Christmas Day (3)

John 1:1–14 NIV84

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

One of the great hopes when a child is born is that that child will mature and become someone who will have a great impact on history. Most of the time, we can’t realize this until after the person has had a great impact on history. So when that person becomes great, we research their beginnings and discover one of several things.

Humble beginnings. Who would have know that someone born under those circumstances would achieve so much. (Research an example.)

We tend to admire and wish how we were born with a silver spoon, just like how lucky Paris Hilton was. While rich background certainly helps, it’s not the only way to the top. Some of the world’s one percent wealthiest people started out dirt poor. And the reason why they’re still the wealthiest today is precisely that – they had a humble beginning hence they know how to appreciate it more than anyone.

It’s true that the rich do get richer simply because money makes money. But these successful people did it through strong determination and extreme hard work before they make it to the list of the rich and famous. For example, Warren Buffett built his savings as a kid by delivering newspapers. And Donald Trump was made to collect empty soda bottles in exchange for money while Li Ka-Shing worked 16 hours a day making plastic flowers.

Advantageous circumstances. The person was born with the proverbial “silver spoon in his mouth” and given every chance to succeed. Kennedy’s?

Superior genetics. In professional football, have you noticed that the last names of star players a generation ago are resurfacing as their children have now taken to the gridiron? McCaffrey, Matthews, Peyton and Eli Manning top the list. Packer fans may remember quarterback David Whitehurst (1972 playoffs) whose son Charles also played.

In the Bible we have at least one example of how an outstanding child seemed destined for greatness.

Exodus 2:1–17 (NIV84)

1 Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. And the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” 11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” 14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. 16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

There are also examples of people who came from very humble circumstances and achieved greatness. Amos was a “picker of figs”. David came from shepherding his father’s flocks. Gideon was from the smallest of families from the least likely of tribes of Israel.

The common thread is that as an infant, a child may have the potential to become someone great whether it was because of genetics, innate ability, targeted upbringing, or wide decisions. In each case the person began his/her existence at conception and then became what they were. That is the way it is. We don’t exist before we are conceived.

Not so with Jesus Christ. One of the main emphases during the celebration of his birth are his assumed humble beginnings. Born of a virgin. From the town of Nazareth but born in Bethlehem with a manger for his bed. Herod attempting to kill him soon after his birth. Modern critics will claim that this is all made up and that the stories of his humble beginnings were manufactured after he became great.

The differences between Matthew and Luke are nearly impossible to reconcile, although they do share some similarities. John Meier, a scholar on the historical Jesus, explains that Jesus’ “birth at Bethlehem is to be taken not as a historical fact” but as a “theological affirmation put into the form of an apparently historical narrative.” In other words, the belief that Jesus was a descendant of King David led to the development of a story about Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.

As Bible believers, we accept the accounts recorded by Matthew and Luke even if some points appear to be contradictory.

Mark does not say a word about his birth. It is not a part of his focus of his Gospel. John doesn’t give us a narrative about the birth of Jesus but he does teach us some astounding truths about the person we call Jesus Christ.

1.Jesus’s existence did not begin when he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. That is when the incarnation took place but unlike us, Jesus has existed as true God from all eternity. Even though certain more modern pseudo Christian groups deny this (in keeping with the teaching of Arius), we believe that the Bible teaches us that as true God, there never was a time when he was not (who said this?) We confess this in the Nicene Creed.

Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some of what the NWT now teaches: Jesus is God’s only direct creation, “the firstborn of all creation,” so He has earned the right to the title “son of God”; Jesus is actually Michael the Archangel in human form; after His crucifixion, Jesus was recreated as an immaterial spirit creature; and the Holy Spirit is not a person, but a specific manifestation of God’s power.  Say, what?? Jesus is the Archangel Michael?? Where does it say that in the Bible?

Since Arius did not accept the opinion of Origen, which postulated an eternal creation, he asserted that the Son had a beginning: "There was when He was not." This assertion was considered blasphemous by the faithful, and it was condemned as such by the Council of nicaea i (325). Since He was not true God, the Logos had but an imperfect knowledge of the Father; He was also subject to change and peccable by nature, if not in fact.

2. Jesus would appear at times in the Old Testament as “The Angel of the Lord” before his incarnation.

3.When the time had fully come, God sent Jesus into the world by having him become flesh. It is this miracle that we stand in awe of at Christmas.

Jesus would spend his first 30 years as true man and true God in relative obscurity. We have the story of him at the temple of the age of 12 but nothing else recorded after the first several months of his childhood. It was at the age of 30 that he would be baptized by John and revealed as the light of the world.

Illustration. There has been a lot of attention given to a special light in the evening sky this past several weeks. The evening “stars” (which are really planets) of Venus and Jupiter appeared very close to each other for the first time in 800 years. The effect was a particularly bright light referred to as “The Bethlehem Star.” Its appearance at Christmas time reminds us of how God used a special star to announce the birth of Jesus which the wise men followed. Unfortunately, unless you were flying last week above the clouds, you missed it in Wisconsin due to the clouds. But it did get people’s attentions.

Other lights are meant to get out attention. Whether it is the flashing red and blue lights on the state trooper or the red lights on the ambulance or fire truck, you realize something important is going on. Well lit neighborhoods help to reduce crime. Our phone may flash when we get a text message. A light gets peoples attention. The Bible reminds us to pay attention to the light.

2 Peter 1:19 NIV84

19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

John describes Jesus as a light.

John 1:6–13 NIV84

6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

John also reminds us that not everyone accepted Jesus for who he is and what he had come to do. Even today we are saddened by those who don’t believe what the Bible teaches us about Jesus.

But there were and still are those who did receive him. And for us God gives us blessings.

We have become children of God.

We receive the gifts God gives to his children.

Christmas is a time when we may love to give and receive gifts. I teach the children in confirmation class that although I may like to give gifts, I probably won’t give them any at Christmas. It may sound like I’m a Scrooge but I say it to make a point. A parent gives gifts to his children. He or she may not have the resources to give gifts to everyone so we limit our distribution of gifts.

God is a generous God who gives gifts to his creation. “Every good and perfect gift comes from above . . . “

He offers the greatest gifts to all without finding fault.

Acts 11:15–17 NIV84

15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”

Romans 5:15–17 NIV84

15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:3–10 (NIV84)

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

But it is only those who receive Jesus as Savior who receive the greatest gifts of all. We are adopted into God’s family and as his children we receive those rich spiritual gifts.

Conclusion: And so at Christmas we worship God for sending his Son from heaven in a unique way. We call him “The Greatest Gift.” Through faith in him we also thank God that we receive on spiritual gift after another from that same God.