People who Missed Christmas (based on a message by Freddy Fritz here on SermonCentral)
Good EVENING!! And I am glad to see you here. For our meditation, I want to talk about the many people who missed Christmas, not just the service. The idea, of course, is then to see how this reflects to ourselves.
Now everyone with eyes has seen Christmas everywhere since Halloween. But many only pay attention to Christmas because our surroundings say it is the thing to do but ignore the reality of what this day celebrates.
John MacArthur in a sermon mentioned he saw a news story featuring interviews where people offered their opinions on Christmas. Some said Christmas is about Family. Others, it’s a “magical” time for children.
Some said Christmas was a time to celebrate love for one another, some said it was all about the spirit of giving. Some talked about getting time off school or even better, paid time off work. But not one person mentioned that God was born in human flesh.
And that was the main thing that people missed back then as well as today.
Like today, people were busy, consumed with all kinds of things—some important, some not, depends who you ask. But so many missed this great event of history, God born as Man. Looking at why they missed, we see how so many today can miss, and even we ourselves can miss if we let the world distract us.
The first person who missed Christmas was the one we call the Innkeeper. When Mary, who was already into labor, and Joseph came into town, they came to a place, an inn, or maybe a hostile or family home. But the point was, there was no guest room for the couple, and the soon to be born Savior of the World.
It was census time in Bethlehem, and the city was bulging with visitors from all over the country, as all descendants of David were expected to go there. They were put in the stable, because the Innkeeper was too busy to even try to find anyone else to help. The Innkeeper missed Christmas, and the Messiah’s birth, because he was too busy.
There are many today like that Innkeeper. They are consumed with activity—not necessarily sinful activity, but things that keep us busy. Working, shopping, social media, games and other things that compete for attention. And in the clutter of activity, people don’t set aside time for God. And honestly, if you don’t put God in first, He doesn’t fit in with all those other things.
Second, the CITIES of Bethlehem and Jerusalem also missed Christmas.
If you didn’t know, Jerusalem was closer to Bethlehem than we are to Brigantine. Except that Jerusalem was up a hill as well.
When no one in either city paid attention, God picked a group of shepherds to hear the news of Jesus’ birth. Shepherds were among the lowest of all social groups since their occupation kept them from mingling in society and observing the religious feasts. God the Father, in his grace, allowed these social outcasts to be the first to know the Good News, a pattern Christ followed in His preaching, making sure that the poor and sinners had the Good News preached to them.
Our lesson from Luke 2 says that the shepherds told everyone what happened, (like Jesus miracles) and everyone “BOGGLED” at what the shepherds told them. But although “all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said,” we don’t’ hear of anyone going to see what had happened for themselves! They just weren’t interested enough in it.
So we have busy and indifferent. And third, another person who missed that first Christmas was Herod. There are a lot of Herod’s today!
He told the Wise Men that he wanted to “Worship” Jesus in Matthew 2, but in truth he was afraid of this King of the Jews, because he didn’t want competition for his throne, he was King of the Jews, he was king in Jerusalem.
Herod’s problem was authority. Herod felt threatened, his paranoia was legendary—even though Jesus was a baby, and Herod was an old man, he wanted Him dead. When the wise men didn’t return, Herod had all male children under the age of two in Bethlehem murdered.
If Herod had a motto, it was “I must sit on the throne of my life.”
But Herod failed. Not only did he miss that first Christmas, but his rebellion against God failed. And of course, in the end, he died, in one of the most gruesome miserable deaths Imaginable. But that’s another story.
Herod’s fear was that someone else would be on the throne of his life. And there are lots of people who miss God, and miss Christmas, because they hate the idea that anyone or anything would have moral authority over them or tell them that what they want to do is wrong.
Many people are offended that someone other than themselves will tell them their “lifestyle” is wrong, or sinful. Pastors can fit in here too. There are lots of stories about Pastors leaving their faith and therefore their jobs. Would it surprise you that the majority I hear about also involves infidelity in marriage?
Somehow, their realization that they hated the idea of faithfulness in marriage, changed their view on morality. And when confronted on their sin, they just throw God out the window, rather than face their sin and its consequences.
We like to imagine we have no sin, no faults, nothing that needs to be fixed, we are fine the way we are. We don’t want to admit something is wrong with how we live and what we think, because if you do you will make someone else king of our lives, you will make them your judge.
The easiest way so many people miss Christmas is because we don’t WANT to see how much we need it. We don’t want to admit we need Jesus, we are sinners, and we need a Savior.
But no one needs to miss Christmas. Not for busyness, indifference, or the desire to be our own kings. Rather than rejecting Jesus, we need to invite him into our life, and make him first. We do that by repenting, turning away from our sin and unbelief, and receiving Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
Jesus promises that if we confess our sins, He will forgive our sins, change our lives, and give us the greatest gift anyone can ever receive—Himself!
And when you receive Jesus, you become a child of God.
St. John puts it this way at the beginning of his Gospel:
He came to those who were his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who do receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
