The Absurdity of Christmas
Imagine that you are standing out in your driveway marvelling at the fact that it’s the first weekend in December and you haven’t had to shovel yet. In your imagination you do not live in Cape Breton or New York, suddenly an UFO lands in the middle of your front lawn and the door slowly opens and an alien comes down the staircase and comes over and greets you. As you chat about the state of the universe the alien questions you about all the coloured lights that he saw as his ship was landing. You tell him those are Christmas lights and then he wants to know what Christmas is all about. So you begin by telling him that culturally in Canada we believe that Christmas revolves around the visit of a fat man in a red suit. That this man “Santa Claus” lives at the North Pole, which happens to be one of the most inhospitable spots in the world. That at the North Pole Santa has an operation that involves a veritable army of elves who spend the year fashioning toys for children. On Christmas Eve Santa loads enough toys for all the children in the world unto a magic sleigh which is pulled by a team of flying reindeer, the lead of which has a red nose that glows like a flashlight.
Upon command the reindeer take off towing the sleigh into the air and Santa Claus circles the globe landing on the roofs of children’s homes. Once he lands on these roofs he proceeds to slide down the chimney where he places toys underneath a decorated tree, consumes a glass a milk and cookie and returns up the chimney to his sleigh and resumes his trip around the world until toys have been delivered to all the good little boys and girls. Before you can tell him about the 8 white kangaroos that pull the sleigh for the trip over Australia you notice that your new friend is displaying a look of consternation. And he says “Hey give me a break, do you think I just fell off the turnip rocket? What is Christmas really about?”
So you start again: Ok, the true story of Christmas starts 2000 years ago when an angel visited a young virgin in Israel which is a country on the other side of the world. The Angel tells this young girl named, Mary, that she will become pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Another angel appears to Mary’s fiancé a man named Joseph and assures him that Mary has not been unfaithful despite evidence to the contrary. That Angel confirms Mary’s story as to who the father will be, God.
Before the Baby is born Mary and Joseph are required by a governmental order to return to the town of Josephs ancestors, thereby fulfilling a prophecy that had been made a thousand years prior. Once they arrive in the town of Bethlehem, Joseph and his extremely pregnant wife are unable to find accommodations and so they end up spending the night in a stable full of animals. During the night Mary goes into labour and has the child in the stable where he is laid in a manger to sleep.
You notice your new friend’s eyes getter larger and so you rush to finish the story. You tell him how a host of angels, that would be a lot of angels, appear to shepherds who are tending their sheep in nearby field and tell them the son of God has been born in a stable. After receiving directions the shepherds rush off to worship this child.
Meanwhile a number of wise men from a far off land arrive on the scene bearing three gifts for the newborn child. The wise men tell the family that they have been following a star for months and that it finally came to a rest over the town of Bethlehem. However on their way to Bethlehem the wise men had encountered the local governor and informed him of their mission, how they were seeking one who would become the king of the Jews. In a fit of jealousy the Governor ordered all the children in the village under the age of two murdered. Mary and Joseph however were able to escape after being warned of the governor’s plans by yet another an angel.
At that point the Alien interrupts you and says “You know you don’t have to be rude, if you don’t want to tell me about Christmas that’s fine, but stop making up these absurd stories. To be truthful the one about the fat guy in the red suit with the flying reindeer was a lot more believable then the story about the virgin having a baby in a stable.” He then stalks away climbs back into his spaceship and flies away, leaving you wondering about his statement.
And then you realize that he’s probably right, we’ve heard the Christmas story for years, hearing them sing in shopping malls and on the radio, “Angels from the realms of glory” “O Little Town of Bethlehem and “Away in a Manger” until it seems like; yes that could happen. And a miraculous encounter by God and humanity becomes just another story of an everyday event. A number of months ago I purchased a video called the Cotton Patch Gospel and after hearing the Christmas story in a different manner I thought “My, that’s bizarre.” Let’s see what you think. (Clip from “Cotton Patch Gospel” from the end of the opening song until the end of the Herod Story. About 5 minutes.)
Did that seem strange to you? When it stops being told in the same old way it doesn’t seem like an ordinary event any more.
So why did Jesus have to be born that way? I mean nothing like that happened with the birth of Mohammed or Buddha. Moses’ birth was downright boring by comparison so why is the Christmas story so wonderfully strange? Let’s take a look at what makes it so miraculous.
The Virgin Birth Probably if there is one element of the Christmas story that people have the most problem with is the virgin birth. There are even churches, churches that claim to be Christian churches who say this never happened, it was just made up. Makes me wonder if they don’t believe the essentials why do they call themselves churches? Hmmm, enquiring minds want to know.
The virgin birth plays an important part in both accounts of the Christmas story, you remember what Sajonna read earlier Matthew 1:18 Now this is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
Luke tells us the same story in Luke 1:26-27 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.
And if there was any doubt when the angel told Mary she was going to have a baby listen to what Mary says Luke 1:34 “But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin.” As a matter of fact hundreds of years before Mary had been born the Prophet Isaiah made this statement Isaiah 7:14 All right then, the Lord himself will choose the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel—‘God is with us.’ We are talking God coming to earth. How should he come? The same way that you and me and Genghis Khan and Adolph Hitler were conceived and born? The prophet said that God would chose a sign, and he did, he stepped outside the boundary of natural laws that say that in the act of conception a male and a female would each contribute a cell which would become a new person. Instead God did what had never happened before and has not happened since and that is he produced a child with only one cell. You read in the papers about same sex parents, don’t believe it can’t happen. It takes ingredients from a boy and a girl to make a baby.
And so believe it or not a virgin gave birth as strange as that may seem and the child’s name was Jesus. So maybe that isn’t so absurd after all.
You know, I could preach an entire message on the virgin birth, that’s a good idea, I think I’ll do that. Not next week, next week I’m preaching on How the Grinches Stole Christmas, how about the week after that. Done on the 21st I’ll preach a sermon on the virgin birth.
Angels and Shepherds The next thing that seems a little out there are the angels appearing to the shepherds. Luke 2:8-11 That night some shepherds were in the fields outside the village, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terribly frightened, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news of great joy for everyone! The Saviour—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born tonight in Bethlehem, the city of David!
To us there is little significance in the shepherds. And yet in the time of Christ they were the despised ones. The religious elite snubbed them and considered them second-class citizens. You see, no matter how much they loved God the demands of the flock were too much for them to obey all the ceremonial aspects of the law, such as hand washing. And so to these who found it so difficult to keep the law came the announcement of the one who would save them by grace.
Perhaps they were special shepherds, we’re told that just outside of Bethlehem there was a very special flock of sheep, a flock of perfect sheep without spot or blemish that were used in the daily sacrifice at the temple. Because these sacrificial lambs were so important to the religious life of the Jews, they were given the very best of everything. And so maybe it was to those who nurtured the sacrificial lambs that the Angels came bringing the good news of the great sacrifice and that was Jesus. But really the sheep don’t matter, it was to the shepherds that the Angels came and in vs. 10-11-12 they were told the story of the baby who was born in a manger.
In those early days historians tell us that it was customary that when a male child was born that local musicians would gather at the home and greet the new son with simple music. Unless of course you were the son of a poor couple far from home and you were born in a barn. But in it’s place the heavenly Father provided a choir of Angels to serenade his son. So maybe that wasn’t so absurd after all.
And then there were the Wise Men. Matthew 2:1-2 Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We have seen his star as it arose, and we have come to worship him.” What symbolizes Christmas more than the picture of the Magi kneeling in adoration before the new born messiah. Across the desert sand they had come, mile after mile following but a promise of a distant start. I wonder if as they packed their camels in Persia if their family friends and neighbors thought of them as wise men?
“So guys, where’re you going?”
“That way.”
“Oh and what is your final destination?”
“Don’t know.”
“How will you know when you get there?”
“The star will stop”
“Well, who are you going to see?”
“A baby”
“Uhhhh, and what’s the baby’s name?”
“Wonderful, counselor, prince of peace, Everlasting father.”
“You know Bob I do believe that the boys have been out in the sun way too long.”
And yet the Magi of the East made their pilgrimage across the sea of sand to the little town of Bethlehem to worship at the cradle of Christ. We know very little about the Magi, but we do know that they were from the country of Persia which is now Iran. And we know that the Magi were originally from a tribe of Medes who tried to overthrow the King. When their little coup failed they put their political aspirations behind them and chose safer work as holy men, priest and teachers of Kings. It was from this occupation that we discover that Magi is the root word of Magic. Now we don’t know why the sign came to these men, maybe it was there for everyone but only these few choice to follow.
Regardless of the reason, it was the Magi who followed the star to visit the Christ child, and maybe it was simply to signify that Christianity would ultimately be for the gentile as well as the Jew. Because even though Jesus came as the Jewish Messiah we are told that there was this sense of expectancy over the entire area of the world concerning the coming Messiah of the Jews. The belief was summed up by the Roman Historian Suetonis when he wrote “There had spread over all the orient and old and established belief, that it was fated at that time for men coming from Judea to rule the world.”
And so it’s fitting is it not that the one who would save the worlds’ birth was announced not only to the people of Israel but to the greater world as well. So perhaps the Wisemen’s presence at the first Christmas wasn’t so absurd after all.
The greatest event in human history has to be when God came to dwell amongst us. And how should that have happened? Should it have been an everyday event that no one noticed? Or should there have been some element of wonder attached to it? I know that there are people who deny the events of the first Christmas because they can’t believe that things like that could happen and perhaps that’s why the Bible says 1 Corinthians 1:18 I know very well how foolish the message of the cross sounds to those who are on the road to destruction. But we who are being saved recognize this message as the very power of God. Perhaps we could change that just a bit to read 1 Corinthians 1:18 I know very well how foolish the message of Christmas sounds to those who are on the road to destruction. But we who are being saved recognize this message as the very power of God.
So where you at today?
Hope this message was helpful. PowerPoint may be available email me at denn@bccnet.ca
If you could build a church for a dollar. . .
Would you?
