Last week Cal Thomas wrote a column entitled "Happy Holy-Day". He began the column by discussing a Bloomingdale's newspaper ad that caught his eye. The ad featured two gift certificates. One said Happy Chanukah and the other read Happy Holidays. In his column Cal Thomas asks, "What happened to Christmas? Was it thought some might be offended at the mention of his name even as part of a holiday? Who came up with this idea of celebrating someone else's birthday without inviting the honored guest or invoking his name or giving him a gift? What kind of party is that?"
Just yesterday I was reading about a wealthy European couple who invited their family and friends to their enormous mansion for a special celebration. Their newborn baby had just arrived home from the hospital. As proud parents they wanted everyone to share in the child's christening. Dozens of elegantly dressed guests showed up for the elaborate affair and after depositing their fur coats and stylish wraps, they were entertained royally. Soon it was time for the main purpose of the gathering. So the butlers and maids scrambled to make sure everything was in its proper place.
But where was the newborn baby? No one seemed to know, not even the child's mother! Everyone, including the butlers and maids, searched frantically for the baby, but to no avail. Then someone recalled having seen the baby asleep on one of the beds. The baby was on a bed all right. It was buried beneath a pile of coats, jackets, and furs. The object of that day's celebration had been forgotten, neglected, and nearly smothered.
At Christmas Christians refuse to bury Jesus underneath our Christmastime traditions. At Christmas we refuse to bury Jesus underneath our Christmas trees, our presents, our stockings, decorations, candy canes, and shopping lists. Jesus is what Christmas is all about. At Christmas we raise Jesus up and we let everything else fall in its place, wherever it may, beneath the manger.
We put Jesus in Christmas.
Over the last few weeks we have made an intentional effort to put Jesus in the center of our Christmas Day celebrations. Two weeks ago we asked the question, "Can Jesus really know us?" All of us are struggling with something this morning. For some it is physical pain. For some it is the thought of spending yet another Christmas without a loved one. We are encouraged this Christmas by knowing that nearly two thousand years ago, God became one of us. He put on our skin and was born into human likeness. Throughout his life Jesus wrestled with real temptation. He experienced real physical pain. His heart was pierced with grief. He worked long days. He experienced sleepless nights.
Jesus bore our burdens, our sorrows, our pain, and our grief. He walked in our shoes. There is nothing in our lives of which we can say, "God, if only you could step into my shoes for a day, then you would understand." In Jesus, God fully knows us. From his birth to his unconscionable death, our creator God lived the human experience.
And let's not forget the question we asked last week, "Can Jesus really help us?" If Jesus were just a man like the rest of us, the answer would be no! But Jesus was both fully man and fully God at the same time. He came to earth for the express purpose of saving us from sin by leading us to his Father in heaven. All of the events surrounding Jesus' birth, including his distinctive lineage, his miraculous conception, Joseph's cancelled divorce, the angelic testimony, the cosmic disturbances, the fulfillment of precision prophecies, Herod's overthrown plot, and God's divine protection of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, all remind us this Christmas that Jesus is more than we are. He is greater than us. He is God in the flesh. He is God getting our attention in a big way. He is God rolling up his sleeves and reaching out to save us. Jesus is the perfect expression of God's love. In Jesus, God both fully knows us and fully helps us.
Now I think we would do well this Christmas to ask ourselves yet another question, a third question. "Can Jesus captivate us?" In other words can Jesus become our focus, the object of our thoughts, our aspirations, our imaginations, our affection, and our devotion? Can he become our passion?
In his column Cal Thomas reminds us that the original meaning of the word holiday is holy-day. Lest we miss the significance he tells us, "Holy is defined as exalted or worthy of complete devotion, as one perfect in goodness and righteousness." This Christmas holy-day is about the worthiness of Christ. He is exalted. He is perfect in goodness and righteousness. He is worthy of our complete devotion. As the Son of God, as our creator, as God in the flesh, and as our savior, Jesus is worthy of any and every thing we could ever offer him, starting with our lives.
But will his utter worthiness be evidenced in our response to his majesty? Will we allow Jesus to captivate us in a substantive way and not just in a purely religious or sentimental way? Will we allow him to become more to us than just a baby in a manger? Will we allow him to grow up and make demands of us, demands that go against our natural impulses? Demands that we may not like hearing? Will we allow Jesus his rightful place in our lives? Not just as our savior, but also as our lord, our master, our king, our creator, and our God? Will we make living for Jesus the number one priority and focus and passion of our lives?
King Herod was hostile to Jesus.
This past week I began looking over the cast of characters in the Christmas story. You will notice that they each responded differently to the worthiness of Jesus. Consider King Herod, for example. His response was one of hostility. From the few scriptures that mention Herod, it is evident that Jesus posed an enormous threat to his personal power base and political agenda. Herod had high ambitions. He wanted to capture the government and harness for himself all the political power he could muster. His goal was to build a great kingdom for himself. He wanted to be top dog. He wanted to be the object of people's devotion. He wanted people to bow in his presence. He wanted to command universal respect and admiration. He wanted to make a name for himself. And he wanted these things in the worst possible way.
So hungry was he for power and fame that we find him doing everything in his power to destroy the very one he was created to bow down and worship. He consults with the teachers of the law and scribes. He works up a secret plot with the magi. In a fury of rage he orders all boys under the age of two who live in and around Bethlehem to be put to death in cold blood.
It is worth noting that there are those who would rather rule over rubble than ever consider yielding their lives to Christ. There are those who out of pride or foolishness reject any notion of their needing a savior. They get angry at the very mention of Jesus, or Christ, or God, or church. Such individuals will live and die in the little kingdoms that they build for themselves. They will miss out on the eternal kingdom that Christ came to establish.
The innkeeper was indifferent to Jesus.
Now we could also consider the innkeeper's response. He was rather indifferent. The Son of God was about to be born right before his very eyes and he has no recourse but to send Jesus out to the stable, in the cold, with the animals. Perhaps the innkeeper was just having a rough night with pushy tourists. Perhaps the innkeeper didn't have the patience to hear a sob story from some pregnant woman who believed she was carrying the Son of God in her womb. Perhaps the innkeeper was too busy working, paying his bills, and tending to his business to pay attention to the jubilant visitors coming from all over Judea to visit the newborn baby out in the stable. The scriptures really don't tell us anything about the innkeeper except one thing. He missed it. Intentionally or unintentionally, he missed the Son of God, Jesus.
The innkeeper is a reminder to us to open our eyes to the seemingly unbelievable. The innkeeper is a reminder to us to slow down and un-busy ourselves so that we can listen to and respond to the Christmas story. The innkeeper is a reminder to us to pay attention to what God may be doing right under our noses in our homes or workplaces or churches.
The magi responded to Jesus with generosity.
A third group to consider among this cast of characters in the Christmas story are the magi. They responded to Jesus with generosity. These magi were actually pagan astrologers. They were known throughout the Roman empire for reading the stars and making predictions. The magi and other astrologers like them believed that falling stars and shooting comets signaled the rise and fall of kings and kingdoms. As the magi arrived in Jerusalem, they no doubt shared news of the star and startled Herod with their prediction that a new king would rise in Jerusalem. The magi continued to follow the star toward the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem.
The irony is that those who knew the most about the scriptures such as the chief priests and teachers of the law, didn't respond to the news of Christ's birth. Matthew shows us that those who knew the least, a group of pagan astrologers, were among the first to respond to Jesus' birth. Matthew shows us that their response was one of generosity. They brought gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. They bowed down and worshiped Jesus.
The magi remind us that giving is an appropriate way to ascribe worth to Christ. At Christmas we give gifts to our children because gifts communicate value. We want our children to know how much we love them and so we spend long hours in line waiting to buy that perfect gift. We gladly step out of our comfort zones and rack up enormous credit card debt. We make every attempt to buy them everything on their Christmas lists that is reasonably possible. The worthiness of Jesus Christ was communicated by the magi through their gifts. Likewise, for all of us at Christmas, the worthiness of Jesus Christ can be communicated through what we give back to God. He can be honored by what we give and dishonored by what we hold back.
Mary responded with humility.
Another lesson can be gleaned by Mary's response to the events. She responded with humility. With all the angels visiting her and Joseph, with the magi traveling from the east to honor her child, with all the cosmic disturbances and shepherds, with God guiding her every step, it would have been easy for Mary to get an inflated ego. But Mary understood that the appropriate response to God's goodness was humility. She understood that she had absolutely no grounds for boasting or self-promotion. In Luke 1:46 (NIV) Mary sings a song to the Lord. "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."
Mary is a reminder to us that God's goodness is always an occasion for humility. Pride, self-righteousness, egotism, self-aggrandizement, and boasting have no place at the manger nor at the foot of the cross. Christ is honored every time we remind ourselves that it is by God's grace alone and not by our works that we find favor with God. Mary found favor with God because of his grace and not because of her merits. The same is true for all of us.
Joseph responded with obedience.
We should not overlook Joseph's response to Jesus. He responded with obedience. Both Mary and Joseph lived in a culture where shame was a major deterrent. In our culture we do not experience shame because everyone is anonymous. No one knows who we are, or where we came from, or what we have done. At any moment any one of us could easily leave our reputations in the dust and move into a new city or state or church. In Joseph's day it was virtually impossible to escape one's reputation. The communities were small and relationships were tightly knit. It was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pack up and reestablish oneself in a new community without first having strong family connections.
Joseph was in a real predicament when he learned about Mary's pregnancy. He knew that his reputation would be immediately tarnished. He knew that people would assume that he had either impregnated Mary out of wedlock or that he was about to marry a woman of loose morals. Either way Joseph knew he was going to have to break off his engagement with Mary and that was no small thing in a culture that values engagement more than most couples value marriage today. And Joseph still cared about Mary. Despite her pregnancy he still did not want her being an outcast to those in the community.
In the darkness of his dilemma, an angel appears to Joseph and explains Mary's miraculous birth and commands him to take Mary as his wife. In obedience, Matthew tells us in Matthew 1:24 (NIV) that Joseph, "did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife." How difficult it must have been for Joseph to obey the Lord's command. Even though Mary was carrying God's Son, he would still have to bear the shame and the stigma that would be attached to him by his family and friends. There would be a lot of rough spots for both him and Mary in the long road ahead.
Joseph is a reminder to us that Jesus is honored by our obedience. Sometimes we have to walk a hard road in order for God to accomplish his purpose. Sometimes we have to walk by faith in the darkness as God leads us one step at a time. Sometimes we have to endure people's ill-founded judgments and misperceptions as we walk in humble obedience according to God's word. The road to heaven is narrow and hard. But it's a road that takes us somewhere and it is better than the wide and easy road that leads to destruction. Jesus is honored when we walk in obedience, like Joseph did.
The shepherds responded by proclaiming.
I'll briefly mention the shepherds' response. Their response was one of proclamation. When the shepherds heard the news that a savior was being born, they rushed off to Bethlehem to find Mary and Joseph and Jesus. But once they found Jesus Luke 2:17 (NIV) tells us they immediately, "spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child." First they came to Jesus, but then they spread out and spread the word. They left no stone unturned as they shared with everyone who would listen the news about Jesus Christ's birth.
Earlier I asked the question, "Can Jesus captivate us?" For some the answer is no. There are some who will respond with hostility. There are some who will respond with indifference and disinterest. But for many the answer is yes. There are those who will respond with generosity, humility, obedience, and proclamation.
You know the question that lingers around the Christmas story is not, "Can Jesus know us?" Jesus knows us fully because he was fully man. Neither is the question, "Can Jesus help us?" Jesus can save us because he was both fully man and fully God. The question that lingers is not even, "Can Jesus captivate us?"
The question is, "Will we let Jesus captivate us?"
Will Jesus' absolute worthiness be evidenced in our lives, in our response? Will we allow Jesus to captivate us in a substantive way and not just in a purely religious or sentimental way? Will we allow him to become more to us than just a baby in a manger? Will we allow him to grow up and make demands of us, demands that go against our natural impulses? Demands that we may not like hearing?
Will we allow Jesus his rightful place in our lives, not just as our savior, but also as our lord, our master, our king, our creator and our God? Will we make living for Jesus the number one priority and focus and passion of our lives?
Will we respond to him, not with hostility and indifference, but rather with a spirit of generosity, humility, obedience, and proclamation? The choice is all yours this Christmas. Christ was fully man. He is fully God. He is fully worthy of complete and unconditional devotion. Let's not leave Jesus buried beneath our Christmas traditions. Let's once again make him the Christmas tradition.