Once Each Year

Luke 2:1-7

Once Each Year

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.  (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)  And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

eading the editorials in various national newspapers yesterday morning, I realised in a fresh way that at Christmas the world is compelled to take notice of the Faith.  A world in which each individual is intent on promoting his or her own welfare once each year is brought to the grudging admission that God did indeed became a man.  Secular opinion writers, many of whom openly acknowledge themselves to be unbelievers, yet long—if even for a moment—for peace on earth and good will toward men.

Most of those writing have no idea what God meant when His angel choir extended their songs promising peace and divine favour to the inhabitants of the earth.  The majority of those professional opinion writers reflect the desire of most of mankind for peace.  The peace they envision, however, is an absence of war, a cessation of national and international conflict, freedom to remain undisturbed and as they are.  Worse yet, they have created a caricature of this Son of God who indeed was born of a virgin.  They see Him as a sort of Casper Milquetoast, willing to tolerate almost anything so long as we give Him an occasional nod, especially at Christmas and Easter.

If your image of the Christ is that of an infant, weak and dependent upon man for even the basics of existence, you are over two thousand years out of date.  It is true that God did send His Son into the world as an infant.  There can be no question but that very God was dependent upon a child for nourishment, for cleansing, for comfort and love.  We who are believers grapple with the knowledge that the Son of God humbled Himself in that fashion.  We marvel at the thought that the Son of God shared our humanity, being born as has each of us.  That the hope of all mankind would depend upon the care of a pre-teen girl and her teenage fiancé is startling, at the least.  That God’s salvation would depend upon the sensitivity of these two children to His will is astonishing.

Nevertheless, the Son of God was born, and after being presented in the Temple (as was required for all firstborn children under the Law), we know practically nothing of His family life.  After that initial burst of divine activity—an angelic announcement attended by a choir of angels, shepherds so jubilant and astonished that they forsook their sheep and hurried to see a babe in a manger, Magi who trekked across long deserts with gifts for a child they could only guess had been born, and a maddened king who slaughtered every infant two years and under in the vicinity of tiny Bethlehem—all became quiet for almost thirty years.  Has ever a birth been attended by such momentous portents since?  Has ever a child entered this life with such heavenly attention and with such human opposition as did this child?

John the Baptist, a cousin of the Messiah in human terms, appeared almost thirty years later to prepare the way for the unveiling of God’s work.  He came with a demanding message for all those who heard him.  He called men to righteousness—not niceness.  He called the people to submission—not self-exaltation.  He called those who heard him to faith—not effort.  After six months of preaching a message of surrendering the self-life in order to accept a life of seeking God’s glory, the Messiah was revealed.  All along, He had been among the people, waiting for the appropriate time for His revelation.  When He was identified, He was not what the people expected or wanted.

Like the opinion writers of this day, people then wanted a Messiah who would leave them undisturbed.  They wanted a Messiah who might make their condition better, but who would demand little of them and who would be sufficiently polite to avoid offending them.  However, the Son of God disturbs and offends by His very presence.  The words He spoke after His unveiling address His purpose in coming.

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.  I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to turn

a man against his father,

a daughter against her mother,

a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—

a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it [Matthew 10:34-39].

We want a Saviour we can control.  We want a Saviour who demands nothing of us.  We want a Saviour who is compliant to our will.  That is not the Son of God, however.  That is not the child who was born in Bethlehem.

Isaiah had prophesied over 750 years before His birth:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

[Isaiah 53:2b, 3]

Despite effeminate portrayals to the contrary, the Son of God did not possess an attractive visage.  His stature and bearing had nothing about it which would attract people to Him.  If people are drawn to the Son of God, it is because of His message of life and not because He has fulfilled a human ideal.

He is the Saviour of all who will receive Him, but He will save on His terms and not those of dying men.  He was born so that He could die.  Yes, all mankind does die, but the death of this One was different.  He would die, not because of His own sin, but because of the sin of others.  The message we deliver is that God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God [2 Corinthians 5:21].

Had He died and remained dead as expected, who would have noticed?  Perhaps there would have persisted a story of His sacrifice among a few pious people, but His death as a sacrifice for sinful people received credence by His resurrection from the dead.  If Christ did not rise from the dead, why does all the world observe Christmas?  If Christ is not alive, why should the world celebrate this day?  If the Son of God did not conquer death and if He does not now possess power over all mankind, why celebrate His birth?

Canadians do not celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King.  Canadians do not celebrate the birth of Frederick the Great.  Canadians do not celebrate the birth of Julius Caesar.  Great men live and die, and though a nation may for a brief time remember their brief presence by observing their birth as a national holiday, the whole world acknowledges that God became man by celebrating Christmas.

I am always astonished as I note that the Ginza is gaily lighted with Christmas lights and Christian symbols during the Christmas season.  Japanese Shinto priests and Buddhist priests jostle with others along thoroughfares proclaiming the birth of God’s Son.  Throughout Asia and Europe the birth of God’s Son is proclaimed, though the majority of the populations are atheists, pagans, Buddhists, Hindus, or even animists.

Here is the intriguing part of this birth, though distorted by the selfish desires resident within all mankind, the message of His presence somehow breaks through.  Despite cynicism and sarcasm concerning what may come in future days, our world again acknowledges that something of significance did occur over two thousand years ago.  An event so momentous that time was forever divided did take place.  God did break through to remind all mankind that they are accountable to Him.

God did send His Son into a world best described as cynical and dead before God.  That Son of God came in humility and weakness to provide a sacrifice for sinful people.  Frankly, if your Christmas tree fails to display a cross, it fails to demonstrate an understanding of the purpose of His coming.  He was born to die because of your sin. 

His coming disturbed the great and the wealthy of that day.  At His birth, the King of the land was disturbed—and the whole of the capital with him.  The presence of God’s Son still disturbs rather than comforts.  The disturbance is because sinful man seeks his own peace and not that peace which God alone can give.  God offers in Christ the peace which comes from forgiveness of sin, peace which comes from freedom to approach God, peace which attends the soul at rest in God’s goodness.  So long as you look for freedom to do what you wish instead of seeking freedom to be what God wants, you will always pursue a will-‘o-the-wisp.

For a brief moment, listen to the message of Christmas.  When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.  Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”  So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir [Galatians 4:4-7].  Christmas is all about God’s provision for you to enter into the inheritance which God Himself longs to confer on each individual.  That inheritance shall be denied you if you fail to submit to the mastery of God’s Son.

Christ did not come to a world filled with good people, but He came to a world of sinners—and that includes us.  We know that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [Romans 3:23].  The terrible corollary of this truth is the knowledge that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord [Romans 6:26].  As sinners, we are condemned and helpless, and the evidence that we are sinners is our pending death.

The message of Christmas begins with this distressing truth which is displayed against the black backdrop of sin, but it quickly redirects our attention to this glorious message of hope and of peace and of God’s good will.  You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us [Romans 5:6-8].

This is what you should do in light of this truth.  If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.  As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”  For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [Romans 10:9-13].

May your Christmas be blessed with the presence of the Living Christ, the Son of God who frees us from all sin and who gives us peace with God and peace in the midst of a sinful world.  Amen.