Fairy Tale Christmas

And like last week, we want to go from a fairy-tale Christmas to "oh, my God" Christmas. We want to recapture the sense of awe and surprise, the realization of just what and who happened that first Christmas.

Last week I said Jesus' story is rooted in the history and prophecies of the Jewish people. This is how Matthew begins his gospel, and Luke gets there as well in chapter 2. The story of Christmas begins in the beginning and stretches through Adam and Eve, Abraham, David and the prophets. It was always the plan. We get a taste of the awe, the "oh", as we consider the millions of people who, for millennia, anticipated the birth of the Messiah. And, we get the shivers when we consider that what they anticipated, their history, is our present reality. God became Emmanuel, God with us... and he never stopped.

Not a fairy-tale Christmas, a too familiar story, but an "oh, my God" Christmas.

Last week I gave you a hint towards this week. Christmas, the Christmas story, is absolutely ridiculous.

Intro - Imaginary Friend?

When I was in pre-school I had a friend named Bill. I played with Bill quite often. Just different games that kids play: blocks, cars, tag, etc...

Now I don't remember Bill, but apparently I would tell my Mom about Bill. She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. For weeks she heard about my friend Bill.

Then she heard a strange story. Bill and I went on the school bus to the police station. She was, of course, concerned. She asked for details, and it turned out Bill was driving the bus when we went to the police station. That's odd, so she asked more questions. Oh yeah, I said, Bill drives me lots of places in the school bus: to the firestation, to the museum, maybe to the moon.

It was at this point that my Mom realized, Bill was neither a kid from school or a creepy bus driver. Bill was my imaginary friend. She used her ridiculous radar, something warned her that something was off in the story. Wait, preschool kids don't drive buses... that was probably it.

This morning we take that same sense of "normal" and look at the Christmas story. As I said last week, the Christmas story is ridiculous.

There is another aspect of fairy-tale Christmas we should talk about. It is not just familiarity that gives that fairy-tale shine to the Christmas story. The story itself is filled with ridiculous goings-on. The Christmas story is completely ridiculous.

In everyday life when we hear stories that go beyond the fantastic to the ridiculous, like my stories about Bill driving me around in his school bus, we realize we have left the realm of fact and entered into a fairy tale. The story of Christmas if full of just this kind of fantastic elements, even more fantastic than a preschool bus driver named Bill:

Story of Christmas with Miracle Count

Let's walk through the Christmas story, in summary form...

The angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah

Zechariah and Elizabeth conceive, though they are old and she is barren

An angel appears to Mary (Luke 1:26-30)

Mary conceives though a virgin

Angel appears to Joseph

But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son (Christmas Miracle)

Mary goes to visit her cousin Martha and Baby John leaps in her womb on hearing Mary

Elizabeth prophesies about Mary's child.

Zechariah, who had gone mute, begins speaking again at John's birth

Zechariah prophesied concerning John and the Lord.

The Messiah is born in a stable and placed in a manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths.

Great host of angels appear to shepherds announcing the birth of the Messiah.

Simeon recognized him as Savior.

The prophetess Anna recognized him as the redemption of Jerusalem.

The magi saw the sign of his star and came searching for him.

The magi were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod.

An angel appeared to Joseph warning of Herod's plot and telling them to escape to Egypt.

Explication

The Christmas story teems with the miraculous. The miracles just keep coming, the density of them. All of a sudden angels are appearing to everybody! Great companies of heavenly host are putting on gospel concerts for shepherds.

Put on your skeptic-hat for a minute. This is ridiculous! This is not how the world works and, clearly, we have left the realm of fact and entered the realm of fiction! Fairy tale!

It all centers though, on one miracle, one really ridiculous aspect of the story. Let's try and start explaining things away. Angels? Well that just means messengers from God; the idea of announcement is common in the Bible. Maybe the shepherds exaggerated the story a bit, they saw something, or someone told them about the birth. The angel messengers to Mary and Joseph… well that just signifies that they knew about the birth, the angels represent them wrestling with their decisions, especially Joseph.

But the virgin birth? Come on, that is ridiculous. That is simply not how human procreation works. That’s not the birds and the bees, understand. Completely ridiculous. You need a Y chromosome, this simply doesn’t happen.

The Christmas story is completely ridiculous.

Why do we even consider that it might also be true? Well, from verses like Luke 1:1-2d from Luke 2:19

Luke 2: 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

So we have the written testimony of an eyewitness, a grown woman at this point, who told this story as fact. It is written in Scripture and considered by the apostles and early church as fact. The Bible tells me so, so we believe it is not fairy tale but, in fact, accurate testimony to the way things went down.

What does it all mean? What is the point? Do we need to believe all this stuff? Through the twentieth century, especially the early part this debate raged.

I think there is a point to the ridiculousness of the Christmas story, the unashamed miraculous events of the Christmas story and, in particular, the virgin birth.

Luke 1:34-35 (NRSV)

34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

Therefore, or (some translations) for that reason, because of this strange birth, this virgin birth, the child to be born will be holy and he will be called Son of God.

Something’s happening here

So first, the virgin birth is a sign that something is happening. This child will be holy, set apart, different, special.

Among special births, Jesus is most-special. You know something amazing is going to happen here, that Jesus is going to be someone special.

Creation ex-nihilo

Virgin-birth "out of nothing." There is a long tradition in Biblical history of God bringing life, a son, where there is barrenness. Abram and Sara have Isaac in their old age. Rebekah was barren, then conceived twins, Esau and Jacob. Rachel was barren, then conceived Joseph. Samson and Samuel were born to barren women who committed their children to God. And just before Jesus is born, his cousin John is born to Elisabeth, both barren and beyond child-bearing years.

God specializes in bringing life out of nothing. And again and again, this birth out of barrenness is a sign that the child is a gift from God, it required supernatural intervention, the child is a miracle. In this case, it is not just the blessing of a child but salvation itself.

Salvation must ultimately come from God. Our salvation is supernatural. From the start.

“The virgin birth points to the helplessness of humans to initiate even the first step in the process.”

It wasn’t just a question of waiting. It wasn’t playing the statistics, that eventually someone with the right genes would be born to be a Savior. It was only by direct, divine, miraculous intervention.

Our Savior is borne, that supernatural salvation has been accomplished, and that means, wherever we are now, wherever we find ourselves, help is on the way.

His very name, Jesus, Yeshua, means He saves, probably a shortened version of Yehoshua meaning "the LORD is salvation." (Yahweh is salvation).

Matthew 1:21

21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Help is on the way. A help that we could never provide, a help that had to start with God's supernatural intervention. Christmas is ridiculous, Christmas is miraculous. The miracle of the virgin tells us that supernatural salvation is on the way.

Human and Divine

Back to Luke 1:34-35, because the angel says two things as a result of this strange conception:

This child will be holy, set apart, but also, therefore he will be called a Son of God.

There is something profound about this child, beyond holy or special. This help, this child, is special in a way no other child has ever been in all creation.

John 1:14

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Very God and very man. Incarnation. I remember my first Christmas here in Colorado three years ago, and on Christmas Eve, Pastor Rod shared this beautiful image of a bowl of chili – chili con carne – which literally means "Chili with meat." Con carne means with meat. It comes from the same root as incarnation, which appears here in John 1:14 God with meat on.

We have this doctrine that says Jesus was fully God and fully human. This ridiculous miracle, this virgin birth, not only tells us that supernatural salvation is on the way, it points to this doctrine that Jesus was fully God and fully human.

There are some who say that Jesus could not have been fully God and fully man without the incarnation. I don't know if that is true, God is pretty stinkin' creative, but I do know this, when I imagine the other possibilities, I cannot imagine any way he could have more clearly communicated that Jesus was, in fact, fully God and fully human.

Jesus growing up as human, regular Mom and Dad, just like the rest of us. Then, at some point, he was adopted as God, or the Word kind of merged with him. Would we understand him as fully God?

Imagine if Jesus descended from heaven, a full grown human man, or even a mysterious child. Would we understand him as fully human? Would we question whether he really understood what it was to be human, the total dependence of a human baby, in the womb?

But this is the way God chose to do it.

Instead, we get this unity of human and divine from the very first possible moment. Before he drew breath. Before he was more than a few cells. And I believe the truth that the virgin birth points to, that Jesus was fully God and fully human, is absolutely critical, it is fundamental to the whole Christian faith.

Hebrews 4:15-16 touches on why:

Hebrews 4:15-16

15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

That word "tempted" is actually ambiguous and can mean both temptation and trial. He was tempted in all things as we are... and he was trialed in all things as we are...

We have a God who saved humanity from the inside out. We have a Savior who understands human life, the human condition, us, from conception through death.

Emmanuel. Human from the very beginning.

What does that mean? It boils down to this: Our God understands.

Our supernatural salvation is on the way, and it comes in a Savior who understands.

Oh... that's my God.

At the center of the ridiculous Christmas story stands this ridiculous Christmas miracle: that Jesus was born of a virgin...

[and] therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

This is what the virgin birth points to, this is what the miracle communicates to me.

Help is on the way, supernatural help.

And that help, that Savior, that God, is one who understands what it is to be human.

Our God understands and salvation is underway

Application

If we have ever felt shame over the ridiculousness of the Christmas story... may it never be.

The Christmas story is ridiculous, but it is not a fairy tale.

Let's not say ridiculous, let's say miraculous, for that is what it truly was.

The Christmas story is unabashedly, unashamedly miraculous. The miracle at the center of it, God become flesh, is so stupendous, so miraculous, so magical, so ridiculous as to make all the rest look like window dressing. We need not make excuses or gloss over the details. Above all, we need not try and make the whole thing more palatable.

It broke the rules of ordinary human causality. It stands outside everyday human experience.

Not a fairy tale Christmas, but again, and always, an "oh, my God" Christmas.

Our Salvation is supernatural

God is still in the business of creating life out of nothing. Our salvation, now and always, is supernatural.

We are fix-it people. I see a problem, my job is to go about fixing it. Solve it. I take the same approach by instinct in life. But the deepest things, the ultimate problems in life, I can do nothing on my own.

On Christmas, tonight and tomorrow, remember that we simply couldn't do it on our own. We can't do it on our own now. We needed and we need God to step in and send a Savior. We need help, supernatural help, and tomorrow, and always, we remember that help has been sent. Help is on the way.

God made flesh – con carne – Emmanuel

Is that true, we wonder when things are bad. We wonder when things get stressful. When we are depressed or stressed. Maybe this Christmas season isn't a time of relaxation for you, it is stressful, or brings up painful memories, it reveals strained or broken family relationships. Maybe Christmas is a lonely time for you.

We wonder when things are bad, what kind of help does God offer? Does He understand what this is really like?

Fully God, fully human, from the quickening of fetal life all the way through human death, our God knows what it is to live.

So often in life’s challenges we look to heaven for help and understanding. God, I am alone. God, I am in pain. God, my relationship is falling apart and nothing I do helps. God, this is bad and NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.

God’s ultimate answer was born that first Christmas morning.

Emmanuel, God with us. He understands.

Therefore, in the words of Hebrews 4 let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Let’s not settle for the fairy tale Christmas. May we remember the real Christmas. The “Oh, my God, Christmas.” May we celebrate with our Living God, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.