Purpose: How to give everyone a happy Christmas
Readings Isaiah 52v7-10; John 1v1-14
It’s Christmas
It’s Christmas, well that’s what
we still hear Noddy Holder shouting when we turn on the radio. It’s
God’s little joke that I have limited voice today, although I was
never going to shout like Noddy.
The song paints a picture of
everybody having fun, even gran joins in with the dancing and
everyone being just a little over the top. There’s mention of the
family being together and no doubt he was singing to young adults and
children. But Christmas is not always like that, at the other
extreme is Den Watts, in East Enders, handing his wife Angie the
divorce papers on Christmas day. I hope your Christmas will be
better than that, better than either of those pictures in fact.
Babies in Stables etc.
We’re used to the Christmas story
of the Virgin Mary giving birth to a baby and having to stay outside
because there’s no space for her in the Inn. We’re used to the
story of Angels and Shepherds and the tough conditions they worked
in. Even the lowest of the low go to worship the messiah, having
received a message of peace and good will from God and the joy that
brings.
Our Old Testament reading also tells
us of the joy that comes from the message of peace.
We’re used to the story of wise men
visiting the child and leaving significant gifts. The highest of the
high go to worship the messiah. We may remember that they had to
avoid Herod on the way back. We may also remember his murderous
threats and the flight to Egypt to keep the baby safe.
The bible manages to top the story
lines of East Enders any day, and the Bible stories are truth.
John’s Approach
Those are good stories but they are
human stories told from a human point of view – that’s the sort
of thing we engage easily with. John’s introduction that we have
just heard takes a different approach. John already knows who the
baby is and he is not going to introduce Jesus like that. John
starts from the very beginning and echoes the book of Genesis.
“In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth ...” it says, but John tells us that before
even that was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was
God. And that Jesus was the agent of creation. So straight away we
are told that Jesus is divine and is the creator.
The mission
Then we get straight into the
mission. Jesus is life and that life is the light of men. John the
baptist was sent to point people to the light, and he did, but even
so the people did not recognise their creator.
To the few that did He gave the right
to become children of God.
v14
In the last verse we read, John sums
up this part of his introduction:
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.
Grace
Grace is not a behaviour that we talk
about a great deal today. So here’s an example of what I’m
talking about. I work in I.T. Many years ago I was trying to fix a
problem and went about it completely the wrong way. As a result the
mainframe computer was down for about an hour in the middle of the
day. I knew better, I just didn’t do it. I probably deserved to
be disciplined, but all my manager said was “You know what you’ve
done, right?” and that was it. I even got a pay rise at the end of
the year. And that is grace. I was allowed to continue my work
with out penalty when one was deserved, I was given what I really
didn’t deserve.
God’s grace
God’s grace is much greater than
that. We fail to live up to His standards all the time, and yet He
still gives us good things – look around you, not just here but in
the world outside this church too. He also took the trouble to wipe
out our failings once and for all. That is why Jesus came and took
on flesh, initially as a baby, but later as a man who was fully
obedient to God, and died on the cross for us.
That is the real good news of
Christmas, the saviour – Jesus, the light of humanity – has come.
Glory
His glory is his act of redemption,
his death for our sins and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. That
is the hope we have at Christmas, the hope that more of the world
will be redeemed and that the world will become a better, more
peaceful, more loving place.
Our Happy Christmas
So, when I wish you a happy Christmas
(I’m going to stick with happy in preference to merry because I
don’t want to imply that you should be consuming too much alcohol)
When I wish you a happy
Christmas that is what I am hoping and wishing for – for all of you
and for everyone that I say it to. A Christmas where even if you
gran doesn’t enjoy the latest music she can be up and rock and
rolling, perhaps on her own, but still having a good time.
Our Part
We can play our part in that. For me
that is not becoming a DJ (I’d be terrible at it), my part is
responding to every situation that occurs with grace and love – so
imitating our saviour. I’m going to try that.
Happy Christmas Everybody
References:
http://ntwrightpage.com/2016/03/29/full-of-grace-and-truth/
https://www.gty.org/library/topical-series-library/245/the-best-of-christmas
http://www.stgeorgesunited.com/blog/2015/12/28/sermon-full-of-grace-and-truth-december-24th-2015
https://genius.com/Slade-merry-xmas-everybody-lyrics
https://www.family-times.net/illustration/Grace/
http://www.moreillustrations.com/Illustrations/grace%203.html
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