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The next reading is Matthew chapter 1, starting at verse 18.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and and he called his name Jesus.
Matthew, chapter 2, starting in verse 1. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose, and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They told him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.
When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Well, please do take a seat, and it’s my great pleasure to welcome you to St. Helen’s, especially if this is a first-ever visit amongst us.
Happy Christmas! I’m really glad you’ve been able to join us this evening, and I, as Mickey said, I hope this is the first of many visits. It’s a well-recognized fact in our household that the person who gets most excited excited about Christmas is Dad. There are a number of well-rehearsed and eagerly anticipated rituals through which we progress as a family as we approach the great day. The star on the tree is always put up by the same individual.
It’s awaiting that individual’s arrival. My daughter and I have gone shopping together every year for the last 20 years. We start at Farlow’s down in the West End and progress up to Fortnum’s and then through the Burlington Arcade, and then on to John Lewis where we really nail it, and then it’s time for hot chocolate. I used to buy her a new dress every year, but that’s got far too expensive, so we don’t do it anymore. Not everybody is as excited about Christmas.
It’d be entirely wrong to call my late father a spoilsport when it came to Christmas. He did, however, dislike entering into the Christmas spirit too early, and it was usually Christmas Eve or at best the day before that, that he would head out onto the farm to select a Christmas tree for the household. And he viewed Christmas trees as an opportunity for forestry thinning. To the protests from indoors, he would select the least worthy specimen in order to improve the general stock. One year the tree went up to 4 foot and then at right angles straight out to the left.
Another year it was bare of needles from 5 foot to the top, and in the worst year of all, he brought in something that was actually dead down one side, but it was alright because it went into the corner. That was fine. There is one aspect of Christmas, however, that is more special than any other, and that is the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Long after the wrapping paper has been recycled, the Christmas decorations safely put away in their boxes, and the last of the New Year’s resolutions firmly broken, the reality of Jesus Christ lives on. And if I may, I thought we would dwell just on 2 aspects of the birth of Jesus this evening for us to ponder over the next few days.
The first, the name given to him, Emmanuel. If you turn to page 4, you will see it there in the summary of what was going on that first Christmas period. Matthew, the eyewitness author of this account, quotes from the prophet Isaiah, who wrote over 700 years before Jesus’ birth. You can see it indented, verse 23, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel. One friend of mine describes Jesus as the only man in history whose biography was written long before he was born.
Immanuel is the Greek form of the Hebrew name, im meaning with, El meaning God, in the first person plural, God with us. And this alone makes sense of the life of Jesus. How is it that his teaching has shaped the form of so many civilised cultures since his day? Emmanuel, God with us. How is it that he performed those miracles, healing the leper, healing the centurion’s servant, calming the storm, feeding 5,000, walking on water, casting out evil?
Immanuel, God with us. How is it that a detailed account of his life and its meaning was provided over a period of thousands of years before his birth? Immanuel, God with us. How is it that he rose from the grave and defeated death? Immanuel, God with us.
May I put it to you that no other explanation reasonably, rationally, logically makes sense of these eyewitness accounts of the Lord Jesus Christ. All other explanations flounder on grounds of logic. Did they make it up? Well, no, far too much historical specificity for this to be myth. People’s names, place names, meteorological data, biological facts, dates, contemporaneous circumstances.
Were they simply gullible and deluded, these eyewitnesses? No. These documents are amongst the most sophisticated and highly regarded in all of world literature. They’re not the work of deluded individuals. Was Jesus party to some grand deception?
No. At the very centre of his teaching is integrity, honesty, purity, truth. No, the only thing that makes logical sense is exactly as Isaiah put it 700 years before He was born, Emmanuel, God with us.
I wonder if you’d turn to the very back page of this eyewitness account, page 78, and look at— I mean, you’re not supposed to do this, are you, with books, but hey, we’re cheating tonight, and don’t tell. Anybody when you get out of here, that’s what we’re doing. Page 78. And look at verse 18 there. Here are the closing words of Jesus after He’s risen from the grave.
Jesus came and said to His disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Immanuel.
God with us. Not one amongst other equals on a par with Buddha or with the prophet or with Brahma, Vishnu, or Krishna. No, no, no, God with us. Not some sort of great architect in the sky or some other vague misty concept of spirituality, well-being, or mindfulness. No, Immanuel, God with us.
God with us in all His glorious majesty and authority. God with us in might and strength, power and wonder. God with us in kindness, goodness, purity. You know how some of your friends in the office or your uncles and aunts sometimes show you a picture, or maybe one or two of your contemporaries, of an ultrasound scan of the baby they’re expecting from the womb, and you’re supposed to say, oh, how lovely, and actually it looks something like the Loch Ness Monster, but you daren’t say that. And now this baby, He’s the only child of whom it could ever be said with real integrity, isn’t He divine?
God with us.
Some years I came across the teaching of Jacques Monod, a French philosophical scientist. I think he’s the guy from which Richard Dawkins got many of his ideas. Listen to what Monod says. He’s a secularist, a materialist. Man must at last wake to his total solitude, his fundamental isolation.
Does he at last realise that like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world, a world that is deaf to his music, indifferent to his hopes, his sufferings, his crimes? Here is the bleak, stark sterility of secularism in which so many of us have been brought up. The human being, a being unknown, unknown at the point of birth, unknown at the point of death, a being unknown. No God, no future, no hope, no help, no right, no wrong, no good, no evil, no judgement, no justice.
But here, carefully documented by the eyewitnesses, long expected over thousands of years, Immanuel, God with us, changes everything.
I came from a home that was Christian, but I didn’t become a Christian. I didn’t personally surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ myself. Until I was around about 18. I was asked to spend a little bit of time away from the boarding school which I was attending at that stage, for reasons which are none of your business. And I went to stay with my grandfather up in North Norfolk, and he explained to me that Christianity at heart is not about religion, rote ritual rules.
It’s about the person Jesus Christ. God with us. And that night in December 1979, nearly 30 years ago, 40 years ago, I knelt by my bed and surrendered to King Jesus. It was December 18th, 1979. I vividly remember that first Christmas carrying bales of hay, actually, through the crispy, frosty fields to feed the animals.
It was a clear, clear morning, 6:30 in the morning, and looking up at the stars and in sheer wonder and amazement at the reality of Immanuel, God with us, hope, help, future, love, justice, right, wrong.
It changes everything.
It does leave us, however, asking the question, why? Why should God, the Creator of the universe, discard his dignity and descend into the darkness of this disordered world? And the answer to that question lies in the name that is given to Jesus that brackets either side of verse 23. So, turn back to page 23— page 4, would you please? Page 4, and look again at verses 20 and 21.
As he considered these things, that’s Joseph, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, don’t fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
For he will save his people from their sin. So just as Immanuel is the Greek form of the Hebrew word, the name Jesus was a modern form of the Hebrew Jeshua or Joshua. Literally, Yahweh is salvation. Yahweh, God; yasha, to save. Now a public speaker of myself, through the year, because I know I’m going to have to speak on a number of occasions at Christmas, I’m often thinking to myself, Hmm, I wonder if there’s something that will help to illustrate what goes on at Christmas.
And it was June and July of this year when the 12 children and the football coach of the Wild Boar soccer team determined to explore in the cave complex of Nang Non. Do you remember it in Thailand? And as they descended into the depths of the mountain, the rain fell. And for 16 days, the whole world was held in suspense. Do you remember it back in the summer?
The Navy SEALs who brought off the rescue speak of the 1.5 miles of tunnels, with stretches as long as 300 metres underwater, and they describe it as, quote, like swimming through coffee. And so this week I went back online and looked on the YouTube videos of that moment when they first emerged out of the water and saw the children. It’s absolutely glorious. In the pitch black, darkness, this spotlight onto these 12 children and their teacher. Light in darkness.
Hope. Rescue. Salvation.
And as this baby, this long-promised, eagerly awaited King Jesus, God with us, descends into the depth of the darkness of this world, it is as if light has dawned. The light is shone on people who need rescuing, people like you and people like me. And it leaves us asking the question, well, what from? Do you need rescuing? Do I feel— need rescuing?
I don’t sort of feel that I’m floundering around particularly. But the answer is given to us in the very first pages of Matthew’s Gospel. Look again at page 4. You shall give him the name Jesus, verse 21, For he will save his people from their sins. Now, I’m very aware at this point that I need to tread very, very carefully, because mention the word sin in polite society such as this, and immediately you will think of me as a kind of finger-wagging, fun-spoiling Victorian headteacher.
The danger is that we either trivialise sin, or sentimentalise it. So we trivialise it. Sin is like too many mince pies before lunch on Christmas morning. Incidentally, the record at St Helen’s is 21, set by an 11-year-old in 2006. He reminded me this week that they weren’t the kind of thin filled ones like this.
They were proper old-fashioned mince pies, that thick, and he ate 21 of them at the age of 11. He did confess that he didn’t feel altogether himself for the rest of the afternoon. But we trivialise sin. Sin is one mince pie too many. Sin is one sherbet too many at the office party, or minor indiscretion on a holiday abroad, or a foreign business trip.
But then why would the Lord Jesus have to descend into this world to rescue us if that’s what sin is?
Or we sentimentalise sin. Sin is the racist soccer supporter. Sin is the suicide bomber. Sin is the Me Too abuser. But in that case, how come Jesus has come for the salvation of the whole world?
So it was only relatively late in my life that I came to grasp that the essence of sin is not kind of naughty but nice, but an attitude, a fundamental attitude of resistance to God.
Properly understood, sin is rebellion against God. Rightly comprehended, sin is holding my Creator at arm’s length.
Clearly grasped, sin is rejection of God. Some of us do it openly and wantonly and vigorously, and some of us do it quietly and subtly and decently.
Turn, if you would, to page 41. This is the last time we’re going to cross-reference. I hope you might take these home, they’ll be a gift from us to you, and read them over Christmas and have the Christmas Message Explained. But verse 41 there, here is Jesus speaking. I love the teaching of Jesus because He gets me so right.
Page 41, sentence number 18, what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person, makes a person unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts: murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, gossip. You can’t blame thoughts on somebody else. They’re mine. I can’t pass the buck or look sideways and say they’re somebody else’s.
They’re my thoughts. And Jesus says these things come out of the heart, and that’s what makes a person unclean and cuts them off from God. So, here is the analysis of God the Father. He looks down on our world and He says, this world needs saving.
What does the world need saving from? Not ignorance, more education. Not poverty, more aid. Not disease, more medicine. Not climate change, more recycling.
Not low self-esteem, more therapy. Rebellion. God the Father, His analysis of this world is that you and I, we need saving from our sin. Here is the analysis of God the Father. Here is the evidence of my heart.
I mean, you can weigh it up for yourself whether it’s the evidence of yours, but it’s certainly the evidence of mine. Out of the heart come evil thoughts. Murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, gossip. Here is the analysis, here is the evidence, here is the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us.
Jesus, God saves. It’s beautiful, it’s wonderful, as he steps into the dark gloom of this world, And this Gospel finishes— I won’t go into great detail on this now, you can read it yourself— with Jesus hanging on a cross. And he hung on that cross to carry God’s just judgement at my rebellion and yours. Jesus. Jesus.
God. Saves. The question it leaves us with then is whether we will accept it. Will we accept it? Will this just be just another Christmas like all other Christmases?
You know, the star will be placed on the top of the tree, the shopping trip will be gone on, the turkey will be bought and stuffed, the Christmas tree, of course, will be brought in and all the rest of it, presents exchanged and so forth. Or will this be a Christmas of Good news of great joy that transforms everything. God with us. Jesus, God saves. On Saturday the 2nd of June, I drive a Škoda Octavia diesel.
I’ll be getting rid of it shortly, don’t worry. The thing’s coming in, in central London, so it’ll go to the scrap. But Saturday the 2nd, I drive a diesel. I was leaving the West Country, And in a moment of, you know, crazy, mad, stupid folly, absent-mindedness, I went into the garage where I normally fill up with petrol for our farm things, and I filled our diesel car a third full with petrol. Now, the garage owner, Steve, was a very long-suffering and friendly guy, and he didn’t tell me I was a blithering idiot, which he should have done.
He gave me the telephone number of somebody who would help out, sort the whole thing out. And I thought, no, no, no, it’d be much easier if I took the car back to where I came from, fill it first with petrol to mix it all up a bit so it doesn’t really notice, and then I’ll go back, syphon it off, and then refill the car with farm diesel, and we’ll be able to make our way back to London. We got 700 metres. Dead. So I rang the number, and along came Sally, who was like an angel from heaven, and considerably more understanding, I might say, than my passenger at the time.
And she saved me. But, you know, you do have to have a degree of humility. Indeed, you have to have a degree of recognition that you need saving if you’re going to accept the salvation that is offered. We can plough on regardless, everything’s all right, I don’t need saving, everything’s fine. Or we can recognise the facts as they are.
Out of the heart become all these evil things. And we need saving from God. And here is the glorious gift of Christmas. Emmanuel.
God with us. Jesus. God saves. As you go out of the door, you’re going to be offered this booklet. It’s an attempt to explain the Christmas message as clearly as I possibly can, and a little bit longer to think about it.
On the back 2 pages there is a prayer, just a short prayer, it just happens to span over the 2 pages. On that back little page there’s a prayer. And if you wanted to receive the Lord Jesus and the forgiveness that he offers into your life and to see everything changed, why don’t you, as you go out the door, just take one of those pocket leaflets, slip it into your back pocket, And perhaps in the quiet this evening or tomorrow on the way to work, read it, and it could change Christmas for you forever.
May I wish you a very happy Christmas indeed, and I hope we might see you in the new year.
