“A Dirty Christmas”
Hebrews 2:10-11, 14-18
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN
This morning I preached a sermon which included a lot of talk about Christmas trees.
I talked about how Christmas trees ought to point beyond themselves to Christ.
But there may be a little something I left out.
Under every Christmas tree in the midst of the brightly wrapped packages, the choo-choo train winding its way through that picturesque winter village, and the glorious Nativity scene with the Virgin Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and the baby Jesus ought to be a pail of dirt.
And that dirt ought to be really dirty dirt!
Not like that kind of sanitized stuff we can buy at Lowes or Home Depot.
No, that dirt out to be real grubby, crumbly, and perhaps a bit smelly.
Why?
Because that pail of dirt, more than the bright lights, and even the cute little manger scene, reminds us of what God is really up to at Christmas.
It’s too easy for us to overlook the significance that Jesus was born in a barn and laid in a manger, because there was no room in the inn.
That’s the unvarnished truth of Christmas.
Dirt, manure, terrible smells, these aren’t the things we usually associate with the Presence of God.
But Christmas announces to us that this is the kind of God we have.
It’s the dirt of Christmas that helps us understand just how great God is!!!
The author of Hebrews reminds us, “In bringing many [children] to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.”
Christmas is about pain.
A woman gave birth that night.
Christmas is about God leaving heaven and coming down to be with us in the midst of our dirt!
Who of us would set aside our power and privilege and enter this world in the midst of the dirt and stench of a barn?
But God did.
And that is Good News!!!
That is the best news imaginable!!!
For with this knowledge we can know that we have a God Who loves us beyond comprehension.
Jesus suffered for our salvation!
Wow!
God “shared in” our “humanity”…
…Jesus was “made” like us “in every way”, and “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being temped.”
In Christ’s all too ordinary birth in Bethlehem we meet God, not in some terrible and frightening holiness that makes us sinners shake in our boots but in His loving and merciful holiness, which is God’s true holiness!!!
And Jesus is “not ashamed to call” us brothers and sisters.
Many of us have probably seen the movie A River Runs through it.
It tells the story of two brothers growing up in the beautiful Montana countryside.
The older brother is quiet, studious, hard-working; he got a good job and became a respected man in the community.
His wild brother was a lot of fun, but was always getting into trouble, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable.
He ended up hanging out with people who led him deeper and deeper into trouble, and was finally killed in a bar-fight.
The brothers had grown far apart.
It’s a moving and tragic story, and the most tragic thing about it is that the older brother saw what was coming, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He couldn’t reach him.
He couldn’t come to where he was and rescue him.
But that is exactly what God has chosen to do for us in Jesus Christ, our Brother!!!
Since we couldn’t save ourselves, Jesus “shared” in our “humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is the devil…”
That’s right, Jesus is the One Who leads the way, who clears the path for our salvation!!!
On along in Hebrews Chapter 4 we are told, “we do not have a high priest [that is Christ] who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.”
Jesus did something that no one has ever been able to do…
…something that none of us will ever be able to do…
…Jesus emerged from the mess and dirt of this world completely sinless!!!
And Jesus went through some realty, really dirty dirt!!!
Because the fact that Jesus was without sin means that Jesus knew depths and tensions and assaults of temptation that we could never know!
Jesus’ battle with temptation wasn’t easier than ours…it was much, much harder!
Why?
Well, think about it.
We fall to temptation long before the tempter or the devil has put on his full assault!
We never know temptation at its fiercest because we give in long before that stage is reached.
But Jesus was tempted far beyond anything we can ever experience.
Think of it in terms of pain.
There’s a degree of pain that we humans can stand—and when that degree is reached, a person loses consciousness.
It’s the same with temptation.
Faced with temptation we collapse; but Jesus went to our limit of temptation and far beyond it and still didn’t collapse.
So, Jesus is our Pioneer!
Imagine an explorer cutting his or her way deep into the jungle.
Nobody has ever been this way before; there are no paths, no trails, no signs that say its possible to go this way.
Yet he or she goes on, forging a way through impossible terrain, until he or she reaches the goal.
Once the explorer has done that, others can follow.
Explorers do that kind of thing for lots of reasons: fame, fortune, sheer curiosity…whatever.
Jesus did it out of love!!!
The jungle is the whole world of suffering, pain, sin and death.
Nobody has ever gone through there before and come out the other side.
But wait a minute!!!
Jesus did!
And because of this, Jesus has opened the Way for us to come out the other side as well!!!
So Christmas is dirty and Christmas is about pain…our pain, but especially God’s pain on our behalf!!!
You know, it’s funny.
Everybody is supposed to be happy and joyous during the Christmas season.
It’s a time for peace and goodwill.
And that’s awesome!
But for a lot of folks, Christmas is a painful, sorrowful and lonely time.
In Christ, we don’t have to pretend that everything is wonderful when its not.
But when we find ourselves cold and dirty, when we find ourselves bogged down in the quagmire of a life that has never seemed to fulfill our dreams, when our eyes are filled with tears of pain and disappointment because another year has passed and the problems are still there, all we need to do is look to the dirty birth in Bethlehem.
That child is Emmanuel.
“God is with us” right smack dab in the midst of the dirt and the pain, to assure us that there is nothing too dirty to separate us from His love!
Real life is dirty.
But because of that first dirty Christmas, there is still reason to smile, to brush aside the tears and sing a Christmas carol!
For when we remember that Jesus was born in a smelly, dirty barn in Bethlehem, we can know that our God isn’t going to let real life and a little dirt get in the way of God loving us!!!
So when we go home to sit under or near our Christmas tree in all its glory, let’s remember the dirt!
Who knows?
You might even want to put a pail of dirt under your tree to remind yourself why that Christmas tree is so gloriously decorated at all!!!
