I’m sure most of us are familiar with the famous poem by Clement Clark Moore that begins this way:
’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
In many homes this poem has become a Christmas tradition – usually read on Christmas Eve right before bedtime. I remember hearing it read at school when I was a little boy, and I’ve heard it read many times since then on various Christmas TV specials. I’ve never tried to memorize it, but I’m sure I know most of it by heart anyway.
For those of us who have had at least some experience with a church service around
Christmas time, I’m sure we’re also quite familiar with the biblical Christmas story. We know the main characters: Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, the angels, and the shepherds. We’re familiar with the setting of the story: the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem because of the census decree, the stable, and the star. But a lot of us don’ know what was going on in the heavenly realm that first night before Christmas. It might surprise you to find that the Bible reveals what was on Jesus’ mind before he was born in human flesh.
Did you ever consider that Jesus would still exist even if he’d never been born? Think about that. Jesus didn’t need to be born in order to exist. Christmas marks the human birth of the Lord Jesus, but it does not mark the beginning of his existence. As the Son of God, he existed with the Father long before he was conceived in Mary’s womb
Jn. 1:1-2 makes that clear. John begins his Gospel by saying, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. Jesus always was…always is…and always will be. He didn’t need to be born in order to exist. He would still exist. But here’s the thing: you and I wouldn’t know him as Jesus.
But John assures us that God came in the flesh. Jn. 1:14 – The Word [who we just heard was God] became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
We know Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus. We know Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. Today, I want to share with you what is basically Christmas according to Jesus. In Heb. 10:5-7, we hear what he was thinking on the “night before Christmas” a little over 2,000 years ago.
Heb.10:5-7 – Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’”
In these three short verses, we learn some very important implications regarding the birth of the Christ. Jesus’ birth is not just supernatural, it’s educational. Along with educational, it’s also transformational. What Jesus thought before he was born influenced the way he lived. What we learn about his thoughts before he was born should change how we live our lives today
Jesus Came Knowingly
Jesus was not just human. As we learned earlier, he was also God. God has no beginning. He existed before anything in Creation. He exists outside of Creation. It was in this realm that Jesus had the thoughts described in our scripture passage this morning
One of the attributes of God as described in the Bible is that he is omniscient. God knows everything. Jesus knew how he would be born, how he would live, and how he would die. He didn’t live his life like many of us. We often set out haphazardly and then are surprised by what happens because of how we live. Jesus was never surprised by anything that happened to him during the time of his earthly existence. His birth and death – and everything in between – was known to him before he was born in the flesh.
Here’s what that means. Even though Jesus knew that he would have to leave the perfect environment where he was in perfect relationship with the Father to come into physical existence where he would be taunted and despised and later killed by the most horrible method of execution ever devised, he still came. That demonstrates the capacity of his love for us.
Jesus Came Scripturally
David Greenglass was a traitor. During the period of World War II, he gave atomic secrets to the Soviets and then fled to Mexico after the war. His conspirators arranged to help him by planning a meeting with the secretary of the Russian ambassador in Mexico City. The most important thing in this meeting was proper identification for both parties.
Greenglass was to identify himself to the secretary with six prearranged signs. These instructions had been given to both the secretary and Greenglass so there would be no possibility of making a mistake.
Here are the six signs: 1. Once in Mexico City, Greenglass was to write a note to the secretary, signing his name as “I. JACKSON” 2. After three days he was to go to the Plaza de Colon in Mexico City and then 3: Stand before the statue of Columbus, 4: While standing in front of the statue, he was to mark a place in a guidebook with his middle finger. 5. When he was approached, he was to say it was a magnificent statue and that he was from Oklahoma. 6. The secretary was to then give him a passport.
These six prearranged signs worked. Why? With six identifying characteristics it was impossible for the secretary not to identify Greenglass as the proper contact.
Heb. 5:7a – Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll.” What scroll is being referenced here? The Old Testament was originally written on scrolls made from papyrus (a plant-based paper) or parchment (animal skins that had been scraped, burnished, and stitched together).
All throughout the Old Testament, we’re given signs or markers about the Messiah who was to come. These markers or prophecies refer to a single person. The Old Testament scriptures were basically saying: Here’s how you’re going to know that this is the person who was promised.
There are literally hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the coming of Jesus. One scholar gives a list of 456 prophecies. These prophecies include where he would be born (Bethlehem), how he would be born (the virgin birth), that there would be tragedy associated with his birth (Herod’s murder of all males under two years of age), how he would live, how he would die, and how he would be raised back to life.
Peter Stoner was Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College. He has calculated the probability of one man fulfilling the major prophecies made concerning the Messiah. The estimates were worked out by twelve different classes representing some 600 university students.
The students carefully weighed all the factors, discussed each prophecy at length, and examined the various circumstances which might indicate that men had conspired together to fulfill a particular prophecy. They made their estimates conservative enough so that there was finally unanimous agreement even among the most skeptical students.
However Professor Stoner then took their estimates, and made them even more conservative. He also encouraged other skeptics or scientists to make their own estimates to see if his conclusions were more than fair. Finally, he submitted his figures for review to a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation. Upon examination, they verified that his calculations were dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented.
After examining only eight different prophecies, they estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 1017. That is a 10 with 17 zeroes following. That’s one chance in 100 quadrillion. The number sequence flows like this: million, billion, trillion, quadrillion.
If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take one silver dollar and mark it with a red X. We then thoroughly mix that silver dollar in with 1017 (100 quadrillion) silver dollars and scatter them across the face of Texas. They would cover the whole state two feet deep. Next, blindfold one person and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but in one try, he has to pick up one silver dollar with the red X.
What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would've had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man.
Jesus Came Obediently
Heb. 5:7b – I have come to do your will, my God. No matter what happened to Jesus, no matter how badly he was treated, no matter how frustrated he became because people just didn’t understand, he was still dedicated to accomplish the will of the Father.
Jn. 6:38 – For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. In this section of scripture, Jesus is speaking to a group of people who sought Him out after He had fed them with a miracle using only five small loaves of barley bread and two small fish. Those who camped out following that meal woke up the next morning and discovered that Jesus and His disciples had gone to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They went to look for Him basically because they wanted breakfast.
Jesus tells them about the Bread of Life – referring to Himself. This bread would be bread which would feed spiritual hunger. The people became confused because their vision was on earthly, material things. Jesus clarifies His teaching.
First, Jesus reminds them that this teaching is not new or contrary to what they had already been taught. Then Jesus tells them that He is actively involved in doing what the Father wanted Him to do.
The night before Jesus went to the cross, we find him praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. In Matt. 26:39, Jesus says to the Father, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
True dedication to the will of the Father, true obedience, will lead us to do things that the world deems crazy. While the world says, “No way!” the one obedient to God’s will says, “God’s way is the only way.”
Phil. 2:6-8 says this about Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Jesus Came Sacrificially
When sin entered the world, it changed the world. What was once created to be a most wonderful place to live came under the curse of sin. Paradise was repealed and hardship came into existence. Thorns, disease, natural disasters, all came into being because of the effects of sin. Murder, rape, robbery, and war were introduced into our existence because of sin. But Jesus came to be the final sacrifice for sin.
Before Jesus came, God had set up a temporary system of sacrifices to simply roll sins ahead for a year – much like paying the interest but not the principal on a loan. For thousands of years the blood of bulls and goats and lambs were offered on the altar as a stop-gap measure until the permanent sacrifice came.
Jesus shares the thought very plainly in Heb. 10:5 – Sacrifice and offering you did not desire meaning that those animal sacrifices couldn’t do the job. Then in Heb. 10:6 – With burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. When we look at the three verses of our theme scripture in context, that’s what we see.
Heb. 10:1-4 – The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins.4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
A little farther down in Heb.10:11 – Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
Priests in the Old Testament spent their days in a routine of sacrifice and offerings–one after the other, morning, noon and night, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year after year, decade after decade, century after century.
During the 1500 years from the time of Moses to the time of Christ, tens of thousands of lambs and goats and bulls were offered on the altar before God to make atonement for the sins of the people. That’s what he means when he says “day after day” and “time after time” the same sacrifices were offered.
Animal blood can never take away sin. Suppose you took all the blood offered on all the Jewish altars, over all those centuries, offered by priests doing God’s will, obeying God’s law,
sincerely doing what God told them to do, sacrificing bulls and goats and lambs until there was a river of blood flowing from the altar. What does all that animal blood amount to? How many sins could it forgive? Not one! That’s because it was only temporary.
Jesus came to replace the temporary sacrificial system by providing a permanent one. Heb. 10:12-14 – But when this priest [referring to Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
The reason Christ had to come in the flesh was so that he could offer his life as payment for our sins. We are all sinners. Rom. 3:23 – For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
The penalty for sin is death. But Jesus gave his life to pay our sin debt. Rom. 6:23 – For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That’s why we here this statement from the thoughts of Jesus before he was born in Heb. 10:5 – A body you prepared for me. Christ’s body was prepared for him so that years later he could offer himself as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin when he died on the cross.
There’s an old story about Nicholas I, Czar of Russia. It seems that the czar had a
good friend who asked him to provide a job for his son. The czar did, appointing the son as paymaster for a barracks in the Russian army.
However, it turned out that the friend’s son liked to gamble and soon gambled away nearly all the money entrusted to him. When the word came that the auditors were going to examine his records, the young man panicked, knowing that he could be executed for his crimes.
He calculated the amount he owed and the total came to a huge debt—far greater than he could ever pay. He determined that the night before the auditors arrived, he would take his gun and commit suicide at midnight. Before going to bed, he wrote out a full confession, listing everything he had stolen, and wrote underneath it these words: “A great debt. Who can pay?” The young man was physically exhausted by the process and fell asleep at his desk.
Later that night the czar himself paid a surprise visit to the barracks. Seeing a light on, he peered into the room and found the young man asleep with the letter of confession next to him. He read the letter and instantly understood what had happened. He paused for a moment, considering what punishment to impose, then he bent over, wrote one word on the paper, and left.
Eventually the young man woke up, realizing that he had slept past midnight. Taking his gun, he prepared to kill himself when he noticed that someone had written something on his confession. Under his words “A great debt. Who can pay?” he saw one word: “Nicholas.” He was dumbfounded and then terrified when he realized that the czar knew what he had done.
Checking his records, he verifried that the signature was genuine. Finally the thought settled in his mind that the czar knew the whole story and was willing to pay the debt himself. Resting on the words of his commander-in-chief, he climbed into bed and fell fast asleep. In the morning a messenger came from the palace with the exact amount the young man owed. Only the czar could pay. And the czar did pay.
Only Jesus could pay our debt to God. Just as the lamb was prepared for sacrifice, Jesus comes as the Lamb of God to take away our sin.
Christ came to die! Nothing else explains his birth. As a man he died. As God he bore the sin of the world. No one else could have done what Jesus did. No one else was qualified. No one else was willing.
Close
Chris Rice has written a beautiful Christmas song called Welcome to Our World. It’s been recorded by him and several other artists. This song communicates just how desperately we needed Christ to come. In the final stanza, the lyrics connect the cradle and the cross:
Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born
So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world.
At Christmas time, we remember that God came to earth in the flesh. And we remind ourselves that at this time we say, “Welcome to our world.” But that’s not all there is to Christmas.
Remember earlier, we said that Jesus’ birth is not just supernatural, it’s educational but along with being educational, it’s also transformational. Because of who Christ is, what he has done, and what he offers to us if we’ll just follow, it changes the way we see our lives. It changes the way we live our lives. And it changes our purpose in life.
The goal for anyone who follows Christ should be to become like Christ. So, we should live life knowingly – knowing that God loves us enough to come to earth and die for our sins. We should live scripturally – seeking to use God’s word as our guidebook in life. We should live obediently – seeking to follow God’s word and Christ’s example. We should live sacrificially – seeking ways to be a servant.
The most important thing you can do this Christmas is not just to say to Jesus, “Welcome to OUR world” but instead say, “Welcome to MY world.” Real transformation cannot take place until we personally open our lives to Jesus. We have to say, “Jesus, here is my world. You come in and make it right.”
When Christmas arrives this Friday, families will gather to open their gifts. God has a Christmas gift for you. This gift came not wrapped not in bright paper and with fancy ribbon. It originally came wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. It is the gift of his Son. It is for you.
