Preparing For Christmas

Intro

There are lot of things that people do to get ready for Christmas. Between the shopping, gift wrapping, food prepping, and home decorating, there is enough to keep anyone busy.

And most people I know, don’t love to be busy. Most people I know would rather life be a little calmer, a little slower-paced, and let’s face it, a little less stressful.

But when something is important to us, we are more willing to do the busier, crazier, and even more stressful thing because we believe that what we are doing it for is worth it.

Christmas for the most part, is important to people. Therefore we are more willing to do the busy work of preparing for it.

For Christians who celebrate the true meaning of Christmas this is even more true.

However, I think that sometimes in our busyness of preparing for Christmas, we can actually lose sight of what we are preparing for.

The meaning of Christmas, and I don’t mean the commercialized version, but the true Biblical meaning of Christmas is sometimes sacrifice on the altars of our own schedules and even traditions.

I believe that the worst thing that could happen is for us to get to the end of Christmas only to say “finally, its over”.

Yet there will be many who find that to be their experience. And I believe that this happens because we aren’t preparing properly.

An Early Start

Over the last several weeks we have been looking at a prophecy that had been written by the prophet Isaiah that speaks of this coming messiah, or King.

And we know as Christians that this prophecy was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus some 600 years after Isaiah first wrote these words.

Isaiah 9:6-7 NLT 6 For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!

If you remember, 2 weeks ago I was talking about John the Baptist and the role he played in preparing the way for the coming of the Lord, for the arrival in this King Isaiah prophesied about, for the coming of Jesus.

I also shared that John the Baptist was somewhat of a miracle child himself, having been conceived by parents who were well beyond child-bearing years and to a mother who had been barren, or unable to have children.

It was John’s father Zechariah whom an angel appeared while he was serving as a priest at the temple that told Zechariah that he and his wife would have a baby.

Well, Zechariah doubted that this would actually happen and so the angel made it so that Zechariah could not speak until his son was born.

And if you read about this in Luke 1, you see that once John was born and Zechariah wrote down what his name would be, he was once again able to speak.

And then something interesting happened. The text tells us this.

Luke 1:67-75 NLT 67 Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy: 68 “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. 69 He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, 70 just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago.

71 Now we will be saved from our enemies and from all who hate us. 72 He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering his sacred covenant—73 the covenant he swore with an oath to our ancestor Abraham. 74 We have been rescued from our enemies so we can serve God without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness for as long as we live.

Here we see Zechariah prophecy about another baby who would be born in a few months. He was speaking about Jesus.

He also connects the birth of this child with the prophecies in the OT regarding the Messiah. In other words, Zechariah was saying that it was time to get ready, if you hadn’t already for Christmas.

Zechariah makes it clear that this savior king was going to be God himself. It would be God who was going to visit his people and redeem them.

Jesus was more than a prophet or teacher. Jesus would be God incarnate, or God in the flesh. He would be the one who would redeem his people.

Redeem meaning to recover something or someone upon payment of a ransom.

To the Jews of the day they understood this to mean a payment for the release of someone in captivity.

Those who heard these words of Zechariah certainly believed that this person he was speaking about was going to set them free from Rome, much like the way God set free their ancestors from Babylonian captivity centuries before.

What they failed to understand was that the captivity Jesus was coming to rescue them from wasn’t Rome, or any other government.

Rather it was a captivity that they had been under for much longer than that. It was a captivity that began in the Garden all they way back in Genesis.

It was when the serpent deceived the first human beings and in that deception, those first two humans chose to rebel against God’s Holy command and thus the curse of sin was cast not only upon Adam and Eve but upon every human born through them and after them.

And it because of this serpent, who we understand to be Satan, that humanity was brought into a spiritual captivity. A captivity that God, even in Genesis had planned to redeem us from.

Genesis 3:15 NLT 15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

You want to talk about getting an early start on Christmas preparations. It doesn’t get any earlier than this.

The fall of man and the curse of sin didn’t just impact humans, it had an impact on Satan and his spiritual forces.

The curse for Satan was that while for a time he may be able to keep humanity in captivity under his dominion, it would be temporary.

One day there would be a child born, an offspring of Eve, who would strike, or crush his head, or rather his headship and ruling authority over humanity.

Like an invading King who kept people in captivity, his throne would be dismantled. But not before also bruising the heel of this redeemer.

It would require this redeemer to suffer in order deliver the crushing blow to the serpent. Jesus would have to for suffer and even die from the poison of the serpent’s bite.

But this death was only temporary for after delivering the death blow to Satan on the cross, he would lead the captives out of their sin prison in resurrection.

Preparation for all

Unlike the Jews who believed this redeemer was only for their salvation, we understand God’s plan was to redeem all of humanity from the very beginning.

As Gentiles, you and I are not an afterthought. It isn’t as if God said, well the Jews rejected my offer of salvation so I will not offer it to the gentiles, or non-jews. It was always God’s plan to redeem all of humanity.

This to is evident in the preparation for Christmas. Look at the the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1.

So often when we read our Bibles we come to these genealogies, or records of ancestry in the Bible and we skip over them.

But if we really believe that all scripture is God-breathed then even the genealogies are there by design, oftentimes to show us something we would miss without them.

In Matthew the Gospel writer gives us a record of Abraham all the way to Jesus, spanning 42 generations.

The immediate thing we see when we read this is that under the law, Jesus was legally a Jew because of his father Joseph. Though he wasn’t biologically Joseph’s, he was legally Joseph’s son, making him an heir to the throne of David.

He was also biologically Jewish because of his Jewish mother Mary.

But when we read this genealogy, there are some anomalies that stand out. 4 of them actually.

Matthew 1:1-6 NLT This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham: 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers. 3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar).

Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron was the father of Ram. 4 Ram was the father of Amminadab. Amminadab was the father of Nahshon. Nahshon was the father of Salmon. 5 Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab). Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth). Obed was the father of Jesse. 6 Jesse was the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah).

Did you catch the anomalies. No, here they are.

Tamar (3)

Rahab (5)

Ruth (5)

Bathsheba (6)

Woman weren’t normally listed in genealogies because it was the father who established the legal rights as a Jew.

Yet, we see women mentioned in the genealogy of not just a great teacher or prophet, but that of the promised Messiah, and eternal King.

Even more strange is that within these 4 woman, 3 other anomalies stand out.

Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth were not only women, but they were gentile women.

Rahab was in fact a Canaanite prostitute who was rescued and saved during the battle of Jericho because she helped the Israelites spies from being caught and killed.

This would have been scandalous to include in the genealogy of the savior of the world, but it was intentionally included to show that this promised King and redeemer hadn’t only come for Jews, not just for men and powerful people, not just for insiders.

The gospel is for all people, including and especially the broken and desperate, the outsider.

Matthew purposely drew our attention to these points of salvation history to paint this image. Christmas is the celebration of God offering himself to all people not matter who you are or what you have done.

We see this celebration once again later on in the New Testament, when James 2 lists Rahab on the same page as Abraham, for the same purpose.

Christ is the coming of salvation for all people. The message in Isaiah 9 isn’t just for the Jews. It was given to the Jews, just as Jesus was, but Jesus was never meant to stop there. Romans 1:16 confirms this: the gospel came for the Jews, through the Jews, but also for the gentiles, by gentiles.

Romans 1:16 NLT 16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile.

Application/Closing

The celebration of Christmas is clear, and it doesn’t start in the beginning of Luke, like many Christmas sermons do. It starts in Genesis. The Christmas story is the story of all time.

It is the story of hope and redemption. It is the story of the prodigal son reuniting with his father. The lost sheep being rescued by his shepherd.

In this last Sunday before we celebrate Christmas Eve we are reminded of God’s love for us. A love that spanned millennia from the time of the fall, to the cross.

A love that put into motion a plan to redeem us from captivity, to save us from our sin.

LIGHT THE LAST CANDLE!!!

It is this last candle that represents and reminds us of that love.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Finally, Christmas!”—as many of us are. I’ve waited and prepared for weeks, if not months for this.

It is my hope that you prepared for the right things.

Do you anticipate Christmas because it points us to a time when Jesus will return?

In your preparation, have you prepared your heart to receive him now, so that you will be with him when he comes back?

Is your reaction to these things that of joy and celebration?

Is the thing you are excited to celebrate the fact that God loves us so much that he sent Jesus be our redeemer?

I hope that as we spend this final week of Advent looking to the birth of Jesus, that we also slow down and take the time to put all of this into perspective.

Not just the birth of Jesus, but all the things leading up to the beginning of the life of Christ. If we are willing to do this, then we will be able to celebrate Christmas as fully as it deserves.