Time of the year – Family, food and fun, but it is also a time to think about the deeper questions of life – but also to ask the question, “is there a purpose to it all?”
• Here’s the question. What is the deeper reason for celebrating Christmas? What is the reason for the season? Do we need it?
• The reason for Christmas goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
• God has offered Adam and Eve a choice pictured by the two trees in the garden, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
• These two trees symbolised the direction life would take for God’s newly created children.
• The tree of life represented trusting God to be God, the One who created us and knows what is best for HIs created children.
• The tree of the knowledge of good and evil on the other hand represented God’s created children, to whom God had given freewill, trusting themselves to be their own gods, hence it’s name.
• You will discover for yourself by trial and error what is good and what is evil.
• Well we know the sorry outcome. Adam and Eve listened to the serpent’s tantalising argument and chose to “be like God”, and to trust themselves as to how they were to conduct their lives.
• Like teenagers they thought they new better than their parents how to conduct their lives.
• Along with their regret over their choice, they must have felt a deep anxiety for their future as they were marched by an angel out of the security and safety of the garden.
• Outside the garden they discovered they would live in a totally different landscape to the one they enjoyed in the garden.
• In keeping with their decision to determine for themselves what was good and what was evil, this new landscape would provide them with that ominous prospect.
• There were many good aspects about it, but there were also some very dangerous aspects.
• Dark forces in opposition to God ruled this landscape.
• And instead of having the comfort and security of faithfully relying on their Creator and Father, they would now have to rely on their own wits for survival.
• It was now going to be a fearful existence for mankind, as they not only had to cope with the reality of being cut off from their God but the constant threat of survival, in at times, a wicked and sinful world.
• And as they had effectively cut themselves off from the true source of life, they had no means within themselves to restore the relationship they had enjoyed with their Creator and God.
• Because reconciliation with their Creator required two things; first, punishment for defying their Creator to satisfy the justice of God, and second, their rebirth to new life.
This was now to be the state of affairs for humanit,y except that is, for one thing.
• God does not give up on His created children easily despite their obvious rebellion against Him because fortunately for us, He still loves us.
• He doesn’t like how we treat each other, as He hates sin and evil, but He still loves His children.
• And this is where Christmas comes in.
• God is not going to sit back and do nothing despite His children’s disobedience and rebellion against Him.
• His goal remains the same. He wants to be their God and He wants them to be His holy children.
• What they could not now do for themselves He would now do for them as it was only God who could forgive them and give them access to new life again.
• And He was willing to go to extreme measures and great pain to restore the broken relationship and again give them access to the true source of life.
And so it is with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem we begin to see the reality of God’s plan of redemption taking place.
• Important in the context of the earthly birth of Jesus is the heavenly message the angels brought with them as it gives us an interesting insight into the mind of God and His attitude towards His wayward and rebellious children.
• So the question is, is God mad at humanity, does He want to destroy them for their rebellion as is sometimes portrayed?
• Well let’s look at the divine message that was delivered to the shepherds on the outskirts of Bethlehem as this message gives us a unique insight into the mind of God?
• A group of shepherds were settling down for the night, wrapped in their blankets drifting off to sleep when suddenly all heaven breaks loose.
• Luke 2:8-14 (NKJV) 8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.
• Here at this critical point in salvation history, God ups the ante and the divine message of God is not delivered by human instruments such as a human prophet, but by one of His holy angels.
• V.10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.”
• The first reassuring words God has for mankind after the birth of Jesus is, “You no longer need to be afraid.”
• Granted the shepherds had just received an almighty scare, but there is a deeper message in that statement because up until this point in human history, mankind needed to be afraid.
• This is in stark contrast to the first beginning, when the words echoing in Adam and Eve’s ears as they were being marched out of Eden by God’s angel were, “Be afraid”!
• Not only does he tell them not to be afraid, but there is more good news for humanity, this is the steak knives.
• V.10 …for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.
• God is effectively saying, as you cannot restore the relationship with Me on your own merits, I am going to do it for you.
• Because with the coming of Jesus, our acceptance is no longer contingent on what we can do but what Jesus is going to do for us.
• So no longer is it a matter of our efforts, but rather on God’s efforts.
• I have a friend who believes that if he do enough good things in life, then that will cancel out all the bad things he does, and God will judge him on that basis and let him through the pearly gates.
• I hate to break the bad news to him, but that is a fallacy as God’s justice demands perfection and last time I checked, none of us measures up to that standard!
• That was the state of humanity’s relationship with God up to the coming of Jesus.
• But now that despairing message has been turned on its head.
• What was bad news for humanity is now through God’s efforts about to be turned on its head as it says here into “good news.”
• Notice too that the promise is now expanded to include “all people.”
• God’s plan, which started with individuals like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then expanded to include the nation of Israel, is now thrown open to “all people.”
• And who is it that makes it “good news”?
• V.11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
• Notice that last sentence as it reveals God’s attitude towards His wayward children despite centuries of rejection on man’s part.
• God’s commitment to His children is unshaken.
• Something dramatic happened on the world scene when God became man, and it was not bad news, it was good news.
• It’s unfortunate that what God calls “good news” is unfortunately thought to be bad news for a lot of people.
• However, in a dramatic display of power, we witness the heavenly host interpreting the coming of Jesus in a totally different way.
• Humanity is about to witness the extraordinary lengths to which God will go in order to restore the relationship with his creation.
• The Son of God will take off His crown, lay aside His sceptre, roll up his sleeves, step off His throne and trade His glory in heaven for a manger, a donkey and a cross in an effort to not only save His wayward children but to prove God’s love for them.
• The point of all this is, despite man’s distorted mindset about an angry wrathful God, God is not mad at anyone!
• He loves every one of his children and wants to redeem every last one of them, if possible.
• And isn’t that what the most famous verse in all the bible tells us.
• John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
• God the Father is so committed to his children, He willingly gives his most precious possession, His Son to make it possible for the relationship between God and man to be restored.
• How Jesus arrives on earth demonstrates the true character of God and his intentions – to save mankind not through force but through conquering love.
• John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
• God is not a vengeful and wrathful God eager to throw unrepentant sinners into the fires of hell as He is sometimes portrayed. Instead He wants to save the world.
• For some reason unknown to us, but which is rooted in his nature, God gives himself to us, attaches himself to us, and acts to rescue us.
• Though we deserve His wrath, saving grace comes instead.
• 2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
• Such is his love for us Christ willingly empties himself in order to save us.
• He is going to satisfy the justice of God by living for us, dying for us on that dreadful cross, and He is going to give us new life through His glorious resurrection.
• This Christmas event, the Incarnation where God added humanity to His divinity, demonstrates how committed He is to restoring mankind’s broken relationship with Him.
• He desperately wants shared love to pass over the vast gulf between God and his creation.
• He wants to be in communion with and live with his creation.
• And Jesus is the one who makes it all possible.
• And this is why we celebrate the Christmas season.
• It is the gift of God’s Son coming into the world to save the world and that is why we can say it is “glad tidings of great joy!”
