What if Christmas Never Was?
Luke 2:8-14
The History of Narnia
Narnia background: through a wardrobe...they go to another world and then find all sorts of odd creatures and adventures
Aslan: is the Lion, the Great Lion = Jesus Christ figure
The White Witch: evil, satan-like figure
Peter Pevensie—King Peter the Magnificent, the high king
Susan Pevensie—Queen Susan the Gentle
Edmund Pevensie—traitor but known as King Edmund the Just
Lucy Pevensie—Queen Lucy the Valiant, begins the adventure
-Lucy—finds out from a creature that the white witch has taken control of Narnia and her
control and “It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never
Christmas…”—p. 19 of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
-everyday, ho-hum, status quo life interrupted by the Savior of the world
Take the year 1809. The international scene was tumultuous. Napoleon was sweeping through Austria; blood was flowing freely. Nobody then cared about babies. But the world was overlooking some terribly significant births.
For example, William Gladstone was born that year. He was destined to become one of England’s finest statesman. That same year, Alfred Tennyson was born to an obscure minister and his wife. The child would one day greatly affect the literary world in a marked manner. On the American continent, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And not far away in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe began his eventful, albeit tragic, life. It was also in that same year that a physician named Darwin and his wife named their child Charles Robert. And that same year produced the cries of a newborn infant in a rugged log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. The baby’s name? Abraham Lincoln.
If there had been news broadcasts at that time, I’m certain these words would have been heard: "The destiny of the world is being shaped on an Austrian battlefield today." But history was actually being shaped in the cradles of England and America. Similarly, everyone thought taxation was the big news--when Jesus was born. But a young Jewish woman cradled the biggest news of all: the birth of the Savior.--Adapted from Charles Swindoll.
-but, it got me to thinking about….
So, What if Christmas never was? It would have meant:
-a culture of death
-a hopelessness of...this is as good as it gets
-a helplessness that nothing can change my broken/fallen nature
-a deceived mindset of get all you can, while you can
-a wrong belief that God is out to get us
Christmas did come though and Christ is very real and very present…
In his book, Science Speaks, Peter Stoner applies the modern science of probability to just eight prophecies regarding Christ. He says, "The chance that any man might have ...fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in 10 to the 17th. That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000." (one hundred quadrillion) Stoner suggests that "we take 10 to the 17th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state 2 feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly... Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up [that one marked silver dollar.] What chance would he have of getting the right one?" Stoner concludes, "Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man,...providing they wrote them in their own wisdom."--Peter Stoner, Science Speaks.
The lamppost is significant——it lights the way home
-it never goes out
-it never gets turned off
Jesus is the light of the world
-Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”—John 8:12
*Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences. Back in the days before electricity, a tightfisted old farmer was taking his hired man to task for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to call on his best girl. "Why," he exclaimed, "when I went a-courtin’ I never carried one of them things. I always went in the dark." "Yes," the hired man said wryly," and look what you got!"--Source Unknown.
-So, step out of the darkness and into the light. Receive the Light of the World, Jesus Christ, into your heart today.
Benediction
-“You are the light of the world.”—Matthew 5:14—us
