The gospel according to it's a Wonderful Life

Title: It’s a wonderful life

Text: Psalm 74; Luke 2:8-21

D.T: We know it’s a wonderful life because Christ is born.

List some of your favorite Christmas morning traditions, especially movies. Talk about home alone, talk about a Christmas story, Garfield, peanuts, Rudolf.The movie I never cared for was a kid was It’s a wonderful life

However as I get older I grow to appreciate it’s a wonderful life.

Did you know that when “It’s a wonderful life” debuted in theaters, it was a box office disaster? To this day from a box office standpoint it’s still considered a box office bomb? It was such a failure at the box office that the firm publisher and distributor “Liberty Films” never recouped the losses, and the movie studio folded?

However since then it has gained immense popularity, why? Because people have been able to identify with George Bailey. In the movie, George Bailey contemplates if his life has any meaning to this world, and he even believes the world would be better had he never been born!

We all know what comes next. Georges’s guardian angel Clarence shows George what this world would look like if George never existed. George get’s a picture of what the world looks like without him.

George finds that in the universe where he doesn’t exist, the greedy Mr. Potter has taken over the town of Bedford Falls, and it’s now known as Potters town, and the once charming little town now mirrors the greed of Mr. Potter. George Bailey was all that prevented this alternate universe from being a reality. Because of this the life of George Bailey was wonderful, the world was better off because he was born.

Psalm 74 describes to us a world in which Christ doesn’t exist. Psalm 74 describes a world that is still waiting for the Messiah to come into the world. The life of George Bailey was all that prevented Mr. Potter from running the town without worry. Christ is all that prevents Satan from ruling the world.

In a world without Christ: (Read Psalm 74:1-10

Psalm 74:1–10 ESV

O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt. Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place; they set up their own signs for signs. They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees. And all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers. They set your sanctuary on fire; they profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground. They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land. We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long. How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

This Psalm was the inspiration for the song “O Come o come Emmanuel” and we believe it was written at some point after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. Within t’s words we see themes such as rejection, anger, and hopelessness

Rejection is our theme: We plead with God to hear us, to not be angry with us, and to please save us from the adversary who rules the world. The enemies of God would rule, and there would be no hope to be saved from them.

No signs from God: A world without the gospels, the parables, communion, the cross, the tomb. What would our world look like without this?

We hope for Salvation: In a world without Christ we would hope and know that God brings salvation, we just wouldn’t know what or who that salvation comes through.

In this world, “O come, O come Emmanuel” is still the reality of waiting for Christ, not a reflection on waiting for Christ.

We sometimes forget how blessed we are to live in a time period when the messiah is a reality, not something we are waiting upon.

The time period between Testaments is called the intertestamental period or the 400 years of silence. So the waiting, the desperation we see in Psalm 74? Eventually things would get better for the people of Israel, the prophets would speak again. However 100 some years later the prophets were silent again. The Old Testament didn’t experience the constant hope we have in Christ. When the prophets spoke, everything was great. When the prophets were silent, things we often bleak. Between the prophet Malachi, and the angelic visits of Gabriel to Mary and Elizabeth the prophets would be silent 400 years. They are still asking “O come o come emmanuel.”

To give you perspective on how long the people waited, consider this. The United States is 248 years old. If the 400 years of silence started in 1776, we’d still have 152 years before Jesus would be born. This just takes the 400 years of silence into consideration. Think about how long people were waiting on the messiah before that point. The first promise of the messiah came about all the way in Genesis 3, since then, the people waited.

In a world with Christ

Like George Bailey, this alternate glimpse of what our reality could be should grant us perspective. George Bailey knew it was a wonderful life because he’d been born. We know it’s a wonderful life because Christ is born. (Read Luke 2:1-8

Luke 2:1–8 ESV

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 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, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 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. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

In it’s A Wonderful life, near the end of the movie we find George Bailey standing on a bridge pleading to have his old life back. In a desperate prayer he says to God Please! I want to live again! I want to love again! Because of Jesus, and the good news of great joy for all the people, we get that chance, not just now, but for eternity. Because of this, we know it’s a wonderful life.