Miracle on 34th Street
Today our Advent sermon is the first in the series of sermons that come from great Christmas movies.
There are many great Christmas movies... A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, White Christmas, Ernest Saves Christmas,
And my personal favorites: Home Alone and Home Alone 2
But I’m not using any of those because I don’t have enough sermons. I have picked 4: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Santa Clause (maybe) and today’s sermon – Miracle on 34th Street
For those few unfortunate souls who are not familiar with this movie let me explain:
Macy's Department Store is having their Thanksgiving Day parade and the actor playing Santa is discovered to be drunk. Doris Walker, the no nonsense special events director, persuades a bearded old man to take his place. The old man proves to be a sensation and is quickly recruited to be the store Santa at the main Macy's outlet. Ms. Walker gets concerned when she learns that he calls himself Kris Kringle and he claims to be the actual Santa Claus. Doris still has misgivings, because she has cynically trained herself, and her daughter, Susan, to reject all notions of belief and fantasy. And yet, people, especially Susan, begin to notice there is something special about Kris. He is determined to advance the true spirit of Christmas amidst the rampant commercialism around him… and is succeeding in improbable ways. He said, “Christmas is not just a day, it’s a frame of mind.” When Kris gets into a raucous conflict with the store's cruelly incompetent psychologist, Kris finds himself held at Bellevue mental hospital, where, in despair, he deliberately fails a mental examination. All seems lost until Doris' friend, Fred Gaily, reassure Kris of his worth and agrees to represent him in a court case to gain Kris’s freedom. Fred arranges a formal hearing in which he argues that Kris is sane because he is in fact Santa Claus. What ensues is a bizarre hearing in which people's beliefs are re-examined and put to the test, but even so, it's going to take a miracle for Kris to win.
The case is turned and won when the post office delivers thousands of letters to Kris and they are all addressed to Santa Claus. The judge rules that if the government says he is Santa then he must be Santa and Kris is freed.
OK you may be asking, what is spiritual about a movie? Why should you waste a sermon on it?
Nothing! Because there are a couple of themes in the movie which are points I want to make about Christmas, and Jesus.
THE VISIT
In this movie, the real Santa came to town at the time when people were looking for Santa. But, because there had been so many fakes before, he was not believed, he was rejected, and he was not accepted. Drop back in time, 2000 years. It was a time of spiritual blackness and desperation. People were crying out to God for a savior. They were looking for a deliverer.
And who comes along? THE SAVIOR… Jesus Christ. The scripture says “in the fullness of time” God answered their prayers and sent the Savior.
And what happened to him? He was rejected. He was called a liar. He was locked up for being crazy. But worse because Kris Kringle only went to the hospital. Jesus was murdered.
The scripture is clear… “He came unto his own… and his own received Him not.”
Isaiah warned about how he would be treated: Ch. 53
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6… and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked...
THE MIRACLE
What was the miracle on 34th street?
A man became Santa. The people finally believed and accepted Kris as Santa. Santa became real. People’s hearts were melted and warmed. Happiness and faith replaced stagnation and cynicism.
The Miracle on 34th street was that a man became Santa.
What is the true miracle of history and where did it happen.
I doubt it happened on 34th street, and if it did it was on 34th street in Bethlehem. And 34th street was a back alley that ran behind an Inn. It was not in the lights like 34th street in NY. It was dark and lonely and untraveled. It was an out-of-the-way road where outcasts and rejects found a place to hide, where they would not be bothered.
What was the miracle of 34th Street in Bethlehem?
It was not a man becoming anything… it was God becoming a man.
The greatest, most unlikely, most miraculous thing that anyone could ever have imagined happened there… “GOD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US”
Did you get that? Did you catch the irony?
The One from whom humans had come
Came from a human
The One who is Spirit… became flesh and blood
So that flesh and blood might become Spirit
The One who was sinless… came to be made sin-full
So that we who were sinful… might become sinless
The One who was eternal… took on the temporal form
So that we who are temporal might have eternal life
He who is life itself … gave up his life… died
So that we who are dead might have life
Jesus, who was “with the Father” was separated from God
So we who are separate might be with the Father
Do you want to know the miracle on 34th Street, Main Street, Catawba Street and all over the world?
THE INCARNATION… God becoming flesh
All-powerful, All-knowing, All-Present God… the creator of heaven and earth, the perfect and pure, righteous and holy God… looked on His creation and saw that they has so defiled and polluted themselves with sin and knew the only possible result would be that every one of them would die and go to hell
Stepped out of heaven and down into the sinful mess of humanity, put off his majesty and purity to put on flesh and take on the sins of the whole world
The Creator of everything, whose hands had formed the world, submitted to the hands of man… who spat on Him, cursed Him, beat Him, and crucified Him.
And the Eternal One who is Alpha and Omega, forever and ever… died
Forget Santa coming to town… God had come to town… to earth… to us
THAT – is the miracle of 34th street, or whatever the street was named in Bethlehem where a scared teenage virgin gave birth to her miracle baby.
The last point the movie makes is…
THE MAGIC
In the movie, something magic happened. It did not happen to everyone, just to some.
They came to believe and because they believed, they got the magic… happiness and joy replaced skepticism and doubt.
Person by person, one at a time, many received the magic.
The magic changed Christmas
I remember when I had the magic… and when I lost it
I got it back on Reese’s second Christmas
Because I have four kids and they are spaced out… we kept the magic for about 20 years… before Ethan got older … and we lost it
Do you know what I am talking about???
Next year, we’re going to get it back because Kolton will be old enough
THE MAGIC CHANGES CHRISTMAS
THE MAGIC CHANGES LIFE TOO
When Jesus came, something magic happened too.
It doesn’t happen to everyone, just to some… the believers.
When Jesus came the world was hopelessly lost. Every single person was lost. Since Adam and Eve… and because of their sin, man inherited a sinful nature… a nature that was corrupt and polluted, a deformation of the nature God wants us to have.
Because of that nature, EVERY PERSON who ever lived since Adam … except Jesus… has sinned and come short of the glory of God.
There were and are none who are good, none who do not sin.
They can’t not sin … they don’t have the desire to not sin and they don’t have the power to not sin.
So… every person… except Jesus… must pay the price for their sin…
Spiritual and physical death … separation from God
That is why Jesus came… so He could live a perfect life and be qualified to be the sin substitute… the one who could die in our place to pay the price for our sin…. And then we would not have to pay the price
He lived and died so we could be forgiven and have eternal life.
And, like the movie, where some believed and got the magic…
Some believe in Jesus, accept Him as their Savior and they receive the magic… SALVATION
It is magic because it changes everything
NOW we have the desire to be good… to please God
NOW we have the power to be good
NOW we have a source of peace, joy, hope, love
NOW our life has meaning and fulfillment
