RIC
For All the People
Luke 2:10
December 20, 2009
Jack Wald
What makes a Christmas present a good present? Turn to the person next to you and tell them about the most memorable Christmas present you ever received.
[ask people in church what present came to mind]
In my family, we opened presents on Christmas Eve and we opened them one at a time so everyone could see what each person received. On the Christmas when I was thirteen years old, there were my parents, five sisters and my aunt and grandmother all looking when I opened a present from my mother. I was thinking of a good book or a knife or something interesting. What I saw when I opened the box was a slip of paper good for dancing lessons. I remember getting red in the face, being very unhappy and wishing I was elsewhere. This was not a present I asked for or wanted. It was a terrible present.
Of course, over the years I have benefitted from those dancing lessons and I guess I would reluctantly say today that it was a good present. Of course, I still would have preferred a good book or knife.
It is possible to get a good present but not appreciate it at the time.
At Christmas we celebrate the gift of Jesus given to the world. The angels announced this gift with a tremendous display of angelic might.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Was this a good present?
How was it wrapped?
Picture the shepherds out in the field at night, talking among themselves, perhaps sitting around a fire, looking up into the sky. All of a sudden there is an opening in the sky and an angel of the Lord appeared to them. Not many of us in this life get to see an angel but these shepherds did.
And then a great company of the heavenly host made an appearance. A window into heaven was opened and it seems that a lot of those in heaven were peering through to see what was happening on earth.
That is a pretty dramatic package. The scriptures do not tell how beautiful the appearance was, but it seems to me that it must have been incredibly beautiful.
As if that was not enough, the glory of the Lord shone around them. The glory of the Lord that rested in the cloud above the Israelites as they moved through the wilderness and filled the tabernacle when Moses and the elders went to meet with God now shone around these poor shepherds.
Luke says they were terrified and who can blame them? Years later when Luke was interviewing people for the writing of his gospel, perhaps one of the shepherds who had been there and now was an old man told him about how powerful this experience had been and how afraid it made them.
It is impossible for us to wrap a present better than that.
When you receive a present for Christmas, many times there is a tag with a message telling you who the present is for. The tag on this present was:
Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
This first of all Christmas presents was the best. Incredible wrapping, incredible delivery, incredible message and a gift beyond our wildest dreams.
But not everyone appreciated this present. Good news of great joy that will be for all the people? Herod didn’t think so. A king who murders his own children so they will not be a threat to his power is not likely to take the birth of a King of the Jews as good news.
A few years later the religious leaders of Israel did not think the birth of Jesus was good news. They plotted how they might kill him to get rid of this nuisance.
When Jesus announced the beginning of his public ministry in his home town of Capernaum,
Luke 4:28
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.
His birth did not seem good news of great joy to the people who knew him as he grew from a small boy into adulthood.
It is still the same today. In AD 100 there were 360 people in the world for each follower of Jesus and this has been reduced today to only 7.3 people in the world for each follower of Jesus. That is an indication of how much the church has grown but there are still a lot of people in the world who do not consider the birth of Jesus to be good news of great joy.
Muslims consider the claim of Christians that God could have a son as blaspheme. I just visited Thailand to see our daughter and her family and that country has less than one percent who are Christians. Despite large numbers of Christian missionaries over the past two hundred years, the Thai people seem indifferent to any claims that Jesus is good news of great joy.
Atheists do not consider Jesus to be good news of great joy.
My mother died four years ago and definitely did not think Jesus was good news of great joy. My father died a year ago and was indifferent to whether or not Jesus was good news of great joy. All of us have family and friends who do not think Jesus is especially good news.
So is a present a good present only if it is appreciated? Is it possible to open a present and think it is worthless when in fact you have opened an incredible present?
You might open up a present on Christmas morning and find a key and think it is a joke and throw it away, not realizing that the key is for a new car sitting outside the door.
You might open a present on Christmas morning and find a piece of paper and throw it away, not realizing the paper is a map that will lead you to buried treasure.
You might open a present on Christmas morning and find an empty envelope and throw it in the trash, not realizing the stamps on the envelope are worth a fortune.
A key to a car or map or stamps on an envelope are wonderful presents, even if you miss the point and throw them away.
The first Christmas present, the best ever Christmas present, the most wonderfully wrapped Christmas present is good regardless of what anyone thinks of it. Not all see it as good but it is a life-changing present, the best present anyone could receive.
So what about those who do not view this present as good? Is this perhaps a good present for Christians but not for Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus?
All major world religions recognize that there is a god and they all recognize that we have a problem. There is distance between ourselves and God, however god is defined, and we all want to resolve that. In one way or another we want to bridge the gap that exists between ourselves and God.
Hindus and Buddhists want to resolve this by becoming part of the consciousness of God. Muslims and Jews and Christians want to be in heaven with God (although Muslims believe that even in heaven Allah will not be present with them). Mormons want to be god and goddess of another planet, but that is another story. But all world religions want in some way to have intimacy with God and religions have been developed that seek to aid us in working our way to intimacy with God. The eightfold path of Buddhism and the caste system of Hindus lead followers to work to generate more good karma than bad and be reincarnated in an ever higher life form until you finally escape the endless cycle of reincarnation and become part of the consciousness of god
In Islam you obey the five pillars and work to put together the best dossier you can to present when you die in the hope that you will gain entrance into Paradise.
In Judaism, upon which we stand as Christians, you seek obedience to the law and by perfect obedience, salvation can be obtained.
Because Judaism is the faith upon which we stand as followers of Jesus, I need to say a bit more about it.
The Law was given by God to Moses and the Law was good. The problem is that they created a legal system that violated the intention of the law God gave to Moses. They took the law that was meant to be a means to an end and turned it into an end in itself. The law was meant to teach and lead Israel to an awareness of God’s holiness, purity and love and instead the law turned into an unforgiving dead end.
The problem with Judaism is that it institutionalized the Law, creating 613 laws from the Hebrew Bible that had to be obeyed and then creating thousands more based on these 613 laws, 1,521 laws alone dealing with the commandment not to work on the Sabbath.
There is nothing wrong with the Law. The problem is not the law, the problem is us; we are unable to keep the Law. The more honest we become and the more clearly we see ourselves, the more we see that we are incapable of perfectly obeying the law. We all sin, as Paul wrote in Romans, and we all fall short of the perfection needed to enter into the presence of the eternal, pre-existing creator God who has revealed himself to us.
All these religious systems fail because we are unable to life good enough lives, work hard enough, obey perfectly enough to break through the distance between ourselves and God.
I was reading from the prophet Isaiah this week and found this description of the futility of mankind’s efforts to work and earn our way into the presence of God.
Isaiah 28:9-10
“Who is it he is trying to teach?
To whom is he explaining his message?
To children weaned from their milk,
to those just taken from the breast?
10 For it is:
Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there.”
Isaiah continues in Isaiah 29:13
The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
What makes Christianity unique among all world religions is that it is based on what God has done for us, not on what we have done for God. Christianity is not one more religious system that has to be obeyed. Christianity is not one more religious system created by man in an attempt to reach to God.
Christianity is God looking at his world and longing to have intimacy with his creation. When all of our efforts failed, God did what we would never be able to do. He reached out a hand and pulled us to him. Salvation is all God’s effort and none of our effort. We do not earn salvation; we do not deserve salvation; we can never repay God for what he has done in saving us. Christian faith is God’s solution to man’s problem.
The difficulty is that Christianity is viewed as one more religion in the competition among world religions to dominate the globe.
What we all have to realize is that religion is not meant to be a competition for truth but a search for truth. And truth is not arrived at democratically. If 100 people vote for Buddhism and only one for Christianity, this does not make Buddhism true. When someone converts to being a follower of Jesus, it does not make what we believe more true. When someone converts to Islam, it does not make what we believe less true.
The goal is not, at the end of our lives, to be able to say Christianity won; that more people in the world are Christians than any other religion. The goal is, at the end of our lives, to be lifted up into eternal life with Jesus.
What God has done for us in the Incarnation of Jesus is not true only for those from Christian cultures because it is something God has done for us, not something we created. Jesus said that at the end of time (Matthew 25:31-32)
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him,
In the first sermon of the church, Peter said (Acts 2:21)
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.
When Peter was addressing Christians who wondered why it was taking Jesus so long to return, he wrote (II Peter 3:9)
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
We did not initiate intimacy with God. God initiated intimacy with us. Our efforts did not lead us to eternal salvation. God did all the work. It was God who sent Jesus to be Immanuel, God in the flesh. It was God in the flesh who suffered and died on the cross. And it is Jesus, the Risen and Ascended King of kings and Lord of lords who will return to draw all his children into his eternal kingdom.
So the first present of Christmas is good news of great joy to all the people.
It is good news to the poor.
When we visited John and Caitlin in Thailand, John took us to one of the projects his charity supports. It is a school for Burmese refugees and is located on the side of a dump. There have been efforts to move them to another location but the community keeps returning to the dump where they sort through garbage to make their living.
Karen Thomas Smith, pastor of the Christian community in Ifrane, preached a sermon a couple years ago about the shepherds in Ifrane who live by the side of the dump. She made the point that the shepherds in Ifrane and the shepherds in Bethlehem are and were the poorest of the poor. And it was to the poorest of the poor that this heavenly extravaganza with angels and the glory of the Lord was revealed.
Blessed are you who are poor, Jesus later said, (Luke 6:20-21)
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
The birth of Jesus is good news to the poor because their poverty will not last forever. A better world than this awaits.
This first Christmas present is also good news to the rich.
The rich young ruler walked away from Jesus because he could not give up his wealth. Wealth is dangerous because it pulls us away from dependancy on God and preserves the illusion that we can buy everything we really need.
But even for the rich the birth of Jesus is good news because sooner or later the rich will die and all their wealth will slip through their fingers. No matter how tightly they cling to their wealth they will find themselves with empty pockets and empty hands and then what?
Only Jesus will be able to save them. The rich, just like the poor, can turn to Jesus and hope for a better world that will not perish, spoil or fade.
The birth of Jesus is good news to despots. Even for Herod the birth of Jesus was good news, if only he had been able to see it.
When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the price for all our sins, even the sins of despots. All they need to do is turn to him and all the love he brought will pour into their hearts.
Despots, serial killers, pornographers, pedophiles, warlords and pimps all have hope because their sin has been paid for on the cross when Jesus died. All they have to do is repent, turn from their evil and accept the hand of Jesus offered to them and they will be drawn into his eternal kingdom.
The birth of Jesus is good news to the comfortable and indifferent. What does not seem important now will turn out to have been critically important. My father died indifferent to truth but I know he discovered when he died that he had made a terrible mistake. I have prayed for him that somehow, in someway, he has been able, by the grace of God, to correct his indifference and to seek Jesus.
I want to declare that the first Christmas present of Jesus is good news of great joy for each of you here this morning. You may be here because you are passionately in love with Jesus. You may be simply going through the motions. And you may be here because you were dragged to church.
The birth of Jesus is good news of great joy to you because each of you will die. Sooner or later you will die. And when you die, leaving behind all that you thought was so important, you will need to be rescued.
A wise man or wise woman prepares now for what will come later. You move to higher ground when a flood is coming. You cover the windows with wood when a hurricane or typhoon approaches. You put aside money so when you retire you will have money to live on.
I promise you, you will die, and then what? So be wise and prepare now for what is certainly coming.
No matter how good you think you are, you are not good enough. No matter how many good things you have done in your life, they are not enough. Your own efforts will not be enough to save you, only clinging desperately to Jesus who entered human history to save you will bring you safely through death into eternal life.
A wise man or wise woman prepares for what will come later, but there is hope even for fools. It is never to late to turn and plead for mercy.
How can this be your Christmas present this year?
There is a critical difference between a Christmas present you get from under the tree and the Christmas present of Jesus.
When you get a wrapped Christmas present, you untie the ribbon, if there is one, take off the paper and open the box. But to receive the gift of Jesus at Christmas you have to open yourself.
You are offered a Christmas present that will save your life. Be wise, do yourself a favor and open yourself to receive it.
Luke 2:10
What makes a Christmas present a good present? Turn to the person next to you and tell them about the most memorable Christmas present you ever received.
[ask people in church what present came to mind]
In my family, we opened presents on Christmas Eve and we opened them one at a time so everyone could see what each person received. On the Christmas when I was thirteen years old, there were my parents, five sisters and my aunt and grandmother all looking when I opened a present from my mother. I was thinking of a good book or a knife or something interesting. What I saw when I opened the box was a slip of paper good for dancing lessons. I remember getting red in the face, being very unhappy and wishing I was elsewhere. This was not a present I asked for or wanted. It was a terrible present.
Of course, over the years I have benefitted from those dancing lessons and I guess I would reluctantly say today that it was a good present. Of course, I still would have preferred a good book or knife.
It is possible to get a good present but not appreciate it at the time.
At Christmas we celebrate the gift of Jesus given to the world. The angels announced this gift with a tremendous display of angelic might.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Was this a good present?
How was it wrapped?
Picture the shepherds out in the field at night, talking among themselves, perhaps sitting around a fire, looking up into the sky. All of a sudden there is an opening in the sky and an angel of the Lord appeared to them. Not many of us in this life get to see an angel but these shepherds did.
And then a great company of the heavenly host made an appearance. A window into heaven was opened and it seems that a lot of those in heaven were peering through to see what was happening on earth.
That is a pretty dramatic package. The scriptures do not tell how beautiful the appearance was, but it seems to me that it must have been incredibly beautiful.
As if that was not enough, the glory of the Lord shone around them. The glory of the Lord that rested in the cloud above the Israelites as they moved through the wilderness and filled the tabernacle when Moses and the elders went to meet with God now shone around these poor shepherds.
Luke says they were terrified and who can blame them? Years later when Luke was interviewing people for the writing of his gospel, perhaps one of the shepherds who had been there and now was an old man told him about how powerful this experience had been and how afraid it made them.
It is impossible for us to wrap a present better than that.
When you receive a present for Christmas, many times there is a tag with a message telling you who the present is for. The tag on this present was:
Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
This first of all Christmas presents was the best. Incredible wrapping, incredible delivery, incredible message and a gift beyond our wildest dreams.
But not everyone appreciated this present. Good news of great joy that will be for all the people? Herod didn’t think so. A king who murders his own children so they will not be a threat to his power is not likely to take the birth of a King of the Jews as good news.
A few years later the religious leaders of Israel did not think the birth of Jesus was good news. They plotted how they might kill him to get rid of this nuisance.
When Jesus announced the beginning of his public ministry in his home town of Capernaum,
Luke 4:28
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.
His birth did not seem good news of great joy to the people who knew him as he grew from a small boy into adulthood.
It is still the same today. In AD 100 there were 360 people in the world for each follower of Jesus and this has been reduced today to only 7.3 people in the world for each follower of Jesus. That is an indication of how much the church has grown but there are still a lot of people in the world who do not consider the birth of Jesus to be good news of great joy.
Muslims consider the claim of Christians that God could have a son as blaspheme. I just visited Thailand to see our daughter and her family and that country has less than one percent who are Christians. Despite large numbers of Christian missionaries over the past two hundred years, the Thai people seem indifferent to any claims that Jesus is good news of great joy.
Atheists do not consider Jesus to be good news of great joy.
My mother died four years ago and definitely did not think Jesus was good news of great joy. My father died a year ago and was indifferent to whether or not Jesus was good news of great joy. All of us have family and friends who do not think Jesus is especially good news.
So is a present a good present only if it is appreciated? Is it possible to open a present and think it is worthless when in fact you have opened an incredible present?
You might open up a present on Christmas morning and find a key and think it is a joke and throw it away, not realizing that the key is for a new car sitting outside the door.
You might open a present on Christmas morning and find a piece of paper and throw it away, not realizing the paper is a map that will lead you to buried treasure.
You might open a present on Christmas morning and find an empty envelope and throw it in the trash, not realizing the stamps on the envelope are worth a fortune.
A key to a car or map or stamps on an envelope are wonderful presents, even if you miss the point and throw them away.
The first Christmas present, the best ever Christmas present, the most wonderfully wrapped Christmas present is good regardless of what anyone thinks of it. Not all see it as good but it is a life-changing present, the best present anyone could receive.
So what about those who do not view this present as good? Is this perhaps a good present for Christians but not for Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus?
All major world religions recognize that there is a god and they all recognize that we have a problem. There is distance between ourselves and God, however god is defined, and we all want to resolve that. In one way or another we want to bridge the gap that exists between ourselves and God.
Hindus and Buddhists want to resolve this by becoming part of the consciousness of God. Muslims and Jews and Christians want to be in heaven with God (although Muslims believe that even in heaven Allah will not be present with them). Mormons want to be god and goddess of another planet, but that is another story. But all world religions want in some way to have intimacy with God and religions have been developed that seek to aid us in working our way to intimacy with God. The eightfold path of Buddhism and the caste system of Hindus lead followers to work to generate more good karma than bad and be reincarnated in an ever higher life form until you finally escape the endless cycle of reincarnation and become part of the consciousness of god
In Islam you obey the five pillars and work to put together the best dossier you can to present when you die in the hope that you will gain entrance into Paradise.
In Judaism, upon which we stand as Christians, you seek obedience to the law and by perfect obedience, salvation can be obtained.
Because Judaism is the faith upon which we stand as followers of Jesus, I need to say a bit more about it.
The Law was given by God to Moses and the Law was good. The problem is that they created a legal system that violated the intention of the law God gave to Moses. They took the law that was meant to be a means to an end and turned it into an end in itself. The law was meant to teach and lead Israel to an awareness of God’s holiness, purity and love and instead the law turned into an unforgiving dead end.
The problem with Judaism is that it institutionalized the Law, creating 613 laws from the Hebrew Bible that had to be obeyed and then creating thousands more based on these 613 laws, 1,521 laws alone dealing with the commandment not to work on the Sabbath.
There is nothing wrong with the Law. The problem is not the law, the problem is us; we are unable to keep the Law. The more honest we become and the more clearly we see ourselves, the more we see that we are incapable of perfectly obeying the law. We all sin, as Paul wrote in Romans, and we all fall short of the perfection needed to enter into the presence of the eternal, pre-existing creator God who has revealed himself to us.
All these religious systems fail because we are unable to life good enough lives, work hard enough, obey perfectly enough to break through the distance between ourselves and God.
I was reading from the prophet Isaiah this week and found this description of the futility of mankind’s efforts to work and earn our way into the presence of God.
Isaiah 28:9-10
“Who is it he is trying to teach?
To whom is he explaining his message?
To children weaned from their milk,
to those just taken from the breast?
10 For it is:
Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there.”
Isaiah continues in Isaiah 29:13
The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
What makes Christianity unique among all world religions is that it is based on what God has done for us, not on what we have done for God. Christianity is not one more religious system that has to be obeyed. Christianity is not one more religious system created by man in an attempt to reach to God.
Christianity is God looking at his world and longing to have intimacy with his creation. When all of our efforts failed, God did what we would never be able to do. He reached out a hand and pulled us to him. Salvation is all God’s effort and none of our effort. We do not earn salvation; we do not deserve salvation; we can never repay God for what he has done in saving us. Christian faith is God’s solution to man’s problem.
The difficulty is that Christianity is viewed as one more religion in the competition among world religions to dominate the globe.
What we all have to realize is that religion is not meant to be a competition for truth but a search for truth. And truth is not arrived at democratically. If 100 people vote for Buddhism and only one for Christianity, this does not make Buddhism true. When someone converts to being a follower of Jesus, it does not make what we believe more true. When someone converts to Islam, it does not make what we believe less true.
The goal is not, at the end of our lives, to be able to say Christianity won; that more people in the world are Christians than any other religion. The goal is, at the end of our lives, to be lifted up into eternal life with Jesus.
What God has done for us in the Incarnation of Jesus is not true only for those from Christian cultures because it is something God has done for us, not something we created. Jesus said that at the end of time (Matthew 25:31-32)
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him,
In the first sermon of the church, Peter said (Acts 2:21)
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.
When Peter was addressing Christians who wondered why it was taking Jesus so long to return, he wrote (II Peter 3:9)
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
We did not initiate intimacy with God. God initiated intimacy with us. Our efforts did not lead us to eternal salvation. God did all the work. It was God who sent Jesus to be Immanuel, God in the flesh. It was God in the flesh who suffered and died on the cross. And it is Jesus, the Risen and Ascended King of kings and Lord of lords who will return to draw all his children into his eternal kingdom.
So the first present of Christmas is good news of great joy to all the people.
It is good news to the poor.
When we visited John and Caitlin in Thailand, John took us to one of the projects his charity supports. It is a school for Burmese refugees and is located on the side of a dump. There have been efforts to move them to another location but the community keeps returning to the dump where they sort through garbage to make their living.
Karen Thomas Smith, pastor of the Christian community in Ifrane, preached a sermon a couple years ago about the shepherds in Ifrane who live by the side of the dump. She made the point that the shepherds in Ifrane and the shepherds in Bethlehem are and were the poorest of the poor. And it was to the poorest of the poor that this heavenly extravaganza with angels and the glory of the Lord was revealed.
Blessed are you who are poor, Jesus later said, (Luke 6:20-21)
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
The birth of Jesus is good news to the poor because their poverty will not last forever. A better world than this awaits.
This first Christmas present is also good news to the rich.
The rich young ruler walked away from Jesus because he could not give up his wealth. Wealth is dangerous because it pulls us away from dependancy on God and preserves the illusion that we can buy everything we really need.
But even for the rich the birth of Jesus is good news because sooner or later the rich will die and all their wealth will slip through their fingers. No matter how tightly they cling to their wealth they will find themselves with empty pockets and empty hands and then what?
Only Jesus will be able to save them. The rich, just like the poor, can turn to Jesus and hope for a better world that will not perish, spoil or fade.
The birth of Jesus is good news to despots. Even for Herod the birth of Jesus was good news, if only he had been able to see it.
When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the price for all our sins, even the sins of despots. All they need to do is turn to him and all the love he brought will pour into their hearts.
Despots, serial killers, pornographers, pedophiles, warlords and pimps all have hope because their sin has been paid for on the cross when Jesus died. All they have to do is repent, turn from their evil and accept the hand of Jesus offered to them and they will be drawn into his eternal kingdom.
The birth of Jesus is good news to the comfortable and indifferent. What does not seem important now will turn out to have been critically important. My father died indifferent to truth but I know he discovered when he died that he had made a terrible mistake. I have prayed for him that somehow, in someway, he has been able, by the grace of God, to correct his indifference and to seek Jesus.
I want to declare that the first Christmas present of Jesus is good news of great joy for each of you here this morning. You may be here because you are passionately in love with Jesus. You may be simply going through the motions. And you may be here because you were dragged to church.
The birth of Jesus is good news of great joy to you because each of you will die. Sooner or later you will die. And when you die, leaving behind all that you thought was so important, you will need to be rescued.
A wise man or wise woman prepares now for what will come later. You move to higher ground when a flood is coming. You cover the windows with wood when a hurricane or typhoon approaches. You put aside money so when you retire you will have money to live on.
I promise you, you will die, and then what? So be wise and prepare now for what is certainly coming.
No matter how good you think you are, you are not good enough. No matter how many good things you have done in your life, they are not enough. Your own efforts will not be enough to save you, only clinging desperately to Jesus who entered human history to save you will bring you safely through death into eternal life.
A wise man or wise woman prepares for what will come later, but there is hope even for fools. It is never to late to turn and plead for mercy.
How can this be your Christmas present this year?
There is a critical difference between a Christmas present you get from under the tree and the Christmas present of Jesus.
When you get a wrapped Christmas present, you untie the ribbon, if there is one, take off the paper and open the box. But to receive the gift of Jesus at Christmas you have to open yourself.
You are offered a Christmas present that will save your life. Be wise, do yourself a favor and open yourself to receive it.
