Trinity Baptist Church, December 18, 2005
What if there were no Christmas?
John 1:1-14, John 3:16
When he became a Christian, C.S. Lewis called himself, “perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.“ He had fought hard to hold onto his atheistic worldview. He had engaged in heated debates with other professors who were devout Christians, most notably J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings. But in spite his opposition, over time, Lewis began to see that there were answers -- good, intelligent answers -- to his most difficult questions. At first he believed in God -- then later -- he trusted in Jesus Christ as God‘s Son and His Savior.
As a Christian, Lewis became the greatest apologist of the 20th century. Some term him the greatest writer of the century. He published more than 40 books during his lifetime -- 20 more were published after his death. The BBC asked him to do series of radio lectures during WW II. People were so enamored by those radio talks that Lewis became the second most known person in England, second only to Winston Churchill. His radio talks were published later in the book called Mere Christianity.
Shortly after the war ended, the quiet professor wrote a series of children’s books which captured the imagination of a generation. The first and most popular of those stories came to the big screen last week, in a film that may capture the imagination of another generation. Lewis’ 7 books were called The Chronicles of Narnia -- the first was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
When you read Narnia, you realize you’re reading a fairy tale. Lewis loved communicating through the fantasy of fairy tales -- he said you could use them to move right past peoples’ defenses and communicate Truth, especially spiritual Truths to which people so often become allergic. Like Jesus used parables, Lewis wove tales combined with powerful spiritual Truth.
The story begins with a family of four English children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, being sent away from London to live in the countryside with a professor. During the German bombing of English cities in WWII, children were often sent to safer places in the country. Lewis himself had taken children into his country home in that way.
On a rainy day, the children explore the old house. In one room they discover a big wooden wardrobe. Later, during a game of hide and seek, Lucy, the youngest, decides to hide in that wardrobe. As she moves further and further toward the back, past old fur coats hanging there, she suddenly finds she’s in another world -- a forested world covered in snow and ice, dark and bitterly cold.
Nearby she sees a lamp post - an old fashioned streetlight giving off its light in the middle of a forest. By the light of that lamp post, Lucy suddenly sees a strange creature coming near - a faun, a being which is half human and half goat. The faun wears a warm scarf on his neck, and carries a number of parcels and an umbrella to keep off the falling snow.
The faun -- who we later discover is named Mr. Tumnus, is quite startled to meet Lucy - and then delighted when he finds she is a “daughter of Eve” - a human being. Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy that she’s now in the land of Narnia, and he invites her to his home for “tea” - which in England usually means more than just a cup of warm brew, it includes a nice, cozy kind of supper.
After tea, Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy tales about life in Narnia, and then he begins to play a strange kind of flute - the fire and the music make Lucy quite drowsy. When she finally rouses herself to leave, Mr. Tumnus bursts into tears and admits the truth to her.
The truth was, he’d been trying to enchant her and keep her there until he could turn her over to the White Witch. The White Witch had ordered that anyone who found a human -- a “son of Adam or daughter of Eve” - in Narnia was to turn them over to her. But now that Tumnus had actually met Lucy, he just couldn’t do it!
And who is this White Witch? She calls herself the Queen of Narnia, but she is a usurper, not the rightful ruler. She has magical powers, including the power to turn any who oppose her into solid stone. She’s cold, selfish and evil. And it is she who has made it winter in Narnia for the last hundred years - constant, frozen, endless winter - “always winter and never Christmas!” as Mr. Tumnus sadly says.
That’s our introduction to Narnia. It’s a beautiful world, populated, we discover, with a variety of creatures from mythology and fairy tales, as well as both talking and non-talking animals. It’s a world where there are both good and evil creatures, and some who are a little of both. And it’s a world under a curse - where it is always winter, but never Christmas.
But Narnia is also a world of hope -- a world that waits for the coming of Aslan, “the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea” -- Aslan, the great Lion, who with a shake of his mane and the sound of his roar will bring Spring and life to Narnia once again.
Always winter, but never Christmas! Can you imagine such a horrible place? My wife and I have a little disagreement about Winter. She likes four seasons -- I’d be very content with 3.
It’s Winter I don’t enjoy. But just imagine: a world always cold and frozen, always gray and dreary and never even the joy and celebration of Christmas to break up the gloom!
Of course Lewis painted a picture of our world -- not in the physical, weather-related sense, but in a spiritual sense.
He was describing planet Earth before into which the Lion of Judah came on the first Christmas. And that, of course, has made all the difference. Today, I want to think just some of the ramifications if Christmas had never happened -- if Jesus hadn’t come.
First, briefly, some Social and historical differences
What would our lives be like personally without Christmas? There would be…
- no winter family gathering, - nothing to look forward to as the days grow shorter and thermometers fall, - no Christmas gifts, - no holiday traditions, - no Saint Nick, or Father Christmas or Santa Claus, - no Christmas carols or decorations, - Christmas trees,
- Holly berries, - Charlie Brown Christmas specials; no Bing Crosby or “White Christmas“,
- No Jimmy Stewart or “It’s a Wonderful Life“; you students would get to go to school the whole month of December; December 25 might well be just another terrible, horrible,
no-good, very bad day!
On a more serious note, Christmas represents Christ’s birth in Bethlehem. His entry into time and space changed all of history. We still number our calendars by His arrival. Because the gospel spread and huge numbers of people in the ancient Roman world became Christians, cultures, civilizations and governments are radically different because He came. You cannot read history without seeing His fingerprints on every page. Slavery was ended by Christians. Women are respected and treated with dignity instead of property because Christ invaded culture. Freedom and democracy are founded on the worth of the individual before ones creator.
Despite attempts to ignore the name, Christmas remains by far the largest faith-based celebration every year. And even though retailers want may subscribe to political correctness, it’s Christmas which provides the single largest boost to the US economy each year.
On a practical level all kinds of things we take for granted would be vastly different. For instance -- education. Without Christ‘s birth, it would have developed along different lines. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, and almost every one of the first 123 American colleges and universities were founded by Christians. Science and scientific research are vastly different. The roots of modern science grew out of the conviction of Christians that God’s Creation, could be objectively studied.
Jesus’ life and teaching altered our world drastically. He told His followers to love their neighbors as themselves. In their desire to live that out, Christians initiated organized charity. Early Christian communities supported widows, orphans, the sick and disabled. Christians were the first to organize efforts to help the 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.
If there had never been a Christmas, much of the good in this world would simply be missing. Much of the good you’ve experienced would be missing. Those are just a few of the myriad differences personally, socially and historically. But the Bible tells us, we’d be missing something much more significant. We need to think about
The spiritual differences (John 3:16)
What was once the most well known verse in the Bible tells us in Jesus’ own words the motivation and reason for His coming. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 Let me talk about 3 of the vast spiritual differences we’d experience if Christ had not come.
First, 1. We’d never know God’s character. (John 1:14, 18; 3:16)
The children in story are with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver when they first hear the name of Aslan.
Mr. Beaver tells them things will soon change in Narnia because, as he says, “Aslan is on the move.” When they hear Aslan’s name first mentioned, even though they don’t know who he is, each child feels something stir inside. Peter feels brave and heroic; Susan feels like she’s just smelled something delicious or heard beautiful music; Lucy feels like a holiday or the first days of summer have begun; but Edmund -- the traitor -- feels a stab of horror. Aslan’s name touches off a response in each person. With some it’s joy; others shrink back in fear.
Lucy asks, “Is -- is he a man??“ “Aslan a man!!“ said, Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not…. don’t you know who is the king of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion -- The Lion, the great lion!“
Susan responds: “Is he -- quite safe? -- I shall feel nervous about meeting a lion.“ “Safe?“ said Mr. Beaver. “…who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe! But he is good!
John 1 and John 3:16 inform us that Jesus’ incarnation as a human made plain God’s character. John 1:18 reminds us no one has ever seen God at any time. The Bible says that our God is of such immensity that the whole universe could not contain Him. It tells us He is so holy that our sinful human eyes could never look on Him. But yet, John 1:18 --
though no one’s ever seen God, it says tells us the only begotten of the Father, that One Who is full of grace and truth -- He has revealed Him. John wrote through Moses the law came -- but in Jesus God’s grace and truth become knowable.
God’s character is declared by Jesus in 3:16. God so loved the world, that He sent His Son. So loved. That’s how the Son describes the Father’s burden. The depth and strength and magnitude of the Father’s love is contained in that description. He so loved the world -- the world of men He created. The sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. The ones who chose against Him and therefore the world in rebellion against Him. And the world under Satan’s grip just as Narnia was under the evil sway of the White Witch. Our world therefore locked up in sin, like the stony cold prison of Narnia.
But God so loved the world of man. Jesus’ coming reveals that character attribute of God which made all the difference. Ephesians told us God is rich in mercy -- that means He was not at all content to leave us in our miserable condition. He so loved the world. The Father’s heart of love moved Him to act. If it weren’t for Christ’s coming at the first Christmas, we’d never know God’s character. Secondly,
2. We’d never encounter God’s Son. (John 1:5, 14; 3:16)
I don’t want to spoil the story for those of you who have yet to read the book or see the film, but I have to tell you that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a story of subsitutionary sacrifice.
The great Aslan, the son of the Emperor enters into Narnia to break the Witch’s wintry curse, but very specifically, he comes as a guiltless one to die for the guilty one. One of the children, Edmund, betrays the others in an act of treachery and so the White Witch lays claim to Edmund’s life. She reminds Aslan of the Deep Magic which says that a traitor must die, and not only that, but that his blood belongs to her. The Deep Magic parallels God’s Law. The OT Law said that the soul that sins shall die. The NT repeats that in
Romans 6:23-- the wages of sin is death.
Enter Jesus. Just like in the story, when Jesus came, things began to change. The blind saw. The deaf heard, the dead were raised to life. And when He died for sin, everything changed. Aslan came to Edmund’s rescue by dying in his place. And Jesus rescued us by dying in ours. Jesus said, greater love has no man than this, that he will lay down his life for his friends. But Romans 5:8 reminds us, Jesus went further. Even when we were still sinners, even still in rebellion against Him, Christ died for us.
Aslan died in the place of the traitor, but he came back to life. He explained it to the girls who witnessed it by saying that the Witch had known the Deep Magic, but she didn’t know of the Deeper Magic -- the Deeper Magic said that when a guiltless one died in the place of a traitor, then death itself would be reversed. Like the Deep Magic parallels the Law, the Deeper Magic parallels God’s grace.
God so loved the world that He gave His only son. Leroy Eims used to tell the story about a father and his young son who one day were walking along a railroad track. As they walked they came to a trestle over a deep gorge. Just where the track approached the trestle, the father noticed someone had the switch to send trains onto a short dead end track. He knew that a passenger train was coming along soon. And if it did, it would move off the main line and onto that short track -- but being unable to stop quickly, it would plunge into that gorge.
All the crew and the passengers would die. So he started to move the switch back in place.
But then he looked up and saw his young son walking out on the track across the trestle.
He was too far out for the father to reach him and get the switch moved before the train came. He could hurriedly save his son, and let the train go over the gorge. Or he could move the switch and the train would kill his son. As the train came down the hill and traveled over the gorge, a heartbroken father stood beside the track. He could see happy people, talking, eating, drinking, walking around the train. Never knowing the price that had been paid so that they could live. Never encountering the son who had died in their place.
Jesus words, in John 3:16, tell us it is a faith encounter we must have with Him. The father sent the Son into the world and gave Him, in death for us, so that….if we would believe in Him, we would never perish, but have eternal life. Jesus, and His death for our sin, must become the object of our faith, that verse tells us. If Christmas had never come, that faith encounter would never have been ours. And therefore,
3. We’d never possess God’s gift. (John 1:12; 3:16)
Jesus’ uses two words that describe two different eternal states. One is that word perish. The original term doesn’t mean annihilation, it means a final destiny of “ruin”. It’s describes a state of eternal death -- an experience outside of God’s presence, apart from the God Who is life. Jesus informs us that man has a given destiny when we encounter Him.
He says, that whoever will believe in the Son will not perish, but instead have eternal life.
In John 3, He said the Father did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world -- He said, the world already stands under condemnation.
The other term is everlasting life, or eternal life; that’s the opposite, it’s living forever in the presence of the Father Who loved us this much. Once our faith is in Jesus, the promise of life becomes ours. We shall have eternal life. God’s Son came and took away the destiny into which we were born. The curse under which we existed. Condemnation.
Edmund stood condemned. The only hope for him and for all of Narnia was Aslan -- the Lord of the Wood, the King of Beasts, the Son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Only Aslan could save Edmund and Narnia from the White Witch’s power.
The only hope for us is Jesus -- the Lion of Judah -- the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Son of God. He’s the only One who can rescue us from our sin and the condemnation under which we live. That’s why Christ came to earth. Before His birth, the angel said, you shall call His name Jesus, because He shall save His people from their sin. 1 John 3:8 says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
Aslan laid down his life for Edmund, taking on his punishment and dying in his place.
Jesus died in the same way for all of us. By suffering for us, Jesus set us and all creation free. Like Aslan in the story, Jesus rose from the dead in the real world. He sits enthroned at the Father’s right hand, and every person who believes is destined to join the Son and the Father forever. God’s love, Jesus’ death, God’s gift of eternal life. Nothing you could ever possess will touch those realities which become ours because the first Christmas happened.
Steps I need to take
Lewis’ story is a stirring reminder of what Jesus came to do for us. He made clear that Aslan represented Jesus. John 3:16 clearly indicates that Jesus’ coming presses every one of us to the point of decision. To a faith decision. The word believe means to fully trust in Him. It literally means to cast yourself onto Him.
Have you ever come to the place in your life, where you have placed your faith alone in Jesus Christ and His death for you. He died so that you and I could live, live forever with Him.
Our world would be radically altered if Jesus had never come and Christmas not happened. But all the changes in this world don’t hold a candle compared to the radical change in your life and your eternity which will happen because you come to that place of decision.
I’d like to pray a prayer, expressing faith in Jesus Christ. If you want to place your trust in Jesus Christ today, I invite you simply to pray silently along with me.
