Christmas Celebration
This transcript has been automatically generated
Well, thank you. It’s very frightening to be here amongst you all. I feel the odd one out.
It’s interesting what Clare said just to begin with. I was reading a survey earlier this morning of something like the best part of 1,000 people across the country, and it said that more than 33% of those surveyed wouldn’t notice if Christmas took place without reference to the Nativity storey.
Well, I can understand that actually. In one sense I can understand the seeming irrelevance of it and not noticing it. I remember a friend of mine who’s got a birthday somewhere around December 23rd telling us how he used to be taken up every Christmas to see the lights down Oxford Street and Regent Street and the crushing blow of disappointment it was when he discovered, aged about 5 or 6, that they hadn’t been strung up to celebrate his birthday.
If you sort of read in the newspaper sometimes, some of them have got these columns, haven’t they, which announce whose birthdays it is today. I don’t know if you’ve ever stopped and wondered what you have to do to get in there, or who chooses. You know, there’s a little— there’s normally sort of one word describing them afterwards, you know, barrister, journalist, film actress, footballer, politician, bishop. I wonder who selects what’s significant enough to count. You know, why haven’t they chosen me yet?
It’s all those kind of things. What makes something or someone significant? You see, I can understand people not noticing. It’s not that people don’t know that Jesus was born at Christmas time. It’s about the one thing about Jesus that almost everybody still knows, isn’t it?
It’s just that I can understand how even if you’ve been given the facts that he was born then, it’s difficult to realise you haven’t been given the significance. And that indeed the facts do in some sense, and at first sight, seem to belie the significance.
Now the significance of anyone’s birth lies, of course, in who they turn out to be, doesn’t it? And I thought we’d just spend a few minutes this morning having a look at the significance of Jesus as to why it matters, this strange nativity storey that Christmas is meant to remind us of. And the only way really to discover the truth about it is to see the accurate explanation of the facts. And if you don’t mind, it would be a great help, I think, to you, and it would be to me, if you could just turn to one of those records of it. I’m looking in Luke’s Gospel.
It’s page 1026 if you’ve got one of these Bibles.
Couldn’t quite make it 1066, but 1026 is as near as we could get.
And if you ever stop and read Luke’s account, Luke was someone who sort of went around and gathered all the bits and pieces of information he could from the people who’d been there at the time. And when he comes to tell the storey of the birth of Jesus, he actually wastes very little ink giving you the facts, but a lot of ink telling you why it matters and what’s so significant about it. And part of his ink went on this little bit in chapter 1, which is headed in these Bibles, The Birth of Jesus Foretold. Let me just read you that section, and then we’ll see what significance we can find. In the 6th month God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.
The virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel went to her and said, Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary.
You have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.
How will this be, Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her 6th month. For nothing is impossible with God.
I am the Lord’s servant, Mary answered. May it be to me as you’ve said. And then the angel left her.
Well, I imagine Mary waited a week or two before she sent out those little birth announcements with the stalk on them. But she’d been given all the clues that she’d need to fill one of those in. And I suppose the most astonishing thing that hits your eye as you look through this is that it’s been revealed that the baby that’s going to be born will be a king, God’s king.
See, when we think of Christmas, you can’t avoid thinking of a baby, can you? And when you think of babies, you can’t avoid thinking of someone who’s weak and helpless just like any other baby. Indeed, even more so in the Christmas case because this baby is born in a manger, in an outhouse, in a stable, maybe even in the open air. But whatever it is, in fact, there’s nothing to say that it’s significant, is there? Indeed, if all you know is those facts, it almost points to the fact that this baby is insignificant.
But when his birth was announced, what was announced was the birth of a great and powerful king. He will be great, verse 32, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.
Now please, we can’t expect to just walk in and understand all the allusions that are going on there. I suspect even Mary might not have picked them all up. But any Jew who knew their Old Testament would have known that God had long ago promised a great king to rule over his people. A king who would be a descendant of their greatest king, David.
And the angel is saying to Mary, this is him, the greatest ruler the Jews will ever have. More powerful than David, wiser and more glorious than Solomon.
More than that actually, not just the greatest ruler that the Jews will ever have, the greatest ruler the world will ever see. Do you see, here’s someone who’s going to be king over the house of Jacob forever, whose kingdom will never end. Now, no one’s ever managed to cling to power for that long, have they? Even Mrs. Thatcher has failed to get beyond 12 years. And whatever you make of her time, whether you think it was good, bad, or indifferent, no one denies the fact that 12 years was a remarkable feat.
Is it the longest-serving Prime Minister of this century? Well, it’s chicken feed compared with forever, isn’t it?
What’s being said here is that every December 25th, if the Times were published, or on the Christmas Eve version when it does it, it ought to have under its birth announcements the usual list of people with their ages and whatever they do. I don’t know what it’d be, sort of Paul Gascoigne, 24, model or footballer or whatever he’s doing these days. And then there ought to be Jesus of Nazareth, 1990, King. That’s what he’s saying. Now there’s something uncomfortable about this, by the way.
If this is actually true, I can remember about 3 or 4 years ago lying in bed at Christmas time feeling ill and sort of tossing and turning and moaning and groaning and feeling sorry for myself the way men do when they’re ill. And I was listening to the radio, you know, rather dimly. Through half an ear. And it was one of those— I think it must have been something like Pick of the Week, but one of those things which just pick up odd little snippets from various programmes. And they interviewed a man, I don’t know why, but they were interviewing a man in America and they asked him, what would you do if you won the New York State Lottery? Which I gathered was sort of fetched you some astronomical sum like $40 million.
And his answer came back like this, he said, Well, he said, I’d like to buy a baseball team. I suppose we can forgive him for liking baseball. I’d like to buy a baseball team and I’d buy in all the best players for it. And then I’d like to watch them win every match.
And I was sort of nodding away and then he said, and this was the bit why they included it I’m sure, he said, I’d like to watch them win every match and then I’d fire them.
And I grinned rather wanly. You see, the desire to play God is deep in all of us, isn’t it? That’s what he was wanting to do. For great fun, for no other reason than that he snapped his fingers, he could fire them. Some of us do it more nicely.
You remember Harry Seekham? That dates us all, but you know, if I ruled the world, that sentimental twaddle, every day would be the first day of spring, which would probably have been an ecological disaster, wouldn’t it? But there we are. Christmas is the end of all of those dreams. Because it says the position of ruler of the world is taken.
He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign forever. His kingdom will never end. You have got to hang the No More Vacancies sign on the throne room.
Now if it is the City Pages, you refer it to the Monopolies Commission, don’t you? There’s no competition here. Now, that’s actually an uncomfortable thought because the truth is that playing God is more than a dream. It is everyday reality. Now, we won’t think of it in those terms, and even if we did, we wouldn’t articulate it that way.
But actually, there’s something in all of us, isn’t it, that goes about planning life, running our lives without reference to him.
Morally, spiritually, you know just as I do the great temptation to do the Frank Sinatra, you know, I did it my way, and hang the consequences. Especially the consequences of any God who might want to step in and interfere. Yes, there is always an uncomfortable side to Christmas. I’ve got to explain away why Herod had to kill off all the babies.
Well, it is that it’s the birth of God’s King. 71% of people in that survey said that the birth of Jesus wasn’t relevant. Now again, you can understand it, can’t you? How does a Christmas card show that this baby is significant? It’s very pushed to do so.
It might put a halo on him, but that’s disastrous, isn’t it? Because it immediately shows that it’s antiquated. I mean, halos aren’t in fashion these days.
But the announcement says he’ll be king forever. King in 1990, bang up to date. The announcement says we can’t therefore consign him to a museum.
That’s one of the dangerous things we’ve got at the moment, that the sort of— for the 20th century, history is— at least if something is history, it’s irrelevant. He’s not like the Monet exhibition where we can all sort of queue up once in a while and go and have a little stare and then walk out again. Christmas is not nostalgia. God’s Christmas message for 1990 is the same as it was to Mary all those years ago. It’s to point to Jesus and say, this is your King.
Now that’s a great encouragement if we acknowledge him.
See, when the last great empires crumble in this world, this King will one day be seen to be King. So don’t be ashamed of him. Don’t hold back.
And if you’re one of those who’ve not yet surrendered to him, actually we’ll discover there is still a great encouragement, however uncomfortable it may be, in the Christmas message when we’ve seen what kind of king he’s going to be. But there’s the first reason why Christmas actually is significant, why we can’t afford to drop the nativity storey. It’s the birth of God’s King.
Here’s the second reason. It is the demonstration of God’s power.
Now it’s all very well an angel coming and telling Mary she’s going to have a baby and that he’s going to be one of the greatest of all time, but there’s a problem with it. At least there was for Mary, and it’s highlighted in verse 34.
See, when the angel has finished the great statement, Mary comes up with this rather mundane and yet, you would have thought, perfectly sensible question. How will this be, Mary asked the angel, since I’m a virgin? Now we Christians may be naive, but we do understand there are difficulties at this point. You know, Mary knew about the birds and the bees, and she and Joseph had not just not been living together, they hadn’t slept together. So she says, how will this be?
And the answer she gets back is very simple in verses 35 onwards. She is told it will be through God’s power. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.
For nothing is impossible with God. Now please, Christmas cards can’t show this significance.
See, how do they try and make the nativity storey significant? They’ll put a halo on the baby’s head and they’ll try and get everyone they can think of to, to look in on the scene and sort of focus in on the baby, won’t they? And of course, very quickly, they let their imaginations run riot and it becomes fictitious, which means it lands up sentimental. And you get every animal you can think of there— the cows and the horses and the donkeys and the chickens and the pigs. Pigs and the sheep and— well, anyway, all of Noah’s Ark gets dragged into this act as well.
Saves you having different props.
But it’s impossible, isn’t it, for the Christmas card to tell you this is the Son of God.
This is a creation of God’s power. Now, there really are no apologies for Christmas miracles. For angels appearing and for a virgin birth. Luke, who is writing to gently explain the truth to someone who’s trying to work it all out, doesn’t break him in gently. He plunges straight into this kind of world.
Because you see, if you won’t have the miracles of Christmas, you won’t have the miracles of Christianity.
If you won’t have the supernatural power of Christmas, you won’t have the supernatural power of Christianity.
If you’ve really excluded all the supernatural, don’t expect to understand God’s storey.
Don’t be surprised if we miss the significance of the birth of God’s Son.
And the truth that Luke wants us to understand, the truth about this baby boy, is that he’s the founder of a rescue religion.
You see, this King is a rescuing King. Look back to verse 31, will you? You’ll be with child, you’ll give birth to a son, and you’re to give him the name Jesus, which means Saviour.
And the rescue, the saving that he’s going to do requires supernatural power.
This birth, it’s a bit like the creation storey right at the beginning, isn’t it? As something out of nothing. Well, it’ll need that power. You remember the cases that are brought to Jesus? The physical rescuing he has to do?
They’re all impossible ones. The deaf, the dumb, the blind, the crippled. And the ultimate test of all. Nothing is impossible with God? Yes, what about when he gets killed, buried, locked in the tomb?
Even death can’t hold him.
See, I saw that the— I’ve forgotten the name of the man now— the book of that father whose daughter was killed at the Enniskillen bombing has come out. You remember the man who had his daughter in his arms, didn’t he, when she died in the rubble of that explosion? And said how he forgave the terrorists.
Well, as he remembers her body lying there crippled and dead and lifeless and then a cold corpse, how is he going to believe that there could actually be resurrection life for her without supernatural power?
Now of course I am not to be shocked If right from the beginning this is a birth marked by God’s power.
For the promise of rescue is going to need that power. It’s not just in the physical world, in the moral as well. Just on the wall over there by St. Helen’s, I don’t know whether they’ve got anything up there now, but they often stick up little sort of flyleaves, fly posters. And they had one not so long ago which was a great tirade against a little firm and in particular one of its directors. I don’t know whether it was libellous or whatever, but it certainly said some pretty awful things about him.
And it landed up with this sentence. I won’t tell you which company it was in case I get done for slander. But it landed up with this sentence, and this was how it summed up the director. It said, once a crook and a thug, always a crook and a thug. They never change their spots.
Basically, don’t buy shares in that company, I think was the gist of it.
Once a crook and a thug, always a crook and a thug. They never change their spots. Well, the idea that leopards never change their spots is in the Bible. But it’s not the Bible’s last word and it’s not the gospel.
The gospel says that leopards, well, crooks and thugs at any rate, can have their spots changed.
How will this be?
Well, nothing is impossible with God.
You see, why this birth is significant is because this baby is actually a king. And this king, he’s a king with God’s power to rescue. So that the Christmas message to the likes of Hugh Palmer and to you is Not that I can be made a better man. I need more than touching up. But I can be made a new man.
How will this be? Well, nothing’s impossible with God. Let’s cut out the nativity storey. Well then, let’s say goodbye to God’s power, shall we?
Let’s face the despair of our own physical frailities. We are getting older, some of us more rapidly than others.
Let’s face the despair of our own moral bankruptcy.
Once a crook and a thug, always a crook and a thug. It’s just that some of us are politer about it than others.
Then lastly, See, this other thing about this storey, you see, its significance is how it points so clearly to God’s love.
For the other thing the cards find it very difficult to show is that this is God’s storey and it’s God’s initiative, that Christmas is all about it. Look how this began. Verse 26: In the 6th month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, a pretty obscure 1:2, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her.
Now go back and think again, and we’ll discover that the Christmas storey is all about God’s initiative. It’s all about what God did. It’s not our storey, it’s his.
And too often Christianity is reduced to religion and reduced to our searching after God and our making ourselves acceptable for God because we forget this: Christmas is a reminder that Christianity is the other way round.
That Christianity is all about God making me acceptable and God searching for me. There wasn’t much searching for God going on at Christmas, was there? There was no room at the inn. The shepherds would never have made it without the angel. The wise men would have never rolled up without the star.
Elizabeth and Zechariah hadn’t been expecting a child. They were past it. And Mary and Joseph certainly weren’t planning on one yet. You know, they’d have had the little chat that I suppose engaged couples have if they get around to talking about the subject. Well, yes, we’ll get married, then we could settle down.
Let’s have a year or two together and enjoy ourselves, you know, build good foundations for the marriage, all of that. Then the kids.
God says now.
That’s his timing. And you see, if you remove God’s initiative— and by the way, take out the nativity storey and you’ve done that— then you’ll remove something else.
You’ll remove our value.
For you see, if I forget Christmas, Then I turn Christianity into struggling to make myself good enough for God, to persuade him that I’m worth having. And then I’ve lost my value. I think I’m struggling to gain it, but actually I lose it that way. For I’ve lost the truth that God loves me enough and God values me so highly that he took the initiative. To break into my world to rescue me.
I was at a marriage seminar on Saturday telling me how to look after Clare properly, and one of the things that the speaker said was he said that some wives had been surveyed about what was the most debilitating thing about their marriage. And I think they were given something like a list of about 10 possible reasons. There was the husband in some shape or form. He probably appeared in about 3 or 4 of them. There was the children.
There was low self-esteem. There was social conditions. And I don’t know what else there was. And what came out top of the list by a long way was low self-esteem.
Well, if you’re going to throw the Christmas storey out of the window, you’ll leave yourself in your low self-esteem, won’t you?
For nothing can esteem someone more highly than to think that God— now I know that may be an if word for you, but just for a moment suppose the if were true, that there really was an Almighty God.
And that he took the initiative to break in for you, for me. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life.
That’s huge value for us in the Christmas storey, if only we’ll let it be told the right way round. We’ll see the tragedy of Christmas, of course, on the telly almost any night on the news, won’t you? Whether it’s drink driving, whether it’s terrorism in Northern Ireland, whether it’s racial conflict in South Africa, you’ll see the cheapness of life.
The awful tragedy would be to have Christmas without the Nativity storey, to say goodbye to God’s King, the one ruler worth having running our lives. We’re not that competent at doing it ourselves. To say goodbye to God’s power and with it our hope, and to say goodbye to God’s love and with it our worth.
And I do love to take the time to unwrap Christmas.
And keep the Nativity storey where it belongs. Thanks for listening.
