In Jesus Holy Name December 24, 2005
Christmas Eve Redeemer Lutheran
“Life Without Christmas”
How did Christmas become so complicated? Some stores won’t allow the Salvation Army to collect donations to help them meet the minimal needs of the poor and down trodden. Other stores refuse to allow their employees to even speak the words, “Merry Christmas”. It has become politically incorrect in a pluralistic culture to wish you a “Merry Christmas”.
Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores did finally take down their “Holiday Tree” banner and put up “Christmas Tree” banners. I guess the sales were not going so well for “holiday trees”. The U.S. Capitol “holiday tree” was restored to the “Capitol Christmas Tree”.
We know these stories are not making the change to honor the birth of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. It’s about business.
Several years ago, John Leo, who writes editorial for U.S. News and World Report made the following comment about our culture and the season of Christmas. “And Joseph went up from Galilee to Bethlehem with Mary, his espoused wife, who was great with child. While there, she gave birth to her 1st born son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room in the inn. The angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds and said, “I bring you good tidings of great joy. Unto you is born a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
A Pharisee who happened to be strolling by said, “Joseph, there’s a problem with the angel. Angels are widely regarded as religious symbols and the stable is on public property. This whole thing looks to me like a Nativity scene. That’s a no no.”
Joseph responded: “What should I do? What if I added a couple of reindeer near the ox and ass?” “That would help.” Said the Pharisee. “And maybe throw in a candy cane or a snowman. No court can resist that.” Mary asked: “What does my son’s birth have to do with snowmen?” “Snow persons!” cried a bystander.
A calm voice said, “Be of good cheer Mary, you have done well and your son will change the world.” “At last, a sane person,” Mary thought. She turned to see a radiant and confident female face. The woman spoke again. “There is one thing though. Religious holidays are important but we must learn to celebrate them in ways that unite, not divide.” For instance, “instead of Gloria In Excelesis Deo
Why not just “season’s greetings.”
If you look at the art work in the bulletin carefully you’ll see that the secular culture never really wanted the simple manger scene. (I have placed a picture from Christianity Today early 1990’s which shows a manger scene under a Christmas tree…but with each frame…more and more gifts eventually hide the manger scene from view)
Christmas has become the test of a big box retailer’s 4th quarter financials. On line purchasing at “Overstocked.com” and center mall displays by Hickory Farms depend on the Christmas season for profit. If there were no Christmas, merchants would invent it.
Tonight millions of Christians will proclaim “ba humbug” to political correctness in a secular culture with the singing of traditional Christmas hymns. As God’s people we come together to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus “Christmas means more than just the birth of a baby. Christmas is when God chose to enter the world he created with flesh and bone. It is the miracle we call the “Incarnation”.
The Incarnation is the ultimate and final disclosure of the eternal God. It tells us who God is, what God is like and what God wants. The Incarnation is the self realization of the Absolute Being Himself, the pre-existent Son of God, talking human form.”
The Apostle Paul writes: “God was pleased to have all of his full deity dwell in (Christ) him, and through him reconcile to himself all things…. By making peace through his blood (the blood of Jesus) shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:20)
Christmas is about God’s gift of ultimate hope and love for the human race, not about the merchant’s gifts under the holiday tree that hides the manger with Mary and Joseph.
The angel told Joseph that the child born to Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He would be called, “Immanuel, which means “God with us.” The eternal God who created the heavens and earth now resides in a cradle of wood from a tree He created.
Jesus totally and completely experienced humanity with all its’ self limitations, sorrow, suffering and death. Jesus in his humanity was tested and tempted by the devil himself, yet Jesus was without sin.
Secular culture doesn’t want the “incarnation”. Emmanuel God with us, does not sell computer games, tevo or cologne. Society wants the cute stuff, fluffy sheep, cows, the infant Jesus, (as long as he remains an infant) stars and St. Nicholas, reindeer and fir trees.
The market place will retain the pagan stuff, even if they dye the trees powder blue and decorate them with miniature Disney ornaments.
The market place will also retain some of the traditional melodies, but in upbeat arrangements that remove them from the realm of traditional worship. Ancient chants are popular, they sound religious and best of all, no body understands Latin, so no shoppers are offended.
Martin Luther explained the Incarnation this way:
“O Lord, you have created all,
how did you come to be so small,
to sweetly sleep in manger bed
Where lowly cattle lately fed?”
“True Christianity does not begin at the top, as do all other religions do, it begins at the bottom. You must run to the manger, and the mother’s womb, embrace this (holy) child in your arms.”
When God became one of us in the person of Jesus, He did not cease being God. The Incarnation mystery sets the Christmas message apart from all religions that have ever existed. Jesus the eternal One, humbled himself and entered our human existence with flesh and blood, yet remained divine. This mystery, I can not explain. But I accept.
Our reason cannot succeed in trying to understand how God could possibly have loved us to such a degree that he would allow the fate of the world to rest on the response of two small town teenagers. How many times Mary must have gone over the angel’s words as she felt the Son of God kicking within her being. How many time must Joseph have second guessed his own encounter with the angel…just a dream? As they both endured the gossip among neighbors who could plainly see the changing shape of the woman he was to marry.
God in a manger… such a thing baffles the intellect. It’s so much easier to hide the small wooden stable with Mary and Joseph, behind the bright packages under the ‘holiday tree’.
What would our world be like if God had not come to Bethlehem through the womb of Mary?
This past week, Disney Studies released a new movie; “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” . The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is all about Christmas, based on the book by C.S. Lewis, with the same title. It is about a cold land, blanketed white with snow, called “Narnia”. It is a place where animals walk and talk, and the land is ruled by a wicked White Witch, whose magic spell keeps the entire land always winter, but never Christmas.
Always winter but never Christmas.
Think of that possibility. Christmas celebrates the birth of God’s son. We number our calendars by his birth. So without his birth….what year would it be? Someone once wrote: Suppose Jesus had not come...
Suppose there had been no manger scene.
No star in the east
No angel melody
No awestruck shepherds
Then there would be no sermon on the mount.
No reason to love our neighbor.
No reconciling cross
No empty tomb
No empowering Holy Spirit
No community of the caring…no Salvation Army,
No World Relief, No Food for the Hungry.
If Jesus had not come, our thinking about God would still be fractured, His love forever unknown.
If Jesus had not come, there would be no Handel’s Messiah. There would be theology without Christology. There would be servanthood for the sake of selfish gain.
Sin without a Redeemer. Death without a Destroyer. (Hebrews 2:14) Heaven without assurance.
The story of Narnia will draw in the world. Some will miss the message but the story is compelling. 85 million have read the book. When Aslen, the Lion arrives in Narnia, the snow melts, the sun shines. Aslen the great lion will suffer the consequences of the sins of others. His power proved greater than death. The cold world of Narnia is delivered from the White Witch.
The Bible says: “Of the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, his paths beyond tracing out.”
And so, God came. He still comes to shatter the tinsel, and holly and bright colored packages. He cannot be hidden. God sent his Son that first Christmas because he loves you and me. He came to us so that we could come to him.
The real Christmas story of the incarnation brings hope to a culture paralyzed by the chill of unbelief, where some would prefer a winter without Christmas. If you are still living in a world without hope then God’s gift in the manger is for you. I invite you to open His package of love, receive his gift, let Jesus bring warmth, sunshine, light and joy to your heart and home.
Quotes: John Leo U.S. News and World Report January 3, 1994 Ross Rhoads in Decision Magazine December 2003 "Incarnation, The Miracle of Christ’s Birth
Maureen Jais Mick "Ready or Not: The Return of Christmas" from Christianity Today December 1996 p. 50
