The ‘Grinch’ is Dead!
12/17/00
Video: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
I’ve got a confession to make this morning…
A fact, that up to this pt. only my wife knew about…
It’s not a part of my history that I am necc. proud of…but… it’s something I feel I need to make public at this time…
I…I… was a ”CHRISTMAS GRINCH!” (I’m sorry.)
I admit… I didn’t necc. like Christmas. Oh, there was nothing about it’s meaning that bothered me… ( I rejoiced in the fact that Christmas celebrated the birth of my Lord and Savior)…
But… it was all the paraphernalia that went along with it that I despised!
The commercialism… the Santa’s taking pict. with awe struck kids, dressed in fake beards, cheap crushed velvet suits & working in every mall. (you’d think kids would figure it out!)…
It was the onslaught of children’s specials… all the way from “Frosty the Snowman” (which made me nauseous) - to “Bart Simpsons Christmas Special” (a total mockery!)….
ALL of which totally and completely missed the real significance of Christmas. It bothered me!
It bugged me that stores skipped Thanksgiving in order to “cash in” on the early Christmas shoppers.
I had gotten to the point that even the familiar Christmas songs bored me. They had lost their meaning after years of repetition.
Again… I am ashamed, and embarrassed by my SOURPUSS Attitude! And I make no excuses for it… but to me Christmas had become more of a hindrance than a time of celebration. It rep. an added burden to my already busy schedule.
Looking back in retrospect, there were times when I actually began to get glimpses of my deplorable condition… of just how far I had strayed…
For instance, when I watched the Dr. Suess special, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”… I rooted for the Grinch! With each passing year, I began to more and more resemble his outlook.
Like that ‘grinch’, my heart began to shrink…
“The grinch hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season, and no one quite knew the reason,
It could be perhaps his shoes were too tight. It could be, his head wasn’t screwed on just right…
But I think the most likely reason of all, was that his heart was two sizes too small!”
Like the ‘grinch’, all the hoopla and noise surrounding the Christmas season, served to drown out the real meaning of the whole event.
“As they danced with their ging-tinglers tied to their heels, blowing their floo-floobaas and tar-tinklers, they slam their har-hoopers, they bang their gar-ginkers.
The ‘who’s’ young and old will come to a feast, they’ll feast and they’ll feast…
Feast on who-pudding and roast beast! Roast beast is a feast I can’t stand in the least!”
But what really shocked me into the realization of my true & awful condition was when my wife began singing… to ME!
You’re a mean one… Mr. Grinch! You really are a heel!
You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel. Mr. Grinch… you’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel!
You’re a foul one… Mr. Grinch! You’re a nasty wasty skunk,You’re heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk… Mr. Grinch…the 3 words that best describe you are as follows…(and I quote)
STINK…. STANK…. STUNK!
Well, that’s enough to get anyone’s attention… and it got mine!
I had unconsciously allowed the world (and Satan) to rob me of any Christmas joy. I was so hung up on the worlds mis-representation of Christmas… that it had infected my own celebration of Christ’s birth.
Now as hard as it is to confess to you this morning my ‘grinchy, grouchy,” attitude… I do it because perhaps, (just maybe) there are some other “grinches” present in this congregation this morning.
And maybe God can use my testimony to help you too change your ways…
Let me give you some of the symptoms of this condition…
1. A generally critical and pessimistic spirit towards the whole holiday season, particularly aimed at commercialism.
2. A stingy, self directed attitude, that asks, “What has Christmas ever done for me?”
3. An overall grouchiness and crochyness… with a special distaste for trimming trees, hanging outdoor lights and attending Cantata’s.
4. A loss of the newness and excitement assoc. with Christ’s birth.
5. A heavy sigh when you think of the hectic sched. you have to endure…followed by a sigh of relief when it’s all over with!
Anybody here like that? Now, maybe you’re not humming the “Grinch Song”… but if you were to ask people around you, (your wife, husband, kids)… YOU’RE A GRINCH!
And not only are you miserable… but you are making Christmas miserable for anyone assoc. with you!
As I said at the beginning of today’s message, “ I WAS a Christmas Grinch…”
But I want to tell you… the Grinch is DEAD in my life!! I have been freed from the bondage and tyranny of this holiday disease!
I have been healed to the pt. that God is giving me a new awareness every year of what Christmas truly means, and how to approach the Christmas season without being soured by the worlds misguided attempts at celebrating it.
Let me share with you my road to recovery…(and I didn’t even have to join a ‘Grinches Anonymous’ group to do it!)
Amazingly enough, the cure began as I re-read the original Christmas story, as found in the gospel of Luke.
But this time I read it slowly, prayerfully, methodically with attention to detail. And as I read…certain words caught my attention.
Words that best expressed and captured the emotions of those people who actually experienced 1st hand that glorious moment in history when God became man and visited planet earth.
I want you to read with me a section from the Christmas story found in Lk.2:8-19, but this time I want you to read it with your eyes and ears open.
Put yourself in the shoes (excuse me, ‘sandals’) of the shepherds… imagine the scenery and the feelings you might have exper. if you had a chance to change places with them…
Read Luke 2:8-20
The last 3 vs. of this passage are ‘pregnant’ with emotion and feeling. And, if you are to recover from ‘grinchdom’, you need to first of all recapture the joy and the emotions that these people felt.
And the first word I want you to turn your attention to is the word found in vs. 18…
1. WONDER
Read vs. 18
The L.B. uses the term, ‘astonishment’.
You know, probably the worst sin that we commit during Christmas as people living in the 20th century, is that we have lost our sense of ‘wonder and amazement’.
I mean, when was the last time you were ‘amazed’ by the events surrounding the birth of Christ? (been a while? Ever?)Well, these people were truly amazed!
You know, in a society that daily witnesses technological advances that defy the imagination… who view a launch of the Space Shuttle as pretty common place…it’s pretty hard to be amazed by anything anymore!
I think the most amazed my kids have gotten recently is when I told them that when I was a kid… we didn’t have stores like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.
They asked, “Well, where did you get your Sega games and movie video’s?”
I said, “We didn’t! We just watched them in the theater, and the only video games we played were in an arcade” WOW!!!
It’s pretty hard to ‘amaze’ anybody these days!
But… these people, when they heard the shepherds story, were ‘amazed!”
And it wasn’t because they were primitive and childishly naïve …it was because what they had just heard was truly amazing!
Almost unbelievable! And listen… if it happened today, (computer tech. or not…) we would be as astonished and dumbfounded as they were! I mean, ‘virgins’ don’t have babies that often!
In fact, of the estimated 60 billion people that have ever been born…its only happened once!
Liberal scholars have tried to dismiss the virgin birth on the grounds that it is ‘biologically impossible’. Well, of course it’s impossible! Otherwise it wouldn’t be a sign, as the prophet Isaiah predicted in Isa. 7:14…
Read Isa.7:14
A child being conceived without a human father is impossible…But it’s only impossible from a human perspective…(let’s remember that) to God it’s completely possible! To God… it’s a ‘walk in the park’!
Think of it… another dead night in a dreary little ‘rut’ in the road called ‘Bethlehem’.
Nothing ever happened in Bethlehem! It was like a lot of little towns around here… the biggest thing to happen in years would have been this census that Caesar was demanding.
People were coming in by the droves and the local inn was full for the first time in a long time!
And then out of nowhere these shepherds start grabbing anybody and everybody they can, shouting in the streets that …
1st, they had seen an army of heavenly angels light up the sky, telling that the Messiah was born…
2nd, that He was born in THEIR little town!… In fact… “at this very moment, he’s out back of the inn with the animals…laying in a COW TROUGH!”
We like to call it a “manger”, because it sounds more quaint and romantic that way, but in reality a manger is nothing more than a trough where cows stick their noses and chew.
I don’t know the last time you took a good look at a cow, but from my observation… most cows need an antihistamine! This wasn’t exactly the most sanitary place to be born! Pretty gross in fact!
The idea that the Messiah was born in a barn was almost too much to swallow all at once! And the news shot through the town like wildfire! “Was it a hoax, or could it be true?”
Their reaction must have been like the worlds reaction a few years ago when some Russian children reported that a U.F.O. had actually landed on Russian soil and had made contact with humans!
The world waited on ‘pins and needles’, for confirmation. Just the ‘possibility’ of aliens landing on earth got world-wide attention!
As you’ve probably already figured out, it all proved to be a big hoax… but listen… this “Alien invasion” of 2000 yrs. ago checked out!
It was true! And it was shocking in it’s reality!
Think of it…the most revolutionary event in all of human history…Yet, we’ve heard about it so much that it doesn’t even register with us any more!
The bible claims that GOD… the same One who created everything in the universe in all its dazzling array & complexity… the One that all of mankind instinctively knows exists…actually showed up! Here! ON PLANET EARTH!
Now don’t just look at me yawn and say, “Ho hum…what’s new?”
Listen to what we Christians are claiming happened!….
The eternal, almighty God, who can throw entire star systems around like so many Lego blocks… shows up as a helpless, weakling BABY!
Filling the world… He lies in a manger!
Ruler of the galaxies… He nurses at His mothers bosom!
Unspeakably wise… all He can say is ‘gaa-gaa-goo-gaa”!
This is mind-boggling! “Amazing”? That seems like an understatement!
When this fantastic reality began to dawn on me… my heart began to melt, as an almost holy awe gripped me!
People that listened to the shepherds excitement thought it must be a hoax. But it’s NOT a hoax! It’s not some far fetched concoction of somebody’s overzealous imagination… it really did happen!
And the fact that it happened over 2000 yrs. ago now, doesn’t change the shocking nature of the shepherds announcement in the least!
I guess I had let the cheap tinsel, and shoddy announcements of the “pre-Christmas” bargain sales, dull my senses to the greatest announcement of all time!
If we’re going to recapture the wonder and excitement of Christmas, we need to listen again to the angels as they cry out with all the force that an ‘angelic choir’ can muster….( which is considerable!)
“Glory to God in the highest! And on earth, peace to all men on whom His favor rests!”
God has come to earth! And He’s come with the solution to everyman’s problems, everymans pain, everymans suffering…
He’s come with the ‘antidote’ for the sin that has infected every one of our souls. Nothing less than God’s own life blood could pay the incredible debt that our sins have run up.
It was the only way out for mankind. If there had been any other way, God would have done it… but this was it! God DID come to earth clothed in a body of flesh.
And because He became like me…I can become more like Him! It really is an amazing announcement when you think about it, and it’s ramifications are mind-boggling!
My heart grew a few sizes larger!
The next word that jumped out at me as I put myself in the place of the 1st Christmas celebrants is the word….
2. WITHDRAWAL
Most of the time we see the word ‘withdrawal’ in a negative sense. But I think if we are really going to regain the joy of the true Christmas, there needs to be a time of withdrawal. I time to draw off to the side and just take it all in.
I see this in the words of vs. 19, as the bible records Mary’s actions… Read vs. 19
I had pretty much ignored this word in my past Christmas’.
As I said last week, to ‘ponder’ something, means to meditate on it. To mull it over in your mind. To reflect on how it affects you personally.
With the hassle and the hustle-bustle of Christmas… who has time for quiet reflection for goodness sake?
Not me! I’m a busy pastor! There are sermons to pump out, programs to run, needs to be met! I was so busy MAKING Christmas happen to stop and ‘experience’ it!
But I made an interesting discovery… the more I worked at Christmas, and the less time I spent ‘pondering’ it… the more empty the whole thing got.
In effect, I had changed a “HOLY” day, into a ‘Holiday’! And you know what? That’s a dangerous transition. Because eventually it ends up being a very ‘hollow’ day!
The world has done that to the pt. that now I hear people continually referring to this mysterious, mystical sort of “spirit of Christmas”.
Christmas for so many people is this totally nebulous, ‘feeling’ you’re supposed to get once a year that makes you want to be nice, cheerful, happy and generous!
I know a guy who said every year, when he went over to his parents house, all the relatives would gather together and at a certain point, his older sister would announce for everyone to hear… “Alright everybody, now it’s time to have Christmas!”
What she meant by that was that, Christmas was this short 15 minute period, where everybody attacks the presents under the tree, and in this flurry of wrapping paper and bows… they find out what Santa brought them.
I thought, what a SHAM! By forgetting, (or totally ignoring) the gift that God gave us in Jesus Christ… we’ve reduced Christmas to a gift exchange.
If that’s all it is… then let’s stop calling it Christ-mas, and start calling it “Toy Day”, or “Santa Day”, or something!
Christmas is a day for ‘pondering’ the miracle of Christ. A day for quiet reflection. A day of treasured memories….
The bible says that, “Mary treasured these things in her heart…”
What things? All the events and circumstances of her life. After having four children ourselves, I’ve noticed that women get real sentimental and thoughtful at the birth of their child.
Mary wasn’t any different. Thoughts and feelings flooded Mary’s heart and mind during this time… She marveled at how God had chosen her, of all women to give birth to this child.
She meditated on the uniqueness of her Childs conception… I’m sure she thought about the timing of Caesers decree, that would bring them to this place at this time.
She no doubt remembered some of the many 100’s of prophesies about her child… And I’m sure she thought about her child’s ominous future… what his life and death would be like.
As Mary lay there listening to the sweet breathing of her newborn child, she couldn’t help but ponder over the profound effect that this ONE child would have on all mankind!
These are the same things we ought to take time out to ponder during this time of year.
Sometime today or tomorrow, you ought to withdraw for a few moments, find a quiet place, all alone, and just spend some time reflecting for a while on what all this means to YOU… personally.
How has the birth, life, death and ressur. of Jesus changed your life?
If you’re not a Christian this morning, you should realize how much more Christmas would mean to you, if you experienced first hand the fulfillment that a relationship with Jesus Christ can bring you.
The mystical “spirit” of Christmas isn’t mystical at all! It’s the HOLY SPIRIT of God, that fills you when you receive Christ as your Savior!
The Good News of Christmas is that….
Not only did Christ come to live ‘with’ us… He has come to live ‘in’ us! Thru the Holy Spirit… it’s God actually dwelling in us, that gives us the power to live the Christian life, to overcome our weaknesses.
Personally, I even began to ‘ponder’, some of those old boring hymns that I’d sung every year, without ever really listening to the words. Know what? I found out they were pretty good!
Listen to this…
“No more let sin and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found”.
Ever hear that? I didn’t know those words were in “Joy to the World! That Jesus has come to ‘reverse the curse’, that Adam started and we’ve continued.
How about this one…
“And ye beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way, with painful step and slow.
Look up! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing,
Oh, rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing!”
Anybody know from what song those words come from?
Right out of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”!
That’s good stuff! That’s news I can use! There’s a lot of hope there!
See… if you ‘blitz’ through the Christmas season, without so much as giving a moment’s thought to what it all means, you may get a lot of presents, eat lots of food, and see lots of friends and relatives… but YOU MISSED CHRISTMAS!
It came upon a midnight clear… and you missed it!
And now for the word that prob. more than any others transformed my attitude towards Christmas…
3. WORSHIP
Read vs. 20… The shepherds worshipped God!
Now, as a kid, I don’t know if it was the emphasis put on opening presents that had laid under the tree for years…
Or whether it was the fact that our family really didn’t go to church, or live the Christian life in the home….
BUT… for some reason, I never got the message that Christmas was a time for praise and worship!
I mean…It just never crossed my mind!
I was involved in all the Christmas plays at school, and I had lots of fun on Christmas, but the idea of worshipping God on this day didn’t seem to fit…and would have even sounded a little bit boring!
Now, paying taxes to the Roman government didn’t exactly put the shepherds in a ‘Praise the Lord’ mood either!
In fact, if anything, previous to the events of that night, they might have been complaining about the low price of sheep wool in the Roman market.
The booming announcement by this imposing form of an angel, and then this army of angels filling the sky, certainly had the desired effect of getting their minds off earthly events.
“A Savior has been born” they said! THE MESSIAH?
Could this be true? Is this really happening?
You’ll notice that when the angels left, we don’t see the shepherds praising and glorifying God yet…no…they were still a little bit skeptical!
“This we have to see with our own eyes! Come on guys, let’s check it out!”
It was only after they had looked into the angels story and confirmed the sign that the baby would be wrapped in receiving blankets, in a manger….
Only after they had actually seen him and spent time talking to Mary and Joseph that they began to believe that this was indeed their long awaited Messiah.
But what was it that convinced them? I’m sure a baby lying in a cows feeding trough was unique enough… but I really think it was the words of Joseph and Mary, as they became the first evangelists… telling the story of how this child had come to be.
It was after spending time with them that they burst out in an explosion of emotion!
It wasn’t until they had personally accepted Him as their Savior that they could cry out , “Hallelujah! Glory to God! P.T.L!
Worship is the natural response to finding the living Lord Jesus! And if you have a hard time worshipping and praising God this Christmas… than maybe you haven’t really found Him!
Listen, when you search for Him with all your heart… you’ll find Him… and you’ll get as excited as those shepherds did that first Christmas night.
He gives new meaning and purpose to life!
When I began to take the emphasis off all the gift receiving… and instead began to focus on the “Giver of all good gifts”…it changed my outlook!
Parents, be sure that your kids know that Christmas is more than just a time to find new toys under the Christmas tree… it’s a time to worship and praise Jesus.
(Read the Christmas story, sing a song, testimony time..)
You know, the ‘Who’s” down in “Whoville”, really had their heads on straight!
Show: “Grinch Who Stole Christmas” Video
“Even without tringlers and fuzzels, pantuka’s and dafflers and wuzzles… Christmas came!It came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without packages boxes or bags.
The grinch with his grinch feet, ice cold in the snow…stood puzzled and puzzling said,“How could it be so?”
He puzzled and puzzed til his puzzler was soft… Then the grinch thought of something he hadn’t before…
Maybe Christmas (he thought) doesn’t come from a store… Christmas perhaps, means a whole lot more!
As I re-read the Christmas story, ‘pondering’, ‘allowing myself to get amazed again’… as I began to really praise and glorify the Lord, who made all this possible and who went through all that trouble (even death on a cross) to save me….
I think my small heart grew 3 sizes that day. I humbled myself and began to pray.
I asked God to forgive me for my pessimistic and judgmental attitude. I asked Him to replace my ‘grinchy’ attitudes with the attitudes of those who witnessed the 1st Christmas.
And since that moment… since I re-enacted the Christmas story in my heart, the commercialism and all the false emphasis put on Christmas by the world… doesn’t effect me anymore like it used to!
I still think a lot of it is a ‘sham’. That a lot of what people call Christmas is an excuse for their own greed….
But you know what? I realized that regardless of what is going on out there… If I want to, and I work at it a little, I’m still able to celebrate Christmas in it’s original, and pure form.
The grinch is dead in our home! How about yours?
ALTAR CALL…
Be honest… have you really spent much time pondering and worshipping this week for His wonderful plan that brought God down to man?
OR…
Are you like so many thousands of ‘worldlings’… who really haven’t given the whole thing a 2nd thought. They’re just going through the motions, singing all the songs, doing all the right things… but missing out on the real thing.
Maybe, under your breath you’re muttering, “I can’t wait until this whole thing is all over with!”
Take it from a former grinch… that’s no way to celebrate the Lords birth!
You are being robbed! Robbed of an opportunity to praise God for the greatest miracle of all time.
Robbed even of the real joy that comes from becoming a Christian, and life it brings.
If you really want to experience the quote, “Spirit of Christmas”… you have to first experience God’s Holy Spirit. You need to be born again. Born from above. You need a spiritual birth!
God has come in order to give you eternal life! (explain)
I read in Matthew 2 that when the wisemen saw the child, “they fell down and worshipped Him… “
I want to give you an opportunity to do that this morning… To fall down and worship the Lord… to bow to Him and to honor Him…
Come forward at foot of the cross….
Sing… “Come Let Us Adore Him”.
