Distracted Christmas

Fun and Focus. Jr and Sr High know this guideline in Youth

Sometimes fun is fun, and focus is needed on focus

Sometimes we mix them both

Christmas is a wonderful focus and tradition, we celebrate families, church, relationships, and connection but during these seasons, focus can be hard to hold of what’s most important when juggling schedule, family dynamics, presents, meals, work, and a merry host of things.

The story of Jesus, the census, Bethlehem, the shepherds, and that timeless truth that Christ is the reason for the season. These are familiar stories and images wherever we come from in our journey with God.

A focus though of life is that even though we know the important, learning where our focus is at any given time is a struggle and habit.

This morning we will move through parts of the story of Luke 2 with what’s important and what could move our focus.

Starting with Luke 2:1

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all the people were on their way to register for the census, each to his own city

Setting the scene, all good stories know the backdrop and Luke helps put us historically naming Caesar Augustus

v.1 – The Roman world is now doing a census to figure out military and tax power

- Census on our term’s vs Roman terms.

- Systematic oppression upon a conquered people to remind the Jewish people who is in control.

- Caesar, the god king of Rome, whom when he physically died his mourners comforted themselves in that Caesar was a god and immortal.

Our second named leader is v.2 Quirinius the governor the region, everyone to his own region is an enormous disruption and movement.

- In the process of life, we find that powers well beyond our control make movements that cause disruption. Whether it’s a snowstorm, family expectations, government politics, a war, and even history

The important focus is who is control?

The focus of this though becomes a lot of people looking to poke holes in Christianity, Christmas, and the biblical narrative.

Many have tried to figure out the conflict of history here.

Quirinius and Augustus did a census of the Roman world, but Quirinius was not a governor.

Historical documents show the census is nearly ten years after the birth of Christ.

How can Quirinius be governor at time of Jesus birth since he was not in power at this time?

Is Luke making an error. Is there something we are missing?

We have a temptation to follow our nose, whether a culture attack or a personal curiosity.

As we celebrated this morning or plan to celebrate, conflicts and things will happen our temptation is to address it, attack it, or ignore it. To try to solve all the details.

The reality is we don’t know all the details or documents of this time but are we ready to trust the narrative or trust the critics.

A lot of snap decisions are made from a moment of a word, a reaction, a hurt feeling, a meeting, or a video we saw.

Ten years may seem like a lot for a census, but in ancient Israel under King David a census was to be nearly 2 years long of only Israel.

Ancient Israel could fit inside of Vermont at around 9600 square miles, the Roman Empire is roughly 2 million square miles.

Ten years now is sounding pretty good timeline to do a census.

The focus though is we could follow our nose down these interesting places, but the focus is that Joseph is displaced, disrupted from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Who is in control as Joseph and Mary are forced to be displaced from home by a false god king named Caesar?

Caesar’s power, greed, arrogance, and authority now forced a little pregnant woman to move from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

The same Bethlehem in which is the City of David, and the hope of Israel should be born who is the Messiah.

Who’s in control? What powers? What dictators, presidents, committees?

A lot of time we spend figuring out who is in control, but all of History is God’s story.

A census built from world powers control is being used to line up someone who made a journey from boring Nazareth to boring Bethlehem to bring a Hope that has been foretold since the beginning of history.

A simple line appears in v.7 “She gave birth” Mary the woman who is promised,

Joseph the man who listened, and all the hope of Israel fulfilled and it’s a simple little line.

All the power of all creation, but none of that power used to secure a good bed.

7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

We create made images and songs of what we imagine this to be but instead of all that Luke keeps it simple.

Simply Jesus is wrapped in clothes, he is born a firstborn, simply he is placed in a manger.

A rather boring image for something that the entire Israel history is moving towards in hope and anticipation.

No room in the inn the world is distracted, and nobody pays attention

The world before Jesus was born and the world after Jesus was born, and there was no room for them.

The witnesses surely the right people will get the right answers to make appropriate actions for the King of Kings.

Who is worthy of knowing the focus of God?

Who is right to get the attention of the heavenly hosts?

Luke 2:8 In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock at night.

Shepherds, shepherds get the focus of God and Scripture. But before we focus on shepherds lets follow our nose again.

Is Christ born in December or not?

I’m going to rapid fire some details but mostly the argument goes this way, shepherd usually didn’t tend sheep during December and January seasons.

Additionally, first mention of Christmas is nearly 350 years after Jesus’ birth along with pagan holiday called Saturnalia which used things like evergreen trees, wreaths, food festivals, and presents.

Did Christians just steal a pagan holiday to make it work for December?

If we can find symmetry like other religions using trees, December, virgin births, and traditions it must mean they all are the same.

Everything is the same if you ignore the differences.

Let’s give a bit of attention to differences.

Christian history shows the birth of Christ is celebrated long in December before the term Christmas in 354 AD

Few named deities are born Dec 25 or even in December

Virgin births can also mean born from a rock, no human involvement.

People like to list virgin birth and born in December with little to no historical evidence.

Jewish traditional also placed a birth and death at similar places, Jesus died March 25th and his birth is counted from there to 9 months later landing December 25th.

Finally, I mentioned 354 AD for Christmas, the first mention that ‘Christians replaced Saturnalias is 1200 AD by a single commentator who was later copied in 18th and 19th century

Did Christians replace the pagan holiday with Christmas,

Or did some critics nearly 1500 years later find something they thought was convenient and sells well to the critical public?

After all, if you ignore the differences of a few details, you can make anything sound the same.

As for shepherds

Passover lambs were raised in December, normal shepherding was in the alternative times of the year.

More challenging for the time is not what date it is, but why Shepherds?

Shepherds are the first and only witnesses to an angelic host who is loudly proclaiming about Jesus.

Shepherds were not the family friendly thing we think about like David was in the Bible

Shepherds were seen as intruders on land, thieves of water, and not dependable.

Untrustworthy and ceremonial unclean.

In fact, there was a law that said a shepherd could not be a witness in a legal dispute since the entire profession was seen as crooked and mistrust worthy

Shepherds are some of the worst witnesses and messengers, yet these are the ones the angels appeared to.

Because God isn’t looking at status, or how culture perceives, what is seen as weakness and foolish to the world is exactly what God uses over and over in Bible and our lives.

One of our pulls is to value what the culture values, whether it’s power, money, education, popularity, relationships, outrage, or being seen as good.

The biblical narratives take the opposite approach which is a struggle when you are trying to meet worldly status with status.

The outcast and the sinner are the worthy of God’s promise, the powerful and the righteous in our own ways are the ones who miss Jesus because we depend on the wrong focuses.

Last year a youth asked during retreat “How do I keep the high of camp?”

The Shepherds were absolutely in the high.

The glory of God’s invisible world revealed saying that Christ the Savior is here. A host of angels appearing and shouting in v.14

“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among people with whom He is pleased.”

The high is here and this host of angels is showing something bigger than ever seen.

How do we keep the high?

We can’t keep it. Not in the same way. Shepherds couldn’t keep the angels from returning to heaven.

We can’t keep a constant state of emotional highs, apologetic satisfaction, or undisrupted lives of only happiness and joy.

These aren’t our focus.

Christmas can easily be a time when the focus pulls us away.

Finding apologetic answers to the census, Dec 25th, Shepherds none of that is bad.

The Christmas presents, the traditions, the family get togethers, again none of it is bad within reason.

But do we know our Hope?

Our hope isn’t in the answers, it’s in what draws us back to Jesus who is our Hope.

Life is all about focus

Today the kids revealed what it is like.

Focus is a constant moving things as life happens in front of us.

Life with Jesus is not listening to what’s our focus it’s returning to the path of following Him.

Life is a constant struggle for attention

How we live it out is our last area with how the Shepherds respond.

V15 “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem, then, and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

Immediately go, do not wait, there is no doubt of if or how God did any of this but an instant obedience.

This is why the Shepherds were chosen because they responded like a follower of Jesus does.

Come and see this Jesus, this baby born to man to die for all of man, this baby who singularly changed all of history and showed us that all history is God’s story.

The Shepherds can’t help but share what they saw, and it’s not the angels it’s this baby Jesus. The shepherds the most unlikely witnesses are now the first evangelists and the first to make him known.

Come and see the King, watch what he does. He is the path true and straight its leads straight back to Him.

The high isn’t the angels or the mountaintops, the Christmases, or the holidays, the high isn’t seeing Jesus.

The high is Jesus we are just lucky enough to see glimpses of Him towards one days being his true friend.

We are constantly in a battle for attention, whether it’s a moment like our service here.

From our Christmas story, it sounds like a lot of things were happening.

It’s sometimes hard to figure out what is important or not.

Sometimes lots of things are good focuses but the best focus is Jesus.

Even though he is a tiny baby, he makes a big impact and when we are focus our attention on Jesus’ we realize how to live our life better.

Jesus came to be our friend; I hope each of us will be a good friend back especially as life gets busier.