Sermon Tone Analysis

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On Christmas Eve, 1998, George Will wrote a column called “The Happiest Holiday.”

It began this way:

A cynical British skeptic of the late 19th century suggested that three words should be carved in stone over all church doors: “Important if true.”

On Christmas Eve, at the end of the rarely stately and always arduous march that Americans make each year to the happiest holiday, it sometimes seems that they are supposed to celebrate Christmas as though they have agreed to forget what supposedly it means.

There are several reasons why forgetting, actual or make-believe, is not altogether unfortunate.

First, some people really have forgotten, or never knew, or never cared about Christmas’s religious dimension but they can still enjoy, and benefit from, the seasonal upsurge of nonsectarian goodwill.

Second, many Americans are of faiths that assert Christianity is mistaken about what occurred in Palestine 1,998 years ago, and in the 33 or so years thereafter.

This is a case where a mainstream writer gets closer to the truth than many theologians do.

I was thinking about what he wrote when I received an e-mail last night from Erwin Lutzer, pastor of Moody Church in Chicago.

He wrote about this and that, and then he said,

What are you preaching these days?

I’ve decided to do a defense of Jesus this Christmas—just finished preparing a message on the Da Vinci Code that is grabbing so much attention.

An incredibly sly attack against Christianity.

That little phrase stuck in my mind—"a defense of Jesus this Christmas.”

Have we finally reached the place where Jesus needs defending at Christmastime? Evidently the answer is yes, and I’m sure Dr. Lutzer will do a stellar job.

Gene Edward Veith, writing in the current issue of World magazine (December 6, 2003), chronicles the rising tide of doctrinal illiteracy among born again Christians.

He quotes a Barna poll of self-identified “born again Christians” that contains disturbing news:

26% believe all religions are basically equal.

50% believe that good works will get you to heaven.

35% do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

45% do not believe that Satan exists.

33% accept same-sex marriage.

38% say it is okay to live together before marriage.

Veith adds this comment: “This is strong evidence of how American Christianity is conforming to the dominant secular culture.

It is all right to be religious, according to the dictates of postmodernism, as long as your faith exists just in your head.

If you start claiming that your beliefs are more than just a private mental state that makes you feel good, asserting instead that what you believe is objectively real and valid for everybody, then you are an intolerant menace to society.”

Christmas and the Christian Worldview

I think the British skeptic had a good point when he said we should write over the door of every church: “Important if true.”

Those three little words hang in the air as we approach Christmas this year.

But what if the things we believe are not true?

How can we be sure?

Certainly there are doubts on every hand.

Maybe Jesus does need defending in 2003.

Or perhaps we need to remind ourselves of what we really believe.

Last month I was invited to speak to a group of ministers at a breakfast meeting in Carol Stream.

When I arrived, I discovered that the only person I knew was Pastor Lou Diaz of Wheaton Evangelical Free Church.

I’ve known Lou for many years but hadn’t seen him in a while so we chatted before my talk.

He told me that he was thinking about doing a series of sermons called “Christmas and the Christian Worldview.”

I was immediately struck by what he said because we tend to sentimentalize Christmas when we ought to see the birth of Christ as the single most stupendous event in world history.

If you think about it, all the elements of a Christian worldview are in the Christmas story.

Because the coming of Christ changed history—literally, from B.C. to A.D.—we aren’t straining things to say, “Everything is different now that Christ has come to the world.”

This isn’t a sentimental thought—like “The Little Drummer Boy” or “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

The coming of Christ establishes the truth of all that we believe.

Seen in its proper context, Christ’s birth speaks with incredible relevance to 21st-century people who write off Christmas as nothing more than eggnog and candy canes.

I hope that in the next four weeks we can lay a foundation for seeing Christmas as the basis for all that we believe.

Let’s begin with the observation that the Bible makes some rather astounding claims relating to Christmas:

· An angel visited a virgin who became pregnant by the Holy Spirit.

· The baby in her womb was the Son of God from heaven.

· God caused a heathen emperor to call for a taxation that sent Mary and Joseph back to Bethlehem at the very moment Jesus was born.

· Prophets foretold both the virgin birth, and his birth in Bethlehem hundreds of years before it happened.

· A star led the Magi from the East directly to the house in Bethlehem where Jesus was.

· Angels spoke to shepherds.

· An angel spoke to Joseph on three separate occasions.

· An angel spoke to the Magi, warning them not to return to Herod.

· Even the slaughter of the infant boys of Bethlehem fulfilled ancient prophecy.

· When aged Simeon held baby Jesus in his arms, he prophesied of his death on the cross.

Then there are the names he is given:

· Wonderful Counselor

· Mighty God

· Everlasting Father

· Prince of Peace

· Jesus—Savior

· Immanuel—God with us

· Son of the Most High

· Christ the Lord

Then there are the things he will accomplish:

· He will save his people from their sins.

· He will reign from David’s throne in Jerusalem.

· His kingdom will never end.

Things We Hardly Think About

I submit to you that these are absolutely stupendous claims if you think about them, which we rarely do.

We would rather sing Handel’s Messiah than stop to think about what it really means.

We sing these words by Charles Wesley but we don’t stop to consider their meaning:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail th’incarnate Deity,

Pleased as man with men to dwell,

Jesus, our Emmanuel.

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the Newborn King!

Or this verse from another familiar carol:

True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal,

Lo, He shuns not the Virgin’s womb;

Son of the Father, begotten, not created.

You don’t hear many sermons about that last phrase—"begotten, not created"—and I suppose many of us hardly know what it means—yet it refers to one of the most crucial doctrinal controversies in the history of the Christian church.

“Important if true.” brings us face to face with the reality of Christmas with these stirring words: “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.”

Here we see the glory and tragedy of the human race.

We are crowned with glory and honor.

We were created to rule over the earth.

That is our glory.

We were made in the image of God.

Once every four years the greatest athletes in the world meet in the Olympic Games.

They run, they jump, they swim, they hurdle, they wrestle, they throw, they dive, they lift.

And at the end of the day, whoever can do it fastest, farthest, quickest, highest, longest wins the gold medal.

And for that day at least, they are the best in the world.

That’s our version of glory and honor.

But the glory soon fades.

Records are made to be broken, and sooner or later, every record is broken.

And all our heroes end up with feet of clay.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost wrote about this in one of his most famous poems: