The Message of Christmas: Faith
Luke 2:1-20
Introduction
An old story that used to go around Broadway tells of a playwright cooped us in a telephone booth holding the giant sized New York telephone directory in his hands. He felt its great weight and looked curiously at it’s hundreds of pages of Jones’, Smith’s, and Johnson’s. Thinking in terms of his craft as a dramatist he exclaimed, "There’s not much of a plot here but oh boy, what a cast of characters we see."
This morning I want us to look at the cast of characters found in the Christmas story. We will see their interaction with circumstances, people, and God.
Joseph
One main player in that first Christmas morning was Joseph. Joseph is said to be a carpenter by trade, earning his living in the city of Nazareth. But the most important fact about him is that he was a Jewish man with deep religious convictions whose ancestry can be traced all the way back to David.
His religious faith created a crisis for Joseph, for Mary and Joseph had not consummated their marriage when Mary discovered she was carrying a child. But then the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said that the child she was carrying was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
What would Joseph do? How would he respond? A child conceived by the Holy Spirit. It had not happened before. A little baby born like other babies would become a Savior? Who would believe such a story? Joseph did and his trust and obedience to God is what has made his name one associate with righteousness.
How we need to learn the lesson from Joseph’s decision making. How we need to learn to trust God. It’s not easy to do. God tells us to give and we will receive more, to lose our life for His sake and we will find life. God tells us to invest our life in the cause of Jesus, the same child whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, and our eternity will be secure. God tells us to give up those things which the world says are essential to life and if we do we will experience real life. Who would believe such a list of contradictions to this world’s truth? We do! Trust in God means we put our life in God’s hands as Joseph did and bet our life that what He says is true.
Mary
Another key player was Mary. What does Mary add to this Christmas drama? The quality about Mary which is most clearly reflected in the text is wonder. We see this wonder in her song of celebration. It says,
My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.
Mary was amazed that the child who was to be born would be the Savior of the world. She was even more amazed that God would chose her as the human instrument by which His child, His Son, would be brought into this world.
I am afraid that most of us have lost our sense of wonder at the incredible proclamations and promises made to us this Christmas. We have lost our sense of wonder about a God who is big enough to create this vast universe in which we live and yet at the same time He came to this earth as a child to redeem you and me. We have lost our sense of wonder about a God that is so sovereign in His power that He holds the whole world in His hands and yet at the same time is so personal in His concern about you and me He knows the hairs on each of our heads.
One little girl on being told some of the great Old Testament stories about God exclaimed, "God was much more exciting then." The little girl was wrong. God is just as exciting now as then. How each of us needs to reclaim and proclaim the wonder and excitement of the Lord when Mary said, "My soul exalts in the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior."
Faith
When we think of these two individuals who were soon to become a couple, one principle guides both their lives. It is faith in God. Confronted with unbelievable proclamations they both trusted in God.
Mary was a woman of faith. The angel said to her some unbelievable things. She was told she would bear the child of God. Her response was one of how is it going to happen. It seemed quite impossible, there was no record of it happening before and she wanted to know the how.
Once the angel told her how it was to be done and proclaimed a great truth, "Nothing is impossible with God" she said ok. She said,
I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.”
She believed that God is God and He is all powerful. She also had faith that with God all things are possible. She also trusted God that she would be fine in all of this. To sum up her life, she placed her utmost faith in God and did His will in her life. With faith, obedience is required.
Joseph exhibited extreme faith when he did not throw Mary out into the street. As a man it was his right. Even though he could have been in a rage over the situation he didn’t because he truly loved Mary.
I can’t imagine the faith it must have taken for Joseph to hear and obey. His wife is pregnant. He knows he is not the father. An angel of the Lord tells him she is pregnant with God’s child and it is prophesied. And he is to take her as his wife. Wow.
Joseph didn’t ask questions he simply did as he was told. He was to be the father figure to God’s Son. He didn’t, even as a teenage man, ask Mary to sleep with him until after she had delivered the child. All he did was a testimony to his faith in God.
They both exhibited extreme faith in God. I wonder if the child would have even survived in today’s world. If you were the one who was asked to do God’s will in this way, would you have had the faith?
C. S. Lewis said, "There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan." To whom do you belong?
The struggle of faith begins with trusting in God’s gift of His Son. He wants us to accept the gift of His Son that was given for you and me.
