Christmas is absolutely the best time in all the world.
And it’s been the top of the pops for over 2000 years.
Forget about the commercial frenzy – that’s not really Christmas, even though we get ourselves very much involved in the whole scene anyway.
CHRISTMAS IS AMAZING!!
In fact its utterly beyond comprehension, which is probably why we do all the crazy things we do at this time of the year.
We eat too much, we put up lights everywhere, we bring trees into our houses, we buy things for people we see everyday, and wrap them in beautiful paper which we will just throw away anyway – whole forests disappear in December which is a real headache for the concerned conservationists.
All of this is just our feeble attempt to somehow celebrate something which is incredibly amazing, so big, so vast, so utterly unbelievable that we even sometimes do some stupid things to mark the occasion. Kind of like, “pinch me, I think I’m dreaming!”
How do you get to grips with “Emmanuel” – God with us?
Can you actually get your mind around it?
God coming to us – the Creator within His creation.
Its really hard to get the picture, isn’t it?
I was reading about the Rev Robert Evans this week. He is a fulltime minister and a part time astronomer. His claim to fame is that he has discovered more Super Novas that anybody else, even more than the great scientists in their huge observatories.
Now listen to this …
A Supernova is an exploding star whose light can outshine an entire galaxy for about a month. How it explodes is an interesting phenomenon. Over time, millions of years, its inner gravitational pull becomes so strong that initially it implodes, drawing everything into itself. Its gravitational pull is so strong that it sucks in everything, including light – it becomes a black hole in the universe.
And its core becomes incredibly heavy. Imagine a million cannonballs squeezed into the size of a marble. As Rev Evans says, just a teaspoon full of this imploded star could weigh 90 billion kgs.
…And then suddenly it explodes outwards sending all kinds of matter into space. It’s a nuclear explosion of such gigantic proportions that it makes Hiroshima look like a Christmas cracker. It would be the equivalent of a trillion hydrogen bombs all going off at once.
But you don’t need to worry about it. The nearest likely candidate to be a Supernova is a star called Betelguese which is a mere 50 thousand light years away. To put that in perspective, to get there you would have to travel at the speed of light for 50 thousand years. In contrast, travelling at the speed of light, it would take you a mere 1.3 seconds to get to the moon, or 8.3 minutes to get to the sun.
Its hard to fathom God’s creation – its mind boggling.
We see pictures in books of our own solar system but they can never be to scale. If the earth were the size of a pea, Jupiter would be 3 lengths of a rugby field away, and Pluto, the furthest planet from earth would be 21/2 kilometers away. The nearest star outside our solar system is Proxima Centauri, which would, on this scale be 16000 kms away. There is absolutely no prospect whatsoever that any human being will ever travel to the edge of our solar system and our solar system is just a dot in the universe.
Amazing isn’t it…
And the God who made all this came right inside His creation. RIGHT INSIDE!
He who flung stars into space by speaking them into being, who spoke the separation of sky and earth, who announced light, and life..
This God came as a baby born of a virgin mother…
Man, I can’t get it. I just can’t understand it.
The Lord of all creation, the master of the universe – God, made himself utterly dependent on man. Formed in the womb of a virgin girl, He came to us.
Its absolutely crazy but it’s the reason why we are here today.
This amazingly, fantastically big God became a child, a baby in a virgin’s womb – following His own rule for a nine month gestation period, and the years needed to be lived in order to grow to be a man – so that He could lay down the life He took up in order to change our destiny. To turn around everything that we had messed up in our life and history and to give us a new beginning.
Oh, man, this is incredible!
Its no wonder that we do crazy things like coming to church in the middle of the week, and eating a roast lunch just a few days after the summer solstice.
Listen to this text from Isaiah 35 – see what God has done…
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus,
2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there,
nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
I grew up on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Let me tell you, its not a glad place. Its dry and parched. In places its just moving sand, in other places, its hot sheets of stone, in still other places, the pebbles are the size of golf balls, black as the night and always shiny and hot and hard.
It does not rejoice. It drains the energy from you like a supernova. Despite everything it never quite has life – what life there is hides away, survives on little and blooms very seldom.
BUT, in God, the desert will be glad!
The wilderness will rejoice!
It will burst into bloom and shout for joy!
It’s a metamorphosis! And its coming, says the prophet…so strengthen your hands, steady your knees, be strong, do not fear…
GOD IS COMING TO SAVE YOU!
Get up! Get Ready! Get going!
The eyes of the blind will be opened
The ears of the deaf unstopped
The lame will leap like a deer
The mute tongue will shout for joy.
It’s a transformation!
Deserts are blooming, invalid people are being restored.
Have you thought about that… invalid people, in-valid people.
People without worth, or value. The nothings of creation are becoming the somethings.
In Peter’s first letter, he says this, “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Once you were not a people – you were in-valid, but now you are a chosen people, a people belonging to God.
God has transformed His creation.
He has taken a people made in His image, who through sin had made themselves in-valid, and He has, in His Son, born of a virgin, dead on a Cross, risen into glory, given us back the value we first had in Him.
Once you had not received mercy, now you have received mercy.
Christmas is the season of Emmanuel.
It is God with us and there can never, ever, be a better cause for celebration.
When John the Baptizer was becoming uncertain of his own future, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask the question, “Are you the One, or should we wait for another?”
Christ’s answer was simple – He quoted from Isaiah 35 – “Tell him what you see, the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf are unstopped, the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shouts for joy.”
In more words than were necessary He was saying, I AM THE ONE!
Observe the fulfillment of prophecy!
Look at broken, in-valid people being restored!
My friends, water is gushing forth in the wilderness,
There are streams in the desert
The burning sand has become a delightful pool
The land which at first sucked in the moisture is now a bubbling spring.
Its turnaround time. Its Christmas!
Before us is the Highway of Holiness. Its for those whom Christ came to redeem. He has paid the ransom. He has set us free.
I love the last words of this prophecy – Gladness and joy will overtake the travelers on this Highway of Holiness – we will never be able to outrun the gladness and joy which is the blessing from the One who says,”I am the One!” Sorrow and sighing, on the other hand will flee away.
This celebration today says, “I believe this!”
You are here because this promise is for you.
This is the celebration of the greatest event which has ever, ever taken place.
The Almighty entered into His creation to take sadness and sighing away from us and to overwhelm us with His gladness and joy.
Listen to the voices of those who discovered this in the beginning, when Christ was born amongst us:
Mary, the virgin mother. God chose to enter the world through her womb…
“My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
Zechariah, the father of John:
68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
The angels..
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favour rests.
Simeon, the old priest in the Temple
29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant
in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
And you, how will you add your voice to the great chorus of praise? How will your journey be on this great Highway of Holiness? How will you savour the great love which God has for you? Rejoice in Him, celebrate the new dawn.
Because Christ has come, everything is different now!
God is with us!!!
HYMNS O holy night!
Come with deepest adoration
PRAYER OF RESPONSE
Lord, we bow before You now, mindful of our humble estate, awed by the greatness of Your glory.
We did not expect any of this, we did not think ourselves worthy.
We were not a people who, in Your great love, revealed in Christ are now a chosen people.
We were without mercy and now, in Christ, You have poured out grace upon grace.
What can we say? What can we do?
We hear Your words, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Lord, we come to this Highway of Holiness. You have made the path for us. We will follow You. May Your gladness and Your joy overtake us as we journey with You.
To Your Name be honour and glory for evermore.
Amen
