“God with Us: The Savior”
Matthew 1:20b-21
Excited about Christmas, a little boy was finishing a letter to Santa with a list of the Christmas presents he badly wanted.
And then, just to make sure he had covered all his bases, he decided to send his Christmas wish list to Jesus as well.
The letter to Jesus began, “Dear Jesus, I just want you to know that I’ve been good for 6 months now.”
Then it occurred to him that Jesus knew this wasn’t true.
After thinking about it a moment, he crossed out “6 months” and wrote “3 months.”
He thought some more, then crossed out “months” and replaced it with “weeks.”
“I’ve been good for 3 weeks,” his letter now read.
Realizing Jesus knew better than this, he put down his paper, went over to the Nativity Set sitting on a table in his home, and picked up the figure of Mary.
He then took out a clean piece of paper and began to write another letter: “Dear Jesus, if you ever want to see your mother again…”
If we’re honest, I suspect none of us could write a letter to Jesus claiming that we had been perfectly good for 6 months, or even 3 whole weeks--for me it would be 3 whole hours.
There is sin in all of us.
Shortly after learning from Gabriel that she was to become pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that she would give birth to the Messiah, Mary shared this news with Joseph.
That night, Joseph undoubtedly tossed and turned in his bed, probably feeling hurt, angry, betrayed, disappointed and heart-broken at what he believed was Mary’s infidelity.
But after falling asleep, he had a dream.
In that dream, an angel of the Lord appeared to him saying, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
This is a passage that is so familiar to us that we often fail to understand just what it is that Matthew is saying to us.
And this is especially true today because names often have little meaning beyond a tag to identify us.
But Matthew’s word play in this verse is significant.
Right off the bat he is identifying just Who Jesus is.
Jesus’ name means “God saves.”
And the announcement from the angel was that Jesus would be that Savior.
“God saves.”
“Jesus saves.”
Matthew is not just proclaiming that Jesus will save us.
He is announcing that Jesus is God.
Jesus is God come to save His people—not from the Romans—but from bondage to sin, death and hell.
In December 1985 a 70-foot-wide sinkhole swallowed one home and a carport and forced the evacuation of four homes in a retirement community in Florida.
The hole was about the size of a pickup truck when it was discovered.
Within 3 hours it had grown to 30 by 40 feet and had swallowed half of a small house.
Two hours later the house was gone.
The owners escaped with only their coats, glad to be alive.
What a vivid picture of sin and the results of sin.
Sin is like a sinkhole; the results are catastrophic.
It swallows up everything in its path.
Because of sin lives are ruined, families are wrecked, children are abused, people are murdered, lies are said and we could go on and on and on.
Now, the good news of Jesus is not that we’re sinners, but that He is our Savior.
But we can’t appreciate His role as Savior if we don’t know we need to be saved!
As humans we all struggle with sin.
Sin is the fundamental problem in the human condition.
And sin has a double meaning: it means both the innate tendency to stray from the right path and also the actual act of straying.
And this problem comes right from the start of Scripture with the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
Eden is the world as it was meant to be, with no suffering, pain or death.
Adam and Eve were given one rule: “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
All other trees were theirs to eat from, just not this one.
The serpent in the garden tempted them to eat the fruit, promising them that if they ate it they would become like God.
They saw the fruit was beautiful and they figured it must be delicious, and they ate.
And with that, paradise was lost.
This story teaches us about ourselves.
We know there is a good and right path, but we have all heard the whisper of Satan encouraging us to turn away from that path.
We all know the battle with temptation, the tendency to do the wrong thing, and we’ve all heard the serpent whisper to us, rationalizing with us, beckoning us to leave the path.
What is the forbidden fruit the serpent beckons you to eat?
The lie he tells you to lead you astray or to trip you up?
Where do you stray from the path or miss the mark?
I remember, before I gave my life to Christ, knowing that I was a sinner but having no way to resist…no way out…no life raft…no way to be saved from my sins.
I didn’t want to be a sinner, but I didn’t know how “not to be.”
There was no other option; no other way.
After I accepted God’s free gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and gave everything over to Him, I found for the first time that there is a way out!
There is a life-raft.
There is escape.
There is a Savior.
And my life started to transform; I have never been the same since.
At the same time, temptation hasn’t completely vanished from my life, but I have found a new, stronger impulse pulling me toward the right path.
I have found my heart changed, little by little, day by day as my inner nature is being reshaped, my thoughts, words, perspective and deeds change, and I find myself more often and intentionally following Christ.
The Christian journey is just that.
It is a journey—a lifetime journey of becoming more and more the people God created us to be.
And the more we open ourselves up to God’s changing—the more we find ourselves, well, changing!
And so, how do we open ourselves up to God?
We do so by being intentional and paying attention to our thoughts, desires, intentions and motives.
We do so by learning the Bible, reading it daily, coming to know it like we know arithmetic or the alphabet.
We do so by praying not just occasionally, when we are scared or in trouble—but continually, and praying for others, not just ourselves.
We do so by reading devotional material such as The Upper Room, which you can pick up for free at Red Bank United Methodist Church.
We do so, by seeking to see others as those whom God loves, whom God created and died for, as those who are in the same struggle we are in and as those who Jesus so relates to that He tells us that when we either do or don’t do something for another person—we do that or don’t do that for Christ Himself.
We do that by worshiping God as a Church Body, serving God with others, and living out our faith at home, work—wherever.
When the angel announced that Mary’s child would “save his people from their sins,” this includes Christ’s transforming work in our lives, drawing us to God’s path, strengthening us and delivering us from our inner compulsion to sin.
If we think back again to the Garden of Eden we will remember there was another Tree.
It was the Tree of Life.
After Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they were banished from the Garden, banished from God’s presence and no longer able to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever with God.
And so, not only does Jesus save us from the tendency to sin—he also saves us from the wages or payment for our sins—which is death and hell.
By His death on the Cross, Jesus dies the death we deserve, He takes our place, He becomes sin for us—and restores our relationship with God and access to the Tree of Life.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Do you believe this?
Have you experienced this first hand?
When we give our lives to Christ, and by His grace accept Him as both our Lord and Savior—Jesus says we are born again or born of God.
Something inside us changes as the Holy Spirit, Who has been knocking on the outside door of our hearts all our lives, is finally invited in and takes up residence in us.
And because of this, we can never be the same again.
And Jesus says, “No one can take us out of His hands.”
The greatest existential crisis we face in this life as human beings is that none of us make it out alive.
We can make millions, but we can’t take it with us.
We can build empires, but they will crumble after we are gone or become someone else’s.
Whether we are Kings, Princesses, movie stars or Joe the Plumber we all face the same end.
And this can cause people to lose heart, to question the reason for our existence and to live with a loss of hope and a feeling meaninglessness.
But in Christ, life is not meaningless.
Death does not have the final word.
And this, often, difficult life on earth is not all there is.
Through Jesus Christ’s death and Resurrection, Jesus not only triumphed over evil, hate and sin, but He defeated death itself.
As Paul writes of Jesus’ Resurrection, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
Then He asked, “Do you believe this?”
I believe Jesus is asking the same question to you and I this morning.
“Do you believe this?”
Over the years, I have spent a lot of time with people who are dying and with their close family members.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ does not take away the pain and loss of death, but it does change our perspective on our loss.
It also, changes how those of us who face death—experience it.
Several years ago, a church member passed away, and his wife and son told me later that right before he passed, he came out of his coma, and looked past them, to something he could see, as if it were beyond him, and smiled—a smile they said, that was bigger and wider than he had ever smiled before.
And with that, he went to be with the Lord in heaven.
This is what Christmas is all about.
This is what Jesus came to do.
He came to save His people from their sins.
And one day, we WILL totally be saved from the very presence of sin as we are able to see and know God face to face.
The angel told Joseph in a dream to give Mary’s child the name Jesus: God Saves.
Jesus saves us from sin, guilt and shame.
He rescues us from loveless, meaningless, and hopeless lives.
And in the end, He delivers us from death.
This is why we call Him Savior.
Is this what you call Him?
If not, will you ask Him to be your Savior right now, today?
Amen.
