“From Heaven to Earth”
(John 1:1-5, 14-18)
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2017
We from John’s gospel, chapter 1. You are aware that there are four gospel, four
ancient writers who set pen to paper to tell the story of Jesus – Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John. We read John1,
but, which of the four is the best to read on Christmas Eve?
All the action happens in Luke chapter 1. An angel comes to the priest Zechariah as the
old man gives the annual offering in the inner sanctum of the temple on the Day
of Atonement. The Heavenly messenger
tells the aged holy man that he and his childless, post-menopausal wife will
have a son. Miraculous! Then it happens. That baby grows up to be John the Baptist,
the prophet who prepares the way for the coming of the Messiah – Jesus.
Zechariah’s wife who had the miracle
pregnancy, Elizabeth, the mother of John, is the also the cousin of a young
betrothed woman, not barely more than a girl, named Mary. Mary was soon to wed Joseph, but they had not
yet been together. She was a
virgin. An angel comes to her to tell
her she will have a son, before her marriage, before intimacy with her
betrothed. Another miracle!
Newly pregnant, she journeys to see her cousin
Elizabeth who is farther along in her pregnancy. Elizabeth’s baby, still in the womb, leaps
with glee at the approach of the mother of the Lord. Luke chapter 1 is full of encounters with
angels, miracle pregnancies, and people who respond to overwhelming news by
worshiping God joyfully.
Upon flipping the page to Luke 2, the
narrative become prosaic.
In those days a decree went out from Emperor
Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken
while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be
registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the
city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and
family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he
was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to
deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and
wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no
place for them in the inn.
If anything, Luke’s description of the actual
birth of Jesus is understated. Movies
depicting this are much more dramatic than the actual Biblical account. The film The
Nativity Story from a few years ago depicts an exhausting, harrowing
journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. In
one scene, Joseph is guiding the donkey ridden by a very pregnant Mary. They have to forge a waist-deep river that’s
moving quite quickly. As the water beats
against them and Joseph stumbles trying to keep stable as he walks the rocky
river bed, Mary sees a large, poisonous snake slithering through the water
toward them. The nervous donkey bucks
sending Mary flying. Joseph doesn’t
hesitate. He viciously grabs the snake
and flings it. Then he heroically lifts
his pregnant wife out of the cold water, carries her to the safe river bank and
retrieves the traumatized beast of burden so they can continue their journey. That might have happened. That or some episode like.
Luke doesn’t give us anything about the
journey. He just tells us there was a
tax imposed by the imperial overlords: Rome!
Rome says move, and you move.
Like every other beleaguered Israelite, Joseph had to comply with the census
by returning to the village of his birth.
Though it might not have seemed wise, he took his pregnant wife with
him. They made the 3-day walk. Thus Jesus, the Messiah, was born, in the
city of David, Bethlehem, just as prophecy hinted he would be. Luke’s narrative of the actual birth is void
of drama.
The action resumes in verse 8 of Luke 2. An angel terrifies a group of shepherds. The divine messenger begins, “Do not be
afraid.” He then tells the shepherds, “I
am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people; to you is born this
day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord”
(2:10-11). That angel is joined by a
multitude – 100’s? 1000’s? The night echoes with their angelic praise
songs. When they finish, then shepherds
run to Bethlehem waking everyone until they find the grotto where a baby was
born.
Right away these men of the field know they
have found the one. Mary realizes she’s
part of the biggest story in the history of the world. She’s right at the center of it. Luke must have known her, in her later
years. He probably wrote this gospel
after he talked with Mary many times and after she had died. Either he knew her, or he talked with people
who had known her quite well. He was
able to tell us that she took it all in, quietly rejoicing in her heart and
treasuring all that took place.
There is nothing quiet about those
shepherds. They thunder into the quiet
village looking for the baby. Once they
find him, they thunder through the quiet village waking everyone to tell them
what had happened. Then, they thunder
back out to the field so recently filled with angel-song. Now that same hillside pasture is filled with
the voices of shepherds as they praise God.
Luke is where the action is. Much of what we think of as the Biblical
Christmas story comes in Luke. Matthew
Gospel doesn’t have any of this. In
Matthew, the angel visits Joseph in his dreams.
Matthew is not concerned with why Joseph and Mary are in Bethlehem. He
just puts them there and he doesn’t mention a stable at all. Matthew tells us that angel convinced Joseph
to stay with Mary even though she was pregnant and he had nothing to do with
it.
Luke says nothing about visitors from the
East. The wise men are only in Matthew and by the time they arrive, the baby
Jesus is probably closer to two and toddling around. He and Joseph and Mary are in a house in
Bethlehem. The shepherds have long since
exited stage right. Yes, our tradition
has the shepherds and the wise men all together at the stable nativity
scene. It’s a lovely tradition that my
family maintains in our own nativity sets.
It is not Biblically accurate, but that’s OK. It’s a tradition that blends the stories from
Luke and Matthew.
Do not go searching for the story of Jesus’
birth in the Gospel of Mark. Mark begins
with Jesus at about age 30, getting baptized.
John’s gospel also does not mention the journey from Nazareth to
Bethlehem or angels visiting shepherds or a virgin birth or wise men from
Persia visiting the child Jesus. None of
those aspects of the story are in John.
John gives us the theology behind the birth of Jesus.
“In the beginning was the word and the word
was with God and the word was God. … All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing was made” (John 1:1, 3). This is the cosmic Christ. The second person of the trinity, God the
Son, who in the incarnation becomes Jesus, is the agent of creation. This picture of the cosmic Christ, also found
in Colossians 1 (v.15-20), is the opening of the Gospel of John. Jesus was born
in Bethlehem, but God the Son always existed.
In Jesus, God the son came to earth in human form.
John’s initial way of referring to Jesus, God
the Son, is the Word. In chapter 1, verse 14, John says, “the Word
became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a
father’s son full of grace and truth.
No one has ever seen God. It is
God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known”
(v.18). In that last statement John uses
hyperbole as a part of his presentation of Jesus as the only path to God. He wrote Gospel with the goal of showing who
Jesus is so that readers will surrender their lives to Jesus and accept Him as
their Lord and Master.
Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and a few others in
the Old Testament had seen God and lived to tell about it. The parents of Samson are on this list. So too are Noah and Enoch. The thing is in all these cases, God made a
special appearance to a specific individual for a specific purpose. The specific purpose in the coming of Jesus
was accessibility to God for all people.
In Jesus Christ crucified, Jesus Christ resurrected, the way to God is
opened for all people. With the
ascension, reported in Acts 1, Jesus departed bodily, but then the Holy Spirit
came as his lasting presence with all people in all places. Christmas is the story of God come to earth
so that you and I can know God, worship God, have forgiveness of sins, and
follow God the rest of our lives.
Luke gives the main story. Matthew fills some details not in Luke. Luke gives us Mary’s perspective. Matthew gives us Joseph’s. John lays out the theological significance of
what God has done in Jesus. God is with
us, God the Spirit, active among us. As
John’s Gospel winds down, we read this in chapter 20, verse 30-31. ” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of
his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to
believe[d] that Jesus is the Messiah,[e] the Son of God, and that through believing
you may have life in his name.” When
we recognize the work of Christ among us, at work in the Spirit in our lives,
then more signs are performed that point the world to God. In other words, God did not stop doing new
things at the close of the final book of the Bible. God continues to be on the move, creating new
life in the world. God does this work
through His church when His church is responsive to Him. In us, the story continues.
A new year is about to begin. As we celebrate Christmas, remember the year
that was, 2017, look forward to new horizons, and as take the next steps in our
lives, think about what it does say
in that final book of the Bible, Revelation.
The mistaken notion is that Revelation is all about Heaven and the
Gospel is all about how we get to Heaven.
Listen to what Revelation actually
says. “I saw the holy city, the new
Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for
her husband. And I heard a loud voice
from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among [women and men], He will
dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them’”
(21:2-3).
If the first act, the birth of Jesus, is God
come to earth, the Word made flesh, then the second act, the book of
Revelation, is the second coming of Jesus.
He comes. We don’t go. I love the Brad Paisley song, “When I Get
Where I’m Going.” The feeling of the
song is lovely and sometimes brings me to tears. But the Biblical message is ‘when Jesus gets
where he’s going,’ and where he’s going is here. It’s called the Second Coming. The end
of the story is Heaven, made new, joined with Earth, made new. Christmas is the preview of the eternal joy
we will have as sons and daughters of God living forever in God’s presence.
We step to that ending when we put our trust
in Jesus. We trust him to remove our
sins. We trust him to rule our
lives. His will for us is better than
our own. Gospel means “good news.” The Good News is that in Christ all sin is
forgiven, all people are united in love and in a new community, the Kingdom of
God.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a
happy New Year. If you have never given
your heart to Christ, I encourage you to do that. Email me if you have questions about how to
become a Christian (tennant.hillsong@gmail.com).
I would love talking with you about
this.
If you have been a Christ-follower in your
life, but lately have turned away from Him, you can turn back to Him
tonight. That’s what repentance is, turning
from sin, turning away from a destructive path, and turning to the Lord. He’s waiting to receive you in love.
If your relationship with God, in Christ, is
great, if you are walking with Christ already, praise God. He’s got new things instore for your life too. As you move into 2018, open yourself to him
afresh, seeking new mercies every morning.
AMEN
This
sermon was done at our church’s Christmas Eve service. We closed singing ‘Silent Night’ by candle
light.
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