Christmas is For Men
Notes
Transcript
Christmas is For Men
Christmas is For Men
I love Christmas songs and among my favorites is one most familiar:
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, and all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
The manger scenes on the front of Christmas cards seem to affirm this view.
Yet when you think about the circumstances that led to that moment, there is nothing to suggest such an outcome.
And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
On Thursday I was having lunch with a group of fellow pastors in Rector. Ken’s church is having a live Nativity with multiple scenes this weekend. David asked, “How long are you out there” and Ken thought he meant how long does it take to go through it. Ken went on to explain that you can drive through, or walk and interact with the charachters. The average person is there about 10 to 15 minutes. David didn’t press the question, but I couldn’t help but think about those playing the parts. With a low of 35 degrees tonight, how long WILL they be out there?
Reality kinda sets in when you think about it. What if they had to stay all night?
But Men understand something about the harsh realities of life.
How many of you have had to change a flat on a cold night, while your wife and kids sat in the safety of you car?
How many have been stranded on the road in the days before cell phones.
Have any of you had your pipes freeze and bust.
Ryan is now a Ramsey Certified Financial Advisor.
He’s working with a couple that the man has just lost a job with a six figure income. His wife makes around $30,000 a year. They live in a very nice home and drive very expensive vehicles. How many have every had to make hard decisions?
Things break… and we try to fix them.... but some things can’t be fixed.
The Cold Hard Facts
The Grim Truth
The Hard Realities
Who’s going to step up. Often we are the ones.
When our freedom is threatened, it’s historically been the men that go off to war....
Speaking to members of the International Theological Commission at the Vatican a week ago Thursday (Nov. 30), Pope Francis asked theologians to help him“demasculinize” the church in an unscripted remark.
Back to our Story:
The last thing a “just” and moralled man wants to hear from his fiance is “I’m pregnant”.
The worst thing she could even imagine might be having to tell the godly man of her dreams is “I’m pregnant”.
For most people this would have been the stuff of nightmares and unthinkable. Surely nothing good could come from this.
Even if an angel approaches Mary in advance with the exciting news that you are highly favored and chosen by God.
Even though Joseph is a good and usually understanding man.
She can just imagine his “An angel told you what?”
The story suggest that she skipped out and went to visit relatives and didn’t tell him for three months.
The New King James Version Chapter 1
56 And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her house.
When she returns and shares that she is with child, he wants to divorce her, and spare her shame.
And yet it is how it all began.
They were forced to travel 90 miles all because the imposed government wants to make sure they get their taxes. They’re caught up in clashes of power far greater than themselves. Caesar had decided that the whole world should be registered in a census. They are nobody’s. Mary tells the angel twice of her lowly estate. They’re pawns in another man’s game. They don’t even get to make out their own schedule. It’s made for them.
The journey will take 8 hours of travel for 4 straight days. Perhaps longer in the heavy traffic that resulted.
Imagine telling your very pregnant wife the two of you are taking such a trip.
There were no hotel reservations...
Where would they stay on each of those nights?
Ryan was three weeks old. We were staying with my parents while Kim was still recovering from a C-Section. I worked 3rd shift in those days. Often long hours. Going in to work at 11 pm on Sunday night was tough. There were times I worked the weekend. Got off at 7 am Sunday Morning. Got ready and drove an hour to church in time to be there for staff meeting. Taught a class, followed by morning worship and then drove to my father in law’s house to eat lunch and nap on the couch. After a short nap we drove 14 miles to be at church for choir practice 4:30. Prayer rooms at 5:30 and church started at 6. After the service concluded and we grabbed a bite to eat on the way home, I’d lay down for 30 minutes to an hour and then it was off to work all night. By 7 am, I was dead tired.
I had taken off a few days while she was in the hospital but was already back to work. We decided to get away for a couple of days on July 4th weekend. We left baby Ryan in the capable hands of my parents where we had been staying in their home for Kim’s recovery. We took off that night for St. Louis. Arriving there we started trying to find a hotel with vacancies. One them told us, we can see all the hotels in St. Louis on our computer and there are no vacancies. We thought we would try on the outskirts of town but in the direction of home in case there were none. We tried every hotel in just about every town on hwy 67. By the time we got to Poplar Bluff we figured what’s the point and drove on in. Back to mom and dad’s somewhere between 4 am and daylight we knocked on the door. Mom said, “You couldn’t stay away from the baby one night?”.
It was a miserable night.
Maybe things will be better among relatives and in the city of David, Bethlehem. Then again maybe not. Conditions do not improve. There is no where to stay.
None of this could have come at a LESS convenient time.
Trying to make the most of their humbling situation, Joseph spreads some hay on the ground. How much privacy was afforded, we can’t really know. Sterile environes and a clean bed were as good as a million miles away. It’s hard enough to rest without a bed. But there is nothing in the record to about quiet stillness. Perhaps dogs bark through the night at the presence of strangers and their animals.
Labor of Love
(Song by Meredith Andrews)
[Verse 1]
It was not a silent night There was blood on the ground You could hear a woman cry In the alleyway that night On the streets of David's town
[Verse 2]
And the stable was not clean And the cobblestones were cold And little Mary full of grace With the tears upon her face Had no mother's hand to hold
[Chorus]
It was a labor of pain, it was a cold sky above But for the girl on the ground in the dark With every beat of her beautiful heart It was a labor of love
[Verse 3]
Noble Joseph by her side Callused hands and weary eyes There were no midwives to be found On the streets of David's town In the middle of the night
[Verse 4]
So he held her and he prayed Shafts of moonlight on his face For the baby in her womb He was the Maker of the moon He was the Author of the faith That could make the mountains move
[Chorus]
It was a labor of pain, it was a cold sky above But for the girl on the ground in the dark With every beat of her beautiful heart It was a labor of love It was a labor of pain, it was a cold sky above But for the girl on the ground in the dark With every beat of her beautiful heart It was a labor of love
[Outro]
Little Mary full of grace With the tears upon her face It was a labor of love
Jesus was comfortable in chaos
Jesus was comfortable in chaos
Was at home among less than desirable circumstances.
He didn’t come to a hospital, hotel or palace.
He got used to this world in the lowly, tough and rigid confines of working class status and unpredictable hardships.
Before he is three years old, his family was forced to flee their homeland and become refugees.
His earliest memories were probably of this time.
He’s known nothing if He has not known hardship.
When they are able to return, it is to Nazareth.
The place of which Nathaniel would say:
John 1:46 (NKJV)
And Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
His earthly roots avoid:
No difficulty or discomfort.
No peril or persecution
No sorrow or suffering
No trouble or travail
He shirks no danger or peril
Isaiah 53:3 (KJV)
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
He Is Exactly What We Need
He Is Exactly What We Need
A. He is our Mediator
A. He is our Mediator
In warning Job not to appeal to holy ones or angels, Eliphaz reminds him that “Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.” (5:7)
Man is born to trouble...
It just comes natural...
It’s our lot in life...
Yet in His distress, Job goes on to expresses his desire for a mediator between God and himself:
Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his hand on us both.
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
Who is this Man?
B. He is our Advocate (Lawyer)
B. He is our Advocate (Lawyer)
1 John 2:1–2 (NKJV)
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
C. He is our Champion
C. He is our Champion
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.