#2 - Putting Christ Back in Christmas

Luke 2:10 (NIV)

10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Joy is an essential element in Christmas and the message of the first Christmas was a joyful one.

what brings you joy in Christmas?

Many people depend for their Christmas joy on material things like good food, friends, fun, parties, and presents.

EX: row turkey - white Christmas -

By contrast the first Christmas was characterized by cold, bareness, and rejection, and it was in that atmosphere that the angel brought “good tidings of great joy.”

I. Good news to a bad world

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Jesus Christ was born into a world of oppression and cruelty.

Palestine was in the grip of Rome and had been, as historians put it, “bludgeoned into submission.” threaten into submission - intimidate, terrorize

It was a world of military might, vice, lust, and great wickedness.

Romans 1 describes the “permissiveness” of the world into which Jesus was born.

Romans 1:29–32 NIV

29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

So today we are living in a bad world in which permissiveness is blatant (obvious) on radio, television, and billboards, and in paperback novels and glossy magazines.

In spite of centuries of education reform, politics, science and philosophy, the world of the 20th century, with its permissiveness and pornography, is comparable to that of the 1st century.

Since the world still needs a Savior, the message that “Jesus Christ is born today” is still good news.

II. Glad news for a sad world

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

Since Rome had become master of that ancient world, there were no wars.

Warfare is impossible when the people are in subjection.

But a subject, terrorized people are a joyless lot.

Jesus was born into a world that knew little but sadness and despair.

His countrymen were heavily taxed by Rome to keep them submissive.

Then came the angel’s joyful news as “all heaven broke bounds” (G. Campbell Morgan).

Jesus Christ, God’s Savior and Deliverer, had been born.

He who alone could deal with sin, not just human misery and abjection, had arrived!

The One who was going to take the sting out of death had been born in Bethlehem and His name was Jesus—Savior, for “He shall save His people from their sins.”

III. Good and glad news to the whole world

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

The angel’s message was not alone to “you,” that is, the shepherds; it was “unto all people.”

It was a universal message.

Beginning with humble shepherds and continuing with Wise Men, King Herod, the Jews, then the Gentiles, it soon became known throughout the Roman world.

How did the world first hear this good and glad news?

The shepherds “returned.”

After seeing the new-born King for themselves, they went back to their daily work and, on the way and on every day, told others what the angel had told them and what they had seen for themselves.

Remember, Christmas day is followed by Boxing day, and then the holiday is over and we recommence the “daily round and common task,” providing us with opportunities for spreading the good and glad news.

The Baby grew up and became a man, the Light of the World, as He described himself: not a Christmas candle that is easily blown out; not Christmas tree lights that go on and off; but a bright and shining perpetual light to our dark world.

Leaving His cradle and going to the cross, there we see the Light burning at its brightest: “It is finished” (“All is accomplished”).

What He was born to do—to save the world from sin—He completed upon the cross of Calvary.

When we do God´s will we are not guaranteed a comfortable life.

But we are promised that everything, even our discomfort, has meaning in God´s plans...