The Nature of Christmas
Text: Matt. 1:18-25
Introduction
1. Illustration: "Fa-who-for-ay; da-who-dor-ay; welcome, Christmas,
come this way; Fa-who-for-ay; da-who-dor-ay;
welcome, Christmas, Christmas day."
They continue, singing,
"Christmas day is in our grasp
so long as we have hands to clasp."
The Grinch can hardly believe his ears.
He begins to get furious, but then something happens.
He suddenly puzzles how Christmas came.
"It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes, or bags."
Suddenly the Grinch realizes that Christmas
is about more than presents, or decorations,
or a feast.
He has a thought he’s never thought before:
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn’t come
from a store; Maybe Christmas perhaps
means a little bit more."
SOURCE: From "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" Dr. Suess (movie and book)
2. Indeed, Christmas doesn’t come from a store, and it does mean so much more.
3. Read Matt. 1:18-25
Proposition: Christmas doesn’t come from a store it comes from God.
Transition: The first thing that we must understand about Christmas is that...
I. Christmas Is a God Thing (18-21)
A. Of the Holy Spirit
1. Matthew tells us that what he is about to tell us took place "After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph..."
2. In order to understand what Matthew is telling us, we need to understand how Jewish marriages worked during this time period.
a. The betrothal or engagement period lasted a year prior to the actual marriage ceremony.
b. Unlike today, betrothal is legally binding and took a divorce decree to end it.
c. There was to be no sexual relations during this period.
d. After the year was ended, then there would be an official ceremony.
3. Matthew then tells us that "before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit."
a. The phrase "before they came together," is a reference to a sexual union.
b. The phrase affirms that Mary’s pregnancy was discovered while she was still betrothed, and the context presupposes that both Mary and Joseph had been chaste (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM).
c. However, Matthew also indicates to us that the Father of Mary’s child was the Holy Spirit.
d. It was a God thing!
4. Now when Joseph found out that Mary was with child, he naturally assumed that she had been unfaithful. He now had a choice to make.
a. He could expose her publicly for committing adultery.
b. He could divorce her privately so that no one else would know.
5. Matthew tells us that his was the second one when he says "Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly."
a. The character and compassion of Joseph is revealed in this dilemma.
b. Matthew distinguishes between Joseph’s purpose and desire.
c. Joseph intends to maintain his personal righteousness, yet his desire is also to have compassion for the woman to whom he is engaged, even though he considers her an adulteress. (Wilkins, NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: Matthew, 75).
6. However, before he went through with the procedure "an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit."
a. This is highly unusual. Frequently in Scripture, God speaks to people through dreams, but rarely does an angelic being speak directly to the person. It was a God thing!
b. Furthermore, the phrase "Joseph son of David" is a direct reference to the promise made to David that the Messiah would come from his family. It was a God thing!
c. Moreover, the angel tells Joseph what Matthew has already told us, the child in Mary is conceived by an act of the Holy Spirit of God. It was a God thing!
7. Then the angel tells Joseph that "she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins."
a. In Bible times either a mother or a father could name a child.
b. According to Luke 1:31, Mary was told Jesus’ name; but Joseph was told both name and reason for it. (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM)
c. The name Jesus means "Yahweh Saves!"
d. This child was going to be the means by which God brought salvation to whole world. It was a God thing!
B. God Brought Christmas
1. Illustration: Last week when I spent Thanksgiving with my brothers and their families you could see the specialists in my family. When someone had a medical question, they asked my brother John, because he is a doctor. It was a medical thing. When someone had a building question, they asked my brother Dave, because he is a carpenter. It was a building thing. When someone had a theological question they asked me, because I am a pastor. It was a theological thing.
2. When it comes to Christmas, it is a God thing!
3. Just as the Grinch discovered:
a. Christmas doesn’t come from a store.
b. Christmas doesn’t come from a catalogue.
c. Christmas doesn’t come from an advertisement.
d. Christmas comes from God.
4. Contrary to present, popular opinion, no human being:
a. Thought it up
b. Made it up
c. Conjured it up
5. Christmas happened because we messed it up and God fixed it by sending His one and only Son to die for our sins.
6. John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
7. Christmas isn’t a:
a. Madison Avenue Thing
b. Hollywood Thing
c. It’s a God Thing
Transition: Not only is Christmas a God thing, but...
II. Christmas Is a Bible Thing (22-23)
A. That It Might Be Fulfilled
1. Now Matthew states for the first time what will become a major theme in his gospel.
2. He says "So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet..."
a. The events of the supernatural conception of Jesus take place "to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet."
b. Matthew emphasizes that the prophecy is ultimately from the Lord, but the prophet is the intermediate agent through whom God spoke to his people (Wilkins, 78).
3. The word "fulfill" here means "to make something total or complete" —Louw & Nida: NT Greek-English Lexicon
4. What happened to Mary was not only a miracle, but it was a direct fulfillment of what God had promised (Horton, 31).
5. God had already said through Isaiah that the birth of the Messiah would be a divine initiative.
a. Some have suggested that the Hebrew word that is translated "virgin" can mean a maiden or young woman. However, the word it almost always refers to an unmarried, virgin woman ( Wilkins, 79).
b. The word of God predicted that a virgin would become pregnant through the power of God.
6. The Scripture also predicts who the Messiah would be for it says "and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us."
a. Jesus specifies what he does ("God saves"), and Immanuel specifies who he is ("God with us").
b. You see, Christmas is not only a God thing, it is a Bible thing!
B. God Keeps a Promise
1. Illustration: Singer Michael Card wrote a song called The Promise, and he wrote a little Christmas devotional on this theme:
He noted:
Our God is the great maker of promises… His word, our Bible, is a collection of the promises… most of these concern Jesus, who came to be known as "the Promised One"
Through all these promises, God was trying to give something of Himself to Adam, and to Israel, and finally to us. The Bible tells us that when the Promised One came, the Lord poured all of Himself into Him.
2. Christmas is a time of hope, peace, love, and joy. It’s because God kept a promise.
3. The only reason that we know about Christmas is because of the Bible.
4. The only reason that we can celebrate Christmas is because of the Bible.
5. The Bible is a book of promises, and its greatest promise is that God would send His son to stand in our place and pay the price for our sin.
Transition: Jesus loves me this I know because the Bible tells me so. Christmas is a Bible thing! However...
III. Christmas Is an Obedience Thing (24-25)
A. Did As the Angel Commanded Him
1. As Joseph awakes from his dream, we see a common element of what God chooses to do when dealing with mankind; obedience.
2. Matthew tells us that Joseph "did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife..."
a. He is obedient to the angel’s directive and carries out the second phase of the marital process by engaging in the formal wedding ceremony (Wilkins, 81).
b. He doesn’t argue with God, or tell Him that he needs to pray about it first, but he is immediately obedient.
3. This is the key element, for when God moves he chooses to do it through the obedience of those He calls.
a. He doesn’t need us, because He could surely accomplish His will in any way He chooses.
b. However, He chooses to use us to accomplish His will.
4. We must also notice another important issue in the text that shows Joseph’s obedience to God. In verse 25, it says that he "did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS."
a. The delicate way Matthew phrases this expression (lit., "he was not knowing her") was a common way of referring to abstaining from sexual intercourse in both Hebrew and Greek.
b. Abstinence maintained Joseph and Mary’s ritual purification during the pregnancy as well as ensured that Jesus was virgin-born (Wilkins, 82).
c. In doing this, Joseph was obedient not only to what God told Him to do specifically, but to what he was told do as a believer in abstaining from sexual behavior outside of marriage.
5. God accomplished His will through the humble obedience of an ordinary carpenter.
B. Obedience and Christmas
1. Illustration: Eugene Peterson in A Long Obedience in the Same Direction writes, “It is not difficult in our world to get a person interested in the message of the Gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate. Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim. In our kind of culture anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier Christians called holiness.”
2. It is easy to get spiritual at Christmas and Easter, but what do we do the rest of the year?
3. For the Christian, everyday should be Christmas, because everyday with Jesus is reason to celebrate.
4. We talk about C and E Christians, those who only come to church on Christmas and Easter, but what about the rest of us?
a. Do we show with our lives that Jesus has been born in our hearts by the way we act?
b. Is our obedience to God as immediate as Joseph’s?
c. Have we become like the rest of the world and Christmas is just another day?
Conclusion
1. What does Christmas mean to you?
2. Is it about, ribbons, packages, boxes, or bags?
3. Does Christmas come from a store, or does it mean something more?
