Hidden Christmas (Series Conclusion)
Notes
Transcript
Luke 2:1-7
You know, as a minister, I get asked a lot of questions. I’ve been asked everything from “What is the best Bible translation?” to “Where did Cain get his wife?” And there has always been people who have asked what does God do? Where is God? Is God hidden?
Across the centuries, this is a charge that has often been leveled against God, yet the Bible claims precisely the opposite. The Bible declares over and over again the truth that God has been actively involved in human history. If God stopped doing what He does even for a second, this whole universe would fall apart. I could not show up for work one day, and things would move right along, but if God ceased His involvement in this universe for even an instant, everything would come to a grinding halt. God is involved in our world. He is not hidden. And He proved it.
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.
God is involved in our world. This was one of the qualities that distinguished Him so radically from the false gods made and worshiped by men. If you look in the Old Testament in Isaiah, you find that Babylonian gods had no power at all; in fact, they had to be picked up and carried around by people. But our God shows us how utterly different He is from the idols of Babylon or the idols of America. Instead of being carried by those who worship Him, our God does the carrying.
In contrast to the gods of pagans, there was a God who could do something. Here is a God who was not just a figment of human imagination or the creation of human hands. Our God is alive and active. God is described in this dynamic way throughout all of the Bible.
God is not some absentee landlord uninterested in the affairs of men. The pages of this book proclaim over and over again that God does act in time and space. But the question is how this happens. How does God “carry” us as He promised? When God does not act in ways we expect, we can think, "He does nothing, nothing at all.” John Claypool writes, “To see God’s involvement in our lives, we must widen our perceptions of what constitutes God’s involvement.” On this last Sunday of Advent, I want us to consider how the Christmas story records that God is not hidden. On that first “silent, holy night,” He joined us in the human struggle.
Verse 6: While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born
He dared to enter this world the way every one of us enters it and to participate fully in this journey from womb to tomb. In Jesus, and only in Jesus, God became flesh; He became a man. Though His conception was supernatural, Jesus’ birth was that of a normal child born of a human mother. Like you and me, He got hungry and thirsty. His feet ached, and He got weary from traveling. When He was sad, He wept; When He was happy, He smiled. When He was angry, He revealed it. When He got cold, He chilled. When hot, He perspired. He needed sleep and refreshment. As the man, Jesus, God came down to our level.
He went through our human experience. He walked down all the roads we had to travel. He left the glory of Heaven and joined us here on earth. God became one of us.
A lot of people today have a tough time understanding and believing that Jesus, God the Son, was born of a virgin and became one of us. Such a supernatural story is hard for many in the modern world to swallow. But the modern world has a strange love-hate relationship with the supernatural. Many people dive into astrology, crystals, and horoscopes but say Jesus was not the Son of God, Immanuel – God with us. It’s okay to believe in a psychic, but it’s impossible to believe Jesus is God’s son. It’s okay to call the psychic hotline but not to call Jesus God in human form. God became one of us.
You see, the most important thing God has ever done is when Jesus was born that first Christmas night. God can identify with the human race, and his birth reflects such identification. God did the opposite of being hidden. He came for all to see by identifying with all humanity.
God knows what it is like to be a human being in this world because that first Christmas morning, He became one.
God not only did something to help us deal with our temporary existence in this life. Jesus’ birth was God acting to change eternity for all who will let Him do so. When you change eternity that is not something hidden.
When Jesus was born, God didn’t just become one of us so that He could understand us. He became one of us so He could die for us. God came to earth so that he could take our sins upon Himself. He conquered death for us! This is the greatest miracle of all time.
Parting the Red Sea, healing someone of disease, stuff like this is nothing compared to the miracle that takes place when a person like you or me repents of his or her sin and accepts God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ death on the cross, that the most miraculous thing God is doing.
Jesus was sent from heaven to identify with us, to walk with us, to die for us, to be raised for us, and relate to us. That is what God did for us. That is what God is doing for us today. God is not hidden. No wonder famous and beloved blind believer and hymn writer Fanny Cosby wrote:
To God be the glory of the great things He has done
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin
And opened the life gate that all may go in.
Even the blind see that God is not hidden. He became one of us. He works in and through our lives and guides and understands us. God is actively seeking out His creation. He is looking to have a relationship with you. He wants to fill that void you have tried to fill with everything else. He is looking to change your life and, through you, change the world. Christmas declares that God is not hidden. Christmas is the message that God is here.
COMMUNION
