This sermon was given in a church in Marshall, Texas in December, 2006
OLD TESTAMENT READING Isaiah 9: 6-7
For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
NEW TESTAMENT READING John 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.”
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
THE SERMON
There was once a man who did not believe in either the virgin birth of Christ nor the spiritual meaning behind it, and was skeptical even about God. He and his family lived in a farm community. His wife was a devout believer and diligently raised her children in the faith. He sometimes gave her a hard time about her belief and mocked her religious observances.
"It's all nonsense -- why would God lower himself and become a human like us? It's such a ridiculous story," he said.
One snowy day, she and the children left for church while he stayed home. After they had departed, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening.
Then he heard a loud thump, something hitting against the window... And, still another thump. He looked outside but could not see anything. So he ventured outside for a better view. In the field near his house he saw, of all the strangest things, a flock of geese. They were apparently flying to look for a warmer area down south, but they had been caught in the snowstorm. The storm had become too blinding and violent for the geese to fly or see their way. They were stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter, unable to do more than flutter their wings and fly in aimless circles. He had compassion for them and wanted to help them. He thought to himself, the barn would be a great place for them to stay. It is warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he opened the barn doors for them.
He waited, watching them, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. Nevertheless, they did not notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. He moved closer toward them to get their attention, but they just moved away from him out of fear.
He went into the house and came back with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread trail to the barn. They still did not catch on.
Starting to get frustrated, he went over and tried to shoo them toward the barn. They panicked and scattered into every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where there was warmth, safety, and shelter. Feeling totally frustrated, he exclaimed, "Why don't they follow me? Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm? How can I possibly get them into the one place to save them?"
He thought for a moment and realized that they just would not follow a human. He said to himself, "How can I possibly save them? The only way would be for me to become like those geese. If only I could become like one of them. Then I could save them. They would follow me and I would lead them to safety."
At that moment, he stopped and considered what he had said. The words reverberated in his mind: If only I could become like one of them, then I could save them. Then, at last, he understood God's heart towards mankind... and he fell on his knees in the snow.
Prayer for guidance and understanding
Our Old Testament reading this morning is one of over 300 Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah fulfilled as Jesus was born into the world.
These predictions included:
1) the time of His birth being before the Jewish people lost their sovereign power to first Century Rome when Archelaus (Herod the Great’s son) took the throne in Israel;
2) Bethlehem, a small insignificant town, being the place of His birth;
3) and that He would be born of a virgin.
All of these prophecies show up in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint versions of the Jewish scriptures, which have been established by secular sources as predating Jesus Christ by between 100 and 250 years. It is amazing to note that when Israel's religious elite cried, "Woe to us, for the scepter has been removed and the Messiah has not come!" (as quoted in the Babylon Talmud, Sanhedrin), Jesus had already been born and He was growing as a young boy in Galilee.
It was also predicted in these prophesies that this Messiah would perform miracles (Isaiah 35:5,6), that he would enter Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9), would die a dreadful, yet substitutionary death (Isaiah 53) by crucifixion (Psalm 22:14-17), a form of death not even known at the time of the psalm's composition, and that he would be raised from the dead (Psalm 16:9f). And, of course many passages in our New Testament, as well as secular historians of the period are indicative that these events did, in fact, occur.
There is no room for doubt that Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah (in Hebrew), the Christ (in Greek), Jesus the Anointed One, the Son of God, or as he preferred to call himself, the Son of Man, was born in Bethlehem, of Judea sometime in the years of 4 BC to 1 BC. Early writings in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Church Fathers give dates of May, April, March and even January for the month of the birth of Jesus. There is little agreement as to the actual date, or even the year. Aside from the passage we are reading today in John and about four chapters in Matthew and Luke there is little evidence that the 1st century church was concerned with his birth enough to celebrate it.
Some time during the 4th century, we can see evidences that there begins to be celebrations designated as celebrations of the birth date, which came to be December 25th.
After that, lots of practices and festive kinds of things, like hanging evergreens, the story of St. Nicolas, which evolved into the idea of Santa Claus, and the use of mistletoe and holly branches along with the encouragement to give gifts by mass merchandisers and even Hollywood movie plots, got all mixed up in it, and here we are today, on countdown for December 25th.
So be it. Praise God. I thank the Lord for arranging to be born and living on this earth and dying on that cross, so that we may have a way out, so that we may have hope, so that we can chose life, instead of death.
As I promised in the sermon title today, we are going to take a look at how the Apostle John in his gospel, handles the Christmas Story. John, according to those who study such things, wrote his gospel last, probably as late as 90 AD. He had been preaching his gospel for over 50 years. John was one of the twelve, and one of the inner circle as well. So, he knew intimate details of the earth-walk of Jesus because he lived through it. He was an eyewitness! Also he must have had conversations with the other eyewitnesses from time to time, comparing notes. In addition to his gospel, he wrote several letters to the churches and one rather lengthy report about a vision he had. This was when he was exiled by the Roman government, because of his religious views on an island called Patmos. He says in that work that Jesus appeared to him in a vision and told him to write it down. We call the book, The Revelation letter.
John’s emphasis in his gospel is the deity of Jesus. He paints a God-inspired picture, of Jesus as the incarnated Son of God. John’s gospel begins by giving us a glimpse of activities in Heaven, who was there and what did they do. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And he goes on to say that this Logos, the Greek term, here translated “word” literally the “Word of the Father” or we could think of like this: the “Word” as a personage with a message, with a revelation about things in Heaven, about the Father of all, and about life as opposed to death and about light, as opposed to darkness.
John further declares that this Word was the creator the earth, the universe and all things big and small. John’s words: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” Sounds to me like This Logos had a major part in creation, all of it. In fact, it sounds like this Logos, is who the Jews called Yahweh, or in some translations, Jehovah. Most translations just use the term the LORD. So, the LORD gave Abraham a promise that ALL nations would some day be blessed, and actually cut a covenant with himself. You can read about it in Genesis the fifteenth chapter, beginning with verse six.
John says that this Word, became flesh, or human. So, evidently, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, manifest himself in the earth and was born in a human body. His mother was Mary and his Father, the Holy Spirit. He was born without sin, in a perfect body and there was something different about him from the beginning. He is the only human being ever begotten by God, thus the title, the “only begotten” son. And his name was called Jesus.
We can get more details about those events in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, which we will look at next Sunday.
John says then, that God, was born into the world, became a human being by the name of Jesus and walked among the folks, his chosen people and they did not know it, they would not believe it and he finally allowed them to kill him and become the substitute sacrifice for all mankind once and for all, thus fulfilling his prophesy to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed through the seed of Abraham. And even though Abraham was old and Sarah was old, a child, Isaac was born to them in their old age, who begat Jacob, who begat the twelve tribes called Israel. And the tribe which was Jesus’ linage was Judah, from which we get the term Jews. King David was in that line 800 years before, and his city was Bethlehem, where the child was born. No wonder Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that salvation was of the Jews!
John, the Apostle, the gospel writer, introduces a relative of Jesus, you can find out about that in Luks’s account. This relative, a cousin, was John the Baptist, a kind of a prophet, who after the manner of Elijah, preached repentance and baptized folks in the river Jordan. The gospel writer thus introduces Jesus by telling how John recognized the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Luke says that Jesus was about 30 years old when this event happened.
So, John dispenses with a lot of details about the birth of Jesus and focuses on his preexistence, just giving a line or two to the actual entry into the earth by birth, by saying that the Logos became flesh, or human. As I said before, the early church did not dwell too much on the birth, but were more concerned with the cross and the resurrection.
Let’s summarize. God made all things, including man. Man messed up. God wanted a way to bring man back to him. God made a covenant with himself, and as well as a promise to a man named Abraham, who is known as the father of the Jews. God entered the earth as a human baby named Jesus. That baby grew up and preached in Galliee and Jerusalem where God allowed himself to be slain on a Roman cross as a one-time sacrifice for the sins of mankind.
It may be an umpopular, politically incorrect statement to make these days, but I believe the evidence in scripture, prayfully examined will state unequivocally that Jesus is Lord of Lords and King of Kings and that there is only one way to life, to light, to heaven where God lives. John summed it up: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
The only way is by believing and trusting our very existence to this Jesus, who’s birthday we are going to celebrate in a few days.
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