Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
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Tone of specific sentences
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Why?
Why do we do certain things?
Why do we celebrate certain things?
Why?” isn’t always a bad question to ask.
It was Gwen and Ed’s first Christmas as husband and wife.
They didn’t have a whole lot of money.
Gwen was making her first Christmas dinner.
And with only a little money, this meal was extra special.
The day of the big dinner came.
Ed was watching his wife lovingly prepare the Christmas ham.
She prepared a glaze with brown sugar, raisins and cloves.
She put a bit of allspice and red peppers in it.
She whisked it all together, and let it warm on the stovetop.
She took the ham, cut off one end of the ham, tossed it out, and put the rest of the ham into a roasting pan.
She slowly poured the glaze over the ham until there were puddles of it pooling underneath it.
She roasted at 350 degrees for 2 and a half hours.
Ed watched this happen.
At the very beginning he was a little confused.
He watched his wife cut off one perfectly good end of the ham and throw it away, he was curious.
“Honey, why do you cut off part of the ham and throw it away?
That looked perfectly good.”
Gwen answered, “I don’t know.
My mother always did it that way, and it’s always been delicious.”
Gwen’s curiosity was pricked.
After the meal she called her mom and asked her the same question.
“Mom, why do you cut off the end of the ham and throw it away.”
Gwen’s mom gave a similar answer to the one she gave Ed, “Well sweetie, I am not sure.
That’s how my mom always did it.
It’s an old family recipe.”
Gwen’s mom now was equally curious, so she called her mom.
“Mom, why do we cut off the end of the ham when we roast it?”
Her mom was quiet for a moment, and then said, “I don’t know why you do it.
When you were a child I did it once because my roasting pan was too small for the ham.
Have you really been cutting off all that ham over the years?”
Generations of women throwing out perfectly good Christmas ham, because they never asked that one question that all children ask when they are told to do something by their mom, “Why?”
Why is not a bad question to ask.
Why do we do the things that we do?
Why do we celebrate the things that we do.
And at Christmas time there are plenty of these “Why” questions to be asked.
Childbirth is an usual thing.
There’s something truly different about it.
Why do we celebrate Christmas?
Everyone has experienced childbirth.
Why do we put special emphasis on a birth scene?
Why do we include the people that we do in a nativity?
After all, we are all born.
But everyone is different.
I come from a family of 7 children.
Why are there shepherds?
Some of us were born in hospitals.
Why are there wise men?
Why this baby?
A couple were born in the home.
And the question we will ask today is “Why the virgin birth?”
Some were born with medication.
It’s certainly an important question.
While others were born without
One of my siblings was born from C-Section.
It’s so important that in the early 4th century, the church had a creed, called the Apostles’ Creed.
Everyone is unique and different.
It served as a statement of what the church believed.
I don’t know if this is a generational thing, or just a weird Kirkendall thing, but my parents liked to document the birth of my brothers and sisters.
There are photo albums of children being born.
It was concise way of saying, “If you are a Christian, this is what Christians believe.”
In fact, when I was 7, I was there when one of my siblings was born.
And I remember, my dad in the labor room, complete with one of those old home video cameras.
It begins by saying, “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.”
Huge.
So certainly, the early church thought it was important.
It sat upon his shoulder like a bazooka, filming every moment.
The thing is, no one wants to see those old photos.
I’ve never had anyone come to my house and say, Luke, let’s see the pictures of when you were born.
It wasn’t something that was debatable.
Yet, there is one childbirth that stands out.
It stands unique.
So today, we ask the question “Why?”
Why the virgin birth?
It is a scene that people want to see.
And there are 3 reasons for the Virgin Birth.
3 Reasons why it’s not debatable.
At Christmas time, we decorate our homes with this scene.
Which in turn is why, we celebrate the virgin birth at Christmas.
Some people collect these scenes.
If you have your Bibles, please open them up to .
Some even decorate their front yards in these scenes.
We will look at .
This of course is the nativity, the birth of Jesus.
Read Matthew 1:18-25.
There is no other birth in history, where people do this.
There are light up Joseph’s, in his pink robe, standing above a kneeling and also lit up Mary.
In front of the two of them is a small manger, with Jesus lying within it.
Have you ever stopped to ask the question, why?
That’s what we will be asking over these next 4 weeks, “Why?”
At Christmas time, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus.
As I think about the nativity scene, there are different characters there.
Mary and Joseph.
The Shepherds.
The Wise men.
The baby.
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