Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Scripture
Introduction
I want you to forget everything you know about the Christmas story.
I really want you to try to hear this for the first time from Luke’s telling of it.
No Matthew mixed in.
Matthew tells the story much differently.
For example Mary and Jospeh already live in Bethlehem.
In Luke they live in Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem because of the Census.
So let’s not homogenize the story either.
Mary didn’t travel on a Donkey, there was no star at all for Luke, so the shepherds did not follow a star.
Here’s some other things to think about.
The shepherds would not have been in the fields.
They would have been in the fields before the sun went down.
But at night the moved their flocks inside of the caves that are above the shepherds field.
Those caves are churches now.
Here’s a mural that is painted on the cave wall.
It’s not accurate either.
We have added so much folk lore to the story.
It does depict the nativity in a cave which is accurate.
it wasn’t in a barn.There would have been (maybe) some livestock but not all those lambs.
There was no piper.
However, hiring a piper to announce the birth of a boy was standard cultural procedure in that day.
The manger wouldn’t have been wood, it would have been stone.
Finally, probably the most absurd thing is this picture is the dog.
Dogs were unclean a jewish family wouldn’t have had a dog.
So you see what we have done to this story.
We’ve made it a cute folk tale and its lost a lot of its true theological meaning.
The scandal of its ordinariness.
Exegesis
So let’s turn to the scripture, Luke’s story and examine the way Luke tells it and why he probably told it this way.
We have heard this story of the birth of Jesus every year we can remember.
It is important where and how Jesus was born.
Oh I know we hear the obvious that being born in Bethlehem was the fulfillment of prophecy and that there was no room for them in the Inn.
What may be the most important fact is not how Jesus was born, but that he was born at all.
It seems people really love the fairy tale like story of Jesus birth and pass by the big story.
That God became incarnate in a human baby and was born in a most ordinary way.
Really, it was ordinary.
It was not unusual for a birth to happen in this manner in that day.
Luke treats it very matter of factly dedicating only 2 verses to the actual birth.
“While they were there she gave birth to her first born son.
Wrapped him up and laid him in a manger, because they couldn’t get a room at the local inn.
Pretty ordinary.
Nothing miraculous about this birth, the conception yes, but not the birth.
Except, that is if you know the whole story.
The story that begins with our need for a savior.
You know we do.
All of us right now, this very minute, in the back of our minds are hoping that someone can save this mess we are in.
Admit it, we are.
It might be the President, or Korea, or Russia.
We don’t care, all we want is a savior for this mess in which we find ourselves Just take a look at what we are promoting as saviors today: The new tax bill.
The wall.
A stronger military.
Make America Great Again.
But this is nothing new.
The New Deal was goin to save us.
Obama care was going to save us.
For some in my generation it was psychedelic drugs.
Electric and hybrid vehicles are supposed to save us.
Being more conscious of our environment is supposed to save us.
Reducing our carbon footprint is supposed to save us.
Frankly, if you really believe any of this is going to save us, you will find that it is no savior.
Just a temporary solution to a much more eternal problem.
I am not saying these things are bad, I am just saying they will never save us.
Never.
But would you agree, that we are a people always looking for a savior?
Electric and hybrid vehicles are supposed to save us.
Being more conscious of our environment is supposed to save us.
Reducing our carbon footprint is supposed to save us.
Frankly, if you really believe any of this is going to save us, you will find that it is no savior.
Just a temporary solution to a much more eternal problem.
I am not saying these things are bad, I am just saying they will never save us.
Never.
But would you agree, that we are a people always looking for a savior?
We need to face the fact that deep down, inside all people are in need of a savior.
Application
Our life is all about the path we take to Bethlehem.
Our path to seeking a savior.
Mary and Joseph were sent there by Caesar.
The Three Kings were sent there by signs in the heavens.
The shepherds were sent there by the angels.
What path are you taking to Bethlehem?
What path are you on ?
What savior are you trying to find?
Now here’s the true miracle of Christmas.
This is the rest of the story.
The real savior, the one you’ll find wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in the manger is looking for you.
That savior is seeking you and the Shepherds on that night so long ago are an example of God seeking us.
The shepherds were not highly regarded people.
They were considered shiftless and dishonest, and this is whom the angels announce the birth of God’s son to.
You see no matter how bad you think you are, no matter what you have done in your past God wants a relationship with you.
God is seeking you out.
God is looking for you, God is giving you signs so that you will know his savior when he finds you!
The shepherds were in the caves minding their own business, watching their flocks when suddenly the heavens erupted with God’s Glory.
Now, those two words God’s Glory are interesting.
Did you know that this Glory is the same Glory that was in the Temple, in the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest could enter and only on Yom Kippur?
And if he was not ritually pure God’s Glory would strike him dead?
These shepherds surely knew that, and that’ why they were terrified.
But this birth, this ordinary birth had somehow changed all that.
This birth was the dawning of a new age.
An age in which humankind and God would not be separated.
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