MIRACLES OF CHRISTMAS
What A Difference Christmas Makes
Christmas is a miraculous time of year. Grouches are turned into givers. Cynics are turned into softies. But this morning we’re going to look at the real miracles of Christmas.
Advent is one of the times when we are confronted with what Christians really believe. This morning we will look at the very heart of what the followers of Christ called the "good news." We will look at the three miracles of Christmas.
MIRACLE #1: GOD CAME TO EARTH
Many people believe that Jesus was a good man and an effective teacher. Some believe he was a great prophet of God. Some even believe that he was a powerful angel. Of course, Jesus never claimed to be any of those things. What he claimed was far more disturbing.
1. He claimed that he had the power to grant his followers eternal life (John 10:28).
2. He claimed to have the power to forgive sins (Mark 2) and to answer prayers offered in his name (John 14:13-14).
3. He claimed that he and God were one (John 10:30). In fact, he told his closest friends that if you had seen him, you had seen God (John 14:9).
4. He claimed to be eternal (John 8:58).
5. He claimed that the work and power of God’s kingdom was manifested in his life (Luke 2: 18f and Mark 1:15).
6. And he claimed that relationship with God depended on believing in him (John 14:6).
Understandably, his friends and followers were often confused by these claims. It’s almost like they were saying to themselves, "Surely he didn’t say what I think he said." In fact, up to the very end, doubt and confusion was still very much a part of their response to Jesus. They all deserted him on the night he died. And one of his close friends, Thomas, heard the report of Jesus’ resurrection and refused to believe it. "Unless I see it myself and touch his wounds myself, I will not believe." At that moment, Jesus showed up. And here’s the important part. Thomas saw Jesus, touched his wounds and did the only thing any honest seeker could do. He fell on his knees and worshipped him as God.
As God … In case you missed it, that is what Jesus’ claims amount to. He was claiming to be God. The disciples may have been confused but the religious authorities of his day were not. They did not miss the significance of his claims. On at least two occasions they wanted to kill him for blasphemy.
Jesus did not claim to be prophet, an angel, or great religious teacher. He claimed to be God. In this claim, Jesus was either a LUNATIC, A LIAR OR HE WAS TELLING THE TRUTH. The evidence of his life certainly does not support the view that Jesus was a lunatic or a liar. In fact, no one believes that. Obviously, something extraordinary was happening in Jesus. It was God coming to earth.
And this first miracle makes Christianity different from all other religions.
Listen to the Bible’s testimony concerning Jesus:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." (Colossians 1:15-16)
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people." (John 1:1-4)
MIRACLE #2: GOD BECAME A MAN
The second miracle goes along with the first. God came to earth, but not in some flashy way. He came in a simple way. It all started on one cool, clear Christmas Eve. The first miracle of Christmas was that it was God who came to earth. The second miracle of Christmas was how He came. God became a man. He became like one of us. He became a human being.
This, of course, explains the confusion of his first followers. Certainly, in some ways Jesus was unlike any man they had ever known. And yet in other ways, in most ways, he was exactly like every man they had ever known. It took a while to understand that heaven’s glory was masquerading in earthen goofiness, that all the power of heaven was veiled in human skin.
Paul put it like this: "Christ, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on the cross!"
Think about this miracle: Of all the ways God could have chosen to communicate that there was a God to human beings, He chose to become one of us. Think of what He could have done. He could have written it in the sky. He could have used thunder and lightning. He could have put on a giant light show. He could have invented satellite television 2000 years earlier and put a TV in everybody’s home. He could have done anything He wanted. But he came in a way we could completely understand. He looked and sounded exactly like us – almost.
He also came in a way that communicated his profound sympathy toward us and His empathy with us. The Bible says that He was just like us. He was born like us, he shared our humanity (Heb 2:14). The Bible says He grew like we did – physically, spiritually, socially. The Bible says that Jesus Christ was tempted like we are (Heb 4:15). He had the same needs, the same drives, the same desires, the same problems, the same pressures in life. The reason He went through all that was so He could relate to us. No matter what you’re going through today, God understands because He’s been there. He came and lived a human life. The Bible says that He was not only tempted but He suffered like we did. He experienced real pain. There were times when Jesus was lonely. There were times when Jesus was tired, fatigued. There were times when He was under pressure. There were times when He was disappointed, misunderstood, when people didn’t treat Him right and He was criticized. He understands all that.
God came to earth as a man. What a miracle. But the third miracle is the most exciting of all.
MIRACLE #3: GOD CAME FOR YOUR BENEFIT
The most exciting miracle of all about Christmas was not who came or how he came. But the most exciting miracle of all was why He came. He came for our benefit. He came for you and for me.
Listen to these verses where Jesus explains why He came to earth.
· John 18:37 "Jesus answered, ’For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.’"
· John 10:10 Jesus said, "I came to give you life, life in all its fullness."
· John 12:47 Jesus said, "I did not come to judge the world, but to save it."
· Matthew 20:28 "Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Truth, life, service, forgiveness – that’s God’s gift to you. He said, that’s why I came.
First He says I’ve come to bring you truth. Truth about what?
· Truth about ourselves, because we don’t even understand ourselves a lot of the time.
· Truth about God, because there’s a lot of misconceptions about Him.
· Truth about life, because there’s a lot of phony philosophies that lead to dead ends.
If you don’t build your life on truth, you build your life on a foundation of faulty information, then you’ll go through life making bad decisions and having unnecessary stress and unneeded problems that God never meant for you to have in your life. But when we follow the truth, life makes so much more sense.
Jesus said it like this, "When you know the truth, the truth will set you free." He sets you free to really live like God meant for you to live when you know the truth.
What is the truth?
· The truth is you were created to have your needs met in God and only in God. There is a God-shaped vacuum in every person’s heart.
· The truth is that you matter to God. You matter to God so much that God left His home in heaven came to earth in the form of a baby, grew up, lived a perfect life, died on the cross, was resurrected, went back to heaven and now says, "Come be with Me. I want you to live with Me for eternity." That’s how much you matter to God.
· The truth is life was designed to be eternal. It’s what you long for. The Bible says God has placed eternity in every person’s heart.
The greatest tragedy in life is to go through life and not know the truth and not know why you’re here. God came to tell us the truth.
He also came to give us life. Jesus said, "I’ve come to give you life." Why did He say that? Because most people aren’t really living. They’re just existing. Most people get up in the morning, go off to their job, come home, eat dinner, watch television, go to bed. The next day they do the same thing. And the next day they do the same thing. They think, "I’m really living!" you’re not living, you’re just existing. In fact, you don’t really know what life’s all about until you understand why God put you here on earth and have a relationship to the creator who made you. You’re not living, you’re just existing. Jesus said, "I came to give your life purpose and meaning and significance. You’re not here just to take up space."
Then Jesus said, "I came to save you not to judge you." When the angels announced Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, they said, "Behold a Savior is born in Bethlehem." But what do I need a Savior for?
Remember we said that life was designed to be eternal? But there has been a revolution of cosmic proportions. In that revolution, violence was done to our relationship with God. We are in danger now and need a Savior.
I had a conversation with a guy one time who said he didn’t believe this stuff. He knew the story. He knew humankind had sinned and now we need a Savior, but he believed this was just a dynamic effective myth. Just somebody’s way of explaining the pain and suffering in the world. "There’s absolutely no evidence for it," he said. "There is not a shred of objective evidence that suggests that I need to be saved from evil."
"Well that’s your problem," I said. "You don’t need to be saved from evil, you need to be saved from God."
God came to tell us the truth. He came to offer us real life. And He came to save us from Himself.
We didn’t deserve any of this. We do not earn it. We cannot. We must simply accept it as a gift. In this way, God came to serve us. He did not come to show us how to serve Him. He came to serve us. He came to make a way for us to be what we were created to be.
