It’s Your Birthday

22 Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”

The Christmas story is a powerful story, filled with wonder and miracles and very real life. It is the story of God with Us, Jesus come to earth as the most wonderful gift of all eternity. As we have walked through various parts of the Christmas story these past four weeks, we have explored the intersection of God with Us in the lives of real people who played a role in His arrival. And we have seen that as He brought hope, love, joy, and peace into their lives in very real ways, He will do the same for us today.

In our time together now, let’s briefly trace our way through portions of this Christmas story again, highlighting all that it means that God is with us.

God with Us Brings Hope

Isaiah fanned the flames of hope with his messages of the coming king

Isaiah 9:6–7 CSB

6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.

Other prophets delivered similar messages, but there had been hundreds of years of silence before renewed hope burst onto the scene once again in the words delivered to Zechariah. It was a tangible hope for the priest and his wife that God had heard their prayers, and He was answering with a tangible fulfillment of their hopes through a son. And it was a tangible hope for the nation of Israel that God had not forgotten them. He was still at work, and He was on the move again, preparing the way for the long-awaited Messiah.

Hope in Israel was alive again! Hope on earth at its deepest levels was alive again! And hope is still alive for us today.

How is your hope today?

Whether your heart is light or your spirit is deep in despair, let me encourage you that God with Us brings us hope that sparks like a fire. It flows like water. It grows like a seed. Hope grows and spreads like a living thing. It can dwindle and wane and, yes, even die. But with nurture and care, it can revive and flourish and multiply.

Romans 15:13 CSB

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God with Us Brings Love

When we talked about love, we talked about Mary and Joseph. In many ways, theirs was a typical love story for its day: a young couple of humble means enters into the multistep process of marriage in ancient Israel. They think they know where their lives are headed—and then an angel shows up, announcing a miraculous pregnancy of the Son of God. Their world is rocked. Their once quiet lives will never be the same. Will their relationship survive the perceived betrayal?

Mary and Joseph’s was a love story and a life story being written by God Himself, and He is love itself. He knew just how to deliver tangible love to Mary and Joseph in exactly the ways they both needed. For Mary, this was the support of someone who could fully understand what she was going through. Elizabeth was just the person as she was experiencing her own miracle pregnancy. And her reception of Mary was like the biggest, warmest hug she could receive. Elizabeth’s understanding and acceptance served as the tangible arms of God to confirm and reassure Mary that she was not alone.

1 John 4:16 CSB

16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

1 John 4:19 CSB

19 We love because he first loved us.

This is the love that knit the universe together. It is the love that knit you and me together. And it is the love that entered the world as a helpless human baby—to identify with and be one of us and to willingly lay down His life and be killed under the unimaginable burden of the sins of the world—so that we can be restored in love and relationship with God for eternity.

God with Us is love for and within and through us. The love of God is a miraculous, transformative force that changes us and sweeps us into a miraculous story. As we respond to God’s love, we find our own capacity to love expanding. It’s a little like that scene in How the Grinch Stole Christmas!when the Grinch’s heart keeps growing bigger and bigger—“three sizes that day”—until it bursts the measuring frame.

Perhaps like that transformed Grinch, we too can be bringers and bearers of love in this Christmas season and beyond. Let’s start with those closest to us—our spouses, our kids, our relatives, the ones we’ve been impatient with in the busyness of the season. Let’s continue with our friends in this room, in our neighborhoods, at our jobs. And, yes, let’s include the strangers, the people who seem different from us, the enemies, and even the ones who are just plain hard to love.

Love has come into our world in the person of Immanuel, God with Us. Let’s live and spread His love in every way we can.

God with Us Brings Joy

Luke 1:44–45 CSB

44 For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me. 45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill what he has spoken to her!”

Elizabeth’s joy was contagious, filling Mary and setting her free to overflow with gratitude and praise with her own song.

Joy is like that. It spreads, and it often is present in circumstances that don’t seem all that joyous—especially when its source is Jesus, God with Us. Peter described that kind of joy as inexpressible and glorious.

1 Peter 1:8–9 CSB

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

John 16:22 CSB

22 So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you.

Christmas is a season characterized by joy—because Jesus has come. Let’s look for and choose joy no matter what troubles may be swirling around us or what pains may be troubling us inside. Let’s rejoice together for the arrival of our Lord and in the knowledge that He is with us, always working to provide and heal in our hearts and lives.

God with Us Brings Peace

Luke 2:10 CSB

10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people:

Luke 2:14 CSB

14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!

This was the peace of shalom, a concept deeply ingrained in the understanding of the ancient Jews. Even more than an absence of fighting, this shalom peace was a fullness of safety, completeness, and wholeness. This was the peace of restoration with God. It is the peace that settles our souls deeply. It is the calm acceptance that “it is well with my soul” no matter what swirls and storms around me.

Because God is with us, this is the peace that is available for us. And it is the peace we celebrate today.

Philippians 4:6–7 CSB

6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

My friends, this is the kind of peace we have access to because God is with us—the peace that transcends understanding because it defies our circumstances and problems and pain. Even in our darkest nights and fiercest storms, we can draw near to God and find the settling presence of His Spirit.

This is the peace of Christ and the wholeness of shalom that we celebrate with the arrival of Jesus. Here on this Christmas Eve together, let us rest in that peace in this moment together. And let us carry it within us even as we return to our celebrations and our tribulations. The Prince of Peace is come, and He can rule in our hearts.

God with Us Is Jesus

John 10:10 CSB

10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

Romans 5:1–5 CSB

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, 4 endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. 5 This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Invitation

BIRTHDAY CAKE

Historians believe that Ancient Egyptians were the first to celebrate birthdays, because Egyptians believed that pharaohs became gods when they were crowned. Food, drink, and festivities occurred when each new pharaoh was born, similar to “birthday parties” today. For the citizens of Egypt, “Khak” cookies were also commonly served on their birthdays to honor the sun god, Ra, symbolizing another successful year around the sun. The cookies are mild in flavor, consisting of flour, butter, sugar, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon, and milk. The Khak cookies are still commonly used to this day.

Cakes were also common birthday celebratory foods in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Ancient Romans typically served cakes at birthdays and weddings for kings and the gods.

In the early 1400’s, German bakeries first started selling sweet cakes, specifically marketed for birthday parties of young children. The birthday parties were referred to as Kinderfest and the cakes were called Geburtstagorten. These cakes were designed for the wealthy.

By the 1700’s, German children were greeted on their birthday with a cake that included candles, multiple layers of cake, icing, and decorations. Granulated and confectioner’s sugars were commonly used to achieve this cake. Candles were also used as a decoration for the cake during this time. The candles totaled the child’s years in age plus one, to represent hope for another healthy year. In Switzerland in 1881, the first account of blowing out candles is recorded. The candles on birthday cakes each represented a year of life and were blown out one by one.

but by the Industrial Revolution, the birthday cakes were widespread.

It celebratory

It is sweet

It is a Mark in Time

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