Matthew 1:18-23 "The Redeeming Nature of Christmas"

Introduction:

As I sorted through the debris this week of those affected by the tornado in Kentucky, I kept coming across remnants of Christmas decorations.

Strands of lights and parts of Christmas trees could be seen among the ruble.

My initial reaction was to think how the events associated with the Tornado had ruined Christmas for these people.

But that was short lived because the reality of the gospel was all around me. I watched others pouring out love for their neighbors as they worked to help those hit by devastation.

But there were conversations taking place. Words of comfort, hugs and prayers being offered up for others right on the spot.

And people were not worried about Covid or about offending others it was very apparent that God was at work through His people.

At one point the Gideon's showed up where I was working and I think just about everyone there gladly took a pocket New Testament.

The point I am making today is that the real meaning of Christmas can’t be blown away by a Tornado. No storm can uproot Christmas and toss it to the side.

Because Christmas is all about redemption and it is rooted down into the very plan and providential purpose of God. It was all God initiated as we see in our text look back at verses 18-20:

I. The Plan (18-20).

There are two references to the conception having taken place by the Holy Spirit (18, 20).

This is the prophetic fulfillment of the seed of the woman crushing the serpent head that was given all the way back in Genesis 3:15. This is God’s plan at work being initiated by Him through the Holy Spirit.

If you were to go to the Abrahamic Covenant you would see that Abraham’s seed if the point of reference in those covenant promise that God made to Abraham.

Abraham was a man and the covenant promise were made to him and his seed. But only by the virgin birth could both prophecies be fulfilled.

And this was fulfilled in Christ through the ethnic line of Abraham’s offspring in and through the line of Mary. Christ got His humanity in connection to Mary.

Jesus was truly human but the sin nature did not come down to Him through Adam.

If Joseph was the biological father of Jesus we don’t have the gospel because that Jesus would have been born with a sin nature and incapable of redeeming anyone.

That Jesus would have fallen in Adam. We already know the theological underpinnings of this because the Apostle Paul has been telling us all about it in Romans 5.

Christian don’t just see the manger scenes this year, don’t just see the lights and the gifts given. Understand the theological truths that really makes Christmas all that God has planned it to be.

Ultimately Christmas is all about Christ and God’s plan of redemption and how it connects to us in a personal nature. And no it is not something we all interpret as we want it to be but God’s plan had a purpose in what that plan would bring to pass. Look at verses 21-23:

II. The Purpose (21-23).

To saved His people from their sins (21).

The Angel of the Lord gave Joseph the name and if you derive Jesus back to the Hebrew it literally means “Yaweh saves”.

You see the ultimate problem between God and man has never been something horizontal that goes on in relationship between people.

All that we see on the earth. All the conflicts and turmoil and natural disasters are all taking place as a symptom of the ultimate problem. This world is under a curse.

And there are those that like to say, “but Christ has redeemed us from the curse and it is no longer having such an effect”.

Just turn on the news and you will see. Even creation itself is groaning awaiting our eternal and final redemption. Just take a trip to Bremen, Kentucky.

All sin will be judged in the end. Either it was judged in Christ by His substitutionary sacrifice or it will be judged before the grand tribunal of the Eternal Sovereign God of the Universe on the final day.

The Jesus of the Bible came to absorb God’s wrath upon Himself in the place of God’s covenant people.

And in doing so that which created the hostility and brought about the separation were dealt with in full. And it was God that initiated that restoration. This is the second purpose we see in our text. Look back at verses 22-23:

To Restore Relationship with God (22-23).

Immanuel, God with us. In the Incarnation the second person of the Godhead took on flesh and came to earth, born of a virgin.

God was the one who initiated the encounter in order to redeem us but to restore relationship with us as His covenant people.

Now before we think it was just a temporal thing, we know that Christ ascended but along with the Father He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us.

God’s Spirit in us is the down payment of the complete and final restoration that we all should be looking forward to.

At one point this past week I was looking down the path of the tornado and saw all the destruction and people in pain and anguish walking the fields looking for their possessions.

And I couldn’t help but think of this doctrine of the restoration and through the pain be thankful for what God has done by sending His Son into the world.

And I knew there is a new heavens and a new earth coming and Christ has secured His people for it by redeeming us from this cursed and fallen world forever.

Christian we could never see it unless we unwrap this gift. If all we do is romanticize Christmas but we never get down to the theological substance of what God sent Him into the world to do then we miss it. We miss Christmas.

It would be like unwrapping the presents just so you can enjoy the pretty wrapping paper.

In the Revlett home we use pretty and festive wrapping paper but we don’t salvage it. Because gifts are not ultimately about the paper they are wrapped in and how decorative the paper is.

By 10 am on Christmas morning all that paper will be in the trash. We don’t discard the gifts in order to preserve the paper. No, we discard the paper and preserve the gift.

It is the substance of the gift that matters. Christ and all that God has planned and purposed Him to be is ultimately what matters.

Conclusion:

Have you encountered Christ in your life today? You may not be a believer today, you may just like Christmas because of the Norman Rockwell feelings that it gives you.

Nostalgia may be a wonderful thing but it is no substitute for a true encounter with Jesus Christ and God’s plan and purpose for you in Christ.

Believe the gospel for salvation.

Christian God’s provision in Christ has secured and preserved you for relationship with God. Come to Him His arms are open wide to His covenant people. Confess and receive His grace to you in Christ Jesus.

Let’s pray!