“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” [1]
Sometime, just over two thousand years ago, contrary to the song we sing so often throughout each Christmas season, it was not a silent night. In Bethlehem, a teenage girl gave birth to a child. Though it would not have been unusual for a teenage girl to have a child in that culture, this girl was bearing a child which had been conceived before a formal marriage had been consummated with the man whom her parents had chosen to be her husband. The girl was perhaps no more than fourteen years of age, and her husband likely was no more than sixteen years old. They were children according to our modern standards. After a hurried marriage to a husband who had at first been understandably reluctant to take her as his wife, the government compelled the young couple to make a trek of some one hundred fifty kilometers (ninety miles). Undoubtedly, the young woman had walked the entire distance with her husband.
Then came the night that the child that she was carrying would make His entrance into this darkened world. No midwife was present to help the child deliver her baby, no physician attended in case there were complications, no one except for her husband to whom she was betrothed was present that night. She gave birth in a sheep cote; there was no sterile hospital room. The story went precisely as one would expect a story to go if the one telling the story did not wish the story to be taken seriously.
The first people who knew of this birth, and the first to witness that a child had been born under these less than auspicious conditions, were shepherds. Shepherds were rough men, made that way by the conditions under which they worked. They were so lowly in the eyes of those living in that society that their testimony would be inadmissible in a court of law. The father of that child fell out of the historic record, and was not heard from again. Imperial forces would seek to exterminate the baby’s earthly bloodline, eventually killing in the most brutal fashion imaginable even the child that was born.
Two of the child’s brothers, James and Jude, would write books that would be canonised as part of the New Testament record. This knowledge makes it all the more ironic that these same brothers rejected their elder brother during His life. They had been so disgusted with the claims their brother made that they refused even to be present at His execution where they could have consoled their mother as her eldest son was brutally killed in one of the most degrading fashions imaginable. Despite denying Jesus, James and Jude became leaders in the Faith during the early days. Their faith would eventually be proven as they died while proclaiming that their brother was in fact the Living God.
Without doubt, the child that was born would transform the world. There is no neutrality concerning Him; merely mentioning His Name can precipitate intense and violent reaction from many in our world. Those who know Him, love Him. Those who do not know Him, hate Him. Because they can’t actually hurt Him, they are prepared to destroy those whom He loves. Thus, the people that are called Christians have suffered, and continue to suffer, the most violent persecution throughout the world to this day.
So, on the night the child was born, it was not a silent night at all. It was a night filled with pain, a night that was anything but calm. Yet, because of that night, hope was born—hope that burns brightly in the heart of anyone bold enough to embrace this child as Lord of their own life.
It is likely that you grew up believing that Christians co-opted a Roman holiday so they could celebrate Christ's birth. However, there is considerable archeological evidence suggesting that Emperor Aurelian aligned Sol Invictus on December 25th to stop the growth of an irascible atheist cult springing up in the empire. That “atheist cult” was Christianity. Roman culture saw the Christians as “atheist” because they claimed to worship a God Who was alive. Everyone knew that someone had to die to become a god. There was no argument! Everyone knew how this worked! So, the Christians were enemies of Rome, and this strange religion would have to be stamped out. However, the more Christians were persecuted, the faster this strange religion grew.
Allow me to point to a soliloquy written by a brilliant man a couple of years ago. Erick Erickson [2] noted that Christianity, the worship of the Son of God Who gave His life as a sacrifice for the sin of mankind, grew and spread across the planet. Christianity's spread in Asia was slow, but just as it took more than one thousand years for Christianity to jump from Europe and Africa to the Americas, it took another thousand to fully penetrate into Asia. In China today, there are estimated to be more Christians quietly living their faith than there are people living in the United States.
Christianity is a thoroughly unique religion anchored in a man, not a place. Muslims have Mecca. Jews have Jerusalem. Hindus have Badrinath. The Christian has Christ. He flows, unmoored from geography, disrupting civilization. The communists feared the Pope. The Chinese fear the quiet Christian. They fear the quiet Christian, because the Faith of Christ the Lord transforms lives.
Okay, I’m going to quit preaching and go to meddling. When the world co-opts Christianity, the Faith dies. Christian denominations that reject biblical sexual ethics and the authenticity of the physical resurrection of Christ without exception are in decline. Statistically, based on its rate of decline, the last Episcopalian has already been born in the United States. Other progressive mainline denominations are not far behind. Liberal theology has become a gateway to atheism, allowing the weak in faith a soft landing into the world on their way to Judgment Day. Those rejecting this progressivism inevitably leave the dying churches and help build stronger Christian institutions. The conservative Anglican Church in America, with its refugees from the liberal Episcopal Church, is proof of this. So too are the new conservative Methodists fleeing the progressive bishops of the United Methodist Church. Instead of man pruning the church through persecution making it stronger, God uses liberal theology to prune the church of heresy.
In a similar fashion, those multiple Baptist groupings that eagerly embrace liberal concepts while rejecting their moorings to the Word of God are astonished that they cease growing. People are deserting the buildings that once housed vibrant congregations that sought the glory of the Risen Christ. These buildings are being transformed into religious mausoleums filled with the decaying husks of dead theology that reminds everyone who sees them that a living Faith was once practised there; but all that now remains is a parched, stale, desiccated husk bearing the stench of death.
Those churches that thought that a crowd was the same as a church, learn too late that when we bring the world into the church, spiritual vitality flees. Receiving as members anyone who wishes to unite without demanding biblical baptism as believers or without holding one another to the biblical standard is a recipe for spiritual death. Thinking that substituting second-rate musical entertainment for the preaching of the Word will build strong saints is folly-wide-the-mark. Depreciating fervent prayer and the reading of the Word while attempting to have more coffee time can never address the deficits of the human heart.
Here is the wonderful truth concerning the Faith of Christ the Lord: wherever the Saviour reigns, lives are transformed. And though some imagine that by being progressive and turning from the simple faith in the Risen Lord of Glory they are showing their superior intellect, the Faith seeps out and touches some. Perhaps people look down upon the gentle, quiet believers gathered in a barrio in the Philippines as insignificant and uninspiring, or perhaps they despise those saints united to worship in a modest house in Pakistan or in a quiet grove on the outskirts of an Indian city, or that noisy assembly of worshippers of the Risen Christ gathered under a thatched roof on the African plains, but there is power in those gatherings—power that once marked the Christians gathered in Canada and the United States. You see, the power of the Faith is not seen in towering spires or padded pews, but in transformed lives. And all this began in a sheep cote in Judean hills overlooking Bethlehem almost two thousand years ago.
In the moments afforded by our worship this day, I want to explore the event that brought the Son of God to earth. I want us to remember together the event that initiated our joy which is expressed so vibrantly in this Christmas observance. I am convinced that you and I will have a Merry Christmas only if we embrace the One Whom the Father sent to provide redemption for our fallen world. I am certain that only if we know this One Who was born to a virgin barely into her teen years can we have peace and life. Amen.
A DISASTROUS START TO A LIFE TOGETHER — Nothing was ideal for the young couple that began life together. The marriage of Mary and Joseph was arranged by their parents, as would have been common in that far distant day. The time for the formalities of their being united was set by others; they had little say in the matter. She didn’t have dreams of planning precisely how the ceremony was to be conducted; that was dictated by the expectations of the community and the decision of the parents.
They young couple accepted the wisdom of their parents, just as they accepted that their parents were seeking what was best for them, what would give them the best possible advantage in beginning life together. Thus, they didn’t rebel, arguing that they wanted what they wanted, or that their parents didn’t know what they were doing. There was no foot stomping and demands that things be done as they wanted.
But all those wonderful plans that their parents had made were tossed aside when God intervened. The story has been told so often that we are assured that we know what happened. Doctor Luke writes, “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’
“And Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’
“And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” [LUKE 1:26-35].
Wow! Talk about throwing a wrench into the works! Not even married. Never having slept with her fiancé. And now she was to be pregnant? How would she explain this turn of events? What was worse, where was Joseph in all this? He wasn’t even consulted as to how he would feel. Thank you for asking. Matthew provides us with the insight we need in order to see this change of plans from Joseph’s perspective.
The first Gospel informs us, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel’
(which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus” [MATTHEW 1:18-25].
So, there would be no wedding ceremony. No torchlight parade when the bridegroom would go to receive his bride, no gathering of the wedding party at the groom’s house, no seven days of wedding festivities—there would be nothing near a public recognition that Mary and Joseph were husband and wife. They would simply begin living together without the benefit of the blessing conferred by the community. There was no hiding the fact that Mary was with child, and that without open, public ceremony to celebrate the joyous occasion. There was just an acknowledgement of the obvious fact that she was pregnant. People would be left to speculate as to the circumstances, and she would bear shame before the community ever after.
I wouldn’t deliberately offend tradition, but God did. I wouldn’t allow the fate of all history to rest on a teenage girl, but God allowed history to rest on a child who was no older than twelve or thirteen years old. I wouldn’t go out of my way to make the start of life for my child as difficult as possible, but God did. I wouldn’t set the stage so that my Son would be ridiculed as an illegitimate child right up to His death, but that was what happened in the life of the Son of God. I wouldn’t arrange matters so that people could snicker behind the backs of Joseph and Mary at their supposed degeneracy, but God did.
Existence was hard enough in that ancient day without the addition of struggling while trying to make a life and raise children without the added burden of gossip about my moral standards or gossip that sullied the character of my child. If I was God, surely I would have arranged things differently. But then, I’m not God. There must be a reason the Father chose to make this arrangement for His Son to enter into this life.
I can’t know all that lay within the wisdom of the Father, but I can read the Word and perhaps discern some of the reason that lay behind His choice in this matter. Perhaps you will recall an incident that occurred during the ministry Jesus conducted in Judea. He was compelled to rebuke the religious leaders to point out their prejudice. Jesus said, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds” [MATTHEW 11:18-19].
Did you see that charge? Jesus was charged with having been a friend of tax collectors and sinners! This was apparently an ongoing problem for the religious leaders. Elsewhere, we read, “The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them’” [LUKE 15:1-2]. How shocking! How gauche!
We will benefit from recalling the time Jesus entered the home of a tax collector. Those who witnessed what Jesus was doing were scandalised. Here is the account as Doctor Luke recorded it. “[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.’ So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner’” [LUKE 19:1-7].
At one point during His ministry in Judea, Jesus delivered a parable, adding a pointed commentary so no one would miss what He was saying. We need to hear what He said at that time. This is the parable and Jesus’ commentary as Matthew recorded it. “‘What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ”Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” And he answered, “I will not,” but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, “I go, sir,” but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him’” [MATTHEW 21:28-32].
When we consider the events recorded in our text, as well as events in the various other portions of the Word we have just reviewed, it becomes evident that God is quite deliberate in choosing to work in the lives of those whom the world sees as unfit to speak on His behalf. God does this to ensure that He receives the glory which is His due. Glory belongs to God, and not to mere mortals; God is to be glorified, not people. Isn’t that the message we discover as the Apostle speaks of His own experiences?
Paul testified, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” [2 CORINTHIANS 12:2-10].
It is an easy thing to say that we are content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; it is quite another thing to actually live with such conditions. The Apostle challenges us who are followers of Christ when he writes, “Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” [1 CORINTHIANS 1:26-31].
It matters not what I imagine I have accomplished; what matters is what the Lord has accomplished through me. And He works through my life as I divest myself of thoughts of personal aggrandisement so that He receives the glory. The Lord works in the humble soul that exalts Him as God. God delights to reveal His power in those who are humble enough to accept that He is God, and that they are not. In this context, let us recall the words God spoke through His Prophet, saying,
“Thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
‘I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”
[ISAIAH 57:15]
God works in the weakness of people, accomplishing His greatest work in those whom we imagine to be least capable. God does this so that He alone receives the glory, rather than the individual being glorified. God is warning us to avoid the guilt of “stolen glory.” Recall how God, through Isaiah has said,
“I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.”
[ISAIAH 42:8]
Nevertheless, it is comforting to know that God is at work in your life, especially if you are small enough to allow Him to be God!
Surely, this truth of God’s work in the life of the humble is evident as we see this revealed in the 138TH PSALM. That Psalm teaches us,
“Though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly,
but the haughty he knows from afar.”
[PSALM 138:6]
Dear people, God works in our lives as we humble ourselves and permit Him to do what only He can do. God is always working in the life of His humble servant. And He is working in your life even now as you humble yourself under His mighty hand. Amen.
A DIVINE INTERVENTION TO REDEEM THE SITUATION — At Christmas, preachers tell again the old, familiar story of how God’s own Son was born to a virgin. Everyone in our nation has likely heard the story at some point, but churches nevertheless expect their pastors to again focus our attention on the story of how God intervened in history. And few preachers would dare resist meeting the expectation of the people who are seated in the pews. Each preacher will attempt to address the coming of the Son of God from their own perspective. Some will speak of the benefits of Jesus’ coming, and there are truly rich blessings because He has come the first time. Others will focus on the necessity of Jesus’ coming, and without question, there was a great need for the Son of God to come. Had He not come, we would have been left in the darkness of our broken condition.
The world was ensnared in chains of darkness. No prophet had been raised up for centuries. Though the nation of Israel had been appointed to be a light to the Gentiles, they bumbled along to perform their religious rites as though they were worshipping. They did this even as they wrapped their robes tightly about themselves while turning from us Gentiles as though we were vile, loathsome creatures that would contaminate Jewish sensibilities. Rather than being heralds of God’s grace and mercy, the people who were called by God’s Name were themselves contaminated and soiled. And the greater tragedy was that they were unwilling to recognise their own fallen condition.
To be sure, the Gentile world was groping in the darkness of sin. There is nothing in the history of our ancestors to give us eternal pride. As Paul states, we were “without hope and without God in the world” [EPHESIANS 2:12b CSB]. Our ancestors groped in the darkness, never recognising the goodness and the grace of the Living God.
What is too often forgotten, or perhaps even worse, what is too often ignored, is that throughout the dark night of the world’s envelopment in darkness, God was at work. Our Lord has testified, “My Father is working until now, and I am working” [JOHN 5:17]. God has always been working to bring life to those whom He has called, and He was at work almost two millennia past. What is heartening in knowing that God has worked throughout the history of the world is that God is working now! God is at work even in our world today. We only become aware that He is working when we witness His grace breaking through the dimness that obscures our sight. At such times, the brilliance of God’s grace flashes, imprinting the knowledge of God and His mercy on the consciousness of all mankind. It doesn’t mean that the most of mankind turn from their self-centred pursuits to embrace the glory of the Lord God, but it does mean that the world cannot plead ignorance of God or of His righteous demands of people.
You may recall the Apostle Paul’s reference to these truths as he reviews what was taking place when God broke through the darkness of sinful night to present His Son. Writing to the churches located in the Roman Province of Galatia, Paul has written, “Before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
“I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father’” [GALATIANS 3:23-4:6]!
Scope in on that fourth verse of the fourth chapter. Note the way in which Paul sets up the verse: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman.” There was religion in the world, but people were locked into looking to the regulations such as those presented in the Law as the means of approaching God. Suddenly, the freedom that can only come from Him Who gives freedom was unleashed on a world trapped in dark bondage. God invaded history, something He had every right to do since He created history, with the sole purpose of redeeming people so that they might ever after be known as sons of God.
You, if you have received the forgiveness of sin that is extended to all who receive the free gift that God has offered, are now a son of God. I understand that it is easy for some to be offended because they are hung up on their sex, and they wonder why they can’t be a daughter of God. They would argue that as a daughter of God they are just as good as any son of God. The point Scripture is making has nothing to do with your sex. Sexual distinction is a feature of this dying age, and not a feature of eternity. The Apostle is specifically pointing out that as a “son of God” you have an inheritance. We are so foolish, clinging to conditions that are associated with this fallen world, not understanding the teaching of the Master.
Do you not recall how our Lord has taught all who are willing to hear what He says, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him” [LUKE 20:34-38].
If you are redeemed, if you have received God’s gift of life, you are a son of God, you have an inheritance. And this inheritance is yours because of what God accomplished through sending His Son to present His life as an atonement for sin. Therefore, Scripture presents the promise of God, summarised when the Apostle writes, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” [ROMANS 10:9-10].
You see, the Son of God was presented for one great purpose, and that was to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin. Christmas is special because it is a reminder that God gave a gift so wonderful that no mere mortal could ever fully comprehend the value of what was given. God gave His Son for all mankind. Surely this is what is meant when we read, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” [JOHN 3:16].
What a contrast between what once was the reality that describes each follower of Christ, and what has been given to us in Christ as the Apostle writes in ROMANS 5:12-21. “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
“But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Once we were trapped in sin, groping in the darkness and our eyes blinded to the grace of God. Now we who have believed walk in the light of His grace and rejoice in His mercy. Once we were under condemnation as sinners. Now, in Christ, we are free. Once we were dead in trespasses and sin. Now, as His redeemed people, we are alive in Christ Jesus the Lord.
OUR CALL TO ACCEPT GOD’S GIFT — It is Christmas Day, and I could wish that it was possible to give every individual who hears my voice or each individual who reads these words, a priceless gift in honour of the first coming of our Lord. It is not possible that I could give a physical gift, but I can give a tangible gift, nevertheless. To each one that is yet outside the grace of our God, I can offer you the free gift that God alone can give. To each one that is now safely within the love of God as presented in Christ Jesus the Lord, I can give the gift of encouragement and eternal hope.
Christ the Lord extends to each person this offer of a priceless gift. It is free, but it is not cheap. The Saviour offers, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” [ROMANS 6:23]. Christmas is not about giving gifts, though that is a joyous opportunity to bless others; Christmas centres around receiving the priceless gift of life that is extended to all through Christ the Lord. Christmas is not about gathering with family to watch a parade and to feast on a table groaning with the fruits of the land, though that is always an occasion to celebrate. Christmas centres around the knowledge of God’s love revealed for all who believe.
Wherever the Faith is found, and where that Faith is embraced, lives are transformed. Because Christ was born to a virgin, history is at an end. Light broke forth in Bethlehem, and that light cannot be contained. Light is in the world now, shaping the world, and will be made more full and increasingly real. It is as the Apostle of Love has written, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” [JOHN 3:19-21]. Christ has come, and He will return. It is the promise of this season, and every tear will be dried and all things will be made new. Merry Christmas. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Adapted from Erick Erickson, “The Beginning of the End,” Townhall, Dec 24, 2021, https://townhall.com/columnists/erickerickson/2021/12/24/the-beginning-of-the-end-n2601037, accessed 25 December 2021
