IS CHRISTMAS IMPORTANT?
12/16/12 Ready, Set, GROW!!
Is Christmas important?Sports fans have heard of Roone Arledge. He was president of ABC Sports and then as president and chairman of ABC News. He was an important behind-the-scenes figure in the television coverage of the major events of the last half century, from the Olympics to the boxing matches of Muhammad Ali in the 1960s to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80.
Here is a very interesting statement:
The late Roone Arledge, after a stab at expanding into entertainment with a variety show starring Howard Cosell failed in 1975, told The Daily News in the fall of 1976, “I would much rather have it on my tombstone that I did something important.”
Bill Carter, “Roone Arledge, a Force in TV Sports and News, Dies at 71,”New York Times (12-6-02)
I know that celebrating Christmas is traditional. Families have events they have done for years and it wouldn’t seem like Christmas if they didn’t do them. There are foods they simply must have. There are things that bring emotions and nostalgia. People say “that’s what Christmas is all about”. So, is it chestnuts roasting on an open fire and a white Christmas that makes it all important?
Is Christmas important?
And, if so, what makes it important?
Let’s start out with this: Yes, Christmas matters.
The story is amazing! There is nothing routine about the story and all the details of His birth. The facts and what Jesus accomplished are what makes this whole time important.
**Think about the fact that Jesus was born without a human father.
**An angel came and brought assurance to a heartbroken Joseph when he found out his beloved wife-to-be was pregnant and he knew for sure he was NOT the father.
**Wise men followed the star over a long distance and period of time to worship Jesus.
**Herod tried to deceive the wise men so he could kill Jesus.
** God taking on a human form, God becoming flesh.
There is nothing boring about this story. We have become very familiar with it and allowed it to become routine. Yet, we must proclaim the awesome message. Salvation from sin is the result of Christ’s coming.
Think about this. What if it could be proven that a young woman somewhere today was really a virgin, and with no medical procedures, no human intervention of any kind – what if it she became pregnant and gave birth to a child?? That would be a world-wide story.
Just because we have heard the story over and over, let’s keep the excitement and amazement that God used Mary to give birth to the baby Jesus. Remember the response of the shepherds when they heard and saw.
Luke 2
8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 14 “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
15 So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. 17 Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. 18 And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.
There is nothing routine about this amazing story. Because here is the foundation for our faith. It is the foundation for our life and eternity. Because Jesus came, because He accomplished the full plan of salvation, we can live.
What did you have before really knowing Jesus? What did you have with simply a religious routine to follow? What do the billions of people who only have some kind of religion that rejects Jesus have?
The world is filled with misery, poverty, pain, rejection, loneliness and failure. Jesus turns lives around and makes life new.
Because Jesus came, salvation came to the human race. This is our time to celebrate the greatest gift, the greatest victory the universe will ever see.
The birth of Jesus celebrates the solution to the greatest battle ever fought. It is the battle for eternal souls.
People must recognize their need for salvation.
Genesis 3:7 NKJV
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, . . .
Sin brings shame and a desire to hide it.
Genesis 3:8 NKJV
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
Sin tries to blame someone else.
Genesis 3:12-13 NKJV
12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” 13 And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Sin brought separation from God and pain, struggle.
Genesis 3:17-19 NKJV
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:23 NKJV
therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
God revealed His plan to restore the relationship with mankind.
Isaiah 7:14 NKJV
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
God paid the price Himself.
Isaiah 53:6 NKJV
All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
We are invited to receive the gift.
Isaiah 55:6-7 NKJV
6 Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.
John 1:11-12 NKJV
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
Acts 4:12 NKJV
Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Romans 10:9-10, 13 NKJV
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”
This is why Christmas is awesome. Jesus came and provided life to all who will admit their need and accept Him personally. We must thank God that He has given us this amazing salvation. The Gospel of Jesus is the message of hope for the world. It can never be commonplace. We must never lose passion for living and telling this awesome story.
I want to read a story, a modern parable made famous by Paul Harvey.
The Man and the Birds by Paul Harvey
The man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.
“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound…Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud…At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.
Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them…He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms…Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me…That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.
“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm…to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.
And he sank to his knees in the snow.
Jesus became flesh. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us - and we beheld His glory. He came to this world and provided a path to eternal life.
We are going to take time to pray for God to speak to hearts, for God to open doors of opportunity for us to show people the path to life and light, Jesus. That is an awesome way to celebrate Christmas. Think of specific people you can pray for.
