In Jesus Holy Name December 24, 2022
Text: Matthew 1:20b-23 Christmas Eve - Redeemer
“Magic, Mystery, Miracle”
Christmas is here. I’m sure you went through rolls of scotch tape in order to decorate all the Christmas gifts. Your scotch tape was probably made by the 3M Company. 3M makes over 60,00 different products. Besides adhesive tape, 3M makes audio-visual equipment and media, medical and dental products, reflective coatings and Post-It Notes. Leonard Sweet suggests that we give our family and friends the real “3 M" Christmas. The real 3M Christmas is one of Magic, Mystery, and Miracle.
Christmas is here. “Immanuel, God with us.” In the manger at Bethlehem we behold the mystery of God “with us”. Leonard Sweet suggests that we give our family and friends the “3 M’s of Christmas. Magic, Mystery, Miracle. (Leonard Sweet, Len talk 144 YouTube)
Christmas season is like riding on a “magic” carpet. We are flying towards a destination that brings joy. Advent has been a time of waiting, a time of deferred gratification. We have been traveling towards Christmas. It is here. We’ve been watching the Christmas lights, inside and outside our homes. Letters have been written, as we hope for a specific gift to appear under the Christmas tree. We anticipate Christmas carols, special fudge, special meals, tamales, special cakes, Christmas cookies, peppermint pretzels, that only come this time of the year. Our taste buds wait for the magic on our tongues.
The mystery of Christmas is the greatest mystery in all of history. We celebrate Immanuel with us. The Divine Creator, the “Logos”, the Intelligent Designer, Christmas is the celebration of Immanuel, God with us found in the manger.
In a way I feel sorry for Mariah Carey. At the same time, she becomes the most loved and most hated person at Christmas. She has the #1 Christmas song of all time. You can’t get the most popular song out of your head. “All I want for Christmas is you.” It’s a relationship. Christmas is about the most important of all relationships, “God with us.”
J.I. Packer, Christian Theologian writes: “The Almighty (God) appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.”
This is the “magic, and mystery, and miracle” of Christmas. Some will say: “I can not accept the miracle.” Really? You drop a tiny seed into the soil, and in a few weeks, with a little sunshine and water you have a full grown radish!! The white and pink flesh, we eat and enjoy, yet no one unravels the mysterious journey from the seed bag into the darkness of the ground to the table. So it is with the miracle of Christmas… God with us. The infant in a manger, later to be buried in the darkness of the tomb, only to be raised in glorious light. God with us. “Joseph, you shall name the baby Jesus for He will save His people from their sins.”
In our society, there are two great religious holidays—Christmas and Easter. The green wreath of Christmas is juxtaposed to the Good Friday wreath of thorns.
We believe that the “Intelligent Designer of the Universe” invaded our world in
the form of a tiny baby boy. That’s a stunning thought, if you think about it, which
we rarely do. We sing, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the Incarnate Deity,” without pondering what those words mean. It’s easier to sing about Christmas than to ask what it’s all about. To ask what Christmas all is about is to ask about the meaning of the crown of thorns and the wood of the cross.
“The wood of the cradle without the wood of the cross misses the true meaning of Christmas.” “Bethlehem and Golgotha, the Manger and the Cross, the birth and the death of Jesus must always be seen together, if the real Christmas is to survive. “O holy Child of Bethlehem cast out our sin.” That is why Jesus was born.
Christmas is the most exciting season of the year. It’s the time when we gather with family and friends. We sing. We celebrate. We laugh. We exchange presents. For children and most adults Christmas is the climax of the whole year.
And Easter? For most people it’s just another long weekend, a break in the dreary stretch between Christmas and summer vacation
It is the great miracle of the resurrection of Jesus from death and the grave on Easter that gives Christmas its true meaning. If Easter had not happened, Christmas would have no meaning. If Easter had not happened, Christmas would be nothing more than a sweet-sounding fable. If Easter is not true, then Christmas is only the story of an obscure baby born in an out-of-the-way town in a forgotten land 2000 years ago. April 1995 Ken Prichard What Difference does Easter Make?
I’m pointing out that we believe something extraordinary about one particular baby, born in one particular place, Bethlehem to a particular set of parents, Mary and Joseph. That baby—and no other baby—was God, the Creator of the Universe, born in human flesh.
When it comes to Christmas, we confess that behind the carols and candy, behind the decorations and the parties, behind all the concerts and all the sermons, behind all of it lies an undeniable historical truth: that just over 2000 years ago Creator of the Universe, the “Logos”, became a human being in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We not only believe that. We have staked our lives upon it.
This birth of Jesus in Bethlehem is the hinge point of history. If Jesus isn’t your Savior, Christmas isn’t really Christmas to you. It’s just a fun holiday.
As human beings our heart longs for peace and harmony. We seek peace with our Creator because we know we have broken ethics, broken commandments and these realities keep us alienated from one another and our Creator.
Reconciliation is what we want. Reconciliation means friendship is restored. The infant placed in the cradle, who was given the name Jesus. He is the same who was crucified on the cross. His nail pierced hands and his death paid the price for our reconciliation. He restores our lost friendship with our Creator. And so we sing “Hark the herald angels sing, God and sinners reconciled.”
The Bible tells us that the wrath of God against sin was placed on Jesus at the cross. He became our substitute. When Jesus died on the cross God transferred all of our broken commandments, to one on the wooden cross. His name was Jesus. He died and was buried, but three days later, He rose from the dead.
If Jesus is still in the tomb, then we are still in our sins Without Easter, Good Friday isn’t good. And Christmas could never be enjoyed.
The wooden manger is as dangerous as a wooden cross. It is dangerous because you can’t put one on government property (or in almost any public place) these days. Someone is almost certainly to be offended. But the real problem with the wooden manger in which the holy child was placed is that it challenges the hearts of men and women to believe in God who was born in Bethlehem, died on a wooden cross and then rose from death.
Today the culture still challenges the mystery of the manger and the wooden cross. The cosmic battle between God and Satan over the control of the human heart is on display in the public square where there is no room for the wooden manger surrounded by statues of Mary, Joseph, cows, sheep and donkeys.
Yet Christmas remains the greatest story ever told. It is a story which begins in the Garden of Eden, the kind of perfect place only a perfect God with an overwhelming love for His children can create. Tragically, the Lord’s love was not returned with the same intensity it was given. When seductive suggestions were made to our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, they thought they could become their own “god” of their world and so they rejected the Creator of the Universe.
As they had been warned, at that moment everything changed. The peace and harmony in all of creation was disrupted. They would never again be able to restore it. Pain, sorrow, heartbreak found anew home, and death began to stalk the globe. The new genetic code of selfishness was passed on to all of us. Selfishness never ends well. Punishment, self-inflicted, follows every human being with no hope of parole. Temporal and eternal death is now our failed future.
Something special happened that first Christmas. The Creator of the Universe decided to write another story, a story with a different ending. The story called for death, but now the death sentence would fall upon the Creator’s very own Son. Through history the Creator promised how it would be. His son would be born in Bethlehem to a virgin named Mary. He would keep God’s laws perfectly, resist temptation, and serve as a perfect substitute. For hundreds and hundreds of years that promise was explained. On the world stage even Caesar and King Herod became players used by the Creator of the Universe to seek and save you and me.
The true hope of the human heart is to know our eternal destiny. The true hope of the human heart is to have peace with God. When our brain waves cease. And they will. When our heart stops beating. And it will. Is there any hope beyond the pretty boxes under your tree? Yes. The words of the angel remain true: “I have good news of great joy… a Savior has been born for you.” “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to our newborn king, Jesus our Immanuel.”
Tis the Season to rejoice and sing. Amen.
(note I added a Christmas wreath juxtaposed to a crown of thorns. )
