Don't Miss Out at Christmas

                                      Don’t Miss Out At Christmas

Luke 2:1-7

A prophet is not without honor except in his own home - Jesus

The Innkeeper

      What was his reason?

            Census is under way

            Everybody is coming to Jerusalem

            Like a big convention coming to town

            We have no reason to conclude that he was hostile, unsympathetic, or unloving - just to busy!

      What is ours?

Our lives are filled with needless things, human interests, and just plain stuff

            Get the cheapest price - buy it - take care of it - fix it - store it - dump it

We are so preoccupied with the temporal.

Note: Mary herself brought forth her first born.  It was not that the middle eastern people are inhospitable.  Jewish woman kind and uncaring.

But where were the mid wives - Where was the innkeepers wife?

Mary was alone!

Herod - Matt 2:2

      What was his reason?

            He wasn’t a Jew - He was appointed by the Romans

            Always afraid of losing his position

            When he was close to death he commanded all distinguished citizens to be collected, imprisoned and put to death at the moment of his death.

            This would insure weeping at his death even if it was for another person

            All the children two and under

      Somebody would interfere with his career, his position, his power, his ambition, his plans, his lifestyle

      What is ours?       

            What about my plans, my priorities, my set of values?

                       Will I have to alter the way I think, act, talk, or live?

            We are kings to ourselves!                 

Religious Leaders, the Jewish People and the Romans

     John 5:39-47

      What was their reason?

            Prideful indifference

            A limited worship of God

            The wrong God entirely

      What is ours?

            Who needs God   

            I don’t like the message  

            I actually worship other things

      My little children - keep yourselves from idols.

The People of Nazareth

      Luke 4:16 ff

      What was their reason?

            Familiarity

      What is ours?

          Yeah - I was raised in that stuff.

            I was made to go to church

            I was watching a country western singer do a rendition of The Little Drummer Boy’‘’ - I know nothing about her spiritual condition.  Hopefully it cam from the heart.  But I do watch people who have nothing to do with Jesus any other time sing the carols of the season and many of those songs tell the wondrous story of the gospel.

So, how will it be for you this Christmas?

      Preoccupied

            Don’t want Jesus - the Lord to invade your space

                        Don’t like the message and its connotation

                                    All too familiar