The Hope of Christmas - Musical
Christmas at the Intersection of Main St. and Church St. • Sermon • Submitted
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20201213 Christmas Musical
Good morning, thank you for being with us today. I’m grateful for the many people in our church who choose to serve by being a part of our worship teams and worship ministry. There’s something about music and songs that touches our hearts in a different way than other forms of communication do.
One of the things that I believe is a part of who we are as human beings is that we all have a desire for something more in our lives – for something that is missing. You might be able to say that something just doesn’t feel right about the world. No matter where you are in the world, what culture or religion you look at, there is a feeling in all of our hearts that things should be better than they are. We all want the world to be a better place than it currently is. Ancestor worshipers seek the help of their deceased ancestors to help them find success and happiness in this world. Buddhists seek enlightenment or inner peace. Muslims look forward to Paradise. Atheists look for ways to improve conditions on this earth. Animists seek to placate the spirits of the natural world so that they won’t be angry with them. No matter where you are, if you dig deep enough, you will find a belief that things can be better than they currently are. All of these cultures and belief systems reflect a spiritual reality that the Bible explains is the result of the corruption of this world because of sin.
From the very beginning, God had a plan to address this problem, and to restore humanity and this world to what He originally intended it to be. Before Jesus’s time, the Israelites longed for heaven. Hebrews 11, the chapter that speaks about all the men and women of faith in the Old Testament says this:
Hebrews 11:13-16 (NLT)
13 All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. 14 Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. 15 If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. 16 But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
Jesus spoke of this city, and of how he was preparing a place for His followers in John 14
John 14:1-3 (NLT)
1 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.
This world is not our home; we were created to be with God.
The story of Christmas is the story of God sending His Son to provide a way for us to be with Him in our eternal home with Him.
1. Wayfaring Stranger
As I said before, we long for a place free of the corruptions of this world. We look around us and see that people are enslaved by greed, addiction, despair, poverty, war, abuse, and so many other things. People are divided against each other. Some have an overabundance of wealth while others die of poverty. Even those who have wealth and power still experience dissatisfaction and heartbreak. God’s people, Israel knew that God had promised them a Savior who would free them from oppression and would restore them as a people, and they longed for the day this Messiah, or Savior, would come rescue them. God had given them clues so they could recognize the Messiah when He came.
Isaiah 7:14 (NIV)
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Isaiah 11:1-4,10 (NLT)
1 Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot—
yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 He will delight in obeying the Lord.
He will not judge by appearance
nor make a decision based on hearsay.
4 He will give justice to the poor
and make fair decisions for the exploited.
The earth will shake at the force of his word,
and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.
…
10 In that day the heir to David’s throne
will be a banner of salvation to all the world.
The nations will rally to him,
and the land where he lives will be a glorious place.
These and other passages about the coming savior gave hope to God’s people. The Jews longed for the day that the Messiah would come and save them from their oppressors, bring unity to a people who had become divided, and bring them joy and blessing once again. They thought God’s promises were for Israel alone, but God had much bigger plans, His promises, it turns out, were for Jews AND Gentiles. The savior would come and be a “Banner of salvation to all the world.”
When we see the world around us, our hearts cry out for freedom, unity and joy.
2. O Come, O Come Emmanuel
The time finally came for God to send this long-awaited Savior. So God chose a teenage girl who had found favor in His eyes, a girl named Mary, and entered into the story of humanity in an unexpected and amazing way. Throughout the history of humanity, God had manifested himself to different people in a visible way. Abraham negotiated with God for the sake of Sodom, Jacob wrestled with God, Joshua had a tactical meeting with the head of God’s armies to figure out how to take Jericho. I believe all these times in the Old Testament when someone had an encounter with God, it was God the Son taking on a human appearance to interact with and communicate with people. But this time, God sent his Son to be born of a virgin. He entered the story of humanity as a completely human and completely divine being in what is possibly the greatest mystery of God’s revelation to humanity of Himself.
Luke 1:30-35 (NLT)
30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.
Even though the angel had revealed this incredible truth to Mary, she still had no idea of the details of who Jesus would be, the life He would live, and the sacrifice He would make. The Bible is clear about how Mary wondered and pondered the different prophetic proclamations that were made about her son as a baby, and that she was astonished and treasured what was said about Him when He stayed behind at the temple in Jerusalem when He was twelve. And yet, she did not know the extent of God’s plan for His Son. She did not know that He would have to lay down His life in order to redeem humanity and give them an opportunity to spend eternity with God, as John the Baptist alluded to at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry.
John 1:29-30 (NLT)
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 He is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’
And despite his miraculous conception and amazing childhood, Mary did not know that her son was not only the Son of God, but God Himself, a revelation that Jesus made later in His ministry and almost got Him killed on the spot as He was arguing with the religious leaders of His day.
John 8:54-58 (NLT)
54 Jesus answered, “If I want glory for myself, it doesn’t count. But it is my Father who will glorify me. You say, ‘He is our God,’ 55 but you don’t even know him. I know him. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you! But I do know him and obey him. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.”
57 The people said, “You aren’t even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?”
58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!”
She did not know all these things when she was holding Him in her arms that first Christmas morning. But the life she would see her son live, the miracles she would see Him perform, the death she would see Him die, and the resurrection she would witness would convince her of who this child was that she had been blessed to be the mother of. She would know that
Jesus Christ is the Savior, Healer, Lord, and Almighty God.
3. Mary, Did You Know
The reality of who Jesus is and what He did for us in providing forgiveness of sins and salvation to all who believe in His name has a more far-reaching effect than just transforming individuals. God’s plan was always about creating a people and a community that belonged to Him. But God didn’t stop at just community, he took it to the deepest level of community there is, family. Family, especially family as God designed it to be, not the dysfunctional model many of us are familiar with, is the deepest, most basic form of community. By making salvation about more than just forgiveness of sin, but adoption into the family of God, God did something for us that breaks down all the barriers we try to put up between one another.
Jesus brought us hope and newness of life that results in us loving one another as family.
4. O Holy Night
Even though God had sent His Son to accomplish His mission in a way that was unexpected and unconventional, Heaven still declared God’s glory and revealed part of what was happening to a limited number of people. In an amazing show of God’s upside-down way of doing things (at least, upside down compared to how the world does things), God revealed his good news to two different groups of people. The first was a group of shepherds who were caring for their flocks nearby.
Luke 2:8-15 (NLT)
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
15 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
Why did God choose the shepherds and not the rulers in Jerusalem just a short two-hour walk away? They could have gotten there in no time. God however chose the humble over the powerful; the low instead of the exalted.
The second group that God revealed His news to was not the Jewish religious leaders and wisdom seekers, but a group of foreign star gazers. These Magi or Wise Men came from afar seeking, “the one who has been born king of the Jews…” They had seen his star, and had made the journey to find Him and worship Him.
Matthew 2:9-11 (NLT)
9 After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were filled with joy! 11 They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
So early on in His life, the Messiah was worshipped by a lowly group who had little to give, and a group of foreigners who were considered outsiders and “not God’s people.” This is who God chose to reveal His plan to at that time. Throughout His life, this is who Jesus primarily ministered to: the low and the outcast. And yet, those who were low and outcast came before Him, and worshiped Him.
The Son of God came in humility, He interceded on our behalf, and is worthy of our worship and praise.
5. What Child Is This
Even though during Christmas we mostly sing about Jesus as a baby, and that’s the primary image we think of when we celebrate this holiday, this is also a time to celebrate the entirety of what Jesus’s birth means for humanity. God’s revelation of Himself to humanity through Scripture and through the history of the nation of Israel was not just a revelation of God’s character and His desire for how we should live, it is a revelation of the incomprehensible greatness of His love for us. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is an exclamation point in that love letter written by God to us. As we celebrate this amazing truth almost two thousand years after Christ’s death and resurrection, we can celebrate that God has done all that He needs to do in order to redeem us and save us. This baby, the Son of God, grew up into the Messiah that is worthy of our worship and praise, and who promised that one day He will return to destroy Satan’s rule on this earth and establish His own kingdom in its place.
Isaiah 9:6-7 (NIV)
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
Jesus was the ultimate expression of God’s love for us. Even though He is God, He humbled Himself, suffered for us, died and rose again. This is what God has done for us!
This is the news that we are called to proclaim and share with those around us. This is the message of Christmas.
6. Noel