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CHRISTMAS TREASURES
BY
GLENN PEASE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 HIS WONDROUS NAME based on Isaiah 9:1-7
CHAPTER 2 WAITING FOR CHRISTMAS based on Haggai 2:1-9
CHAPTER 3 CHRISTMAS SECRETS based on Matt. 1:18-2:12
CHAPTER 4 HIS WONDERFUL NAME based on Matt.1:18-25
CHAPTER 5 ANGELIC HOST based on Luke 2:8-15
CHAPTER 6 THE ENJOYMENT OF GOD based on Luke 2:8-20
CHAPTER 7 THE BABE AND THE BELL based on Luke 2:1-20
CHAPTER 8 CHRISTMAS EXPECTATIONS based on Luke
2:8-32
CHAPTER 9 PARADOXES OF CHRISTMAS based on John
1:1-14
CHAPTER 10
THE TRUE LIGHT based on John 1:1-14
CHAPTER 11
THE FACE OF GOD based on II Cor. 4:1-6
CHAPTER 12
THE FOOLISHNESS OF CHRISTMAS based on I.Cor.1:18-25
CHAPTER 13
WHERE DOES CHRISTMAS COME FROM? based
on Gal.4:1-7
CHAPTER 14
RECIPE FOR A MERRY CHRISTMAS based on Phil. 2:1-4
CHAPTER 15
CHRISTMAS AND THE CROSS based on Hebrews 12:1-2
1. HIS WONDROUS NAME based
on Isaiah 9:1-7
Corrie Ten Boom is one of the best known names in the 20th
century. But many do not know that
Corrie had more than one name. In 1977
a group of several hundred Christian Indians honored her in Flagstaff, Arizona,
by giving her an Indian name. Tom
Claus, a Mohawk and president of the group, made this presentation-
I want you to know that we accept you as an Indian; you are our
blood sister, and you are
our spiritual sister in Jesus Christ.
When we bestow an Indian name, it is the highest honor we can
give. When your name was
nominated to our CHIEF committee
thought that we would like
to pick a name that is really meaningful to
you, Corrie.
We realize that in the past you have identified with the Jews
in
their suffering-now you have
identified with American Indians in
our plight. Even though you
have been on the front line of battle and
have seen bloodshed and war,
you have always been a demonstration
of God's love. That is why we give you the name Loma-Si, which
is Hopi for "beautiful
flower," because you are one of God's beautiful flowers. We do thank God
for you ....
Like many of the people of the Bible she received a new name
of honor. Because names have always
been important to Indians they have left their mark on our culture. Over 20 states have Indian names. The great rivers like the Mississippi and
Missouri and 4 out of 5 of the Great Lakes have Indian names. There are hundreds of cities and lakes and
streams all over our nation with Indian names.
The poet has rightly said,
Ye say they all have passed
away
That noble race and
brave
That their light canoes have
vanished
From off the crested wave.
That mid the forests where
they roamed
Their rings no hunter's shout
But their name is on your
waters
Ye may not wash it out.
Names play a major role in our history and our heritage as
Americans. In 1507 a German professor
in a French college edited a map of the world.
As he read up on the discovery of the new world he found that much of it
was explored by Americus Vespucci. He
said, "I do not see what hinders us from calling it America." He did so name it and the name stuck. Professor
David Muzzy in his American History writes, "so it came about that
this continent was named by a German professor, in a French college, for an
Italian navigator in the service of the King of Portugal."
Names have determined so much in our history and our
environment but more important yet they determine our destiny. God is a great lover of names and name
giving. The book of Revelation says, we
will get new names in heaven. The Bible
is full of genealogies which are just lists of names. Many of them mean nothing to us but they were important to God
and His people. God gave the first man
and woman their names and He gave the second Adam His name as well. This most important child ever born on this
planet was named by his true Father in heaven.
Gabriel came to Mary and said to her in Luke 1:31, "you will be
with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name
Jesus.' Later in a dream the same
message came to Joseph in Matt.1:21.
The angel of the Lord said to him, "she will bear a son, and you
shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their
sin." Like the spirit of the
child, the name of the child also came from heaven. This name was so important to God He made sure both of His
earthly parents received a supernatural message as to what they were to name
Jesus.
This name is now the most celebrated name in history. Like the vast majority of babies Jesus was
born without fanfare or fame. There
were no reporters and no headlines for though all heaven rang as the angels
sang, on earth there was barely a ripple.
Everything is different now,
There's no other name like
that of Jesus,
There's none in all the world beside,
For there's no other name
can give salvation,
In His love I will abide.
There are more songs on the name of Jesus than any other
name-Jesus Is The Sweetest Name I Know; Take The Name Of Jesus With You;
There's Something About That Name and His Name Is Wonderful, Just to mention a
few that are well known.
The prophet Isaiah predicted that a child would be born in
Israel who would acquire a name for himself- a name above every name.
If you like to know big names then you will want to get acquainted with
this coming child, Isaiah would advise.
His name will be the biggest ever.
In fact, His name is so big it is a multiple name. There are not enough powerful descriptive
adjectives to describe it. Isaiah says
He shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace.
Wonderful or full of wonder is His name. It inspired
Handel's Glorious Messiah with it's Hallelujah Chorus that has brought millions
to their feet before the bearer of this
name. Napoleon was rightly
awestruck by this name. He said,
"Is it not amazing that whereas the ambitious dreams of Caesar, Alexander
and myself should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant should be able
to stretch a hand across the centuries and control the destinies of nations and
the children of men."
There is no other name
like that of Jesus. It is truly a
wonder. Emerson said, "His name is
not so much written as ploughed into
the history of the world."
At one time the Christians celebrated the birth of Jesus on a
pagan holiday. Now the pagan world
celebrates on a Christian holiday.
Everything connected with the name of Jesus is transformed for His name
is wonderful and does wonders. There is
no greater wonder in the universe than the wonder of Christmas. This marks the day when our planet was
invaded by a superior force from
another realm. A power opposed to the
sin and folly of human nature and yet it did not invade to destroy but to redeem. This is no minor wonder but rather the
greatest wonder of all and that is why His name of Wonderful.
He did not come to
judge the world,
He did not come to blame,
He did not come to seek, it
was to save He came,
And when we call Him Savior,
then we call Him by His name.
There are so many names of Jesus in the Bible that He is
literally all things to all men. He is
the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.
He is to the artist-THE ONE
ALTOGETHER LOVELY
He is to the architect-THE
CHIEF CORNERSTONE
He is to the baker-THE
LIVING BREAD
He is to the biologist-THE
LIFE
He is to the builder-THE
SURE FOUNDATION
He is to the carpenter-THE
DOOR
He is to the doctor-THE
GREAT PHYSICIAN
He is to the educator-THE
TRUTH
He is to the farmer-THE LORD
OF THE HARVEST
He is to the florist-THE
ROSE OF SHARON, THE LILY OF THE VALLEY
He is to the philosopher-THE
WISDOM OF GOD
He is to the preacher-THE
WORD OF GOD
He is to the statesman-THE
DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS
We could go on almost endlessly as there are several hundred
names, titles and symbols of Jesus in the Bible. But the name above all these names is the name that covers all
the rest and that name is Jesus, the Savior of His people. This is the most wonderful of all His
wondrous names.
This is the name God gave to Mary and Joseph. This is the name that makes Christmas the
greatest day of celebration in history.
This is the name that opens the gates of heaven. In God's plan it is not what you know but
who you know that makes the difference.
If you know this name you can get into the very presence of God. Jesus said, "I am the way the truth and
the life no one comes to the Father but by me." There is no other name under heaven by which we can be
saved. This name is the open seseme to
the mind of God.
The New Testament is filled with reference to the power of the
name of Jesus. The prayer of the church
in Acts 4:30 sums up the whole of the early Christians conviction about the
source of their power. Their prayer
was, "Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and
wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus." The early Christians called upon the name of
Jesus for their every need. They were
baptized in the name of Jesus. They
preached and healed in the name of Jesus and they suffered for the name of
Jesus.
The purpose of God in choosing Paul was that He might have
someone to carry the name of Jesus to the world of the Gentiles. The essence of success in the New Testament
is described in Acts 19:17, "And the name of the Lord Jesus was held in
high honor." That is the bottom
line, not just for Christmas but for all the year. Do we hold the name of Jesus in high esteem? Do we honor and exalt that name that God has
made the name above all names?
Our text is the only place I am aware of where the Christ
child of Christmas is given a series of names that make Him the greatest being
ever born. He is called-
I. WONDERFUL COUNSELOR.
There is debate as to whether there should be a coma between
these two words or not. Should it be
Wonderful, Counselor as in two
different ideas, or just one as in Wonderful Counselor? The NIV leaves the coma out but the Berkley
puts it in. Obviously scholars are not
absolutely sure which way Isaiah intended us to take it. It really does not make any difference if
you realize the point is these names are to exalt Jesus. They lift Him to the heights of adoration. So
you simply need to reason, if He is wonderful and a counselor it follows
that He is a wonderful counselor. In
this context of being the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of
Peace, it follows that He is wonderful as everything that He is.
A WONDERFUL SHEPHERD
A WONDERFUL SAVIOR
A WONDERFUL SON
A WONDERFUL SERVANT
A WONDERFUL STAR
And on and on we could go
from alpha to omega. There is no point
in trying to figure out if the coma is needed or not. Take it both ways and any other way you can imagine, for the
point is He is wonderful in every way that can be imagined. You never have to fear lest you exalt the
name of Jesus in some way that is not so.
He was the wonder baby of all time. He was the only baby of all time that was older than His
mother. He made the ground on which she
laid to give Him birth. He made the air
that she breathed and the stars that she gazed up at in her labor. Without Him was not anything made that was
made.
There was no room in the inn for this wonder baby but the
wonder is He grew up with a heart so big He took in the whole world. He died for the sins of the whole world and
thus this wondrous gift was the only gift ever given to meet the deepest need
of all mankind. No wonder people all
over the world sing-
Wonderful, wonderful, Jesus
is to me
Prince of Peace, Counselor, Mighty
God is He
Saving me, Keeping me from
all sin and shame
He is my redeemer, praise
His name!
II. MIGHTY GOD
When a Jewish writer tells us a baby is going to be called
Mighty God, he has either gone insane or he is revealing the mystery of the
Incarnation. The latter is what Isaiah
is doing here. He is saying a human
baby will be called a name that no one would call anyone but Jehovah. Here is the God-Man in prophesy as clear as
you can get it.
The Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah because they were
strict monotheists. What they failed to
realize is that Jesus did not change that.
There is only one God and He is the One. The Jesus of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old
Testament. Everything we know about God
is known through the Word of God and Jesus is the Word. Jesus said, "He who has seen me has
seen the Father." Jesus is the
Mighty God, the God of all gods.
If Jesus was not this we would have to agree with Judaism that
it would be idolatry to worship Jesus.
But at His birth this baby was worshiped by angels, shepherds and wise
men. He was, is, and every will be
Mighty God. Jesus said, "All power
in heaven and on earth is given unto me." This was His clear claim to be the one Isaiah pointed to. Nobody else has ever claimed such
power. Christmas is the celebration
that it is because it is the birthday of the Mighty God in the flesh.
This infant is the Mighty
God
Come to be suckled and
adored
The Eternal Father, Prince
of Peace
The Son of David and His
Lord.
III. EVERLASTING FATHER
Isaiah is saying this baby is the father of eternity. He who was born gave birth to all that
is. He is the father of all. Jesus said He and the Father are one and so
He takes on the very name of the Father.
He is Immanuel, God with us; not anyone else with us, but God with
us. You cannot separate the Father and
the Son for they are one.
Isaiah anticipates John's saying, "In the beginning was
the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." The Old Testament and the New Testament are
united in this, the Messiah who would be born as a baby was God for all
eternity. The pre-existence of Jesus is
clearly revealed in both testaments.
Jesus is the Father of eternity in the sense that everything
that will last forever is His doing. So
much of reality is only temporary and it will pass away. But that which Jesus creates will be forever
for He is the Father of foreverness. If
there is eternal life it is because He fathered it. If there is eternal song and joy it is because he fathered
it. He only stayed a baby for months
but He is a father forever. His
birthday and childhood are only celebrated because of what he fathered. Adam is the father of the fallen race of men
but Jesus is the father of the risen race of men. Jesus never had a child in His manhood but He has fathered the
one and only race of men who will live forever. He is the Everlasting Father.
IV. PRINCE OF PEACE
Many Christians hate the war-torn pages of the Old
Testament. God's people were constantly
in battle and death was ever lurking near even if they won. Well, they hated it too and longed for one
who would bring a lasting peace and set them free from a life of strife. This was the messianic hope. G.Cambell Morgan, the prince of expositors,
writes, "If I could write one word across the prophecy of Isaiah, a word
that catches the underline motive, what would it be? Peace, God's great purpose of peace. He is the Prince of Peace."
There can be no greater kingdom than a kingdom where there is
perpetual peace. This will be the
ultimate goal of the Messiah. Even now
this is the goal for the inner life for the believer Paul writes in II Thess. 3:16, "Now may the Lord of peace
Himself give you peace at all times and in every way." This is a prayer for peace to the Prince of
Peace because even in this battle scared world the goal is to have peace and live
peaceably with all men.
Jesus had such a complex name that it would be terrible if He
had to sign His name as we often do today.
An Indian petitioned a judge of an Arizona court to give him a shorter
name. His name was Chief Switching
Train Whistle. What do you wish to
change you name to? The judge
asked. The Indian folded his arms and
said, "Toot." This reveals
that a short name can convey what is involved in a long one.
Jesus is the simple name that conveys all that is involved in
His many other names. Frans Delitzsch,
the Old Testament scholar wrote, "The name Jesus is the combination of all
the Old Testament titles used to designate the coming one according to His
nature and His works." It is not
only the goal of Christmas but the very goal of life to know God by His first
name-JESUS.
2. WAITING FOR CHRISTMAS
based on Haggai 2:1-9
In 563 BC, a son was born to a ruler in India. The local astrologers predicted he would
either be a great ruler or a world renowned
ascetic. His father wanted to
prevent that, so he sheltered his child from all contact with suffering of any kind. The little prince was to never see life's
sorrows. But as he grew up he defied
his father and slipped out of the palace to see life on the outside. What he saw was a shock. People were poor and sick and old and there
was hardship and suffering everywhere.
He began to search for why this was and the conclusion he came to has
influence millions. This prince was
Buddha the founder of Buddhism.
He concluded that the whole problem with human beings was
there desire. They set their hearts on
to many things and expect the future to fulfill their hopes. This leads to inevitable disappointment and
misery. The solution if quite simple, just
eliminate desire. If you aim for
nothing that is likely what you will get.
But you won't be disappointed because that is just what you
expected-nothing.
Buddhism is a negative religion where the goal is Nirvana,
which means extinction. It is the
elimination of all desire, hope and anticipation. The closer you can come to this in life, the greater saint you
are. To be detached from all things and
people so that you no longer care if they are destroyed or die, the better
off you are. You can't be disappointed if you
desire nothing. This sounds
awful and depressing to us maybe, but we have to face this reality, there is a
measure of truth in it. Desire to be
like God led Adam and Eve to fall and much of the sin and folly in the Bible is
due to illegitimate desires.
Ruel Howe in his book, The Creative Years, tells of the bright
outgoing young woman who collapsed on the eve of her wedding day. She got more and more depressed and tried to
take her own life. She had to be put in
a mental hospital where she continued to deteriorate. She sat in a corner and refused to respond in any way. This went on for weeks and months and all
she did was sit crumpled in a corner, a symbol of living death.
And artist working on a portrait of the superintendent heard
about her and asked to see her. He took
a piece of moist clay and began to work with it in front of her. He did this for weeks and finally one day
she reached out for the clay. Some
weeks later she began to try to mold it.
She became frustrated that she could not do it and in anger hurled the
clay against the wall. She then looked
in terror at the artist to see his reaction.
He just picked it up and brought it back to her and said, "It's all
right, I still like you." Then she
spoke her first words in many months-"You still like me!" That was the turning point, and from then on
she made rapid progress in her recovery.
They were finally able to figure out what had gone wrong. It was a simple case of excessive
expectation. She was bright and
talented and her parents wanted her to be popular and to succeed in every
endeavor. She worked her heart out and
became cheerleader, homecoming queen and valedictorian. When she faced the expectations of marriage
and the added demands of a husband, it was an overload on her spirit. She broke and retreat into sickness in order
to escape.
Buddha was right, all of this misery was due to hopes and
desires. By expecting less everyone
involved in this true story could have experienced more joy and less
sorrow. Those who expect to much and
who desire perfection are doomed to disappointment in a fallen world. Buddha had a point but he took it to
far. To anticipate an expect nothing
would have been to waste the gifts of this girl and rob her of the potential of
being what she could be. Somewhere
between expect everything and expect nothing there is a place for expect
something.
About the same time that Buddha was teaching his desire
nothing philosophy, there was a prophet called of God to take a message to his
people. Haggai was his name and
encouragement was his game. The people
had come back from Babylon to rebuild the temple with high expectations. But their enthusiasm was soon
shattered. The Samaritans so hindered
the work that the project was abandoned.
The cities were in ruins and the land was a mess and their neighbors
were hostile. They came back with high
hopes of peace and prosperity, and this is what they find. Maybe Buddha was right. Their misery was because they expected too
much.
Then Haggai came on the scene and he urges then to get back to
their dreams and rebuild the temple.
God never promised you a rose garden.
Sure it is hard and there are obstacles to overcome, but let me tell you
a little about the future. The best is
yet to be. God's glory to going to fill
this temple and there will be a peace come upon you as never before. The Desired of all the nations is going to
come to this temple that God wants you to build. Haggai is saying we haven't seen anything yet. The best that God has for this world is
still ahead-the desire of all the nations.
Haggai is saying that desire is good. It is a God given emotion and it is
universal. All nations have it. You can try and follow Buddha and suppress
it but that is not God's way. He wants
you to desire His best. The Old
Testament rejects the Buddhist idea of eliminating desire. Instead, it builds up hope, expands
expectation, and delights in desire.
Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall give
you the desires of your heart."
There are dozens of texts that make desire a desirable thing. In the New Testament we are urged to desire
the sincere milk of the word and to desire the best gifts. Desire is good and the best desire of all is
the desired one that God promised to send for all the world.
People of every nation have always desired a deliverer. Someone who can come and show away to
overcome the sinful nature and all of the negative consequences of sin. Haggai says this is not just the desire of
God's people but all the peoples of the world have such a desire. That is why one of the names of the Messiah
is Desire Of All Nations.
The wise men from the East were waiting for the birth of a
deliverer. Virgil, the Latin poet, who
lived in Rome a few years before the birth of Christ, wrote of his hope of a
celestial seed who would come and bring peace.
Plato wrote,"We must wait patiently until someone, either a God or
an inspired man, teach us our religious duties and remove the darkness from our
eyes." The Roman historian,
Suetonius, wrote that it was an age old belief that a world ruler would come
out of Judea.
Men of every nation have desired a God they could see. Most all of the mythology of the ancients
was about just such a theme. It was the
fantasy of all peoples that God would come into the world and be like them.
This fantasy of all the world became a reality on the first Christmas. God became incarnated in flesh, visible to
the eyes of humanity. What men had waited for from the beginning of
time, had come. The desire of all
nations had been fulfilled and that is why Christmas is the greatest
celebration of the year.
Before Christmas God was wholly other than man. He was the infinite, exalted inaccessible
and invisible God. At Christmas all of this changed for God
came down to man's level, all the way to an infant. He came to a level of the visible and could be touched. He entered into a world where he had to grow
and learn and where he could feel pain and sorrow and all the affects of a
fallen world-even death. This is
just what men of every nation had always wanted, a God who would show He really
cared by coming to share their life in this fallen world. God satisfied the
universal longing of the human heart that first Christmas. The world did not
even know it but they got just what they were waiting for on that day. The
desire of all nations had come.
It is always hard to believe when the Christmas season is here
again and sometimes we complain that the merchants start so early just to make
more money. This is no doubt true, but the fact is you cannot anticipate this
event too early. Christmas was waited for, for many centuries. Now that it is
an historical reality, we should be ever ready to anticipate the celebration of
this wondrous good news.
Plants and animals cannot do what we can do by looking into
the future and anticipating a coming event. We can multiply our enjoyment of a
coming event by our ability to anticipate it. We can begin to enjoy it long
before it is here. Much of the enjoyment of Christmas comes before Christmas.
The day itself may be very ordinary. It is not wise to put all your eggs in the
one basket of Christmas day. The day is not sacred but the event it celebrates
is what is precious and this can be enjoyed anytime and all the time. Christmas
is more than a day, it is a season and that season can be as long as you choose
to make it. By spreading your celebration out over a 4 to 6 week period you can
be sure you will have pleasure in waiting and seeing desires fulfilled.
Everybody is waiting for something at Christmas. Some are just waiting for it to be over so
they can stop waiting for it. Some are
waiting for special gifts. Some are
waiting for special events. Some are
waiting for special foods or special relationships they only renew once a
year. People have different values that
make waiting a pain and another kind a pleasure. S.Omar Barker wrote,
Waiting for a phone call
frets him.
Waiting for his wife upsets
him.
Almost any kind of waiting
Starts his temper
activating.
He's the guy who finds
delight
Waiting for the fish to
bite!
The point if waiting itself can be part of the pleasure if you
have pleasure in what you are waiting for.
Waiting in line at the super market is not enjoyable but the reason you
endure it is because the food you are going to take home is enjoyable. You will wait for any goal where you can
anticipate that the pleasure is greater than the pain.
In the New Testament there was an old man who was feeble and
ready to die, but he could not do so because he was waiting for God to do what
the world had always desired him to do-come into the world and reveal
Himself. God had revealed to him that
he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. We read in Luke 2:25, "Now there was a man in Jerusalem
called Simeon, who was righteous and devout.
He was waiting for the consolation of Israel." Simeon was a God-ordained waiter. That is all we know about him. He was waiting for the Christ child and when
Jesus was brought to the temple he was there to take the babe in his arms and
praise God.
We don't know just how long he had been waiting but he was the
only man outside the immediate family who lived in intense anticipation of the
first Christmas. All the nations
desired God to come but Simeon knew He was coming in his lifetime. That was truly privilege information. But note what he was anticipating-the
consolation of Israel. That is another
name for the Messiah. He is the Desire
of all nations but also the Consolation of Israel.
Israel had a hard history.
They had suffered much, but their consolation would be, they would be
the nation that gave the whole world the Savior of the world. It
was a comfort to know that all their suffering would not be in vain, and
that through them, God would fulfill His promise to Abraham to bless the whole
world through his seed. You can put up
with a lot of negatives in life if you know you are being used of God to
achieve His positive purpose.
Christmas fulfilled the general hopes of all mankind and the
specific hopes of God's people. Christmas was the most fulfilling event in all of history. It satisfied the hopes and dreams of all the
peoples of the ancient world-both Jews and Gentiles. There is no other event that can stand in the same category with
it. Christmas stands alone as the focus
and fulfillment of all that men could anticipate from God. That is why it is so appropriate that we
sing Joy to the World. It is not just
good news for some-Christmas is good news for all the world.
We need to keep perspective to avoid disappointment. If we focus on what Christmas will bring to
us we maybe let down. We need to
remember, Christmas is a celebration, not of what might be or of what we hope
to see happen, it is a celebration of a sure thing that has already
happened. God has come down to man to
dwell with him. John begins his first
epistle, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched-this
we proclaimed concerning the Word of life." The Desire of all nations has come. The Consolation of Israel has come. We celebrate a certainty, not a hope. In I John 5:11-12 we read, "God has given us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son. He who has
the Son has life." The best God can
give He has already given. We may not
get many things that we hope for but we never be disappointed in Christmas if
we see that it is a celebration of what we have already received. So what we wait for is a renewed awareness
of what is already ours. We are to
anticipate that Christmas will awaken in us anew, the reality of what God has
given us in the Gift of His Son.
Dr. Oliver Sacks, a British Neurologist, wrote a book in 1973
called, Awakenings. A movie was made of
the book by the same name because it was so spectacular. It is about the victims of a rare sleeping
sickness that affected some 5 million people world wide during World War
I. The disease turned people into
frozen statues as motionless as stones.
They were still alive but they could not enter the world of the living.
In 1967 a new drug
called L-dopa was developed and Dr. Sacks tried it on his patients. It was like a resurrection. These people burst forth with joy and
laughter. Some had been motionless for
almost 5 decades and now they were walking and talking and able to feel and to
think. They had been reawakened to what
was already theirs-the gift of life. It
lay dormant and unused but not they could pick it up and use it with
enthusiasm. They had found anew what was
already theirs.
That is what we should anticipate in the Christmas season-that
all of it's color, music and special focus on Christ will awaken us to enjoy
the life that is already ours in Him.
Someone wrote,
It's time to light the candles
once again,
and to begin those other
things that let us know
that Christmas day is on the
way:
soon the decorations will
come out,
cards will be sent and
others will arrive;
soon the baking must take
place,
and the shopping and the wrapping
and the wishing, and the
waiting.
waiting is the hardest part,
O Lord. I wish the day
could just be here without a
month to wait!
But even waiting, getting
ready, can be fun-
can be exciting too-because
I know,
with all these other things
I do,
what I am really waiting
for-
what I am getting ready
for-is You!
Oh, make me patient, Lord,
and help me wait:
but while I'm waiting, let
me be excited too.
Each day of Advent help me
celebrate the joy
I wait for: looking in the
manger to see You!
Let us pray that will be the dominate desire of our lives this
Christmas season. Many other desires
will also be satisfied-for food, fun, and fellowship, all of which are
legitimate and acceptable to God. But
our priority desire should always be our celebration of having received God's
best-the desire of all nations. Let this be your desire in waiting for
Christmas.
3. CHRISTMAS SECRETS based
on Matt. 1:18-2:12
C.S. Lewis is one of the most read and most quoted Christian
scholars of the 20th century, but he had to endure the burden of a very heavy
secret in his life. He fell in love with a divorced woman and his church, the
church of England, forbid marriage to one
who was divorced. Joy Davidman, the woman he loved, was an American and she
would soon have to leave England if she did not marry a British citizen. Lewis
was in a terrible bind. He wanted to obey his church but he did not want to
lose the woman he loved. So he slipped away with her and on April 23, 1956,
they were secretly married in a civil service. This kept her in England, but
what a pain it was to keep it a secret. They lived in separate houses and it
was not long before the gossip was growing because of his frequent visits and
late night stops at her house.
When Joy took a fall and ended up in the hospital she was told
she had cancer. That is when they decided it was time to tell their secret to
the world. When it was learned that she would never recover, the church leaders
had compassion and allowed this 42 year old divorcee to be officially married
in the hospital before she died.
Joseph and Mary had a problem like this as well. They had a
heavy secret to bear and at first they had to bear it alone. Mary did not have
the nerve to tell Joseph she was with child. How do you explain to man you love
that you have been secretly visited by an angel who has told you that you will
conceive a child by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Messiah? No wonder
she left town and headed for the hill country to stay with
Elizabeth. Gabriel had told
Mary the secret of Elizabeth, that she
too was with child in her old age. As soon as Mary stepped in the door and
greeted Elizabeth, her secret was out and Elizabeth exclaimed, "Blessed
are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear." Here are two
women who haven't said more than hello to each other and they both already know
each others secret-they are going to have babies.
Three months later when
Mary came back to Nazareth poor Joseph did not need an angel to tell him what
Mary had been hiding. Her body language exposed her secret and poor Joseph was
plunged into a secret civil war. How would you feel if your bride-to-be took
off for three months and then came back
pregnant? Joseph was caught in a terrible bind. Do I expose her to public
disgrace and let her be the victim of the law, which could lead to he being
stoned, or do I just divorce her and let her go quietly? He loved her even
though he was deeply hurt and so he was leaning toward divorce. Then the angel
came and let him know in a dream the secret that Mary was to give birth to the
Messiah.
When he woke up he was a partner in the secret and he took
Mary to be his wife and the bore the secret together. Nobody in Nazareth ever
knew that Joseph was not the father of Jesus. The virgin birth was a secret
that became a Christian doctrine only after Jesus died and rose again. Let's look for a few moments at-
I. THE SECRET OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH.
This was not a secret Mary was urged to proclaim from the
house tops. She never even told
Joseph. The angel had to reveal this
secret to him. This was their family
secret and not a matter of public information.
There is not a hint that anybody outside of their family ever dreamed
Jesus was virgin born. The references
to Joseph and Mary and Jesus make them seem like normal family with nothing unusual about them. Doctor Luke in Luke 2:27 says, "When
the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the law
required...." Joseph is called the
parent of Jesus. In verse 41 Luke
refers to them both again as the parents of Jesus. In verse 33 he writes, 'The child's father and mother
marveled at what was said about
him."
There is no doubt about the reality of the virgin birth. Joseph was not the literal father of Jesus,
but the fact is, it was kept a secret.
As far as the people were concerned, Jesus was the son of Joseph. The virgin birth was not known until after
the death and resurrection of Christ.
In His lifetime He was known only as the son of Joseph. John 1:45 says, "Jesus of Nazareth, the
son of Joseph." People who say
they interpret everything in the Bible literally do not realize that would
force them to reject the virgin birth.
Secrets are legitimate, for information known before it can be
understood can do more harm than good.
There is an appropriate time for truth to be revealed. Jesus said He had a lot of things to tell
His disciples but they were yet not ready.
A secret can simply be knowledge kept hidden until it can make sense to
those who hear it. The virgin birth
would have been a total hindrance to the plan of God had it been revealed in the
early life of Jesus. He was to be a
normal child and raised in a quiet obscure way; not as the Son of God drawing
the attention of the world. The truth
of the virgin birth had no value until after Jesus proved that He was indeed
the Son of God by His resurrection.
Then it made sense.
The very first reference we have to the Virgin Birth outside
the New Testament goes back to around 125 A.D.
Ignatius wrote a letter to the Ephesians and said, "Hidden from the
princes of the world were the virginity of Mary and her child
bearing." It was a part of the
plan of God that the Virgin Birth be a secret to all but those who had to
know. It was a secret until the time was
right for all to know it.
God has His secrets and it is fascinating to see how secretly
He worked in developing the whole Christmas story. We do the same thing by keeping our Christmas gifts a secret
until Christmas day. We hide them and
wrap them to assure they will stay a secret until the time is right. Secrecy is the name of the game. If you know what you are getting what is the
point of wrapping it up? It is the
secrecy and the mystery that make you anticipate. It drives children crazy of course and they shake the packages
trying to hear some tell-tale sound that will reveal the nature of the
gift. There is wonder and excitement
all because there are secrets. This is
certainly a legitimate form of fun for God plays this game Himself. Look for example at-
II. THE SECRET OF THE STAR.
All through history there have been spectacular events in the
heavens that grab men's attention and scare the wits out of them. In 1833 and again in 1866, as many as two
hundred thousand meteors could be seen flashing across the sky. People panicked and thought it was the end
of the world. But God did not start a
panic with the Star of Bethlehem. It
was so secret that only the Magi in a land far away could see it. The people in Israel saw nothing and Herod
and his scholars knew nothing of it until the wise men told them of its appearance.
God could have pulled off a supernova that would have burned
the eyeballs of every being in the land, but he chose to go the way of the
secret star. It may have been spectacular to those few sky watchers but for all others
it was hidden.
God did not even need the star, for He later warned these wise
men by means of a dream. He could have
gotten them to the Christ child by means of a dream also. But God wanted the star in the story of His
Son's birth because it was an important symbol for the fulfilling of
prophesy. Numbers 24:17 says, "A
star will come out of Jacob." But
the secret of the star is also based on the fact that the more precious the gift the greater the
secrecy connected with it. A precious
gift is meant to be a surprise and so
it is kept secret. I remember keeping
the wedding ring I gave to Lavonne, an other items of jewelry also. But I don't ever remember hiding the fact
that I picked her up a can a spam or a box of toothpicks. A secret has to do with something of great
value.
It may be unknown but it is no secret that I got my mail
yesterday. It would be a secret if I got a fortune in the mail that my uncle left me in
his estate. There is an endless number
of facts about life that are unknown, but they are not secrets until they
become events of value. Secrets are
about what is weighty in life-things that can greatly hurt or help. The secret Star of Bethlehem is a symbol
that heaven is involved in the birth of this Christmas baby as it has never
been involved before. This is the only
baby in history, so precious, that God created a special star to announce His
birth. Next look at-
III. THE SECRET OF THE
SHEPHERDS.
They had no secret very long, for as soon as they learned of
the secret birth of the Messiah, they ran to be eye-witnesses of the child in a
manger. They were recipients of the
secret but they did not keep it a secret.
They immediately began to spread the news. Luke 2:17-18 says, "When they had seen Him, they spread the
word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it
were amazed at what the shepherds said to them."
We have no idea how many people were told, but a lot of people
got in on this secret. Why didn't the
angels just appear over Bethlehem and let everybody in on it at once, instead
of appearing to small group of shepherds secretly? We don't know all of the reasons for why God works secretly with
small groups, we just know that He does.
Only a small group saw the star and not thousands of people. Only a few shepherds saw the angels and not
the masses. The Christmas secret was
revealed slowly, beginning with small groups and then spreading to larger
groups. This is no accident, but a
clear method by which God works in the world and in history. Jesus chose a small group of men to be His
disciples. He taught them the secrets
of the Kingdom of God. His goal was
then to get these secrets into all the world by means of this small group. Christianity operates much like
science. The great ideas and
discoveries are made by one or two, or a very small group. They then reveal the secrets to the
world. So Jesus said to His disciples
in Mark 4:11, "The secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to
you. But to those on the outside
everything is said in parables."
Jesus starts with the inner circle and reveals the secrets of
the Kingdom. Then they are commanded to
go into all the world and make these secrets known. This method of God is itself one of God's secrets. His plan is to use men to spread His
secret. He could have used the star or
the angels to tell the whole world. All
kinds of amazing things can be conceived that God might have done. But He did not do them, but chose instead,
not to use miracles, but to use men to achieve His purpose. The spectacular events of the star and the
angels were for the few only-the masses were reached by means of the commonplace
method of word of mouth.
The great commission is the command to spread the secret to
all the world. Secret spreading is the
ministry of every member of the church.
I've Got A Secret, was once a popular T.V. program. People with very strange jobs would try to
stump a panel as to their mysterious secret.
I remember one program in which the secret of the twelve people there
was, they were named after every month of the year. Some months sounded just fine such as, Fanny Mae and Sally April
or Bill June. But John October, Ed
December and Fred February sounded a little strange. Their names no doubt got them into a lot of conversations.
As Christians, we take on the name of the one who was born at
Christmas. Bearing this name carries
with it the responsibility to get into conversation about the name of
Christ. This name is not only the heart
of Christmas, but of all that
Christianity stands for. The secret of
Christmas is still a secret to masses of people and that is not God's
plan. He wants the secret spread so
everyone knows how to become a child a God through faith in Christ-His
Christmas Gift. If we are not in some
way spreading the secret of Christmas we are not fulfilling God's plan.
Two men rode into New York City on the same morning train for twenty
years. They became close and
intimate friends. One day the one man missed
the other, He missed him the
next day, and on enquiry learned that his
friend had suddenly passed
away. The man attended his friend's funeral,
and discovered to his utter
amazement that all through those twenty years his
friend had been an officer
in a Protestant Church. The survivor said: "I
cannot understand it;
through all the fellowship of those years he never once
mentioned the name of his
Master, nor did he once make any allusion to per-
sonal religion, or show the
slightest interest in my religious standing.
If he
had only spoken a word on
these matters he would have found me anxious
to be led to his faith
! Think of it! Twenty years of silence on the vital themes
of religion. He was keeping
that a secret which God intended for him to share.
God does not expect you to change the world at Christmas. He didn't even do that. He just let a few people in on the wondrous
secret and let it spread. So all you
have to do is one on one or small group
sharing and let the secret spread. It
was not what was in the headlines that most mattered that first Christmas, but
what was done in secret. This is still
true today. Life changing events are
going on everywhere as individuals hear about Jesus and trust Him as their
Savior. They quietly enter into the
secret of Christmas as they receive God's Gift.
There are some secrets that have to be told or the end result
is tragedy. Anne Davis tells of her
first experience of spending the night with her little girl friend. She was amazed when her friends mother came
in and tucked her into bed, kissed her and told her good night. In Anne's family this was never done. Overt affection was just not shown. But seeing it made he hunger for it. So the next night at home she put her cheek
up to her mother at bedtime, but nothing happened. Her mother just went through the usual ritual of laying out clean
clothes for school the next day. Anne
cried herself to sleep that night and concluded her mother did not love her as
her friends mother loved.
That disappointment sank deep into her and festered for
years. It was only as an adult that she
finally confronted her mother and asked why she had not shown more physical affection. The mother's eyes were filled with tears as
she said, "my mother died when I was five and there was never anyone to
tuck me in and say good night. There
was no one to wash out my clothes and often I had to go to school with a dirty dress. I made up my mind, then and there, that if I ever had children of
my own, they would always have clean clothes every morning. This is the way I tried to show my affection
and love." Both of them were
crying and Anne said to her mother, "You never told me that. It always use to irritate me that you were
so fussy about my clothes. I wanted you
to spend your time doing something else."
Here was a tragedy because of secrets never told..
The world is filled with suffering because of secrets that are
unrevealed. There are so many different love styles. People show love in so
many different ways and the ones they love do not feel their love because they
do not understand what love means to them. Like ships passing in the night they
miss each other because of unshared secrets. People have strange ways of saying
I love you based on their unique background and personality. We need to know
their secret to feel their love. Lets face it, the only reason the Christmas
story does not seem strange to us is because we know the secret of what God was doing. But try to imagine what
it seems like to one who does not.
The world is a mess and lost in darkness and what does God
do?-He sends the world a baby. This is not exactly a logical gift to make anybody
in a mess feel more secure. Nobody was saying what we really need in this world
is another baby. It was not good news that another baby was born. You have to
be in on the secret before it is good news.
It is no
secret what God can do
But it is often a mystery
why.
Why would He begin anew
With a little baby's cry?
He was the Lord before all
time,
Now in a secret guise he
lays.
No longer the Lord in His
prime,
Yet, the angels sing His
praise.
What wondrous things God
will do
To show the world His grace.
Revealing that His love is
true,
Through the smiling
Christ-child's face.
God opened up the secret of
His eternal plan,
When He sent His only Son to
be a real man.
It's now an open secret that
He's the only way,
And that is why we celebrate
this joyous Christmas day!
That day God came in secret,
known only to a few,
But now the secrets out-God
loves the whole world too.
It is no longer a secret
what God can do,
But the spreading of this
secret is still up to me and you.
May God help us to be sharers of the Christmas Secrets.
4. HIS WONDERFUL NAME based
on Matt.1:18-25
Some people are born risk-takers. Such was the case with Dr. John Haldane who was born in Scotland
in 1860. His professional life was
spent in seeing how close he could come to dying without actually ending up
dead. He wanted to learn why it is that
carbon monoxide kills people. So he got himself a partner and they both sat in
a lab breathing carbon monoxide. In
about half and hour his partner suddenly flipped over on his back and Haldane
realized it was time to flee. He ran up
the stairs and out into fresh air. He
was dizzy and could not see right, but after awhile he returned to normal. His partner was dead, of course, but that
was the plan. His partner was a mouse
and mice breath faster than men and so he died faster. This was how Haldane knew when he still had
a chance to escape. He later learned
that small birds breathe even faster than mice and so he did not have to cut it
so close in his experiments with poisonous gas.
Haldane did this experiment with every gas that was discovered
in the mines. He risked his life over
and over again, but in so doing he learned the effects of gas on miner's and
thus developed ways whereby the lives of many miner's were spared. His studies also led to improved ventilation
in mines and he developed the salt tablet to replace lost salt due to severe
sweating in the mines. He led the way
to the therapeutic use of oxygen which has been a life saver to so many. By the grace of God, Haldane lived to be 76
years old and died in 1936. He made a
name for himself by almost dying time and time again.
The prophets of the Old Testament told of the coming Prince of
Peace who would make a name for himself by not, almost dying, but by literally
dying for his people. His dying would
not just save them from earthly dangers but from the everlasting dangers of
eternal death.
There has never been a person like this in history, and so the
prophet Isaiah makes a special emphasis on the unique names to be given to this
promised Messiah. In Isaiah 7:14 we
read."Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be
with child and will give birth to a Son and will call Him Immanuel." Then in Isaiah 9:6 we read, "For to us
a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his
shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace."
When we come to the New Testament we see the angel Gabriel
telling Mary in Luke 1:31, "You will be with child and give birth to a
son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." Later in Matt. 1:21 he gave this same message to Joseph,
"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."
Mary and Joseph did not need to struggle with a name and try
out a few to hear how they sound. Their
baby came with a name already attached.
The name of this baby was so important to God that God himself selected
it. He chose the name that He would
honor above all names. God left most
naming of people, creatures and things to man bur He wanted to name this
special child Himself.
You would not believe the complexity of life that astronomers
have to struggle with. They have to
name everything they discover and as they discover more and more they have to
come up with names galore. It use to be
a one man job. In 1647 Hevelius made a
map of the moon and considered naming the mountains and valleys after Bible
characters. But he chose instead
to name them after earthly mountains and valleys and these have
stuck. Galileo named the flat areas
after seas and bays and even though there's no water there, these too have
stuck.
But life became more complex.
When William Herschel discovered the seventh planet, he wanted to name
it George after George III. But others
said it should be called Uranus to be consistent with the other planets which
are named after Roman gods. George
almost became a name exalted to the heavens, but some committee shut it
down.
Today we have international planetary nomenclature
committees. Space exploration is making
this a massive job. They now need too
many names to be limited to astronomers and other scientists. They are now naming things after poets,
composers, painters, historians, playwrights, mathematicians, sculptors,
doctors, psychologists, biologists, novelists, engineers, and linguists. God
gave Adam the task of naming all the animals and now man is given the task of
naming all of the billions of things that God has created in universe. But when
it came to the naming of His Son, God stepped in and took over and said His
name will be Jesus. Not his earthly parents; not a committee; not a government agency, no one but God Himself was
permitted to give the Christmas Baby His name. It was not a suggestion or a request,
it was a command that His name be called Jesus. God is very open-minded as to
what man will name all the rest of what He has made, but when it comes to this
child conceived by the Holy Spirit, there is only one name that will do, and
that is Jesus.
Jesus was a nobody in the world of his day. The really big
name was that of the Emperor, Augustus Caesar. He fought the famous Brutus, who
betrayed Julius Caesar. He fought and defeated the famous Mark Anthony and Cleopatra.
He became the name above all names in the known world and he reigned for 44
years. He was greatly loved and was clearly the most famous name on the planet.
Now he is only known because of he decree that brought Mary and Joseph to
Bethlehem. It is the name of their baby that is now the name known and honored
all over the known world and praised as well in all of heaven. His name is the
name above all names and will be for all eternity.
Even the Moslems with their seven prophets-Mohammed being the
last- consider Jesus to be the only perfect prophet and superior to all the
rest. There is no other name like that of Jesus. The genealogy of Matt. 1, is a
list of names that sums up the whole Old Testament. These were the people God
used to make history and to fulfill His plan to bring His Son into history. All
of these names are leading to one last and final name. Jesus had no children
and so the list ends with Him and goes no further. His is the last name in
God's plan because He fulfilled it completely and there is nothing anyone else
can do to add to it. His name crowns the biggest project in the universe, the
project of saving lost men for eternity. That is why God insisted that He be
called Jesus, for it means Savior and He was and is the only Savior of man.
There are a lot of names that just fit the people who receive
them. For example: the horticulturist named Mr Bloom; the gynecologist named
Dr. Ovary; the Undertaker named Mr. Digger; the Ice Maker named I. C. Shivers
and the Dentist named Dr. Boring. But no name in history is more fitting for
the Son of God than the name of Jesus. It is the name by which we approach the
throne of God; the name by which we offer our petitions; the name by which we
send the devil fleeing. The poet has written,
Nothing can
vex the devil more
Than the name of Him whom we
adore.
Therefore doth it delight me
best
To stand in the choir among
the rest,
With the great organ
trumpeting,
Through its metallic notes,
and sing:
The Word has become flesh!
These words the devil can
not endure
For he knoweth their meaning
well!
Him they trouble and repel
Us they comfort and allure;
And happy it were if our
delight
Were as great as his
afright!
In some parts of the world the name of Jesus is still used for
others but for most of the Christian world this name has been kept exclusive
for the Son of God. It therefore did not become a popular name. But all who are
connected with Jesus had names that became the most famous ever. Mary for girls
and John for boys are the two most popular names because of their connection
with the name of Jesus.
Charles Wesley is one of the two great hymn writers of all
time-the other being Isaac Watts. Wesley was able to get one of his hymns into
the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer. An 18th century printer did not
know that the Church of England did not like Wesley. He needed a hymn to fill
an empty space and he found a Christmas poem that he thought was just right. It
was by Wesley. He included it and it was too late to remove it when it was
discovered it was one of Wesley's. It might have been left out of future
printings yet, but William Cummings discovered it fit so well with the tune by
Felix Mendelssohn. He re-titled it, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, and it became
one of the most popular Christmas hymns of all time. It exalts the name of
Jesus but it also exalts the names of Wesley and Mendelssohn because they are
connected with the name of Jesus.
If you want to make a
name for yourself, attach your name to that which exalts the name of Jesus. If
you tie your name to this name above all names it will carry your name to the
top also. It may not get famous in time but any name linked to His will be written
down in glory in the Lambs book of Life and will be known for all eternity. The
highest success that can be achieved is to have your name positively linked to
the name of Jesus. It is not what, but who you know that ultimately matters. O
do you know the wondrous name of Jesus? That is the question of greatest
importance. Jesus said so Himself in John17:3, "Now this is eternal life:
that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have
sent."
Jesus was either the proudest man to ever live, or he was the
Son of God and Savior he claimed to be. No one else would ever dare to make the
knowledge of His name the basis for eternal life. Jesus does this and forces
every person to choose to accept and exalt that name or to reject it. Paul
writes in I Cor. 6:11, "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ..." Those who put their trust in this, the only
name under heaven by which we must be saved, will bear that name forever like a
brand in the most conspicuous place possible-the forehead. In Rev. 22:4 we read
this description of the servants of the Lamb in heaven, "They shall see
his face, and his name will be on their foreheads."
This is no trifle, for the eternal destiny of every person
revolves around what they will do with the name of Jesus. Will they use it to
curse and thus be themselves cursed, or will they bless the name of Jesus and
thus be themselves forever blest? The spirit of Christmas is found in blessing
and exalting that blessed name. A poet put it-
O that Thy name may be
sounded
Afar, over earth and sea,
Till the dead awaken and
praise Thee,
And the dumb lips sing to Thee!
Name of God's tender
comfort,
Name of His glorious power,
Name that is song and
sweetness,
The strong everlasting tower,
Jesus the Lamb accepted,
Jesus the Priest on His throne--
Jesus the King who is
coming--
Jesus Thy Name alone!
Thy degree to which we have a truly Christian Christmas will
be the degree to which we honor and exalt His Wondrous Name.
5. ANGELIC HOST based on
Luke 2:8-15
Before the turn of the century, a Bishop was paying his annual
visit to a church related college. He
was the guest of one of the professors, and was stating to his host, that now
since man knows all about nature, and all inventions have been discovered, we
must be on the verge of the millennium.
The professor disagreed. He felt
that the next fifty years would lead to many more discoveries and inventions. He suggested that men would probably be flying like the birds. The Bishop said, "Nonsense, flight is
reserved for the angels." That
Bishop's name was Wright, and little did he ever suspect that his two sons,
Orville and Wilbur, would be the ones to prove him wrong by successfully flying
in an airplane. Wright was wrong about
flight being reserved for the angels.
Man has advanced so far in this field, he now even hopes to compete with
angels in interplanetary travel.
In whatever angels are
successful, man is not far behind.
Angels were the first to praise God for the glories of His creation, but
devout men, like the Psalmist, soon joined in the universal chorus-the heavens
declare the glory of God and the firmament showth His handiwork. Angels were the first to announce the birth
of Christ, and sing of the glorious good news of Christmas. But man too, was soon filled with the music
of this miracle. Martin Luther
expressed it for millions-
My heart for very joy doth
leap
My lips no more can silence
keep,
I too must sing, with joyful
tongue,
That sweetest ancient cradle
song.
Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto man His Son hath
given.
While angels sing, with
pious mirth,
A glad New Year to all the
earth.
Man cannot refrain from
joining the angels in praise to God.
Angels are the intelligent beings that break through the
barrier between time and eternity, the visible and invisible, and speak of
wonders, and blaze trails for men to follow in God's providence. Angels play a major role in God's plan. Angels are mentioned 15 times in the first
two chapters of Luke. Though they are
common in Scripture, many people do not take them very seriously. The average Christian would not deny their
reality, but it would really make no practical difference to them if such
beings did not exist.
The paradox is, the secular world and scientist seem to have
more interest in the invisible world than many Christians. Arthur Clarke tells of how radio telescopes
are being used to pick up impulses coming from interstellar space. Man hopes to discover intelligent life in
the universe. He writes, "We can
be certain that these vast instruments will bring us nearer to a true
understanding of our universe; and we can hope that, one day, they will tell us
we are not alone in its immensity."
What a paradox-here is a man of science fascinated by the search for
intelligent beings, and here we are as Christians with a record of such beings
communicating with man on that first Christmas. If we believe the Word of God, we already know we are not alone
in the universe.
Mortimer J. Adler, chairman of the Board of Editors of The
Encyclopedia Britannica, wrote the book, The Angels And Us. He also helped edit
the Great Books Of The Western World, which is the greatest collection on earth
of the 102 great ideas that have shaped the history of our civilization. The
first idea dealt with is, angels. Dr. Adler is no theologian, but everywhere he
goes to lecture on angels, he draws large crowds. Why would the secular world
be so interested in angels? It is because their reality would give man hope
that life has meaning and purpose. Man longs to know he is not a freak accident
of nature and a product of mere chance. That is what the search for intelligent
life in space is all about. Earth is the hottest broadcasting body in the
universe. Man is sending out radio and television signals from around the
world in hopes that they will be picked
up on some other galaxy and bring forth a response. Man longs to know he is not
alone in this universe.
Adler argues that angels are a logical necessity. They would
complete what is otherwise an incomplete universe. If man goes downward, he
encounters the animal world, but if he cannot go upward and encounter the
angelic world, something is missing and the universe is incomplete. God has
created creatures for every environment below man and it is logical that He
would create creatures for every environment above man. There is body without
mind. There is body with mind. If there is no mind without body between man and
God, God has left a whole conceivable strata of life out of His creation, and
thus is an incomplete Creator. But if God did make angels, then the creation is
complete.
Philosophically, angels are a necessity. There must be an
unbroken chain of life from the amoeba to the angel. We can see the chain below
man but not the one above him. But reason demands that we believe in this
invisible chain above man. What Adler says that reason demands, the Christian
says, revelation gives. The point is, everything the Bible says about angels is
consistent with the logic of reason and philosophy. It is a mistake to ignore
them, for they play an important role in the total picture of the universe and
of the plan of God.
Christians are still deeply influenced by the old scientific
mentality, which sought to eliminate the supernatural. If it could not be made available to the
senses, it was not real. Materialism
became a dominant world view that made even Christians blind to the mysteries
of the unseen world. We need to study
the world of angels more seriously so that our appetite for the unseen world
can be enhanced. Christmas is an ideal
time to do this, and so let's look at angels and first of all consider-
I. THEIR NATURE.
There are more misconceptions on this than almost any other
aspect of Biblical revelation. Poets
and artists are guilty for this. One
year there was a great deal of controversy over the Christmas stamp because it
was obviously female. Artists have
confused the romantic use of the word angel, with the Biblical use. The result is, Biblical angels are usually
pictured as female, even though the Bible consistently portrays them as
male. At the tomb of Christ they are
even called young men. Peter Marshall
preferred Biblical scenes on Christmas cards, rather than sail boats, bells,
cats and dogs, or Santa. He said,
"Angels there must be, but they need not be modernistic angels in evening
dress with peroxide permanents."
But the fact is, this is what you will usually see when angels are
portrayed by the modern artist. Once in
a while, however, the term angel is applied to males. Like the case of the man who suddenly found himself standing
before the gate of heaven, and he was shocked.
"How did I get here?"
he asked. Peter replied,
"Don't you remember when your wife said, be an angel and let me
drive?"
The problem with humorous stories is that people take them as
a reliable source of information. They do not read the Bible and so all they
know is what they hear in stories that circulate. I heard a man in the Civil
Air Patrol say that he almost got his wings. He was referring to the fact that
he almost collided with a jet when he was in his small plane. He was expressing
the popular idea that when a man dies he becomes like an angel with wings. What
is pathetic is that Christians often go right along with popular
misconceptions. Children used to sing in Sunday School,
I want to be an angel
and with the angels stand,
A crown upon my forehead
a harp within my hand.
The Bible makes a clear distinction between man and angel. Men
will never become angels. Their natures are radically different. Angels have neither bodies nor souls. Angels are pure spirits. They can take on the bodies of men, but this
is not their nature. In Hebrews 1:14,
angels are called ministering spirits.
Man, because of his body, cannot be called a spirit. In eternity men will have a resurrected
body, which will make them forever different from angels. Men are sometimes referred to as souls. A professor giving the population of his
home town said, "There are several hundred souls and a few heels." Men can be called souls, but they are always
souls linked to a body, and are never pure spirits, as are the angels.
Angels have some advantage over men by being pure
spirits. They can communicate by an act
of the will. They can travel like
thought across infinite space without passing through the intervening
space. Pure spirit does not even have the
limitation of light. It is the fastest
aspect of visible reality, but it still must pass through space. Angels are marvelous creatures, but they are
still finite, for they were created.. In Psalm 148:2-5, angels are in the same
category as all of the rest of creation-"Praise Him, all his angels....for
He commanded and they were created."
In Col. 1:16 we read, "For in Him were all things
created....whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers." God alone is uncreated and eternal.
Angels have superior
intelligence. Jesus implied this in
Matt. 24:36, where referring to His coming again He says, "of that day and
hour knowth no one, not even the angels of heaven." In other words, there are some things God
does not even share with those beings closest to Him, who know most everything
else. Angels have a superior nature
now, but ultimately, man will be the masterpiece of God's creation, when they
are made completely Christlike. Next,
let's look at-
II. THEIR NUMBER.
In verse 13 of our text, we read that suddenly there was with
the angel a multitude of the heavenly host.
It would be safe to say there are no small choirs in heaven. Angels are pictured in the Bible as being a
vast multitude. They are often compared
to the stars in number. It was widely
believed among the early church fathers that the ratio between the number of
angels to that of men was 99 to 1. They
arrived at this conclusion by what we would consider a doubtful
interpretation. They said the one lost
sheep represented humanity, while the 99 in the fold represented the good
angels. Jesus left the 99, as the Good
Shepherd, to go find the one lost sheep of humanity. It is unnecessary to use such an interpretation to establish that
angels are numerous. The Bible speaks
clearly on this issue. Duet. 33:2,
speaks of ten thousands of holy ones.
Dan. 7:10 says, "Thousands of thousands ministered unto him, and
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him." Rev. 5:11 says, "I heard a voice of
many angels....and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and
thousands of thousands." The idea
being conveyed is that they are beyond accurate human calculation. In our day these figures are not so vast,
but in Bible times they represent numbers which are unimaginable. Milton was not just speculating when he
wrote,
Nor think....though men were
none,
That Heaven would want
spectators, God want praise!
Millions of spiritual
creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake
and when we sleep.
All these with ceaseless
praise his works behold
Both day and night.
Jesus in Matt. 12:53, told Peter to put away his sword. He said if He needed any defense, more than
12 legions of angels stood ready. The reality
of innumerable angels is not an irrelevant fact, like the number of eggs a
salmon can lay. It has very practical
value in the psychology of Christian living.
It is the basis of optimism in a world where numbers do not always
support the truth of the Gospel. The
prophet Elisha said in II Kings 6:16, "Fear not: for they that are with us are more than they that be with
them." The point being, that
because of the angels, the godly are always in the majority. The majority of intelligent beings in this
universe are always on the side of truth and light. Without this confidence, Satan can easily lead us into
discouragement, when we feel like we are alone.
The angels are man's allies in the battle against the forces
of evil and unbelief. E. C. Burne-Jones
said to Oscar Wilde, "The more materialistic science becomes, the more
angels shall I paint, there wings are my protest in favor of the immortality of
the soul." When the study of
angels becomes an end in itself, it leads to some sort of heresy, but when it
leads you to focus on Jesus Christ and His eternal kingdom, then it is a
blessed Biblical doctrine. Their focus is always on their Creator and Lord, and
if we join them in that focus, they become our allies.
Come,
let us join our cheerful songs
With angels round the throne.
Ten thousand thousand are
their tongues
But all their joys are one.
The purpose of the angels on the first Christmas was to get
men to go and worship and adore the Christ-child. That is still their main function in our lives today, and
especially in this Christmas season.
The angels played a conspicuous role in that first Christmas.
1. An angel announced the birth of the forerunner of Christ-John the
Baptist.
2. An angel came to Mary to announce the birth of the Messiah, and
to tell her what name He was to bear.
3. An angel came to Joseph in a dream to assure him the Christ-child
was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
4. An angel came to Joseph again to warn him to flee to Egypt.
5. An angel came to Joseph in Egypt to tell him to return to Israel.
6. Angels were the first to announce the birth of Christ to the
shepherds.
Angels were the primary messengers of that first
Christmas. The Star of Bethlehem was
their only competitor, and it reached only the wise men. All others were reached by angels. The question is, what did Christmas mean to
the angels? Were they just innocent
bystanders who happened to take an interest in the Incarnation? Not so-they were directly affected by this
event. It was good news to them as well
as to the world, for it meant their job would be more effective.
Origen, the church father said, "The coming of Christ
into the world was a great joy for those to whom the care of men and nature had
been entrusted." He is referring to the angels. Why should it make any
difference to them? Why are they rejoicing before the shepherds? It is because
they too are shepherds. They do not care for sheep, but for men. They are the
guardians and the guides of mankind. It is a hard job with Satan and his angels
doing all they can to lead men astray.
The track record of the good angels in the Old Testament is not very
impressive. Satan led God's people astray over and over again. Now, at
Christmas, they are rejoicing because their Lord has come to help them be more
effective in the battle against evil. They knew that the Incarnation was an
invasion into enemy territory that would lead them to be more victorious.
Now there is One who can destroy the works of the Devil, their
greatest foe. Now they have their David who can topple the giant who is too
much for them. Jesus is their hero. We read in Jude 1:9, "But even the
Archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the Devil about the body of
Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him but said, the
Lord rebuke you." This is the most powerful angel we have any record about
in the Bible, yet he had to be careful in his conflict with Satan. No wonder
the angels rejoiced at Christmas. They now had a hero on the battlefield that
would assure them of being on the winning team. Christmas is not just an
earthly event, it is a heavenly event. It is cause for celebration in the
heavens too, and that is why the angels are singing glory to God in the
highest. They had been waiting for the Messiah to come too, for it meant
victory for angels as well as for men. From their perspective, Christmas was
the beginning of God's greatest strategy to defeat Satan.
The angels are not like
the elder brother who was angry at the father for welcoming home the prodigal
son. They rejoice at every sinner who repents, for they are on God's side, and
rejoice that men are won back from Satan's clutches into the kingdom of light.
We, as restored sinners to the family of God, are to recognize the angels as a
part of that family. It is wrong to adore them and wrong to ignore them, but it
is right to explore them and learn all we can about them so as to feel they are
our friends. Christians have not always been friendly to angels. In this season
of Christmas it is a good time to recognize our oneness with them, and to be
aware that when we sing the praises of
God for His gift of salvation in His Son, the Lord Jesus, we are being
joined in our praise by the angelic host.
6. THE ENJOYMENT OF GOD
based on Luke 2:8-20
One of the biggest attractions in all of history was the
smallest man alive-General Tom Thumb.
He was only 25 inches tall and weighed only 15 pounds. Over 20 million people paid to see him sing and dance. He charms his way into the hearts of the
greatest people of his day-Queen Victoria of England, Queen Isabella of Spain,
the Duke of Wellington and Abraham Lincoln, just to name a few.
He was born January 4, 1838 as Charles Sherwood Stratton. Oddly enough, he was a big baby weighing
9lbs. 2ozs. at birth, but at 5 months old he weighed 15lbs. 2ozs., and that is
where he stayed. In this way he was
radically different than Jesus for Dr. Luke tells us in Luke 2:52 that he grew
in wisdom and stature. Jesus grew up as
a normal man physically.
Tom Thumb did have some things in common with Jesus,
however. Both were born as sons of a
carpenter. Jesus was not conceived by
Joseph but he was his earthly father.
Both began as little mites who became mighty. Both remained single all their lives. Both drew large crowds.
All of these are trivial and incidental. That which they really had in common was their adoration of their
heavenly Father. Tom Thumb wrote,
"I read the Bible every day, and am fond of reading the New
Testament. I adore my Creator and know
that He is good to us all. He has given
me a small body, but I believe He has not contracted my heart, nor brain, nor
soul. I shall praise His name
evermore."
The smallest man who ever lived and the greatest man who ever
lived had in common with each other the spirit of worship. Tom Thumb praised God for his little body
with it's big heart and soul. The
angels praised God for the little baby of Bethlehem who would grow up and cause
people to praise God all over the world.
The more you examine the Christmas story, the more you discover that the
one thing all of the persons involved had in common was the spirit of praise.
Mary begins her song, "My soul praises the
Lord." Zechariah's song begins,
"Praise be to the Lord." The
angels suddenly appear, "Praising God and saying glory to God in the
highest." The shepherds in verse
20, "returned, glorifying and praising God."
One of the major differences between a Christian Christmas and
a secular Christmas is the praise to God.
The secular soul does not rise above the materialism of the season, but
the spiritual soul recognizes that the essence of the celebration is in
praising God for the Gift of His Son.
The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. This is
also the chief end of Christmas. The way to have a merry Christmas is to do
what all the characters did on that first Christmas-they enjoyed God and they
praised Him..
We are to enjoy God forever but we do not have to wait until
eternity to begin this enjoyment. We
start now, and the way we enjoy God is by praising Him. Praise is not only a pleasure for the
receiver but for the giver as well.
This is a case where we can see it is more blessed to give than to
receive. We are, no doubt, more blest
in the giving of praise to God than He is by receiving it. To be a praiser of God is to be in the highest state of joy. All other happiness falls short. The goal of Christmas is to enjoy God.
Martha was a wonderful Christian woman and Jesus loved her
greatly, but she was so busy preparing a meal for Jesus she did not enjoy
Jesus. She missed the enjoyment of his
presence and His teaching and the result is she was rebuked for trying to rob
Mary of her enjoyment of these things.
Jesus said Mary made the right and wise choice. The point Jesus was making was that he wants
to be enjoyed. His greatest enjoyment is in being enjoyed. This is God's
greatest pleasure as well. More than service even, God wants us to enjoy who He
is and to express that enjoyment is praise. The simplest definition of worship
that I have come up with is-the enjoyment of God. If you truly praise God you
are enjoying God and thereby fulfilling the very purpose for your existence.
The angels and the shepherds had this in common on that first
Christmas: They were enjoying God and what He was doing in history. When a
Christian says Merry Christmas, it is to mean a whole lot more than, enjoy your
gifts, your food, your family, your friends, your parties, etc.: It is to mean,
above all else, enjoy God! In various places in the Bible even the rocks and
the trees and the mountains break forth in singing the praises of God. The
chief end of everything is to praise God. Happiness is expressed in praise.
James 5:13 says, "Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise."
Singing, praising, worshiping and being happy are all linked together in what
it means to enjoy God.
That is why it is surprising that there ever was a debate
about whether angels sing or not. I cannot conceive that God would make
intelligent beings who can behold His glory and the wonders of His creation and
withhold from them the gift of music and song. Heaven is always pictured as a
place of praise and it would be cruel to be in this environment of perpetual
praise and never be able to join in the joyful expressions of thanksgiving through
song. To know God and His love and not be able to sing His praises would be
more like hell. This is the state of the fallen angels who have lost the
presence of God and therefore have also
lost the enjoyment of praising Him is song. The essence of hell is the loss of
the enjoyment of God. Satan and his fallen angels lose the essence of heaven
which is, the enjoyment of God.
The angels on that first Christmas gave us a glimpse of
angelic enjoyment of God in their song. It is of interest that the very first
Christmas sermon that was preserved refers to this. The sermon is by
Telesphorus, the Bishop of Rome in 137 A.D., who said in that message,
"..that in the holy night of the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, they do
celebrate public church services, and in them do solemnly sing the angel's
hymn......" All through history Christmas has been a time of songs and
praise. This is what men and angels have in common-the ability to enjoy God and
express that enjoyment in song. Paul Gerhardt in 1653 wrote,
All my heart this night
rejoices
as I hear far and near,
Sweetest angels voices
Christ is born, the choirs
all singing,
Till the air Everywhere
Now with joy is ringing
What was the purpose of the angels appearing to the shepherds?
It was obviously their goal to get the shepherds to enjoy God and what He was
doing along with them. Don't be afraid the angels said for their goal was not
to scare the shepherds and make them fearful of the supernatural world.
Instead, they invited them to share in the secrets of the supernatural world.
They brought good news of great joy for all the people. Angels are not
exclusive. They do not want to sing God's praises to the exclusion of man. They
want man to join them in their songs of joy. After they told the shepherds
where to find the baby Messiah, they returned to heaven for they expected man
to carry on the songs of praise on earth. They would enjoy God in heaven and
they expected man to enjoy God on earth. The message of Christmas is, because
God came to earth, we can, even in this fallen world, taste of heaven and enjoy God now in time.
The two things everyone most desires are happiness and health.
Christians who enjoy God can be the world's greatest Santa Claus, for they can help
people receive these gifts by sharing the Gospel of God's love in Christ.
Ultimate happiness and health are found in the enjoyment of God. Prov. 17:22
says, "A cheerful heart is good medicine." What can make a heart more
cheerful than the enjoyment of God? When people receive God's gift of eternal
life in Christ, they receive with him the hope of eternal health and happiness.
That is why it is such good news and that is why joyful praise is at the center
of the Christmas celebration. Philipp Nicolai wrote,
Now let every tongue adore
thee!
Let men with angels sing before thee!
Let harps and cymbals now
unite!
Heaven's gates with pearl are glorious,
Where we partake through
faith victorious,
With angels round thy throne of light.
No mortal eye hath seen,
No mortal ear hath heard such wondrous things;
Therefore with joy our song
shall soar
In praise to God forevermore.
Singing at Christmas is not a mere trimming, but one of the
main purposes of the season. It is not the sweet potato, it is the turkey. It
is not the ornament, it is the tree. Whatever helps us to enjoy God is a vital
part of the Christmas experience. Music and song have always been a key means
to this end. They get the mind and the body stimulated to praise God.
If everyone who enjoyed God, when Jesus was born, expressed
that in praise, then we ought to do so also. Praise in song is a natural
response to a major event. When a nation is born a national anthem is born too.
Major things lead to songs and the most major event of history was the birth of
the Son of God into human flesh. Michael Harbon tells of the cowboy who rode up
to the Grand Canyon and said, "Something mighty big sure happened
here." The manger scene is to Christianity what the Grand Canyon is to
nature. We are to look at it with an awesome awareness that something might big
sure happened here.
When Nixon was president, he got overly excited about
Americans landing on the moon and he said, "The planting of human feet on
the moon is the greatest moment in human history." If we spent a month out
of each year celebrating that event with songs and plays and parties of all
kinds, he would have had a case. But the fact is, the greatest event in human
history was not when man set foot on the moon, but rather, when God set foot on
the earth. That is the event that sent music through the hearts of angels and
shepherds and through all of history. No human being will ever read all the poetry written about the birth of Jesus.
No human being will ever sing all the songs sung about this birth. No human
being will ever see all the paintings and other works of art created in honor
of this birth.
Paul in IICor. 9:15, calls this baby, God's unspeakable gift.
Some translate it God's inestimable gift or God's indescribable gift or God's
incomparable gift or God's inexpressible gift. Why all these different words?
They illustrate the very point of the verse which is, there are not enough
words to communicate the wonder and the worth of this gift. That is why the Living
Bible is good here for it refers to the gift of Jesus as "too wonderful
for words."
Harry Ironside had an insight into this word that I treasure.
He points out that it literally means, "not yet fully expounded." We have
hundreds of thousands of songs and millions of sermons expounding on Jesus, but
the point of Paul is, we can never fully grasp all that we have in Jesus until
we see Him face to face. Then we will say, as the Queen of Sheba said after
seeing Solomon in person, the half was not told me. We will sing the Praises of
God for all eternity for the gift of His Son for we will be ever learning more
and more of all that was given to us in this wondrous gift. Because of this
gift we will be able to enjoy God forever. Christmas is a time to enjoy God
because He made it possible to enjoy Him forever by His inexpressible gift. He
will go on forever expounding to us all that is included in this gift. Jesus is
a gift that goes on giving and giving for He is infinite.
If I have a party and go to all the trouble to clean and cook
and decorate, my greatest pleasure if going to be in the enjoyment of my
guests. I will get pleasure out of their enjoyment of all I have done for their
pleasure. I will enjoy their enjoyment. The same is true for God. What does God
get out of Christmas? He gets the pleasure of our enjoyment of what He has done
for us. If we love His gift of the Lord Jesus and we express that love in songs
of praise we fulfill the purpose of God. The greatest gift we can give God is
to enjoy the Gift He has given to us.
Beverly Sills after one of her performances at the
Metropolitan Opera, was being congratulated by those who came back stage. After
awhile one of them said they should go and leave her alone for she has to give
another performance at eight. Miss Sills heard that and said, "No, I don't
have to give another performance. I get to give it! I get to sing!" She so
loved to sing that it was pure pleasure and not a duty or obligation. We are
really filled with the Christmas spirit when this is our attitude. We don't
have to sing Christmas songs, we get to sing them! We get to enjoy the praises
of God! We get to enjoy God! The angels made it clear and the shepherds
followed their lead, and wise men and women continue to do so realizing that
the essence of Christmas is in the enjoyment of God.
7. THE BABE AND THE BELL
based on Luke 2:1-20
Bells are one of the common symbols of Christmas, because all through
history, bells have been used to play the role of the angels on that first
Christmas. Bells ring forth the message
of joy. The bell and the babe of
Bethlehem are linked in many ways.
Nowhere is this more evident, than when you compare the history of our
famous Liberty Bell with that of the Christ-child.
Both designed to convey a message of good news. Jesus was God's Word, and He came to be
heard. He came to sound forth a message
of joy and liberty. This was the
purpose of the Liberty Bell, as well.
It was originally ordered by William Penn, the Christian founder of
Pennsylvania. It was to celebrate the
50th anniversary of religious freedom in Pennsylvania from 1701-1751. The inscription on the bell is from Lev.
25:10, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof." This bell, like the
babe of Bethlehem, was to bring good
news of great joy to all people.
The Liberty Bell was not cast and hung to ring happily ever after,
but like the babe of Bethlehem, it had a battle for survival. The bell became famous on July 8, 1776, when
the first public reading of the Declaration Of Independence, took place in
Philadelphia. The bell began it's
jubilant ringing in the tower of Independence Hall. That made the bell a great symbol of the birth of freedom. The star of Bethlehem was a symbol of the
birth of the King of freedom, who came to set us free from the bondage to
sin. Such symbols are a threat to those
who oppose liberty.
Herod would shoot the star from the sky, if he could, and so
he sent his troops to silence the Word, residing in that babe of
Bethlehem. The bell was the object of a
Herod like plot, as well. The British
General Howe, and 17,000 troops attacked Philadelphia in 1777. They fought their way to the Liberty Bell to
destroy this symbol of American freedom.
Like Herod, they came close to succeeding in their evil plot. They came within a rifle shot of the
bell. But in the night, they Americans
lifted the 2,000 pound bell from the tower.
They put it on a farm wagon, covered it with potato sacks, and got it to
the Zion Reformed Church in Allentown.
It remained hidden there for nearly a year. The babe of Bethlehem was taken off to Egypt, and so both Herod
and Howe were foiled in their attempts to destroy the babe or the bell.
Both of them came back.
Jesus returned to a life of teaching and service to His people, and the
Liberty Bell was returned to the tower in Independence Hall, where it rang out
for many great events. On July 8,1835,
it was tolling for the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall. It was at this time that it cracked and was
silenced. The babe of Bethlehem was
also silenced after much blessed service, and was also broken on the
cross.
The parallel of the babe and the bell does not end there. The Liberty Bell was given a resurrection,
and the crack was filled in. It was
ringing again in 1846 for the birthday of George Washington. But near noon it cracked again, and after
that brief restoration, it has been silent ever since. Jesus also rose from the silence of the
grave and after a brief time with His disciples, He ascended to the
Father. This fascinating parallel of
the babe and the bell introduces us to the role that bells have played in the
history of Christmas. We do not hear
the angels, as did the shepherds, but if we listen to the Christmas bells, and
know their history, we can hear the same message that leads to the Savior.
The wise men were led by sight to the Savior. God gave them a star. But the shepherds were led by sound. God gave them a message through the ear. Both are a part of God's methods, and both
of them touch us all, in the sounds and sights of Christmas. We live in a
visual oriented culture, and are more impressed by sight, than sound. But we need to learn to listen too., for by
means of the ear we can enter more deeply into the full message of
Christmas. Sound has the ability to
produce emotion. The sound of bells can
move us to enjoy God's gift, all the more, if we know their history.
There is not a lot about bells in the Bible, but the little
there is, tells us that God loves the sound of bells. He had them play a role in the Old Testament that links them to
the role of His Son, He was to send into the world at Christmas. In Exodus 28:33-34, we have a description of
the robe that Aaron was to wear when he went into the holy place before the
Lord. Little golden bells were to be
all around the skirt of the robe. Their
tinkling sound, as he came before the Lord, made him safe. The sound of the bells, was a message in
music, that protected him. Anyone who
sought to come before the Lord, without the sound of these bells, would
die.
You can see the parallel again, with the babe and the
bell. No one could approach God without
the bells, and Jesus said no man comes unto the Father but by me. There is no entering the presence of God,
without the Babe or the bell. The only
other reference to bells in the Bible, that I am aware of, is in Zech. 14:20,
where the day of victory for the Kingdom of God, over the nations of the world,
is being described. It says, "And
on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, Holy to the
Lord." The bells are connected
with total victory. So also, the Babe
of Bethlehem was born to be the King of Kings, whose kingdom would conquer all
the kingdoms of the world. It is no
wonder that bells have become a symbol of Christmas, for God chose the bell to
be a symbol of joy and victory in His presence.
There are numerous types of bells, but all of them have some
positive value, and thus, have something in common with the Babe of
Bethlehem. Two main characteristics
stand out in the messages conveyed to man, by the Babe and the bell. First of all, their message is-
I. A LIFTING MESSAGE.
Good news is what they are both all about. Love lifted me, we sing, and in God's gift
of the Babe of Bethlehem, He gave us the greatest lifting love ever. The Christmas message is a message of love,
and thus, a message of joy. The bells
ring out this message of joy. They are
frequently referred to in Christmas songs.
1. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.
2. Ring The Bells Of Heaven.
3. Joy Bells Ringing In Your Heart
4. Jingle Bells.
5. Silver Bells.
6. Come On Ring Those Bells.
7. The Bells Of St. Mary.
8. Angels Singing, Church Bells Ringing.
9. Ring The Bells, Ring The Bells.
10. Christmas Bells.
All of these bells deal with a joyful message that gives a
lift. The bell is the logical symbol of
marriage. Wedding bells are popular the
year around as symbols of love and joy.
They are designed to bring a lift into life, and all relationships. God sent His Son into the world to lift the
fallen. He came so low to lift us
high. The sounds of Christmas must be
lifting sounds to be consistent with the purpose of God. Bell sounds are ideal, for they convey, in a
great variety of ways, the lifting message of love and joy.
The bells that ring at
Christmas time
Each bring a different greeting-
The door bell rings and
tells of friends
Whom you will welcome meeting.
The slay bells tell of snow
paths
And of fun, they are assigned.
The church bells tell of
peace on earth
And joy to all mankind.
Yes, each bell has a
greeting
Though it has a different ring-
And may you share the
happiness
The bells at Christmas bring!
Bells have the power to move us with sound. William Cowper, author of many hymns, gives
us this graphic image, "The bells, the iron dogs of the air, Lift up their
joyful barking." Thomas Hood
writes, "Bells are music's laughter." Edgar Guest wrote, "I am not the kind that loves the past
and all that’s modern scorns. I merely
say that sleigh bells were more musical than horns." What the stars are to the eyes, the bells
are to the ears.
The star is a great Christmas symbol. It is heavenly, yet conveys light to the
earth. This is symbolic of the Babe of
Bethlehem, who was heavenly in origin, but brought His light to earth. So the bell hangs in it's tower above the
earth, and is the most heavenly of instruments for music, yet it's joyous
message is heard on the earth. The
bells are like audible stars.
Holy Night on wings of
angels,
Thou descendest to the
earth,
While the stars in quiet
splendor
Hail the advent of Christ's
birth.
In the stillness of the
evening
Bells are heard from belfry
tower;
Melodies of sacred music
Lend their beauty to this
hour.
-Tabitha
Marie Ritzmann.
Bells are designed to get your attention. That is why the Salvation Army uses
them. The angels had to get the
shepherds attention, and the star had to get the wise men's attention. Bells have been used all through history, to
call man to an awareness of something they should be in on. Bells ring to call you to a meal. The door bell and phone bell call your
attention to the fact, someone is trying to contact you. The church bell calls you to the worship of
God. Christmas bells are to call your
attention to the fact, God has done something in the gift of His Son, that is
the basis for a never ending joy. Their
sound is to remind us, Jesus lifted man from the pit of despair to the pinnacle
of delight.
Tommy's report card was not as good after the Christmas
holiday. His father asked him why? Tommy replied, "You know how it is dad,
everything is marked down after Christmas." Unfortunately, it is true, there is a let down after the build up
to Christmas. This is an emotional and
psychological reality. But in God's
value system, everything is marked up, after Christmas. God descended in the Incarnation to save
man, and lift him to the level of children of God. Man is exalted to the level of infinite worth. Only the lofty bell can send forth a sound
that symbolizes this marvelous life-lifting message. Let every bell do for you what the angels did for the
shepherds. Let them call your attention
to the Babe of Bethlehem, who lifted you to such heights.
Jesus said, "If I be lifted up I will draw all men to
me." This good news is represented
by a church in Holland, where the bell rings inside a large cross. The bell calls attention to that place where
the Babe of Bethlehem laid down His life, and by so doing, lifted ours. We can chose what our minds turn to at the
sound of bells. Longfellow chose to
hear what God wanted him to hear, and he wrote,
The bells themselves are the
best of preachers.
Their brazen lips are
learned teachers.
From their pulpits of stone,
in the upper air
Now a sermon and now a
prayer.
Let every bell you hear lift your mind to think of that name
that rings more bells than any other name on earth, and which will ring the
bells of heaven, forever. Secondly, the
message of the Babe and the bell is-
II. A LIBERATING
MESSAGE.
If love is the cause of Christmas, then liberty is it's
effect. The goal of God in giving His
Son is, that man might be set free from his bondage to sin. Even the angels were so excited about this
message of liberation, they broke forth in praise, glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.
Heaven and earth are brought together in the Babe of
Bethlehem, and there is jubilation in reconciliation. Liberty is the ultimate consequence of love. If the Son shall set you free, you shall be
free indeed. It is no wonder that
Christians in the South have celebrated Christmas with fireworks. Like the 4th of July, it is a celebration of
liberty. Again, this is why the bell is
linked with the Babe, for all through history the bell has been a messenger of
liberty.
All through the middle ages every town had it's bell. The bell was the soul of the town. The church bell regulated life for many
centuries. It called people to rise
from sleep, to work, to worship, and to battle. The first thing a conqueror did when he took a town, was to
remove the bell from the church tower.
As long as that bell was pealing, the town was free. Silence the bell, and the town had lost it's
liberty. The sound of the bell and
liberty were synonymous. If a city was
captured, everyone would wait in suspense to see if the enemy could be thrust
back. If the defending forces were
successful, the bells would signal the victory. Then joy and jubilation would fill the city along with the sound
of the bell. Hitler silenced many of
the church of Europe by melting down their bells to make cannons. But there were plenty of them left, to ring
in jubilation, at his defeat.
In 610 A.D., the barbarians were attacking the French city of
Sens. Clothair, the Christian leader,
ordered all the bells of the city to be rung together. This so frightened the invading barbarians,
they fled, and the town was literally, saved by the bell. The bell, like the Babe of Bethlehem, has
been a savior of the lost many times. A
blind boy wandered off his course and was confused. He was lost until he heard the bells of the nearby church. That sound was his guide, and he was able to
get back on the path. Bells have done
on an earthly level what the Babe if
Bethlehem came to do on a spiritual level-guide men out of danger.
That is why the bell became so closely linked to the
church. The first bell makers in the
Western world were the Christian monks.
Bells were made for the glory of God, and they were dedicated to God,
just as was the Babe of Bethlehem. For
centuries, no church was considered complete until it's bell was installed. The
bells in the Kremlin, in Russia, were once the bells of a church.
Paul Revere is famous for his horse ride to warn that the
British were coming, but he did something over his life-time most Americans are
not aware of. He was the most famous bell maker in American history. 37 of the
48 big bells he made are still in existence, and they still ring forth the
message of liberty. Many of his bells are church bells. His masterpiece, made
the year before he died in 1817, hangs in Kings Chapel, in Boston. The first
bell he made in Boston, in 1792, still is used today in the St. James Episcopal
Church, in Cambridge, Mass. Revere and his sons made about 400 bells. He and
some friends, as young boys, got involved in ringing the church bells, He fell
in love with bells and they became a major part of his life. He produced bells
that ended up in many churches. They continue, to this day, to ring out the
joyous sounds of the Christmas season.
Revere did not make them all, however, for there were many
bell makers. The largest bell in the world, that is a tuned bell, which weighs
20 and a half tons, hangs in the Riverside Cathedral in New York. The worlds
largest bell is dedicated to ringing forth the message of love and liberty that
came into this world in God's Christmas package. Jesus transformed everything
He touched. He touched the bell, and ever since the bell has been a primary
tool for expressing, "Joy to the World the Lord Has Come."
Henry Longfellow was one of the greatest American poets. On Christmas day, in 1863, Longfellow heard
the church bells ringing, and he questioned their message. The United States was engaged in bitter
Civil War. He questioned how we could
feel joy in the midst of such war. He
thought deeply on the message of the bells, and then concluded their message
would go on ringing long after the war had ceased. This motivated him to write the poem that has become a famous
Christmas hymn-I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day. The battle of pessimism and optimism is written into this song.
And in despair I bowed my
head,
there is no peace on earth I
said,
For hate is strong and mocks
the song
of peace on earth, good will
to men.
As he listened to the bells,
his spirit was lifted and liberated from this despair. He wrote,
Then pealed the bells more
loud and deep
God is not dead, nor doth He
sleep.
The wrong shall fail, the
right prevail,
With peace on earth good
will to men!
The bells of Christmas represent the optimism and hope that
God sent to this world in His Son.
Tennyson, another great poet, wrote,
The time draws near the
birth of Christ
The moon is hid, the night is still.
The Christmas bells, from
hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.
Rise, happy morn, rise, holy
morn;
Draw forth the cheerful day from night
O Father, touch the east,
and light
The light that shown when hope was born.
The Babe and the bell bring
in and ring in the message of liberating hope.
Most of the poetry written about bells can be easily applied to the Babe
of Bethlehem. They both bring the same
liberating message.
John Greenleaf Whittier, when he heard the constitutional
amendment had passed, to abolish slavery and set masses of people free, he
wrote a poem that fits the finished work of Christ on the cross.
It is done!
Clang of bell and roar of
gun
Send the tidings up and down
How the belfries rock and reel!
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to
town!
Ring, O Bells!
Every strike exalting tells
Of the horrid hour of crime,
Loud and long, that all may
hear
Ring for every listening ear
Of eternity and time.
The Bible, history, poetry, and
experience, link the Babe and the bell, for both of them sound forth a message
of liberty. Let every bell you hear
make you think of God's greatest gift-the Lord Jesus, who lifted and liberated
us, and gave us this great day of celebration called Christmas.
Some softly-hidden magic
dwells
Within the sounds of
Christmas bells.
Some lovely note that must
belong
In that triumphant, far-off
song
The angel sang above the
earth
In joyous welcome to His
birth.
In 1953, a collection of the chains and shackles that were
once used to hold the mentally ill as prisoners, was taken to a foundry, and
made into a 300 pound bell. In 1958, it
was taken to the White House, where it's ringing proclaimed a new era of freedom
for the mentally ill. As the compassion
of Christ moved through history, lifting and liberating the oppressed, the bell
is used to be a messenger of the good news.
Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth good will to men-that is
the good news proclaimed to all the world by the Babe and the bell.
Ring louder, ye bells of the
Christmastide;
Ye heralds, re-echo it far
and wide;
Tell out to the nations
again and again,
The Gospel of peace, good
will to men.
8.CHRISTMAS EXPECTATIONS
based on Luke 2:8-32
Henry McCushy, of the Texas Employment Commission, said they
had a hard time getting men to be department store Santa Clauses, one
year. The reason was, the high
percentage of children who were kicking Santa in the shins for not coming
through the year before. They expected
Santa to live up to his billing, and deliver the goods as they requested.
Bill Adler, in his book, Letters To Santa Claus, reveals the
hostility children can develop because of their excessive expectations. One little boy wrote,
Dear Santa Claus, "Last year you didn't leave me anything
good. The year before you didn't leave
me anything good. This year is your
last chance."
Excessive expectation is the quickest way to the land of
doubt, despair and the drop out. If you
expect God, your parents, your children, or anybody to cater to your every
whim, you are setting yourself up for a fall.
And if you expect Christmas to meet your every need, you are doing it
again. There is no promise in the Bible
that Christmas is the way, the truth, and the life, and that by trusting in it,
you can have abundant life. It is a form
of idolatry to expect Christmas to do for you what only Christ can do. Nobody's birthday-not even Christ's-can meet
all of our needs, and it is a major emotional mistake to expect it.
A large portion of the depression associated with Christmas is
due to people's unauthorized expectations.
They expect milk to stop spilling, and people who haven't spoken to each
other all year to be friendly, and the whole world to stop the folly of war,
murder, robbery, and every form of evil, and they are shattered when they
realize they can't even stop the spilt milk.
It is depressing if you expect Christmas to make the world a
paradise. The first one didn't do it, and
to expect it of the next one is to expect what God does not authorize us to expect.
It is also unrealistic from the point of view of
psychiatry. One psychiatrist wrote,
"Any celebration that sets up such unrealistic, magical expectations is
very unfair to human beings. People are
pushed to deny the reality of their lives-their financial situation, their true
relationships. There is almost a
delusional mood." In other words,
people try to live in the realm of myth.
They buy things they really can't afford. They pretend to be more loving than they really are, but it doesn't
work very long, if at all. Tom Mullen
says, "Seldom does reality measure up to the artificial and sentimental
vision of Christmas which Hollywood, Hallmark Cards, the Chamber of Commerce,
and our bad memories create for us."
He says, if we dream of a white Christmas and it doesn't snow,
then we are upset, for even the weather is against us. We go to get out the manger scene with the
illusion it is ready to set up. But
what we find is a shepherd missing and a three legged camel. Suddenly, it is no longer a manger scene,
but a mangy scene. The family sits down
to read the Christmas story with the idyllic dream that the children will
listen with awe, as if they never heard it before. But one child is sure to say, let's open the presents right now.
The point of all this seeming pessimism is not to convince us
that Scrooge was on the right track, but to help us keep our expectations from
being excessive. It is not only at
Christmas, but all of life can be damaged by excessive expectations. Dr. Howard Henricks of Dallas Theological
Seminary, one of the great marriage counselors of our time says, "The
greatest reason for failure in marriage is unrealistic expectations." People expect too much of each other, and
assume that they could, if they would, make every waking moment of life full of
excitement and satisfaction. Nobody
wants to put up with the reality of monotony, boredom, and routine. A runaway in Chicago said, "I've done
everything-had all the thrills, and I don't want to go on living. There's nothing more to
anticipate." This is the pathetic
end of those hooked on the emotional drug of excessive expectation. Give me a thrill a minute or Christmas is a
bore, and life is not worth living.
Expectation is not foolish in itself. There is much enjoyable expectation that is
a vital part of the Christian life. No
where is expectation more acceptable than at Christmas. We do not start playing Easter songs weeks
before Easter. There is no other
holiday like Christmas, where expectation is so much a part of it's
celebration. We look forward to
Christmas, longer, and with greater anticipation, then all other holidays
combined. The expectation is more than
half the fun. The day itself may not be
that outstanding, but the overall impact of the season is greater than any
other period of time in the year. The
journey is the joy, and not just the arrival of the day. When we see this, we can escape the myth of
living for the day, and enjoy the journey along the way.
Dr. Luke, who no doubt worked with expectant parents, is the
one God used to record almost all the expectations surrounding the coming of
His Son. He tells us of the expectant
parents of John the Baptist, as well as those of Christ. He tells of the expectant angels who
annoucned His coming. He tells of
Simeon, the old man in Jerusalem, who lived in expectation every day of the
Messiah. And Simeon tells us the whole
world was expectant of a Saviour. Never
before was there a period of history so pregnant with expectation. Let's look at just three examples of this
expectation.
I. PAGAN EXPECTATION.
This may be surprise if you did not realize how God prepared
the whole world for the gift of His Son.
God's Christmas preparation goes back a long way and covers all
people. God has built hope into the
very heart of man, and so there is a natural expectancy in him. God has never left Himself without a
witness, and so men of every nations have expected God to act in history. The prophet Haggai in 2:7, refers to the
Messiah as the Desire Of All Nations.
This implies that God has put into all people a desire for a
deliverer.
As we search the minds of men in all nations before that first
Christmas, we see this confirmed. They
expected a Christmas-like event. The
words of the poet are in harmony with the facts of history.
A little child-
A shining star-
A stable rude,
A door ajar.
Yet in that place
So crude, forlorn,
The hope of all
The world is born.
Was Jesus really the hope of the world? Was anybody, but a handful of God's people,
looking for a coming Savior? Consider
the evidence-
1. Plato, the Greek philosopher, said, "We must wait for
someone to be a god, or god-inspired man, who will teach us our duties and take
away the darkness from our eyes."
Here was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived, but he knew he
could not deliver men from darkness. He looked for another to be the light of the
world. He expected a man to come that
was more than any man had ever been.
2. Tacitus, the Roman historian, wrote, "People were generally
persuaded in the faith of the ancient prophecies, that the east was to prevail,
and that from Judea was to come the Master and Ruler of the world." Suetonius, another Roman wrote, "It was
an old and constant belief throughout the East, that by indubitably certain
prophecies, the Jews were to attain the highest power." The prophecies of Israel influenced the thinking of other peoples, and filled
them with expectation.
3. China also expected a great wise man, but they looked to the
West. In the Annals Of The Celestial
Empire we read this statement, "In the 24th year of Tchao-Wang of the
dynasty of the Tcheou, on the 8th day of the 4th moon, a light appeared in the
Southwest which illumined the king's palace.
The monarch, struck by it's splendor, interrogated the sages. They showed him books in which this prodigy
signified the appearance of the great Saint of the West whose religion was to
be introduced into their country."
4. Six centuries before Christ, Aeschylus wrote, "Look not for
any end, moreover, to this curse until God appears, to accept upon his Head the
pangs of thy owns sins vicarious."
This sounds like an expectation, not only of Christ, but of His cross
and the atonement for sin.
5. Cicero writes of the ancient oracle which speaks of, "A king
whom we must recognize to be saved."
6. Virgil, in his fourth Eclogue recounts the ancient tradition of,
"A new order of the ages with a new race to come out of a virgin from the
heights of heaven." This child,
said Virgil, would cast out fear and make the serpent die. Is any wonder that the early Christians
believed these pagan writers were prophesying about Christ.
Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, said that Virgil's
poem, written for Augustus Caesar, was
really a prophecy about Jesus.
Augustine, the great Christian theologian, also said this famous poet
was speaking of Christ. They were
saying that God had revealed to the Gentiles also, that He was sending His Son
into the world. Listen to a portion of
Virgil's famous poem, and you can see, in spite of it's pagan perspective, it
points to The Desire Of All Nations.
Dear child of the Gods,
great offspring of Jove!
See how it totters-the
world's vaulted might.
Earth, and wide ocean, and
the depths of heaven
All of them, Look, caught up
in joy at the age to come.
Here is a pagan poet saying
all heaven and earth are looking to the event of the birth of a special child. There is no escaping the facts, the whole
world was filled with expectation before the first Christmas. No wonder the wise men of the Gentile nation
were looking for a sign. They not only
had the prophecies of Israel, but of the wise men of the world. They were looking because they were
expecting.
In Gion-Carlo Menotti's opera, Amahl And The Night Visitors,
the wise men stop on their way to Bethlehem at the home of a crippled
child. They told the family about the great
king whose birth had called them from afar.
The mother responded, :"For
such a king I've been waiting all my life." This gives a true picture of the world into which Jesus
came. It was a world of expectation
among the Jews and the Gentiles.
Jesus came to be the Savior of all men. There are many lost sinners in the world
today who are hoping to find life's meaning.
They expect to find light and love.
Like the pagans of old, in B. C., they know God must have more than they
have found. They will seek by drugs,
alcohol, immorality, and a host of follies to find the happiness they know
should be. Of course, all of these
secular saviors will let them down.
They will be disappointed in their excessive expectations. But the fact is, the pagan world does have
expectations, and Christians need to build on this today, just as the early
Christians did in their day. Pagan
expectation is a key factor in sharing the good news of Christmas. Secondly, let's consider:
II. PARENTAL
EXPECTATION.
There is no way we can enter into the emotional excitement and
expectancy of Joseph and Mary. This was
the most unusual birth story of all time.
They were not just having a baby, they were having the Messiah-the hope
of Israel and the whole world. They
were having a child conceived by the Holy Spirit and announced to both parents
by angelic revelation. This was not a
routine birth, but the only one of it's kind, ever.
They expected the child to be born in Bethlehem, but, it is
not likely, they expected the child to be born in a stable. They did not expect to find, no room. This was not, however, as great a problem as
we think. They had been traveling for
days and probably slept out in the fields.
So in comparison, the stable was a cozy shelter, and possibly the best
place they had slept all week.
These expectant parents did
not know what to expect, for they were involved in something that would only
happen once in history. How could they
know what to expect? Would the midnight
sky light up like noon? Would the
angels gather around the manger? Would
God speak from heaven? What was going
to happen?
They could never guess that shepherds would come to worship
the child. They could not dream they
would have to flee into Egypt. Their
lives were filled with the unexpected.
No doubt, God choose these two people to be the parents of His Son,
because they were flexible and could adapt to the unexpected. It is a paradox, but people who expect the
unexpected are better able to deal with it.
There is not one hint of complaint that they had no room in the inn,
that they had to flee their land, that they had to give up their family back
home. They were ready to put up with
radial changes to be partners with God in fulfilling His purpose in the world. They were ready to respond to the unexpected
with obedience to God.
As parents and grandparents, we need to approach Christmas
with this spirit of expecting the unexpected.
It is nearly impossible to predict the responses of children today. I read of one grandmother who spent a lot of
time making slippers for her granddaughter for Christmas. When the granddaughter opened them she just
said, "Oh slippers," and threw them aside. The grandmother was expecting something more for her labor of love,
and she was hurt. A wiser approach is
to expect the unexpected, and not pretend children are programmed the way we
would like them to be. We need to take
the time to set them in our laps and explain the value of a gift. We need to give them a chance to respond
properly with gratitude. Grace is not
only the key to the God-man relationship, but to the human to human
relationship.
We need to expect less than the ideal. God did, and that is why He was prepared to
send His Son into the world to reconcile men to Himself. God expected, as a heavenly Father, that His
children would disobey and make Him angry.
But He anticipated that negative reality by providing a positive reality
that would offset it. That is what
Grace is all about and what Christmas is all about-God and sinners reconciled
because God is ready to deal with what
you would expect He should never have to deal with-ungrateful children.
There would be no need for grace is their was no sin and ingratitude. We need
to expect it and be prepared to respond to it with grace in the lives of our children and
grandchildren.
If we are dependent upon all things going just right, in order
to be happy, then we are slaves to a dream that can never come true. Things do
not go just right for anybody all the time. Even Joseph and Mary had to do
their parenting in a fallen world and be ready for the unexpected. A pastor
wanted to use a visual aid for his Christmas sermon, so he got 4 children to
help him. They were to march out at the appropriate time carrying the 4 letters
that spelled out STAR. But they got turned around and came out with the letters
backward and they spelled out RATS. The congregation nearly fell out of the
pews with laughter. The pastor made the best of it by explaining that there
were rats in the first Christmas. Herod was one who made part of the Christmas
story a tragedy for many mothers. The pastor's little plan went wrong and
developed a snag, but so did the plan of God on that first Christmas. The
spirit of Christmas is not, everything must go perfect or I will be miserable,
but rather, no matter what the complications, I know that God works in all
things for the good of those who love Him. I will rejoice in His grace which
gave the Gift that can never be taken away. I will live in joyful expectation
as a child of God and as a parent. Thirdly, note:
III. Personal Expectation.
Simeon was an old man ready to die because his expectations
were now fulfilled. He saw with his own eyes the Christ-child, the promised
Messiah. He did not see this as an end, but as a new beginning. He could die in
peace because he knew the best was yet to be. This child would be a light to
the Gentiles, and for the glory of Israel.
Simeon represents the ideal of balanced personal expectations.
He does not look at life with rose colored glasses. He says in verse 34, this
child will cause the rise and fall of many in Israel. He will be opposed and a
sword will pierce Mary's soul. He faced the realism of a fallen world and had
no illusions about this Christmas child bringing paradise to earth. He was a
realist, but still ready to die in peace, for he knew the child would bring
salvation to the whole lost world. He did not expect everything to be just
great, but he did expect that man would now have God's best in history and
eternity, because of this child.
As we approach another Christmas, we need this same balance in
our personal expectations. Christmas will not make evil go away. But the good
news is the bad news is not all there is. The Light of the World has come, and
there is now hope for all men to enter into a relationship with God that will
be eternal. But the best of time is also potential in the Gift of God. Berton
Braley conveys this hope in poetry.
With doubt and dismay you
are smitten,
You think there's no chance
for you, son?
Why, the best books haven't
been
written,
The best race hasn't been
run;
The best score hasn't been
made yet;
The best song hasn't been
sung;
The best tune hasn't been played
yet;
Cheer up, for the world is
young!
No chance? Why, the world is
just eager
for things that you ought to
create;
Its store of true wealth is
still meager,
Its needs are incessant and
great;
Don't worry and fret,
fainthearted,
The chances have just begun;
For the best jobs haven't
been started;
The best work hasn't been
done.
The best is yet to come-that is the gift of hope the Christian
has a right to expect at Christmas. It is not promised that there will be no
spilt milk or tough times, but it is promised that the worst can never rob us
of God's best in Christ. We can, like Simeon, die in peace knowing the best is
always yet to be.
We have no promise of a white Christmas from nature, but God
does promise us a personal white
Christmas within. God says in Isa. 1:18, "Come now, and let us reason
together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow." Here is the white Christmas we should all be dreaming
about and anticipating. We can be made clean from all sin and have peace with
God. What a gift! The best is already ours in Christ. We need to make Christmas
a time of thankfulness and a time of
expecting to grow in our grasp of all
we have in Christ. In Him, we have all that the world has expected from God.
Let us never be satisfied with just a part, but ever live in expectation of the
more that can be ours in Christ. Let this be our Christmas expectation.
9. PARADOXES OF CHRISTMAS based
on John 1:1-14
Little Hattie, determined to give her hero the highest image
and magnify his achievements, wrote the following in her history
examination-"Abraham Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin which
he built himself." Lincoln was
indeed a great man but historians, I think, are universal agreement that he did
all of his building after he was born.
In fact, you will find this to be the pattern in all biographies except
one. And that is what makes Christmas
so paradoxical. It is the story of one
who is born into a world that he literally made himself.
John says, " through Him all things were made,
without Him nothing was made that has
been made." Jesus made the very
stage of history on which he played history's greatest role-the Saviour of the
world. He who made the stars became the
Star on that stage lit up by the Star of Bethlehem. What this means is, Christmas began long before it even started. Dale Evans Rogers wrote,
Christmas my child is always
It was always in the heart
of God, It was born there
Only He could have thought
of it.
Like God, Christmas is
timeless and eternal,
From everlasting to
everlasting.
Not only was Jesus crucified before the foundation of the world,
He was also born then, for Christmas like the cross is both historical and
eternal. Christmas comes near the end
of the year and this is very appropriate because it makes it a climactic event. That is what it is in God's plan for the
whole of history before Christmas was in anticipation of it's coming.
I read of a woman who was caught up in the Christmas rush and
when she saw some
Christmas cards on sale she
grabbed them. When she got home she
quickly got them into envelopes and sent them off in the mail. With a sense of satisfaction at both her
economy and efficiency, she sat down and opened one of her bargain cards to
read the message. It said in bold
print-THIS CARD IS JUST TO SAY A GIFT IS ON THE WAY. Haste makes waste is often true and she blew it, but God did
not. This was the message of the Old
Testament-the law was just to say God's gift of grace is on its way. Christmas was the divine event toward which
the Old Testament was every moving.
The paradox of it all is that this eternal divine event, in
the heart of God, was so human. The
genealogy of the Christ child was human.
It was a loin that came down through kings and heros, to be sure, but it
also was full of sinners. The paradox
is that Jesus was the only baby ever born who had a choice of His
heritage. Nobody else ever choose
where, when, or to whom they would be born.
But Jesus chose the time and place, the clime and race, where He would
show the world God's face. He not only
built the stage He chose the cast for the greatest story ever told.
An eight year old boy came home from school and thrilled his
parents with the news that he had been selected to announce the characters for
the Christmas pageant. His father was
so elated he went out and bought him the finest suit he could find. To give his son some assurance he pinned the
names of the characters of the nativity on the inside of his new coat. When the characters appeared on stage the
boy announced, "this is Jesus in the manger and Mary is nearby with Joseph
standing next to her. The three men
are..." His mind went blank, he could not remember and so he took a quick
look inside in coat prepared for just such an emergency and he blurted out,"Hart,
Shaffner, and Marx!"
He made a mistake and chose the wrong names but Jesus made no
such mistake. He deliberately chose the
characters that are forever linked to Him in the Christmas story. The three wise men, or kings, add some
statue to the cast but most of them are rather commonplace. If
you chose your parents would you have chosen Joseph and Mary? Nice people, but rather low on the totem
pole of economic security. Okay for
those who have no choice but He who could have chosen anyone, chose them. Then he chose to have His birth first
announced to the shepherds, one of the lowest classes of people available. Plan before the foundation of the world, and
this is what He chose? The angels give
it a touch of class but let's face it, the Christmas cast is so humbly
human. Conceived, planned, organized
and arranged by heaven yet look at how
earthly and human a story it is-
1. The earthly need for
taxes to keep the Roman government going led to Caesar's decree that got Joseph and Mary
to Bethlehem.
2. The earthly need to obey
government law led them to risk going so near her time delivery.
3. The lack of
accommodations that led to Jesus being born in a stable looks more like
short-sighted human planning rather than eternal heavenly planning.
4. The wise men having to sneak
out of town and head back home by a
different route to avoid the anger of Herod, seems so earthly and fallibly human.
I can think of no other event in history so full of paradox.
It is so heavenly yet so earthly. Consider these examples:
The Word from which all
wisdom comes could not speak.
The Power by which all
exists was a baby weak.
He whom the heavens could
not contain, lying in a manger.
Unto His own he came but was
treated like a stranger.
For Him who made all space, there
was no room.
For Him who made all light,
there was gloom.
He who wipes all tears away
entered flesh and wept
He who neither slumbers nor
sleeps, became tired and slept.
The entire life of the God-Man was a series of paradoxes.
He made all the laws of
nature but became subject to those laws.
He who cannot be tempted
became subject to temptation.
He who is the bread of life
became hungry.
He who is the water of life
became thirsty.
He, the Spirit of Liberty,
became a slave to the limitations of flesh even to the point of death.
No life ever lived has been so paradoxical.
1. He never enjoyed a Christmas but had He not lived there never
would have been a Christmas to enjoy.
2. He never wrote a book but more books have been written about Him
than any other who has ever lived.
3. He never wrote a song or painted a picture but more songs and art
portray His life than any other who has ever lived. Frederick Knowles said, "O Christ of contrasts; infinite
paradox, yet life's explainer."
The point is the whole story of His life is a mysterious
combination of the human and the divine.
When you mix these two ingredients the result is
inevitable-paradox. Let's look at some
specific examples from John's account.
I. THE INFINITE BECOMES
AN INFANT.
John tells us that the Word became flesh. He has just made it perfectly clear that the
Word was none other than God and was with God from the beginning.
Who is this, so weak and
helpless,
Child of lowly Hebrew maid,
Rudely in a stable
sheltered,
Coldly in a manger laid?
'Tis the Lord of all
creation,
Who this wondrous path hath trod;
He is God from everlasting,
And to everlasting God.
What a paradox that the Word, the ultimate source of all
wisdom was reduced to the level of an infant who could not say a word. The Word became inarticulate. The infinite most high reduced to an infants
cry. Was ever such a story told of an
eternal son yet one day old?
If God wanted to communicate with ants He would take on the
form of an ant and speak ant language.
This is a logical necessity. The
infinite must become finite in appearance to relate to the finite. This we see in the Old Testament when God
appeared in the form of a man. But Christmas
is something new. The infinite no
longer merely masks Himself as finite; He actually enters into the finite and
becomes a man. And not a man on the
upper level of his being as an adult
but the lower level of his being, as a baby.
The infinite becomes an infant.
You can't get any higher than infinite you can't get any lower than a
man than an infant. God took the
paradox as far as it can be taken. From
being the source of all life, Jesus was reduced to the level of the least that
human life can be, in the womb of Mary.
This is why Christmas is our most wonder filled holiday. It is based on an event that is so
mysterious and wondrous that man is compelled to celebrate it with more wonder
than anything else he celebrates. We
strive to add the elements of mystery and surprise to Christmas. We hide gifts and make sure there is the
suspense of the unknown that helps build anticipation. What can be more appropriate than mystery to
magnify that day when the Infinite became an infant.
As Christians, we know
about the incarnation so well that we forget Christians struggled for centuries
to figure out how to state what happened when God became man. Samuel Zwemer in his book, The Glory Of The
Manger, describes some of the process of history in coming to grasp more fully
the mystery of the Incarnation.
At first, Christians stressed that Jesus was divine. He was the Son of God living in a human
body, but His mind was not a human mind. But this meant Jesus was not fully a man. His humanity was incomplete. So they rejected this view. Then they said Jesus was God and man. This sounded good but it led to the idea
that God just took over the body and mind of a man. This meant there were two persons, the Son of God and the son of
man that coexisted. This theory also
came to be rejected. Then by the fourth
century Christian theologians developed a way of describing the Incarnation
that has become the orthodox view ever since.
Jesus was the perfect combination of deity and humanity. He had both natures in one person. He was not 50% God and 50% man but 100% God
and 100% man. He was fully God and
fully man in one person.
The point I am making is that what we celebrate at Christmas
is such a paradox of mystery that it took centuries just to learn how best to
describe it. Richard Crashaw wrote-
Welcome all wonders in one
sight!
Eternity shut in a span,
Summer and Winter, Day in
Night!
Heaven in earth, and God in
man!
Great little One! Whose all-embracing birth,
Lifts earth to heaven,
stoops heaven to earth!
C. S. Lewis in The Chronicles Of Narnia, has Queen Lucy say,
"In our world too a stable once had something in it bigger than the whole
world." That is the paradox of
Christmas. Next, look at-
II. THE INFINITE
BECOMES INTIMATE.
John says not only did the Word become flesh but He dwelt
among us. He not only became one of us,
He became one with us. Christmas is not
only the celebration of birth but of relationship. When a Jr. boy reads about romance his favorite word is probably
ick. But when he gets a little older
his vocabulary changes when he meets a girl and discovers the beauty of
relationship. It is no longer a icky
idea but an experience of intimacy.
Words, ideas and concepts become much more real when they are embodied
in a person. When the most high became
most nigh, He became our neighbor and our friend and our brother. The Infinite became intimate. Christopher Smart wrote,
God all-bounteous,
all-creative
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