Tis The Season.... Tis The Reason

In Jesus Holy Name December 24, 2019

Text: Matthew 1:20b-23 Christmas Eve - Redeemer

“Tis the Season ---Tis the Reason” (note: I added the visual art work Green wreath & Crown of Thorns)

When it comes to Christmas, every preacher faces the same challenge. How do you tell the story of the Creator of the Universe coming into the world to be our Savior and Redeemer….. to people who have already heard it many times. Someone used the title, “Miracle on Manger Street.” That’s clever and catchy, and it’s also appropriate because there really was a miracle on “manger street” the night Jesus was born.

In our society, there are two great religious holidays—Christmas and Easter. The green wreath of Christmas is juxtaposed to the Good Friday wreath of thorns.

For most of us, Christmas is the most exciting season of the year. It’s the time when we gather with family and friends. We sing. We celebrate. We laugh. We exchange presents. For children and most adults Christmas is the climax of the whole year.

And Easter? For most people it’s just another long weekend, a break in the dreary stretch between Christmas and summer vacation

It is the great miracle of the resurrection of Jesus from death and the grave on Easter that gives Christmas its true meaning. If Easter had not happened, Christmas would have no meaning. If Easter had not happened, Christmas would be nothing more than a sweet-sounding fable. If Easter is not true, then Christmas is only the story of an obscure baby born in an out-of-the-way town in a forgotten land 2000 years ago. April 1995 Ken Prichard What Difference does Easter Make?

The secular humanist Tom Flynn said: “I’ve been boycotting Christmas since 1984. To my mind, if Jesus Christ is not your savior, Christmas is not your holiday. He’s right of course. We believe God invaded our world in the form of a tiny baby boy. That’s a stunning thought, if you think about it, which we rarely do. We sing, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the Incarnate Deity,” without pondering what those words mean. It’s easier to sing about Christmas than to

ask what it’s all about. To ask what Christmas is all about is ask about the meaning of the crown of thorns and the wood of the cross.

“The wood of the cradle without the wood of the cross misses the true meaning of Christ’s birth.” “Bethlehem and Golgotha, the Manger and the Cross, the birth and the death must always be seen together, if the real Christmas is to survive. And so we sing: “O holy Child of Bethlehem cast out our sin and enter in.” That is why Jesus was born.

On that first Christmas Eve the owner of the inn had awakened earlier than most in the town. After all, the inn was full. All the beds taken. Every available mat or blanket had been put to use. Soon all the customers would be stirring. There would be a lot of work to do. One’s imagination is kindled thinking about the conversation of the innkeeper and his family at the breakfast table. Did anyone mention the arrival of the young couple the night before? How is the mother and new baby doing? Did anyone notice the unusual group of shepherds visiting last night?

The sun is rising. The night shadows are fleeing. The village streets are no longer quiet. The clutter of shop doors opening can be heard. The bakery shop was already open. The aroma of fresh bread is floating on the wisp of a breeze.

Maybe Joseph still hasn’t figured it all out. The mystery of the event still puzzles him. But he hasn’t the energy to wrestle with the questions. It was a long night. What’s important is that the baby is fine and Mary is safe. As sleep comes, he remembers the name the angel told him to use . . . Jesus. “We will call him Jesus.”

Mary also remembers the words of the angel… “His name shall be Immanuel ..God with us”….she touches the face of the infant-God and wonders. Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in an unusual place…a wooden manger. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter.

In the village of Bethlehem something happened that had never happened before.

Something happened that has never happened since.

We believe that a long time ago, in a forgotten corner of the Roman Empire, in a tiny village where there was no room in the inn, a baby was born to a young couple, who swaddled that baby and laid him in a feeding-trough of wood. Nothing could have seemed more obscure.