[This sermon is contributed by Hal Seed of New Song Church in Oceanside, California and of www.PastorMentor.com. Hal is the author of numerous books including The God Questions and The Bible Questions. If you are interested in The Bible Questions Church-wide Campaign, please visit and watch Hal’s video at www.PastorMentor.com.]
Note: For those who have the capacity to show PowerPoint presentations, suggestions for picture slides are given in parenthesis inside the sermon’s text. Many of the pictures can be scanned from the book. Others may be available on websites. Words in bold italics are suggestions of slides to be made of Scriptures and other quotes and shown while being quoted during the message. Except where noted, all Scripture quotes are from the NIV.
Good morning everybody!
If you have a Bible, turn in it to Luke 2:1.
There are two primary places in the New Testament where the Christmas story is told. One is Matthew 1-2, the other is Luke 1-2. Matthew tells the story from Joseph’s perspective, Luke tells it from Mary’s perspective.
If you’ve ever seen the Charlie Brown Christmas, these words will be familiar to you:
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. – Luke 2:1-7
What if that had never happened?
What if there had never been a Christmas?
This weekend, Disney Studios release a movie called, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (show picture of the book’s cover) While it’s based on a children’s book. Disney believes the film will be their best seller of all times.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is all about Christmas. It’s about a snow-blanketed land called, “Narnia,” (show picture of Narnia) where animals walk and talk, and the land is ruled by a wicked witch (show picture of witch – scanned from book cover) whose magic spell keeps the entire land always winter, but never Christmas. – Can you think of anything worse than that?
Always winter, never Christmas.
For those of you who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, I’m going to take a perverse pleasure in ruining part of it for you by telling you that the book is about four children who find their way into this fairy tale land and what happens to them there.
The four children are named Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy (show picture of them). This may sound a little strange to those of us who haven’t experienced the story yet, but the children discover Narnia by walking through an old English wardrobe (show wardrobe) that is a kind of secret passageway into this alternative world.
Lucy discovers Narnia first.
The first animal Lucy meets in Narnia is a fawn named Tumnus (show picture of Tumnus). While Lucy and Tumnus are huddled in his cave, Tumnus explains that the reason it’s so cold and dreary is because of the White Witch.
“The White Witch? Who is she?” Asks Lucy.
“Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”
Well, I did some thinking about that this week.
Suppose we never had Christmas?
What would your life be like without Christmas?
Without Christmas there would be…
- no winter family gathering,
- nothing to look forward to as days get shorter and thermometers fall,
- no Christmas gifts,
- no holiday traditions,
- no Santa Claus,
- Christmas carols,
- decorations,
- Christmas trees,
- Holly berries,
- Charlie Brown Christmas specials,
- Bing Crosby and White Christmas,
- No Jimmy Stewart and it’s a wonderful life,
- Children would have to go to school the entire month of December,
Without Christmas, December 25 would be a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day!
On a more serious note, Christmas represents the birth of the Christ-child. His coming changed history. (We number our calendars by it.) Christmas is the largest boost to our economy each year. It’s the largest religious celebration of the year.
If there had never been a Christmas, the world would be far different than it is today – in ways you may never have imagined.
For instance, when Jesus came, He taught His followers to love their neighbors as themselves (Luke 10:27).
To live out this idea, His followers invented the idea of organized charity.
The early Christianity communities stressed support for widows, orphans, the sick and disabled. They organized efforts to help those who were dying. They built, staffed, and paid for hospitals. In recent times, Christ’s followers have founded virtually every charitable organization on earth, including the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, World Relief, World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, Food for the Hungry, and Compassion International.
Without the birth of Christ, education would be very different today. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, and almost every one of the first 123 American colleges and universities were founded by Christians.
If there had never been a Christmas, much of the good in this world would be missing. Much of the good you’ve experienced would be missing.
Do this for a minute, turn to your neighbor, and tell them your favorite memory of Christmas. My Favorite Memory of Christmas Is…(Allow sixty seconds, then have them reverse, and the other person share.)
[Note to speaker: share your favorite Christmas memory here.]
Without Christmas, that would never have happened. None of our great Christmas memories would have happened.
But without Christmas, something far worse wouldn’t have happened: Christ would not have come.
Fortunately, He did come. And in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Christ comes in a different form than He came to our world.
He comes in the form of a lion, named Aslan.
Let me ruin a little more of the movie for you.
The second child to discover Narnia is Lucy’s brother Edmund. On Edmund’s first visit to Narnia, he stumbles into the White Witch, who pretends to be his friend and feeds him large doses of Turkish Delight and promises to make him a king.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the children, Edmund aligns himself with the witch and plots to bring his brother and sisters to her. Unbeknownst to Edmund, the witch intends to turn them all into stone.
One of the heroes of the movie is an affable little beaver who is appropriately named, “Mr. Beaver.” This is what Mr. Beaver says about Aslan. He says to the children, since you have come…
“They say Aslan is on the move – perhaps has already landed.”
And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something you don’t understand, but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning – either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.
Did you ever have a dream like that when you were little?
I have a couple of them tucked in the recesses of my mind. Especially around Christmas time, I want to get back to a place where everything is good and safe and warm. Where there is no war in Iraq and no trouble in the world. Just peace. Just goodness. Aslan has that effect on people. Aslan has that kind of power.
So the children journey to meet Aslan at a famous landmark in Narnia called the Great Stone Table, all but Edmund.
Edmund sneaks off to find his friend the witch. Only this time the witch doesn’t treat him as well as she did the last time. She’s furious with him for failing to bring his brother and sisters to her, and even more furious to learn that Aslan has entered Narnia.
The story climaxes with Aslan and the children and the witch and Edmund meeting at the Stone Table. The witch reminds Aslan that, according to ancient law, all traitors belong to her and she has the right to kill them.
So Aslan offers her a trade. – His life for Edmunds. And in a dramatic scene, the witch has Aslan the lion tied down and shaved and put to death on the Stone Table.
The children are in despair. All hope is gone. How could this happen? How could One so powerful have something to awful happen to him?
Just before dawn, they sneak back to the now-deserted Stone Table and untie the ropes around Aslan’s dead body. His body is mangled and mutilated, but a few minutes later, they can’t believe it, as life actually returns to him, and they witness his resurrection.
Aslan explains that, while ancient law dictates that all traitors belong to the Witch, an even more ancient law dictates that when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in the traitor’s place, that Death will work backwards and restore the life of the innocent victim.
Aslan then deals with the wicked witch, throws a huge party, and all of Narnia lives happily ever after. – Especially Edmund, the wayward boy whose life was saved by the innocent lion.
The Bible says
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
Romans 11:33-34
Maybe the most famous Christmas verse of all times would be John 3:16 which says that
"God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17
The story of Narnia is a compelling one. Disney studios are betting over $100,000,000 that it will become their best-selling movie of all times.
Why is the story so compelling? Why have 85,000,000 read the book, and why will so many more see the movie?
Because it’s a story rooted in history. It’s a story that really happened. It’s the Christmas story.
Aslan brought Christmas. When he comes into the land, the snow melts, the sun shines, and the world is delivered from the White Witch. Narnia almost missed Christmas.
It’s also the author, story of C.S. Lewis’ life. Lewis wrote the story because in real life, he almost missed Christmas.
This past spring, I did a study of Lewis’ life. (Show picture of Lewis)
C.S. Lewis was an amazing man. Some would call him the greatest author of the 20th century. He published over 40 books while he was alive. 20 more were published after his death.
Lewis was a quiet professor at Oxford University, in England. During World War II, the British Broadcasting Company asked him to do a series of lectures on the radio. People were so enamored with those broadcasts that Lewis became the second more famous person in all of England. Second only to Winston Churchill, who offered Lewis a special medal of recognition following WW II.
Those lectures that Lewis gave for the BBC were later published in a book that is titled, “Mere Christianity.” Some would say that it is the most powerful explanation of Christianity outside of the Bible itself.
Lewis was born in Northern Ireland. His mother died when he was 7 years old. His father sent him to boarding school in England the next year.
During his formative years, C.S. Lewis learned to read classic literature in 5 languages. At age 19, when he took the entrance exams for Oxford, his examiner stated that Lewis’ exams were “the best even seen” in the history of Oxford.
Before he entered Oxford, he served in the British Army during World War I, where he was wounded three times in battle.
Until he was 30 years old, Lewis was an avowed atheist. In a letter written to a friend in October, 1916 he said,
“I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best. All religions, that is, all mythologies to give them their proper name, are merely man’s own invention.” C.S. Lewis
Interestingly, Lewis did not believe there was a God, but he said that he resented God for not existing.
But a change began to take place in Lewis while he was a professor at Oxford. Lewis became friends with 2 other professors, who happened to be real Christians. One was Hugh Dyson, the other was J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings.
As Lewis got to know these two, he became persuaded that their faith was real. And in summer of 1929, he became convinced that Jesus Christ really was an historic figure, that He really did die on the Cross as a substitute for sins of the world. So Lewis bowed his head and invited Christ into his life.
In one of his books, Lewis said he came into Christianity “kicking and screaming” . He said ’You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England” (C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p. 228-229)
When Lewis decided to follow Jesus, it was like the snow melted from his heart. He came to Christmas, and Christmas came to him.
He began reading the Bible, attending church, and helping the poor. For the rest of his life, he donated 2/3s of all his book royalties to widows whose husbands had died in WW II.
In his late 50’s, he became friends with an American author named Joy Davidman. Joy had two young sons. After Joy was diagnosed with cancer, Lewis married her so that her sons could continue on in English schools. If you’ve seen the movie Shadowlands, you’ve seen the story.
In Hebrews 11 in the New Testament, the Bible gives a long list of heroes of the faith who all died before the birth of Christ. It says
All these people were still living by faith when they died…. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. Hebrews 11:13-14
After Lewis became a Christian he said, “I realized that all my life I was like that. I was looking for a country of my own.” All of his life, he was looking for Christmas. He just hadn’t admitted it to himself.
The rest of the passage says,
If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Hebrews 11:15-16
Lewis said that in Christ, he had found a “better country.” – Maybe a little town, called “Bethlehem”?
See, C.S. Lewis wrote The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe out of personal experience of what it meant to have someone die in his place.
His encounter with the Christ of Christmas not only changed his life, it changed his eternity. It opened a better country for him, the country of heaven.
The story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is so powerful because it is the story of mankind. It’s the story of Christmas. And because it’s your story. And my story.
It’s the story of a God who so loved the world, that He came, on Christmas.
Don’t you just long for it to be Christmas in your life, every day of the year?
Some of you know what I’m talking about this morning, don’t you? Because there is a tug going on inside of you. When you think about it, you just know that there is something more in this universe than what you’ve experienced so far.
Well, the Bible says that the wonder of Christmas is available to you.
It says that, …those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:17
[Speaker, explain how Christ transformed your life. Then, list the benefits you have experienced from being in relationship with the Christ of Christmas.]
Some of you need this this morning.
And the good news is, Christmas is available to you.
In just a minute, I’m going to pray a prayer that will enable you to receive the Christ of Christmas and His great gifts of freedom and purpose and joy and forgiveness into your life.
Before we do that, let me ask you: Would you like the joy of Christmas in your life today, and forever? Would you like God’s free gift of forgiveness for the things that you’ve done wrong, things that may be troubling you, even today? Would you like to know for sure that you are going to heaven?
Look up here at the screen for just a minute. I want to show you something:
John 3:16 says,
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17
This is your verse! You live in the world. God sent His son at Christmas, because He so loved you. Jesus came not to condemn you, but to save you.
Here’s a second verse you should know about, 1 Peter 3:18
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. 1 Peter 3:18
This is talking about you. “For Christ died for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring YOU to God.”
Here’s the one more verse I want to show you, John 1:12,
To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God… John 1:12
See, the two key words in this verse are “believe,” and “receive.”
If you would like to believe and receive this morning, would you just raise your hand and look up here at me so I can pray with you?
(Acknowledge hands)
Let’s all bow our heads, so we can pray. For those of you who raised your hands, I invite you to pray this prayer just quietly under your breath or in your mind as I pray it out loud.
Pray this:
“Lord Jesus, I want Christmas to come to me today. I want You in my life today. So I invite You in, right now. Jesus, I have done some things that need Your forgiveness, and I have some challenges in my life that need Your leadership. So I ask You now to forgive my sins and become the leader of my life. From this moment forward, I will be Your follower. I believe in You and I receive You now, in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Friends, for those of you who prayed that prayer, I want to tell you two things. One is that right now, all of heaven is rejoicing with you. Jesus said, “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:10
The second is that we would like to rejoice with you as well, and help you live now as a follower of Christ. So, at the back of the auditorium is a spiritual growth table. When the service is over, if you will go back there, the folks at the table will give you a Bible and some material to help you grow, and a few suggestions of what you’ll want to do now that you’re a Christian.
And I’d like to congratulate you as well, so if you’d come find me up here in the front after you visit the spiritual growth table, I’d like to rejoice with you in person.
Just now, we are going to receive our offering for the morning. So I invite all of you to bow as we pray one more time…
For further research:
1. C.S. Lewis: Surprised by Joy.
2. The Shadowlands
3. Walter Hooper: C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide, New York: HarperCollins, 1966.
4. David Downing: The Most Reluctant Convert, Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2002.
5. Websites: http://www.comnett.net/~rex/cslewis.htm
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/c_s_lewis.html
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/C._S._Lewis/
