Sermon Tone Analysis

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Big idea: this is no accident; this is God’s plan unfolding
Main application: God is in control; his plan is to save; you’re a part of that
A Traditional Christmas
Introduce me
There are some pretty weird traditions associated with Christmas around the world.
My absolute favourite is the tió de nadal.
Ever heard of it?
Me neither until this week, if I’m honest.
But this is a tió de nadal:
tio picture
Now here’s how the tradition works.
And I am not making this up.
I checked.
I double checked.
This really does seem to actually happen.
In Catalunia in Spain no child would be without a tió de nadal at Christmas - and here’s why: these guys literally poop out your presents.
Yep, if you ever wondered where Christmas presents come from, that’s the truth.
Heard it here first.
From December 8th, Catalan children have to feed their tió each day with fruit peel and leftover food; each night they have to put a nice warm blanket on it.
And then it starts to get really weird.
On Christmas eve, the family gather around the tió and sing some lovely traditional songs.
Here’s one roughly translated for you:
poop log, Christmas log
don’t poop sardines - because they’re salty
poop nougat - because that’s better
I kid you not.
Google away.
And as they are singing these songs they have to beat the poor tio with sticks.
And when the song is done they get to really whack it.
And then it poops out their presents.
Yep.
And that’s where presents come from.
If they’re very spiritual, the kids can head into a different room, pray for more presents, wet their sticks and then come back and whack it really hard for the big ones.
Wow.
Like I said, some pretty weird traditions associated with Christmas around the world.
Even the Christmas story itself comes out somewhat different in different countries’ traditions.
Take Bulgaria, for example:
Tradition in Bulgaria is that Mary went into labour on December 20th and didn’t give birth until Christmas Eve - that’s some serious labour - and even after that, the birth of Jesus wasn't announced until Christmas Day.
I’m sure you’ve heard other, different traditions around the Christmas story.
The truth is we’ve all got our own different visions of that first Christmas in our minds.
What do you picture?
A tired Mary on that little donkey rounding the corner to a snowy Bethlehem?
17C and Sunny was the forecast when I looked on Friday!
All the inns of the town with a “no room” sign up, a difficult innkeeper turning Mary away, mid-contraction?
In a culture where hospitality is a cardinal value.
Just in time, a cosy stable-come-delivery-room with bovine nurses in attendance?
Often it’s our traditions which shape our picture - but this morning we have the opportunity to go back to the primary sources, to consider one of the first accounts of the birth of Jesus.
And I think it has some important things to teach us.
2:30 Transition
That last bible reading with our carols brought us right up to the birth of Jesus - but without much in the way of fanfare, and without most of the Christmas stories we’re familiar with.
Over the last year or so here at Hope City, we’ve been working our way through Luke’s Gospel - that is, Luke’s biography of Jesus, his telling of Jesus’ story.
Each week we’ve been looking at another short section of it - there’s plenty more to go yet.
But good news this week: we saved a few of the most Christmasy bits specially for this time of year - so if you’ve been with us recently, we’re going to jump back to the beginning of the story again for a few weeks.
If you’ve not been with us before, don’t worry - it’s a fine place to dive in.
I’m going to read you a short section of Luke’s gospel that takes us up to that Christmas birth of Jesus - the words will be up on the screen too - and then we’ll take a few minutes to dig into it a little more.
As I read, think about how well this relates to your picture of that first Christmas.
3:10 Reading
Luke 2:1-7
4:00 Unexpected focus
What did you notice as we read there?
no little donkey, little donkey, on a dusty road.
Not in any of the gospels, actually.
no drummer boy with a pa-rupu-pum-pum.
no innkeeper yelling “no room”.
Just a baby born.
Not much on their long journey - 90 miles pregnant and in sandals gets just a few words.
Not much on their struggle for accommodation.
Not much on the setting for the birth.
Not much on the actual birth - just a single word in the original language, “she gave birth”.
If you think of Luke, our gospel writer, as a sort of director, he’s making a very odd nativity movie here.
“Lights!
Camera!
Taxation!”
What we read spends much more more time on why they are in Bethlehem in the first place.
He focuses our attention on the circumstances which are driving events - just think about the sheer number of words given to explaining how they come to be in Bethlehem compared to the events which happen there.
This census takes centre-stage: not just a counting exercise, you know, my empire’s bigger than your empire kind of thing - it’s about the money; the census is registering to pay tax.
Registration is in your hometown - so Joseph has to go the 90 or so miles from Nazareth where he’s living to Bethlehem where his family comes from way back when.
And then Luke explains to us that Mary’s going with him on this huge journey because they’re betrothed (explain).
So much attention to the circumstances driving things.
5:45 Victims of circumstance
Here’s what we have to ask ourselves: Is Luke, the author, our director, trying to make the point that Mary + Joseph are just victims, then?
Driven by the whims - and the finances - of a distant emperor; by his paper-pushers who don’t care what impact this decree has on others’ lives?
Are they just the victims of the system?
Driven to a town that’s overflowing, forced to squeeze into whatever space they can find?
Isolated and far from home at that critical moment when Mary would be longing for her own people?
Nothing better than a manger available for their precious new child?
Are they just victims of circumstances?
ever wondered why it’s so busy in Bethlehem?
Here’s the best explanation I’ve read: Israel, you might know, was made up of twelve tribes originally, but ten are destroyed by the Assyrian empire.
The surviving two, now filling much of the ancient land of the twelve tribes, and with a diaspora scattered through the wider world, all have to return to an ancestral homeland they’ve long outgrown.
No wonder it’s busy!
Doesn’t it feel like they are tiny, insignificant cogs in some giant machine?
You know, something massive pivots over here - this one begins to spin; it’s connected to these, and to motion works its way down and down until it reaches them; there’s nothing they can do but have their life turned upside down.
It certainly looks like Mary and Joseph are just victims of circumstances.
And isn’t that something it’s all to easy to identify with?
When’s the last time you felt fully in control of your life?
Let’s be honest: have you ever really felt fully in control of your life?!
Doesn’t it more often seem we have just so little power, the tiniest and faintest influence over what’s happening - where wider events we have no control over at all seem to dictate virtually everything.
I mean, take brexit.
How much control or influence do you feel like you have over what’s going to happen?
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