O Come: Christ is Born

Sermon Introduction

One of life’s little pleasures are having little brown boxes delivered to your porch once in a while…

I’m talking of course about Amazon deliveries. I think some of us here might have ordered a thing or two from Amazin, right?

Have you ever wondered where those little boxes come from?

Amazon Warehouses of course… Near my house, on Salem and Rossland, we actually have a massive one...

I read somewhere that this warehouse is more than 1 Million Square feet…

And it cost Amazon more than 100 Million dollars to build

Now here’s the interesting part… does anyone know what this warehouse is called?

They call it Fulfillment Centers...

These are the places that Amazon builds in order to fulfill their ridiculous promise to deliver the little gadgets that we buy from China in a day or two...

And I have to say, they’re pretty good at it...

Earlier this week, we finalized our plans for where we’re going to spend Noche Buena… We’re going to my aunt’s house in Mississauga...

And we’re going to do White Elephant with my cousins there...

For those of you who don’t know what that is, because I didn’t either… or what I mean is that I never heard the name White Elephant, literally before this year… I know this as Yankee Swap…

But this is basically the exchange gift game where you can steal other people’s gift right?

And of course, Marcia and I have to bring a gift in order to participate… And of course, I went on Amazon to buy these gifts

They need to change the song lyrics… “Exchange gift na galing sa Amazon”

Anyway, I ordered them on Monday night, and sure enough by Tuesday afternoon it was in a brown box on our front porch...

Amazon had once again fulfilled their promise!

Fulfillment at Christmas

As amazing as Amazon’s fulfilling its promise to deliver my Panini Press less than 24 hours after I ordered it is, however, it cannot even begin to compare to the fulfillment that occurs at Christmas

It was a 24-hour promise though that the birth of Jesus fulfilled… It was a promise that was many thousands of years in the making…

We had already looked at some of these promises in this sermon series...

Isaiah 7:14 “14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Isaiah 9:6 “6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

These are examples of what we call Particular Fulfillment, where Jesus specifically fulfilled something foretold in the Old Testament...

A couple of other examples related to Christmas specifically...

Micah 5:2 “2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”

This of course is fulfilled in Luke 2:4–5 “4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.”

In Psalm 72:10 “10 May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!”

Matthew 2:1–2 “1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.””

This leads to two further prophecies, first Hosea 11:1 “1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”

This was in turn fulfilled in Matthew 2:13–14 “13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt”

The second is an unfortunate one: in Jeremiah 31:15 it says, “15 Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.””

This is fulfilled in Matthew 2:16 “16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.”

All of these serve to validate that Jesus is indeed the Messiah that God had promised… But even more importantly, these prophecies, fulfilled by Jesus are just the beginning...

These are just the first of the more than 300 Old Testament Prophecies that Jesus will eventually fulfill...

Humble Birth

We will talk about the Ultimate Prophecy that Jesus fulfilled next week… But today, just to finish off our time in the word, and to give you a little preview of next week...

I just want to point out an important aspect of Jesus’ birth that we sometimes overlook...

That is how humble his birth was...

It’s sometimes hard to imagine how low key Jesus’ birth really was because of how just about the entire world celebrates it now...

EXAMPLE OF PRINCE GEORGE BIRTH (2013)

Best medical care

All over the news

What a contrast with Jesus’ birth…

In a Manger... Luke 2:6–7 “6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

To Shepherds… Luke 2:8–9 “8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.”

This sets us up for the kind of life that Jesus is going to live...

Philippians 2:6–7 JESUS “...though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Which of course leads us to the very reason for Jesus’ incarnation… Philippians 2:8 “8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Again we will be covering that in more detail next week… But for now I just want to close with one final verse related to Jesus’ humility...

I know that Christmas can be a challenging time for some people...

Pain and hurt

Busy

Matthew 11:28–30 “28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.””