Christmas Eve Service
“The Best Gift”
Romans 6:23
Dec. 24, 2005
Rev. Wm. A. Huegel
Wallingford FBC
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God…” John 1:12
Merry Christmas!
Some of you don’t know what you’re getting yet. And some of you had a very hard time trying to figure out what to give to somebody you love. Every Christmas, I always hope that my wife doesn’t take my gift giving too seriously. I never know what to get her. When it comes to clothes I have bad taste. And I have no clue what size she wears. She buys a lot of my clothes. I buy very few for her. Recently I bought her a skirt. I shouldn’t have. It was way too large. Husbands, let me let you in on a secret. Buy something that’s too small instead of too large. It will go better for you.
Some of you didn’t know what to buy so you are giving gift certificates. That safe! Others are just giving money. That’s always good. The best bargains are always after Christmas, actually. In fact, I like to shop for winter related stuff near the end of January.
A guy by the name of Herb Forst in Cross River, NY, offered some suggestions to the Reader’s Digest, p. 69 that they thought was so good they printed it. It’s entitled:
“What not to Buy Your Wife”
Although the only person a man usually shops for is his wife, the whole experience is a stressful one. Many a man has felt extreme frigid temperatures for a long period based on a poor present decision. As a veteran of these wars, I’m still not sure what to buy my wife, but I’ll pass on what not to buy her:
1. Don’t buy anything that plugs in. (Like a new vacuum cleaner). Anything that requires electricity is seen as utilitarian.
2. Don’t buy clothing that involves sizes. The chances are one in seven thousand that you will get her size right, and your wife will be offended the other 6999 times. "Do I look like a size 16?" she’ll say. Too small a size doesn’t cut it either: "I haven’t worn a size 8 in 20 years!"
3. Avoid all things useful. The new silver polish advertised to save hundreds of hours is not going to win you any brownie points.
4. Don’t buy anything that involves weight loss or self-improvement. She’ll perceive a six-month membership to Weight Watchers as a suggestion that’s she’s overweight.
Some of you are still shopping. Well, you’ve got a little time, because the family member you are buying for lives a couple of hours away and you’ll be doing the gift-giving thing later on in the week.
So, I’m going to give you some suggestions that I got from the Thanksgiving week edition of TIME magazine. They did a thing on “The Most Amazing Inventions of 2005”. I think they would be great gifts. The tire maker, Michelin has just come out with a wheel/tire combo called a “Tweel” (tire/wheel – got it?). It’s a band of hard rubber mounted on plyurethane spokes that absorb bounces and vibrations. It’s solid rubber with no air. So, you’ll never get a flat. But don’t rush right out to your nearest tire store to get it for your wives, gentlemen. It’s still too noisy for the highway. They need another 15 years or so to improve that aspect of it.
But wives, here’s something you can get for your husband – well, if not this year, maybe next year. It’s a motorcycle. It only goes about 50 miles an hour, but it get’s great mileage. In fact it doesn’t use gas at all. It uses a hydrogen fuel cell. The whole bike is aluminum and only weighs about 200 lbs. A $4.00 canister of hydrogen can take you nearly a 100 miles. You’re local Mobil station doesn’t carry the hydrogen cell, though. You better stock up and carry an extra with you. That will cost you a mere $10,000.
How about a pet? If you have a favorite dog that you just love – say an Afghan or something and he’s getting very old. Well, soon you’ll be able to get one just like him. Not sort of like him – exactly like him. You can get him cloned. Well, at least in South Korea, you can. You’ve heard about cloned sheep, mice and pigs. But cloning a dog has been more challenging. Well, they’ve succeeded. You can take a single cell from your dog’s ear, take it to your favorite Seoul, Korea laboratory, and they can make you a new one from that single cell. Amazing. If you want your kid cloned, I suppose that’s coming too, but I wouldn’t recommend it for this Christmas or even next.
Just one more of these. How about a hanging garden? This is a planter and all you need to do is to add your favorite plant – say a nice beefstake tomato plant. Now the unique thing is that you plant your tomato plant upside down and stick it in so it grows out of the bottom of this specially designed planter. And water and fertilizer and the plant grows – upside down. You don’t have to stake your tomato plant this way – just let it hang down.
Gifts! Why do we do these things? Why do we travel over snow-laden roads, fight traffic, and in some cases get up very early in the morning to get there before the crowds arrive, and in other cases shop late into the evening, just because the end of December is coming? And why do we celebrate Christmas in December? Nobody really knows when Jesus was born? Well, it’s all symbolic. Symbols point to an important truth.
By the way, even the date on which we celebrate Christmas is symbolic. While we don’t know when Jesus was actually born, it was determined a long time ago that we would celebrate his birth near the time of the winter solstice – the first day of winter is Dec. 22nd. It’s that time of year when the days are the shortest and the nights are the longest. If you lived in the far north, say Alaska, it would be dark all day long with dawn around 11:00 a.m. and dusk about 1:00 at this time of year. They say winter depression is a big issue there.
The Greek and Roman pagans used to have a celebration at this time of year to celebrate the fact that the days were beginning to get a little longer. They rather worshipped the sun. They celebrated the birth of the rising sun each year. Our Christian forefathers, doing missions among the heathen said, “Perfect! Let’s celebrate the birth of the Son of God, who has died and has risen from the grave. We will have a special mass, or worship service in celebration of the birth of the Rising “Son” of God. Dec. 25 is just after the winter solstice when the days are in fact just beginning to get longer. So, in the year AD 353, Dec. 25th was chosen to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Gift giving is a symbol that points to the greatest gift of all – the gift that God gave us at Christmas. Let me tell you about that gift. We often quote a verse from the Bible. It’s found in the Gospel of John, chapter 3 verse 16. “For God so loved the world that HE GAVE His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.” And that’s it! God gave us His son. Jesus would take upon the body of a man. He would live among us. He would be a wonderful teacher. But most of all, He would die sacrificially for us all.
One needs to receive this gift, however, through repentance, prayer and faith. We must turn to the Lord, ask Him to forgive us our sins and place our trust in Him. If you have never done that, this Christmas Eve would be a wonderful time. It isn’t the history of Jesus’ birth that changes a person’s life – it’s the receiving of Jesus into our life and allowing him to transform us.
During the Spanish-American War, Clara Barton was overseeing the work of the Red Cross in Cuba. One day Colonel Theodore Roosevelt came to her, wanted to buy food for his sick and wounded Rough Riders. But she refused to sell him any. Roosevelt was perplexed. His men needed the help and he was prepared to pay out of his own funds. When he asked someone why he could not buy the supplies, he was told, "Colonel, just ask for it!" A smile broke over Roosevelt’s face. Now he understood--the provisions were not for sale. All he had to do was simply ask and they would be given freely.
Our Daily Bread, October 11, 1992.
Lord Kenneth Clark, internationally know for his television series Civilization, lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. He admitted in his autobiography that while visiting a beautiful church he had what he believed to be an overwhelming religious experience. "My whole being," Clark wrote, "was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy far more intense than anything I had known before." But the "gloom of grace," as he described it, created a problem. If he allowed himself to be influenced by it, he knew he would have to change, his family might think he had lost his mind, and maybe that intense joy would prove to be an illusion. So he concluded, "I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course."
Our Daily Bread, February 15, 1994.
How Sad! Don’t let that happen to you.
On this Christmas eve, accept the greatest gift ever – will you – as we pray:
Our Father in heaven, forgive me of my sins. I turn to you in faith and trust you as my own personal Savior. Come into my life, O God and help me to live for you – for eternity’s sake. Amen.
Candle Lighting! And now having received the light of Christ into our life, we need to share it. Let us do that symbolically, as we enter into our Christmas Eve Candle Light ceremony. I will light my candle from the Christ Candle and pass it onto two others. In turn they will pass their light on to the first person in the pew. You will then pass your light on down the pew until all the candles are light. Let’s light our candles as we sing, “Silent Night”.
