O Holy Night TLOC
The Lyrics of Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 4 viewsNotes
Transcript
What did the shy pebble wish? That she was a little bolder.
In the Mid 1800s a Priest asked a man to write a poem to Luke 2. The man’s name was Placide Cappeau— a French wine merchant and poet. He was not a Christian and known for being kind of a bad guy. He was the guy who would raise a lot of problems and get in the way. So, he wasn’t the guy most of us would pick to write a poem to a section of scripture. Yet, the priest liked it so much he asked someone else to write the music. Here is the funny part, the Guy who wrote the music wasn’t a Christian either. In fact, it ran through the Catholic church and everyone loved it until it got to a place and they realized it hadn’t been written by christians so they tried to stop it, but they couldn’t. It was loved by too many people for it to end and had caught on with too many people.
Fast forward in time to 1906, Canadian Reginald Fessenden, a 33 yr old university professor did the impossible; he invented AM Radio . On Christmas Eve he created this new type of generator, connected a microphone, and broadcast across the airways for the first time ever. The first thing he did was read Luke 2:1 that says
1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
And after he read the entirety of Luke 2 he pulled out his violin and played the first song to ever be broadcast across the airwaves, and it was this song, O, Holy Night.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Play Song
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It says, O Holy Night, the night when Christ was born. Can you even imagine what it would have been like to been there that night? When we talk about the manger scene gives us this amazing image it promotes these feelings in our hearts and minds. We have the baby Jesus there, and Joseph and Mary, and cows that are lowing; whatever that means, and it almost does a disservice to what is really happening.
You have to remember this virgin teenager and her teenage husband and they have been travelling. In order to complete the census they at this point would have travelled about 80-120 miles which you may not think of as a big deal, but remember she’s 9 months pregnant. Joseph in all his wisdom, not wanting Mary to walk throws her on the back of a donkey.; 100 miles, 9 months pregnant, on the back of a donkey - true fun. I don’t know about you guys but I have driven a pregnant woman to the hospital quite a few times, its not always the most comfortable trip in the world and that is on the inside of a vehicle.
I cant imagine how horrible of a trip this must have been for them. As they are going they find out there is no room in the inn and they end up staying in what most scholars believe was a cave. This is the place they would have sent the animals to keep shelter from the rough weather. For sure it would have been a horribly unclean environment for giving birth; I’m sure she would have been screaming in this little cave. I envision the first time Jennifer gave birth with Josiah and he decided he was going to come out face up, which causes back labor, and I am sure you could have heard her three floors away.
This morning, I want to look at one line of this song and my hope as we continue forward in this series and we pull out these little phrases is you start to look at the words a little differently and it helps you to worship a little differently as you think of these lines of the song.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
Say that with me this morning, a weary world. I think we could describe our society this way today we live in a weary world.
The job market is awful, groceries cost more than a car payment, and we have so much going on that makes us weary, but it says a thrill of hope. In the middle of this night in all of the craziness and emotion and torment of the moment there is a thrill of hope. Everything the Jews had waited on and wanted was about to come to fruition in these moments. Not just that, but everything the world needed, the weary world needed, was about to come to fruition.
And my hope as we look at this song and this story is we will find there is still reason for us to rejoice; there is still a thrill of hope to look forward to, because we still have hope in Jesus to hang our hat on and hold on to for the future.
It says a thrill of hope—weary world rejoices— for yonder breaks a new and glorious morning.
So we cannot just think of that night, we have to think about the next morning as well.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A NEW AND GLORIOUS MORNING
Have you ever noticed often times the next morning everything looks greater, because one day with Christ everything looks better. I just want to focus on that for a minute what happens with Jesus is when he comes in he can absolutely change everything. One moment one new and glorious morning life begins to look better with Jesus. I’m not trying to say everything will look perfect, but when you look back on the moments when you gave your troubles to God and you see the moment you had him in your new morning, it looks so much better. So, lets take a look back for a minute all the way to the book of Lamentations.
After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC— people were distraught. The city was destroyed and the people didn’t know what to do, they were all hurting so we get this prophet and he is lamenting. Really, just like everyone else, and he has this moment where he goes from lamenting to having hope and and the prophet Jeremiah writes:
20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
He is acknowledging there is some serious difficulty around them; it isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. I think if some of us were being honest about our lives we would be able to say the same thing, my life right now isn’t the best, my spirit is a little down, in fact I am a little bit depressed. Yet, let’s not leave Jeremiah alone because he begins to change his mind. Look at the very next line
21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
And he is saying it isn’t at the front of his mind it is something he is going to have to remind himself, because at the front of his mind and the things that are plaguing his thoughts; the things he is seeing every day. I think we can be just like this, the things that plague our thoughts are our situations and what we see everyday - our job that sucks, our co-workers, our daughter in laws, mother in laws, we can keep that in the fore front. We need to take a note from Jeremiah and call to mind the hope that we have; sometimes, we need to preach to ourselves, we have to call it to mind what we have going on and the hope that we still have in Jesus. So what is he calling to mind?
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
And all of a sudden he is so overcome with hope and emotion he almost loses himself and he is talking to God about God and he says
23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
And I want show you three hopes you can hold on to from this text what a
A NEW DAY WITH CHRIST BRINGS you. The first thing you can see it giving you is
1) EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED.
Notice I didn’t say exactly what you want, because often what we want and what we need are two different things.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”
Sometimes you have to say to yourself, and just for your own protection, you may want to only say to yourself aloud if you are alone, because if you say it to yourself aloud in public people may call the police on you. You just tell yourself, you say, “it is bad right now but it will get better.” Jeremiah says the Lord is my portion and you may think what does that mean?
What most scholars believe he is alluding back to the time of the Israelites in the wilderness.
In the wilderness after Gods people escaped from Egypt, he provided food in the form of Manna and he told them to take only what they needed for the day, and if they took more it would rot except for the sixth day, then they could take enough for the sabbath as well. If they tried to store up more it went bad. It was almost as if God was trying to teach them they needed him every day. Us too, we need him everyday, we can’t store him up, we have to depend on him each day. I think that is a good message for us here today; we can’t store him up and we have to depend on him every day. This is some of the problem with how we try to live our lives as Christians, we try to come one day a week and get all the Jesus we need for the rest of the week and hope it is enough to get us through to the time when we need him again. We have this idea we can come in here on Sunday morning and store up all the Jesus we need for the week and that is all it is going to take for us to be strong and well fed. Yet, when we look at the story of the Israelites and the manna what we see is its almost like he is saying just put your faith in me and I will give you everything you need each day.
I believe thats why Jesus taught us to pray, give us THIS day our daily bread. We have to trust him enough for each and every day and not worry about tomorrow because we believe him enough for today. You and I, we need him every single day. We need to call it to mind, “Lord, I need your strength,” “Lord, I need your wisdom.” God is already in the tomorrow all we need to ask him for is what we need today.
He is what your marriage needs; he is what you need in your awful workplace; he is what you need in your broken relationships. If you are weak, he is your strength; if you are lost, he is the way; if you are hurting, he is your comfort; if you are depressed, he is your source of joy.
So, a new day with Christ gives you exactly what you need and what we need is his presence. We need him to be a part of everything we do and every decision we make. I say to myself the Lord is my portion and I will wait for him, but also a new day in Christ gives us.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) THE HOPE TO KEEP GOING.
The lyrics say a thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices, its a thrill of hope in a world of darkness.
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
The Lord is good to those whose HOPE is in him. Where are you putting your hope? Is it in a person, a title, a job, where are you putting all of your hope? One thing is certain, scientist tell us it is possible for us to live about 40 days without food, 8 days without water, 4 minutes without oxygen, but only a few seconds without hope.
There are way too many people living in this world without hope. Truthfully, they have most likely put all their hope in the wrong things. Some people have lost hope because they put all of their hope in a stock market that crashed and failed them. Some people have put all their hope in a company only for it to get rid of them after years of faithful service. Some of us have put our hope in a person, who failed us time and time again. All of these places are the wrong place to put our hope and what happens when do this and it fails is our hope evades us.
Often times we put our hope in the wrong thing because we have become hopeless, we have given up on thinking there to be any solution so we just put our hope in the first thing we can think of, the closest thing. And what happens is our hope inevitably is in the wrong place. Look at what the writer of the book of Hebrews tells us.
23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Hey, you say you believe he provides, you say you believe he is the best; if you truly believe that, you need to hang on to it. Don’t let it go, because the one who made the promise is faithful.
You know what happens when we let go of hope? We start to hold on to fears. We let all the sounds of the world and the situations burden us and come against us. When we let go of the promises and hope found in Jesus we start to hold on to the lies of the enemy; you’re not good enough; you can’t do it; you’ll never make it. It is time for us to let go of the fears and hold on to the hope of Jesus - hold on to the hope you believe in.
The second thing that happens when we let go of hope besides hanging on to fears is we hang on to the anxiety. This is one of the big ones in my life when my vision gets out of whack, we start to worry more. We must remember God has promised he’d never leave or forsake us. We cannot let our anxieties and the lies of the devil get in the way.
We cannot continue to let go of Jesus, we can’t continue to hold on to the doubt. We have to instead hold on to the hope and belief that Jesus will show up in the middle of our darkest storms. This morning it is time for us tolet go of the fears and hold on to hope.
Years ago I heard story of pastor close to man in his church they were part of the same small group but had no idea what was goign on in his friends head, he didn’t know he had lost hope. The man quite unexpectedly killed himself and it was a shock to everyone. So this pastor went and sat with the mans wife and he was hurting as well because they had been so close, they shared a meal together once a week. This pastor, much like the mans wife and everyone were trying to figure it out what had happened; why the man decided to take his life. The pastor said he was leaving her house the next morning and he saw the sunrise and he immediately thought if only his friend had held on to the next day he could have seen the new day dawning and had more hope.
Because a new day with Christ can change everything. Don’t give up hope.
And finally a new day with Christ will bring
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3) THE HELP YOU’RE SEEKING.
26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
Sometimes you just have to wait for it. Some of you need to be saved out of awful situations and all we need to do is wait for it. He has promised us great things and sometimes we have to just wait for it. I know that is a hard thing to do in the middle of those situations, but its amazing what one day can do with the Lord.
It’s amazing the difference one day can make!
Think about Lazarus, he was dead for 4 days, if you read the KJV it tells us he stinketh. Yet, Jesus raised him from the dead. A new day with Jesus changed it. Or think about the Woman with an issue of blood for 12 years she had dealt with the same issue, and in one moment, just one encounter with Jesus and she was healed. Or remember the story of the man at the pool of Bethesda, he was 38 year old man at had at there day after day waiting for the water to be stirred, but in one moment with Jesus it changed everything.
Team
All the stories One thing in common—encounter with Jesus. A New day with Jesus. If you have been Living in the darkness of the night. You need to know a new day’s coming!
11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.
12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
The night is almost over, the darkness of your situation is almost over, the hard times you have been walking through are almost over, and the new day with Jesus can give you everything you need.
This morning some of us need to encounter Jesus, we need to allow him to make a difference in our lives because he can change everything.
Author of hymn knew the story about Jesus birth—didn’t know Jesus. Do you know him this morning or do you just know ABOUT him.
