Christmas

Thank you, Carl. A little bit. We'll hear Matthew's version of the Christmas story. The account of Jesus' birth. Elder Dave Jacobs will read that. Tonight we want to cover the scope of the message which the Bible is a whole teaches, which leads up to that point which the possible called the fullness of time. And we're going to do three parts. So I don't think I'm done when I sit down the first time. Have you ever seen that upside down bumper sticker? It says, quite be normal. Now, this is kind of the strange way I look at the world, but have you ever thought that maybe those are right side up and everything else is upside down? What is normal? There is a difference between normal and average. And that's what the first thing I want you to understand tonight. There's a difference between normal and average. Normal is what ought to be. And average is what is. Have you heard about Oprah's special Christmas shows coming up? You know how weird and wild the daytime talk television has gotten? Well, I hear the most weird and wild things are coming yet this week. Monogamous women who like their children. Men who have never cheated or abused. Teenagers who believe their parents are smarter than they are. On the next Oprah Winfrey show. Don't tune in expecting to see those. But talk TV has done us a favor. Talk TV has shown us how really weird the world is. If normal is the way things are supposed to be, then friends things are not normal. What's normal for Christmas? Some of you are in from out of town. Some of you are guests here tonight. Though you don't come here regularly. You're here with family or friends. What's normal for Christmas for you? A Norman Rockwell picture. Of a brown golden turkey and 2.5 children seated peacefully around the table. With a tree full of bright gifts. Our ideal of Christmas, and we all have one for zoomably. Our ideal of Christmas tells us that all is not normal. Many people are lonely this time of year. It's time of year when we're more aware of our financial limitations. Strang family relationships pop right up in front of our eyes. And we have to deal with them. Loved ones are absent because of distance and even death. And all this is intensified on this night of the year because we expect this night of the year to be the most golden, the most beautiful. We see the world is not normal. We'll have a Merry Christmas. Christmas really is a good time of good news. But to understand just how good the good news is at Christmas, we have to go back to the first Christmas. And tonight, by saying first Christmas, I don't mean the one in which Jesus was born in Bethlehem. If you allow me the use of the term, I want to remind you about the first time God had a son. And a daughter. It was not the Christmas of Bethlehem. It was the Christmas of Eden. And I say Christmas because it was a time when God had children that he called daughter and son. The personal God who made everything made himself known to human beings. And he gave them something called his image and that image is just a mirror of his glory. God created us mirrors of his glory. So I'll make talks about that. What is man that you take thought of him? And the son of man that you care for him, you have made him a little lower than God. And you crown him with glory and majesty. Now that's a perfect Christmas scene. A son and a daughter of God seated in fellowship and in harmony with God. God didn't create us because he had a particular need. But he created us for his glory and for our pleasure. And when he was done he called it all very good. But God gave us a freedom of moral determination that that's part of what makes us royal as human beings. Having this moral character, this moral aspect and using that very thing that God had given us as a gift we declared independence. Not out of a rational determination of well-being. Because well-being would have been in continued dependence on God but for our own glory. And that's why the world is not normal. God gave curses. He said the ground is going to be cursed. It's going to yield thorns and pistols so that in every labor that you and I engage in in the world no matter how fulfilling and how rewarding it is and no matter how productive it is, there are weeds between the cracks. And it takes life instead of gifts life. And God said Adam from dust you came and to dust you shall return. Families were fractured. The man and woman blamed one another for their rebellion against God. And with the fracture the family met society was fractured. And so this explains why our world isn't normal just simply average. It's not the way it once was. I drive a certain way to the seminary to teach every morning. And I've been doing that for five and a half years. And there's a particular concrete block wall that is at one ninety degree turn in the road. And in front of that concrete block wall is a great big reflector sign. Warning someone to make the right hand turn. And it's been very interesting to me to watch that concrete block wall decay these five and a half years. From the bumpers of cars. Even though there's a sign there in the road to prevent such a thing. Many people apparently feel that sign is simply a hindrance in a bother. Tonight as we think about what our ideal of Christmas is and know that things aren't normal. God has given that very abnormalities a sign that things aren't the way they're supposed to be. The sign isn't a hindrance to us but it's a help to us. The point is to something else. And it points us to the promise that God made that first Christmas to send the seed of the woman to send someone from the line of that woman who would bruise the serpent's head that would destroy evil in the world that would take the curse away. And that's what we celebrate tonight. You see the ghost of Christmas past is a specter of what we once were. And it only reminds us it only haunts us because we're not what we ought to be. And God has given a promise that he would send a seed of the woman that would bruise the serpent's head. Christmas is the time when God fulfilled that promise. A time when God makes things right. And so as we think about Mary and what she was told that that baby would be conceived of her by the Holy Spirit and that it would be one who would cause a rise and fall of many in Israel and it would be one who would bring peace and that would be one who would bring down the exalted and raise up the lowly. We don't wonder about what Mary was thinking. We know it wasn't her own personal dilemma that she considered. But she was witnessing the promise of the ages fulfilled in her. The birth of Jesus Christ. This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph. But before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The Virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus. One neat thing about being around this church is there are so many World War II veterans. My own father was a World War II veteran, and I've heard enough stories about the war years to know that that war was a team effort. The men went off to war, and many, like my mother, went to the factories to work. And those even who didn't join in the working war effort, were reminded daily through ration stamps for gas and sugar and coffee and every other kind of thing, that they were part of a nation that was a war, that they had a common enemy. Even those shells weren't falling around, all who were at war. I described the perfect first Christmas as a time of peace, but our rebellion against God has created a situation of war. And even though we don't always see the bombs falling around us, God gave us something else to remind us that we are at war with Him. He gave us His law. It reveals His perfection, but it also shows us how impossible it is to make peace with Him on our own. Some of you might have religious friends like I do, I have a few,

and sometimes my religious friends think sin is something you do. But they don't realize sin is a condition, sin is a state of affairs. Sin is the dust of death that has blown in every crack of our lives and have left us short of what we would like to see in our own lives and in the world around us. Our world is like a broken mirror and it needs fixed. And the law of God tells us that we can get by on the murder one and fairly much succeed on the adultery one, but the law says don't even want something that belongs to somebody else. And the law of God says if you're angry with someone, you've broken the commandment not to murder. And Jesus said about the most righteous people of his days, unless your righteousness is better than them, you can't see the kingdom of God. God has reminded us through His law, through what's right that we're at war with Him. Now some people don't believe in His law, but He's also given us something else to tell us that we're at war with Him. He's given us a conscience. The things in which we condemn and other people are sufficient to condemn us ourselves before God. Francis Shafer, a famous apologist and theologian said that if God just hung a tape recorder around our neck to record only those moments in our lives where we judge other people, those acts for which we judge other people would be sufficient to find us guilty before God. And that characterizes the time between the promise that God gave until Christmas Eve. The promise God gave to send someone who had put things right who had bruised the serpent's head, who had crushed evil in the world, who had restored us to the dignity and the place which we were created to have. And that Christmas Eve or that eve of Christmas is not simply the night before Christmas. It's the woman that that song was about that you just heard. The woman who was promised that she would conceive by the Holy Ghosts and that she would give birth to a son. And this son would do great things for her and he would shed mercy upon her and he would scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts and he would bring down rulers from their throne. You see the eve of Christmas is not simply the night before Christmas. The eve of Christmas is Mary herself because the promise of the ages came true in her. You think about Mary and the parallels between her and Eve. She receives a word from God, a special word from God just like Eve did. And this special child of hers would be the focus of that word. And just like that promise to Eve, the child promised to Mary would do battle. He would be the cause of the rise and fall of many. And interestingly enough Matthew, when he writes about where this baby descended from, he traces his descent all the way back to a man named Adam. You see, Christmas Eve is not just the night before Christmas. It's the promise to Eve come true in the Virgin Mary. God took upon himself a human nature without losing any of his deity himself. And the incarnation, the taking upon a human nature by God himself is the beginning of a road that leads to the cross of Christ. And when you think about what Christmas means, the eternal Son of God becoming a human being, you realize what God did to make peace with us. God became hungry for the first time. God became tired for the first time. And God became poor even though he is rich beyond all measure. The thing that really strikes me more than these other things is that the Son of God who had eternal and perfect fellowship with the Father and the Holy Spirit had to pray for the first time. So that when Christ on the cross said, Father why have you forsaken me? It was only the arrival and not the beginning of the journey. It was only the completion and not the beginning. And the Bible tells us that what the law could not do, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sin from flesh as an offering for sin. Paul wrote in Galatians 4 that he made him, that when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born everyone, born under the law. God came and lived under the law that he gave us so that he could be our perfect substitute. At the same time, the anger of God, the war that God had with us was directed on that Son of God. Isaiah wrote about him and said, the punishment that brought us peace was on him. Paul said it this way, he made him who knew no sin to be sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. God had promised that he would send a seed of the woman who Satan would crush his heel, but he would crush Satan's head. And at Christmas we see the Son of God placing himself under the heel of the serpent to make peace. For God said that through him he reconciled all things to himself having made peace to the blood of his cross. God become man, that's what Christmas is about. The eternal God without any loss of deity to take upon himself a body and a human nature just like you and me. And through that peace that he bought, the gaze of God, though no less holy, becomes the gaze of a friend instead of an enemy. That's the mystery of Christmas. The goddess Lewis has great children's stories, the chronicles of Narnia. In the final book called the final battle, the heroes of the story are have their backs against the wall, literally, they're backing up against a stable, being fought by their enemies. And they can't flee into the stable because there is a monster in that stable who will tear them limb from limb when they're thrown in. And eventually they lose their arms, their grab, and they're thrown in that stable. And when they find themselves in the stable, all they see of the stable is the door. And they look around themselves and they see blue sky and flowery fields as far as the eye can see. And one of them said he could hardly believe his eyes. And his friends were laughing. And he said, it seems then that the stable scene from within and the stable scene from without are two different places. Yes, said one of them. It's inside is bigger than it's outside. And Queen Lucy, who came from our world into the fantasy world of Narnia with a story took place. She said, yes, in our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world. This is what joy to the world is about. That a stable held God, that a manger held God. That in him our peace is made, because God is coming to flesh to be sin for us and to give us his righteousness so that we're able to sing. No more let sin and sorrow grow nor thorn in festighround. He comes to make his blessings known as far as the curse is found.

I love getting Christmas cards. Thank you for some of you sent me ones. I was going to bring some, but my suit pockets are sewn shut. I couldn't believe it about, I guess it was two years ago, on Christmas morning, the doorbell rang. It was a postal service. Now, some of you know, some of you have express mailed stuff just today. But did you know you can get mail on Christmas morning? Not just your average, average everyday letters, but it has to be special. But Christmas was the last day I expected getting mail, especially a gift in the mail. I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel that way about Jesus and Christmas. Doesn't this get trite? I mean, we've heard Charlie Brown and the Grinch and we've been through the same routines and we've rushed and we've heard and we're just glad we've gotten to the night and not too far over budget, and nobody's gotten mad at anybody, even though we've got ten people staying in our house. And it's the last time we expect anything new. What Whitman said, I find letters from God dropped in the street and everyone assigned by God's name. Christmas is a good time to think back a year. It's got been good to you, not just the ghost of Christmas past, the pains, but it has got been good to you. The Bible tells us God's good. When the angels appeared to the shepherds, they said, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, just what we need at Christmas. Peace with whom he is well pleased. How do you know if Christmas is for you? How do you know if God is well pleased with you? You might search for peace in life, especially in Christmas Eve. I live in Altamont, so I can't even drive for a month before Christmas. But if you're looking for the peace of God, the first thing you have to have before you can have the peace of God is peace with God. You have to be one of those people with whom he is well pleased. How can we know that God is pleased with us? How can we know that we are at peace with God? That it's not simply day time. It's not simply a cold war where there's no shooting, but there's a hostile enemy out there. Paul tells us that having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. God has written new letters I am confident this year, the letters that Walt Whitman talked about, and he offers you his peace by faith. John wrote, in this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, the payment, the bearer of our sins. And when John said he sent his son, he's talking about Christmas. A lot of people said in the 60s and the 70s that the cold war was aggravated and perpetuated by people who profited from it, the military industrial complex, that war was good for business, even a cold war. Well, that may or may not be true. But Jesus said, what does it profit you to gain the whole world and to lose your soul? I know it's pretty silly. I know it sounds really ridiculous that God would take on a human nature. And I know it sounds pretty silly that God would die on a cross. It does sound silly unless you understand and believe that there was a God who loves his creation and loves his image of errors and that love caused Christmas and love caused Easter. Is it more foolish that God was born a human being or that he died on a cross? Frankly, I've never met anybody who decided not to believe in Jesus because they didn't believe God could become a man. I've never met anybody who didn't believe in Jesus because they don't believe God could rise from the dead if God did become a man. But I've known a lot of people who didn't believe in Jesus because they were gaining the whole world. God extends to you an offer of peace because he comes to live in a food trough to depend upon a mother to change his diapers. God who owns the world and who puts food in your mouth had to cry out to be nursed. And yet it's not the weakness of God. It's the weakness of God manifesting the strength of God and the power of God and the glory and the majesty of God. God offers you peace by faith and faith alone. Tonight can be your Christmas gift, even though you might expect the Postal Service tomorrow, you might not have expected an encounter with it living God tonight. But if you will put your faith and trust in Christ, the Christ in the manger lose the whole world that to gain eternal life. That would be God's gift of peace to you. God tells us that he opposes the proud that gives grace to the humble. Did Mary know? Did Mary know she was the eve of Christmas? She knew the promise of Isaiah that there would be one who would be born who would pile up the boots of the warriors for burning and who would roll up the wars, the war bandages for fuel and who would make the lamb lay down with the lion. He is your peace if you will place your confidence in Him. Did Mary know? We're sure she did. As a requires things, do we know? Ask yourself. Chases the way the ghosts of Christmas past because sorrow and sins no longer infest the ground for those who have been justified by faith. When I ask the usher not to come, as we prepare for the lighting of the candles, just when you receive the light, pass it on to the person next to you, John in his gospel has a Christmas story. In that Christmas story, he said, there was the true light which coming into the world and lightens every man. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light and those who were sitting in the land and the shadow of death upon them, a light has dawned. Isaiah said, arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen on you. And Paul wrote, for God who said, light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Christ is the glory in the light of the world. Amen.