Sermon Tone Analysis

I love the Christmas season.

I really do…

The sights, the sounds, the smells.

I love the Advent season.

I love the the decorations, the lights, the presents the food.

The Advent songs at church are wonderful.

The Christmas story has been romanticized.

For the sake of nostalgia we often don’t read the Christmas story rightly.

Baby Jesus laying in a manger (away in a manger lyrics that are crap)

Mary and Joseph

The wise men

The shepherds

The Christmas star

The manger scene

reading the Christmas story through the lens of the cross.

This is how we are to read our bibles.

This is how we are to read our world.

with a cruciform vision.

(even the Christmas story)

The Cross of Christ is the fulcrum of history.

The affects of the cross of christ stretches from eternity past to eternity future.

The cross literally reshaped history.

So to understand history, to understand the scriptures, to understand the world, to understand Christmas, we must look at everything through a biblical worldview… which is a cruciform worldview.

The gospels are written through the lens of the cross

The NT interprets the OT through the lens of the cross.

Every story, every event, every truth must be seen through a cruciform vision.

So when we look at the birth of Jesus, this too must be seen and understood in light of the cross of Christ.

And when we do that, we will see that true story of the Birth of Jesus is not one of kitschy sentimentality the way many Christmas traditions make it out to be, but when understood in light of the cross we see that the birth of Jesus is so much more…its a declaration of war!

And this is how Matthew sees and tells the story in his gospel.

in fact, Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ birth almost as if you are in the middle of a battle scene.

Foreign maji come from the east, following a star looking for the new born King of the Jews.

Herod hears of this, consults with the religious leaders to find out that the Messiah was prophesied to be born in Bethlehem, he then sends his troops to go and kill all the young boys 2 years and younger in that region.

However, first, an angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him to get Mary and Jesus together and flee to Egypt because Herod was on the hunt for the child.

Mary, Joseph and Jesus were in hiding in Egypt of all places until the evil King died.

This is the story Matthew gives us of Jesus birth.

Its a story of spies and deceit, its story of visions and dreams, its bloody story of mass murder, and a story of escaping, hiding, and waiting.

Its the story of the birth of a warrior king, the one who would fulfill the prophecies, and wage war on the powers of darkness.

Herod, Rome, the religious leaders… they are all puppets… Jesus came to destroy the the puppeteer.

This side of the story rarely makes it into our Christmas books, and its rarely reflected in our Christmas traditions…

Yet, the birth of Jesus as a declaration of war against sin and death is at the hart of the story.

Our Passage this morning is going to be Matthew 1:18-25.

It is easy to read this passage and think of it just as a parallel passage to Luke chapter 1, when the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus.

However, this passage is more than just an announcement.

But rather it is preparing us to see the birth of Jesus as an act of war against the enemies of God.

It is the announcement of the birth not just of a king, but of a warrior king.

There are three OT Warriors that Matthew alludes to in these verses… three men who each prepare us to receive Jesus not just as gentle and lowly… but as fierce and devastating.

The three men Matthew calls attention to are

King David

Joshua

And Samson

Look how the angel address Joseph, he says, “Joseph, son of David.”

Now, we know that Joseph’s father’s name was Jacob.

We see this just two verses back at the end of Matthew’s genealogy.

in Matt 1.16 Matthew writes

Joseph’s father’s name was Jacob, yet the angel calls him the son of David in verse 20

Matthew says this to emphasize not only the historical reality that Jesus is part of the Davidic line, but even more so to emphasize the reality that Jesus will be a king like David.

David

David was the greatest King in Israel’s history.

Yet his kingship was marked not by peace, but war.

David was a man of war, a warrior king who spent his whole life in conflict, fighting his enemies.

In fact, from a young age David was fighter.

As a shepherd, David would fight and strike down lions and bears that would try and attack his sheep.

This of course the great picture of Christ, the good shepherd, the true king, who fights against anything that would seek to do harm to his sheep.

David’s most iconic battle was against Goliath, where the young shepherd/king defeated the giant with a sling and killed him by cutting off his head.

However, Before even fighting Goliath, David had a reputation as a man of war.

When King Saul was being tormented by a spirit, His servant suggested having David come and play music to fight against the tormenting spirit.

When describing David, one of Saul’s servants said,

Even as young boy, David was called a man of Valor and a Man of War.

this verse describes Davids whole life as a king, warrior, and poet.

David’s whole life was marked by warfare.

From Lions and Bears, to Giants, to King Saul, and finally nations.

He defeated the Philistines

he defeated the Moabites

He defeated the king of Zobah

He fought and conquered the Syrians

he beat the Edomites

He even had to fight against members of his own household.

Everywhere that David went, the Lord gave him victory.

David, the man of war, fought for his kingdom, he fought for his people, he refused to shrink back from the enemies of God.

And the prophecies state that when Messiah would come, he would be a king like David, he would be a warrior King who would be given victory in all his battles.

And this is what Matthew wants us to see.

Jesus is coming as a warrior king.

He is the greater David who goes to war not with the philistines and moabites, but rather Jesus sets his aim on the power behind these evil kingdoms.

Jesus has come to destroy the works of the Devil.

He has come to crush the head of the serpent, he has come to conquer the evil one.

Which is why the demonic world goes crazy after Jesus is born.

This is why Herod was hunting him,

This is why the religious leaders tried to kill him.

When Immanuel comes, when the virgin gives birth, it is a sign that God has come to wage war on his enemies.

And like David, Jesus is victorious.

Another aspect of this story, is that throughout the bible we see the enemies of God dying by their own weapons.

Abimelech, Saul, the foolish man in proverbs, and Goliath.

After David knocked Goliath down with the stone, he ran up and took his own weapon and killed him by cutting off his head.

Jesus, the greater David, likewise destroys satan with his very own weapon.

Satan wielded death like a sword, and it was through death that Jesus destroyed the works of the devil.

Matthew wants us to see Jesus as a new David, but he also wants us to see him as a new Joshua.

Joshua

Look with me at verse 21,

The Angel tells Joseph that the child’s name is to be Jesus.

naming a child is one of the great joys of parenting.