Sermon Tone Analysis

Christmas Eve

The Cast of Christmas

The Arrival and Invitation

Every Christmas morning, Grandpa would go to his favorite restaurant in our hometown for his holiday breakfast.

Grandpa would always have the eggs Benedict.

Just before they would bring out his order, Grandpa would make a special request.

He’d hand over the hubcap from his old Studebaker and say, “Would you mind serving my breakfast to me on this?”

The waitress always complied.

But one year, she said, “I just have to ask.

Why do you always have me serve your eggs Benedict on this hubcap every Christmas morning?” “Well,” Grandpa said, “There’s no plate like chrome for the hollandaise.”

It’s good to be home this Christmas.

Whether you’re visiting or at home, I want you to know that you are welcome here.

I’ve always loved Christmastime and its traditions.

I love the special meals.

I love the season.

I love the lights.

I love the music.

Christmas Eve was always such an exciting time when I was a kid.

The anticipation grew to almost unbearable levels as Christmas Eve approached.

Like most kids as I was growing up, if you asked me what Christmas was all about, I would likely have said, “It’s about Jesus,” but in my heart I’d have been thinking, “Presents.”

No matter how hard I’d try, I couldn’t make myself feel as excited about Jesus’s birthday as I felt about ripping into those packages with my name on them under our family Christmas tree.

As a kid, I wanted it all to be about Jesus, but the presents had a pretty strong pull on my heart.

I’m not sure if I should admit this to you, being the pastor on Christmas Eve and all, but as I stand here, I’m pretty excited to see what I’m getting for Christmas.

I’m really excited to see how my family reacts to what they get.

I’m not going to ask you to pretend like there aren’t other things going on in your mind.

I’m not going to ask you to pretend that you don’t really care about the gifts, the food, the family time, and the celebration.

I know the power of food and presents.

I am, however, going to ask you to take this short time we have together to pause with me for just a moment to focus on the Greatest Gift that has ever been given.

presents the gift to us: “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 guest room available for them.”

presents the gift to us: “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 guest room available for them.”

Jesus’s arrival says so much about who He is and how He operates in our lives.

The Gift first presented Himself in a similar way to how He presents Himself to us right now.

His parents had left their hometown of Nazareth to be registered for the census, and they couldn’t find a place to stay.

It’s a remarkable event if you consider who Jesus is.

He is the Almighty One.

says, “Through him all things were made.”

He has the ability to peel back the heavens, to stop time, to thunder to the ends of the earth.

Yet there was no room for Him when He arrived.

The way He was received—or, more accurately, ignored—speaks so much about how we can respond to Him even at this moment.

The manner of His arrival reminds us that Jesus doesn’t force Himself upon any of us.

He doesn’t make threats, doesn’t beg, doesn’t make a grand display.

Instead, in His arrival that night and in His arrival right now, He offers us all a quiet invitation—a call to be welcomed in and welcomed home in the dark night of our own hearts.

It’s no coincidence that the inn was too crowded for him.

How ironic that the One who came to welcome us back home to relationship with God spent His first night in a barn, lying in a feeding trough, because no one welcomed Him in.

The circumstances of His birth show how people throughout the ages would misunderstand and reject Him.

More often, though, people simply wouldn’t have room in their lives and would just ignore the great gift and the great invitation that He extends to us all.

For the last four weeks, our church has been looking at the cast of characters in this amazing arrival and rescue mission.

As we remember each of their responses to Jesus’s arrival, let’s consider our response to the fact that Jesus has arrived right here in this place as well.

Jesus is here right now, wanting to be a greater part of your life or to become part of your life for the first time.

In fact, if you’ve never responded to Jesus’s invitation and arrival by giving your life to Him, I will give you an opportunity to do so in just a little while.

Perhaps you can already sense He is knocking at the door of your heart.

The prophets, angels, shepherds, and Magi all had an important part to play in this wonderful arrival.

They all responded to Jesus in a unique but wonderful way.

Let’s consider their responses to His arrival as we consider how we will respond this Christmas.

Misguided Responses

Before we look at those responses, let’s consider a couple of common responses people have to Christmas today.

Many people feel that God is primarily concerned with our behavior.

We feel that God is pleased with good people and mad at bad people.

Many of us look to our own goodness—or maybe I should say our “less badness.”

As we consider Jesus’s arrival on earth, many of us hope in the idea that we aren’t really bad people.

Most of us, after all, haven’t murdered anyone.

The problem with that approach is that our comparisons of goodness are ridiculous in the light of the goodness of God.

Let’s say the planet Mars represents the goodness of the average person.

Comparatively, your goodness is quite a bit greater—your goodness is the size of Earth, which according to Space.com is about twice the size of Mars.[1]

Well done.

The problem is that, in comparison to us, God’s goodness is closer to the sun.

According to Universe Today, you could fit 1.3 million Earths into the sun.[2] You can quickly see that in light of the goodness and holiness of God, the little differences we see between one another aren’t perceptible.

We know Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot were evil, but the truth is, our goodness is much closer to theirs than it is to God’s.

In , Paul tells us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

This is the holiday where we remember that God took a huge step toward us.

We were in trouble.

Although we were created to be with Him, our hearts had turned far from Him.

There was a barrier between us and our Creator that had to be dealt with.

If a couple thousand years of Jewish history teaches us anything, it’s that the answer wasn’t going to be found in our own effort and resolve to try harder.

God took a big step toward us by coming to live with us, show the way, and remove the barrier through His death for us.

It’s not about being good; it’s about being near to God through Jesus!

I know that some of us are here right now because it’s expected or even required.

Grandma said everyone has to go to church, so here you are.

If that’s where you find yourself—that you’d rather we just be done with all this religious stuff so we can get home and get to the good stuff—I want you to know that I get it, and I’m really grateful and honored that you’re here.

I know as a group we Christians have given you a few good reasons to consider shutting out the story of Christmas.

This simple story of Christmas isn’t about this church or even a religion.

It’s about relationship with God.

It’s about love, life, and freedom.

If you’ve already made up your mind or you’re shutting out this simple story, I’d ask you to consider a different response.

Try to look beyond all you’ve heard about Jesus and all the things you’ve seen people do in the name of Jesus, and try to find out for yourself who Jesus is.

Out in the foyer, we have a table with some Bibles on it, and we’d love for you to take one if you don’t already have a Bible.

Before you completely close the door to Jesus, open the Bible to the section titled “Matthew” and read it straight through to the end of the section titled “John”—those pages are all about Jesus’s life, and they are also called the Gospels.

It’s only a little more than one hundred pages altogether.

You can decide whatever you’d like about me or the music or this service, but don’t shut the door on Jesus until you’ve taken a look for yourself at who He really is and what His birth really means.

This isn’t a question of what church you go to.

This is a question of what eternity holds for you.

It’s a question of who God is, what God wants, and what your life could mean within the answers to those questions.

The stakes are high enough that it’s at least worth taking a serious look.

Like the Prophets

God had been talking about this arrival for thousands of years before it took place.

It’s amazing to think that specific words about Jesus’s birth and death were recorded hundreds and even thousands of years before He was born.

Through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, the prophets knew we needed a Savior, and they spoke of His coming.

We can respond to Jesus this Christmas as the prophets responded to Him.