shine at it’s fullest, when the rain will fall, or when things are ripe for a tornado, when the tide rises and falls, when the leaves turn colors, etc. – God in His Sovereignty decides to interrupt the routine and the natural.
God sends Gabriel to Mary with this announcement.
I like the human-ness seen in the people of this amazing announcement. Zacharias, it says in verse 12, was troubled and feared. In verse 29 we see that Mary was troubled too. There’s a lot of fear and trouble going on.
But don’t be too hard on them. You leave this service today and go out in the parking lot, and you see an angel sitting on the hood of your car, you might stutter a little bit yourself.
Well, Gabriel announces that something is going to take place that is beyond the boundaries of biology. No law of physics can explain it; no scientist can hypothesize it; no computer can predict it. The Son of the Most High will be born of a virgin.
This announcement is beyond the natural, beyond the rational, beyond explanation.
It was an amazing announcement.
But it was also
2. An Amazing Assignment
It’s amazing that God chose ordinary Mary, probably just a kid, around 14 years old. But how could God trust such an important role in the plan of His redemption of mankind to a young girl?!
You know what 14-year-old girls are like, don’t you? You don’t? Well, let me take you on a school bus route sometime. The 14-year-old girls are a little boy crazy at that age, they’re giggly junior highers, who wear T-shirts that have all kinds of weird sayings on them, with ipods in their ears. And they are 14 years old trying to act like 28 year olds.
You would have thought that our all-wise God might have chosen a devout virgin of about 35 years old or so.
And no doubt Mary’s faith was the faith of a child. And maybe that’s why when this Son grew up and taught others, that He kept saying over and over that only those with child-like faith would ever see the kingdom of God. They’re so trusting.
But God, in all His wisdom, chose Mary. She had no idea that she was going to be God’s choice, the favored one who would bring the Messiah into the world, the mother of Jesus, the Savior, the Son of God…that God was going to leave all the riches and royalty of heaven to come to people on earth so they might be saved. You see, she just lived a holy and righteous life because of her love for God. She didn’t have to be bribed to get to God, and have a cute little program put on to get her to God. She wanted to love God and please Him.
Why should we live holy, righteous lives? Because we think God may do something for us? Mary lived that kind of life because she loved God, and knew He was the only One who could rescue her from a life of sin. And that’s why we are to live that kind of life.
At Christmas time we can easily get the idea that God is Santa Claus. We give God our list, and pull His strings, and bingo! we get what we want.
But our real motive is that we need something He offers – salvation, freedom to live the life of love for Him.
Mary, Elizabeth, and Zacharias were righteous, not to get something from God but because they wanted to be something for God. They didn’t sit around sucking their thumbs, telling everybody how hard it was to be a Christian. They just walked with Him faithfully, every day, not waiting to get a kick from God before they served Him and worshipped Him.
Mary could hardly believe this amazing assignment (34). So Gabriel says, “Mary, you’re going to have the Seed of God planted in you and you will bear the Son of God into the world. And to prove it, do you remember your cousin, Elizabeth – well, she’s pregnant – six months along. Go see her.”
“You’re kidding. She’s too old to have children.”
And the angel says, “And what I have done for your cousin, Elizabeth, the miracle that it is, I’m going to do even more through you. Nothing is impossible with God, even this assignment I’m giving to you.”
What an amazing announcement and assignment.
But look at Marys
3. Amazing Acceptance vs. 38
At first Mary was troubled at the saying of the angel and tried to consider it in her mind (29), but then she accepted the Word of the Lord. She accepted it with these amazing words: “Let it be to me according to Your Word.”
What was she accepting? What was this assignment going to cost her? What did she risk in order to obey God?
For one thing, she risked family rejection and disapproval. What would the family say about their unmarried fourteen-year-old daughter and sister whowas pregnant?
There was probably the risk of public disapproval, as well. When she said “Let it be according to Your Word” she was accepting the probability of being gossip bait in her small town.
There was also the risk of losing her fiancé. Her chances for love, marriage, and family were dwindling quickly in this moment of acceptance. Surely that “just” man, Joseph, would have nothing to do with her now. He would probably get a public divorce.
And added to those risks she, by being turned away by family and friends, was giving up her means of economic support.
And above all that was the risk of death with this acceptance. The law made provision for a betrothed maiden who was going to have a child to be stoned to death for her pregnancy out of wedlock.
But Mary was willing to risk her very life to be a servant of God. She jeopardized everything that really matters in life in order to be used of God - family, reputation, love, marriage, financial security, and her own life.
That’s why this is such an amazing acceptance. What about your acceptance of God’s Word? Are you willing to jeopardize everything this world has to offer to live according to His Word?
But because of her amazing acceptance she was able to participate in
4. An Amazing Adoration vss. 46-56
Mary pondered in her heart about the Babe that was in her. She was amazed and filled with adoration to God.
There were those who adored the Baby after He was born – the Shepherds, some Gentile foreigners from the East who were wise men, and two senior citizens in Church, Simeon and Anna.
But they all recognized the Divine Son of God. There weren’t any princes or kings, the rich and the noble, to greet the newborn Baby. There were no high priests, scribes, prophets, or Pharisees, who should have known enough to greet the Babe.
There were just two classes of people who found the Babe that day – Shepherds and Wise men; the simple and the learned; those who knew that they didn’t know much, and those who knew they didn’t know everything.
Fulton Sheen once said, “Not even God can tell the proud anything, only the humble can find God.”
There in a donkey stall, a stable, the filthiest place in all the land of Palestine, Purity was born. No one would have expected to find Divinity there.
Again, Fulton Sheen went on to say this:
No worldly mind would ever have suspected that He, from whose hands came planets and worlds, would one day have tiny baby hands, that He whose feet trod the everlasting hills would one day be too weak to walk; that He, the Eternal Word, would one day be unable to speak even one word. No worldly mind would ever have suspected that Omnipotence would be wrapped in swaddling clothes; that Salvation would lie in a manger; that the bird that built the nest would be hatched there. No one would ever have suspected that God breaking in upon human history would ever be so helpless, and that is precisely why so many miss Him – Divinity is always where you least expect to find it.
In all this, we see the Sovereignty of God. God’s ways are not always our ways.
If God came again today, He would not make His entrance on a $400 million yacht, belonging to some leader. The last thing on Mary and Joseph’s minds was to be interrupted by the camera crew for the Lifestyles of the rich and famous.
NO, God came in a stable, where shepherds are invited and comfortable, who were watching the temple flocks at night that were destined for sacrifice in the Temple. But this night, they came to the real Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
In fact, Mary’s song in verses 51-52 says that He came to scatter the proud, put down the mighty, and send the rich away empty. God chose once again the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.
Do you see how the very foundations of our society today are threatened by the real Christmas story? The rich are threatened, the military powers are threatened, the comfortable are threatened, because the story of Christ coming into the world as a lowly Babe in a manger to the humble. Just by becoming a Baby God makes the strongest kind of demand of us. By that he is calling us to meekness, to self-sacrifice, to vulnerability, to humility –just by becoming a Baby. And then He asks us to be like Him.
The big threat to Christmas is not Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, not Santa Claus, not the commercialization of Wal-mart. The big threat is that Christmas becomes just a cute little story, a cute fantasy that’s not real.
Christ is really our salvation. If we’ll ponder in our hearts like Mary did, we’ll see what she saw. Life has meaning because of the Baby in Bethlehem. God came to us, not just to be a sacrifice for our sins, but so that he might be born in us so that we could live for Him – to live His kind of life, which would love others.
Without Christmas, neither you, nor I, nor Mary, would matter much. You really have missed Christmas and the wonder of Christmas if you don’t see in the Babe of Bethlehem God’s response to our rebellious and wicked sins, just our ignoring Him and our indifference to Him.
Because, if you look at the Babe in the manger, you will see what God decided to do about you and me when we were still sinners in need of salvation. And when you see that, you can join with Mary in that Amazing Adoration and sing “O come let us Adore Him, Christ the Lord.”
Conclude:
This is not just another fantasy story about Christmas, with the many others out there. This is the truth about Christmas, and the heart of Christmas. This is the reason for our celebrations at Christmas.
As we prepare to gather with family and friends for Christmas, and do all our shopping and decorating, let this truth be pondered in your heart and “come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.”
Because in the same incredible way, Christ is going to return some day, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He was born in an amazing way so that we could be saved for eternity. The archangel will one day shout, the trumpet will sound, the Lord will descend, and those which are dead in Christ will rise first and those that are alive because of Christ will be caught up together in the clouds with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
“O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
O Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem;
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels,
O come let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.”
Jesus came in an amazing way at His birth into the world. And He will come again someday in an amazing way. And He wants to come in an amazing way into your hearts today. He wants to be born in the stable of your heart, if you will be willing to receive Him. He’s not afraid of the filth and mess in your heart, but when He comes to it, He’ll clean it up and give you a heart for Him.
Are you ready for an amazing Christmas with an amazing Savior?
