As we consider the miracles of Christmas, the most obvious miracle of all is the incarnation, God became a man. That is Christmas, the birth of our Savior, God coming to earth as a man as foretold of the prophets of old.
Matthew 1:23 “BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.”
God with us. Than is today’s message. That is the "Miracle of the Manger."
John 1:10–14
In a remote Swiss village stands a beautiful church - Mountain Valley Cathedral. It has high pillars and magnificent stained glass windows, but what makes it special is the most beautiful pipe organ in the whole region. People would come from far off lands just to hear the lovely tunes of this organ. One year something went wrong with the pipe organ. It releases the wrong tones and sounds of disharmony. Musicians and experts from around the world had tried to repair it. No one could find the fault. The organ was uniquely made and customized and no one really knows how to fit it. They gave up.
After some time, one old man came. "Why wasn’t the pipe organ used?"
"It’s not playing right," says the church staff.
"Let me try." Since it has been lying there, the staff reluctantly agreed to let the old man try his hand at it. For two days the old man worked in almost total silence. The church workers was, in fact, getting a bit nervous. Then on the third day - at noon – suddenly the music came. The pipe organ gives off the best music after so many years. The people in the village heard the beautiful music. They came to the church to see. This old man was playing at the organ. After he finished, one man asked, "How did you fix it? How did you manage to restore this magnificent instrument when even the world’s experts could not?"
The old man said, "It was I who built this organ fifty years ago. I created it, and now I have restored it."[1]
You see that is what happened to mankind. God made us perfect. Adam and Eve in the garden. They were God’s crowning achievement. Then entered the Serpent – and temptation. And man choose sin, and man has been broken ever since. Don’t believe that man is broken? Just read the local paper. Turn to the news on television. Child molesting. Crowd thefts. Mass murders. Lawlessness abounds. Now convince me that man isn’t broken.
Don’t you think the Original Designer and Builder needs to come and make repairs? To restore man? Our original Designer and Builder was Jesus.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Jesus is God.
John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
And Jesus made all. He is our Designer and Builder. As the Creator, He is superior to His creation. The Creator is always superior to the creation. Why it is that man feels he can fix himself? Can the one who is broken fix himself? Man has done nothing but bring death. How can man bring life?
John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Jesus is life. Jesus is source of all life. Jesus does not merely possess life, He is life. Now, here is the Miracle of the Manger
John 1:14a And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
The Creator lowered Himself to be like the created. God fulfilled His name given by the prophet: “AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,” which translated means, “GOD WITH US.” (Matthew 1:23). However that should not surprise us too much, although flawed because of sin, we are made in His image.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
As God, Jesus did not come as God and only appeared as a man, as the ancient Gnostics believed, Jesus was fully man and fully God. The Creator humbled Himself to be like the creation.
Philippians 2:5–8 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Again. This is the miracle of the manger, of the incarnation. God with us. And God, in the form of the man, Jesus, He did not merely come, but he lived with us.
Let’s go back to John 1:14. Look at the word “dwelt among us.” The Greek "skenoo" which means to encamp – to pitch His tent. To the Jew, this word in the Greek meant to put up the tabernacle, like they had in the desert. It was at the tabernacle that God came, filled with His glory, and met with Moses face to face. Jesus did not come for a visit. He came to live with us. You see that is the goal all along. God to be among His people.
Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
This will not be fully realized until time becomes no more.
Our Designer and Builder came and fully identifies with His ultimate creation. He did not experience life in the philosophical abstract, but as a real human, with real needs, with real hurts, with real emotions (Jesus wept. John 11:35), with real blood (shed His blood on the cross).
Hebrews 4:14–16 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Our Maker has experienced all we have experienced, temptations and hurts, grief and pain. Yet only He, uniquely, can make us whole again.
Now back to the problem: Man is broken. The Good News is our Designer and Maker has come to make repairs. The bad news is that man has rejected Him.
John 1:10–11 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
Here lies the problem. He came to make repairs, but the world rejected Him. Not only that, Jesus’ own people, the Jews, rejected him, and had Him hung on a Roman cross.
God saw it coming. It was no surprise to Him when Jesus was rejected. Some 750 years earlier it was prophesized.
Isaiah 53:1–3 Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
The world rejects Him, Jesus, even today. In fact the world celebrates Christmas and does not know why.
As we have looked at few weeks ago as we considered the miracle of the Message, people around the world celebrate Christmas but does not know why? In Japan KFC’s Colonel Sanders is as big as Santa Clause. But Jesus is completely left out of the celebration. So many People do not know the why of Christmas, not just overseas in non-Christian cultures, but right here in own town as well.
The story goes about one man, who was given a Bible and was encouraged to read it. It was suggested that he might start by reading the Christmas story, Luke 2, since it was that time of year. The man looked at the one who gave him the Bible in astonishment and said: “You mean the Christmas story is in the Bible?”
A cartoon I once saw explained the feelings of a lot of Americans today. It showed two homes decorated for Christmas. One had lights everywhere. There was a plastic snowman in the yard, a Santa and riendeer on the roof, and a flashing sign in the front yard that said, “Merry Xmas!” There were tens of thousands of lights! The other home, next door, had only a simple manger scene in the front yard. The couple from the first house was looking out their window toward at the manger scene in their neighbor’s yard and said: “You know, some people have to put religion into everything.”
Are we guilty of putting religion into Christmas? Would we be found guilty of putting Christ into Christmas?
But even among so-called Christians – the Christmas story of Mary and Joseph and Jesus being laid in a manger is just one story along many Christmas stories, along with Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, and Miracle on 34th Street. Just another yule-time tale.
Is the story of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus just another story to you?
Ready for some good news?
John 1:12–13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Jesus can make us new again. Jesus can restore us. Being born again is not natural event. If fact nothing is natural about becoming a Christian. It is a supernatural event. We cannot become a Christian on our own.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
This begs the question, have you received Him? Not just acknowledged His historical presence, not just sing the carols and believe the stories, not just come to church and get emotional one Sunday and have a prayer with a preacher. The question is whether you have really received Jesus, whether you live for Him, whether His will being carried out in your life? We need to examine ourselves.
2 Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
I have heard many stories over the years about those who have played the part of a Christian, have done all the right things and have said all the right words, yet one day they met the Savior and came to know him personally for the first time in their lives and everything changed.
Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
The big question of the Manger is whether or not you have left Jesus lying in the manger and we go on to live our lives our way? Or has Jesus come and made a home in your heart and we live for Him day in and day out?
But we do not have Jesus in our hearts because one day you decided it would be a nice thing to. You can only come to Jesus if the Father draws you.
John 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.
Has God called you to accept His Son? I do believe God has called everyone. He has made Himself known to all. But many have rejected that call.
Some may say that time is not right for me this minute. If God is drawing you to Jesus, the time is now. There is no guarantee that God will be calling and drawing you tomorrow. Some may say I must clean up my act first. Again this is nothing more than man trying to fix himself. We come to Jesus and let Him clean us up.
Than fact is, there is no plan B. Jesus is the only way to God and eternal life. Has God brought you to the point in your life that you know there is no plan B, to save you from the wrath to come? The Miracle of the Manager is that God calls people to receive His Son Jesus. The problem lies with man, who finds excuses as to why he cannot: “The time is not right.” “There are things I need to do first.” “I need to clean up my act first – I can fix myself.” But what it boils down to is, “I just don’t want to.” And Jesus is rejected
2 Corinthians 6:2b Behold, now is “THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,” behold, now is “THE DAY OF SALVATION”—
The invitation God gives will not always be there.
Have you experienced the Miracle of the Manger? God broke into History some 2000 years ago, Has He broken into your life today?
[1] James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 244-245. - www.sermoncentral.com/Illustrations/SearchResults.asp?Category=&Page=2&Sort=rank&keyword=&ScriptureBookA2=John&ScriptureVerse2=1&TopicID=0&since2=0
