Christmas Eve Regular Sunday Worship service Hebrews 19:5-10 The True Meaning of Christmas
Christmas Eve Sunday morning service
12/24/06
Text: Hebrews 19:5-10
Text: The True Meaning of Christmas
Today is one of those odd days in the church year. It is both the fourth Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve. Technically it is not Christmas Eve until Sundown tonight, but it does present a pastor with a dilemma, how to bring together the last Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve. You see Advent is that time when we are to pause, ponder, and then prepare for our Lord’s Second coming. Christmas on the other hand is the day Christianity has picked to celebrate the birth of Jesus, God’s first Advent.
After mulling it over, I decided that the best way to tie the two Advents together is to talk about the real meaning of Christmas, the significance of it for the lives of all humans.
If there would have been enough time this morning I would have liked to ask you to give me a list of thoughts that you and those you know associate with the meaning of Christmas. I would venture that they would cover an astonishing range of theology, philosophy, virtue, and sentiment. Christmas is about music. Christmas is about friendship. Christmas is about little children. Christmas is about family. Christmas is about getting and giving gifts. Christmas is about helping those who are less fortunate.
Well, let me add one more idea to the list. An old one; so old, in fact, that it is almost as old as Christmas itself. Yet you might have never heard it before.
To learn of this idea we have to go back to time perhaps 30 or 35 years after Jesus was crucified, or to put it another way, some 65 years after the very first Christmas. By this time there were thousands of believers in Jesus Christ, scattered over most of the Mediterranean world very possibly reaching as far as India in one direction, Ethiopia in another, and the British Isles in still another. Although the Christian movement was growing rapidly, believers were still a despised sect almost everywhere. Sometimes the despising was only unpleasant -- the kind of thing that would make people mock and ridicule any who identified themselves as Christians. Often though, the response toward those claimed Christ as their Savior was much more violent and hateful.
Often the attacks were organized by the government itself. The Christian movement was driven underground repeatedly. At times it was common for Christians to pay for their faith with their lives -- just as it is today in a number of places in our world. But in those days there were no strongholds of Christianity as there are today, so the persecuted believers had no place to turn for defense and no international bodies that might be called upon to plead their cause. To be a Christian in those days was to make one susceptible to torture and death.
It was at such a time that some unknown Christian leader wrote an open letter to Christians scattered here and there throughout a fairly wide region. We now call it “the letter to the Hebrews,” partly because the document is full of references to the Hebrew Scriptures, what we would refer to as the Old Testament.
The purpose of the letter was intended to encourage these persecuted believers to remain steadfast in the face of their mistreatment. It does this by taking its readers on a rather breathtaking trip through the Old Testament, making the case that God had spent centuries preparing the world in general and the Jewish people in particular for the coming of Jesus the Messiah.
And because this was so, the readers of the letter needed to consider themselves to be the most fortunate of all people. They had received what everyone from Adam and Eve, to Abraham, Moses and John the Baptist had waited for. They were now experiencing the reality of God coming to the earth as the God man Jesus, who came for only one purpose, to provide for our redemption.
The writer of the Epistle goes into more detail than I have time for this morning, but what he wrote was that for centuries the Jews had followed intricate patterns of ritual and animal sacrifice to seek forgiveness of sin. Let me take a moment here to tell you that the Jewish people were doing in a sense what nearly all the other cultures of their time did.
In many ancient cultures, people sacrificed other humans -- often the best of their young men and women -- in the hope that by doing so they would be delivered from their sense of guilt. The Jewish people did not sacrifice humans, but animals, and the animals had always to meet strict codes of cleanliness and appropriateness.
The problem was that none of the sacrifices worked. The people were sincere. They were deadly earnest, and they were often carried out with intricate, mystical ceremony, but they did not work.
The writer to the Hebrews wrote just before the text we are looking at today, “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Why did he write that? Well, it is because, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Human sin cannot be dealt with permanently, by some kind of animal sacrifice, or by even the most intricate and beautiful rituals.
The writer of Hebrews continues with, “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.’”
Jesus the Christ had come to do for our human race what no ritual, what no sacrifice, either animal or human, could ever achieve. And of course as we all know Jesus accomplished this work by his own death and resurrection. As important as that is, that is not the point the writer of Hebrews wants to get across. He quotes Jesus’ words to God: “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book." And then the writer, as if to emphasize the matter, puts the same point another way: “See, I have come to do your will”., continuing with, “It is by God’s will” that our human needs have been met.
You see, it is not our will that caused God to come to us, but God’s will, for he wanted our human race to be redeemed. God wanted the power of sin and death to be broken. God wanted all to gain eternal life. That was the will of God. But there was something in our own natures -- that was opposed to the will of God.
And that something, our natural attraction to those things of Satan kept us from coming to God and so according to the writer of this ancient letter that is what Jesus did, as he stepped forward in a sense, and said to God, “I have come to do your will, O God.”
That is what I wanted to share with you this morning, the new idea of what Christmas is all about. This is the meaning of Christmas. Jesus came into our world in order to bring God’s will to pass.
He brought to us all the things God always wanted our human race to have: freedom from sin, a right relationship with God and with one another, a whole new way of life, namely, eternal life, just as he originally created it.
Maybe we should call Christmas Day the “Will of God Day.” Because that is the day Jesus brought the will of God to our world
Before I finish let me add two more thoughts to the idea of calling Christmas, “Will of God” day. On the night Jesus was betrayed he went alone to Gethsemane to pray; and in that place of prayer he struggled with what it would mean to do the will of God. You might remember that Jesus asked if the suffering ahead of him might be avoided; but then he added, “Not my will, but yours be done.” On the night before his crucifixion Jesus announced again, in the hour of agonizing prayer, “I have come to do your will, O God.”
That is one thought. Here is the second one. It is found in the Lord’s Prayer. We say, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” You see, each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking God to carry out his will among us, the will Jesus Christ began on the first Christmas. We are asking God to bring his will to complete fulfillment in our time.
That is what Christmas is all about. It is about something Jesus began and will finish when he comes back on that last day of Judgment, a day we look forward to with great joy, just as the shepherds did when they were told of Jesus birth. We live in both the now and not yet, so while we wait we are to be about the will of the will of God, that is telling others that their only hope in life is Jesus, who came to do the will of God. This is the true meaning of Christmas. Amen
12/24/06
Text: Hebrews 19:5-10
Text: The True Meaning of Christmas
Today is one of those odd days in the church year. It is both the fourth Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve. Technically it is not Christmas Eve until Sundown tonight, but it does present a pastor with a dilemma, how to bring together the last Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve. You see Advent is that time when we are to pause, ponder, and then prepare for our Lord’s Second coming. Christmas on the other hand is the day Christianity has picked to celebrate the birth of Jesus, God’s first Advent.
After mulling it over, I decided that the best way to tie the two Advents together is to talk about the real meaning of Christmas, the significance of it for the lives of all humans.
If there would have been enough time this morning I would have liked to ask you to give me a list of thoughts that you and those you know associate with the meaning of Christmas. I would venture that they would cover an astonishing range of theology, philosophy, virtue, and sentiment. Christmas is about music. Christmas is about friendship. Christmas is about little children. Christmas is about family. Christmas is about getting and giving gifts. Christmas is about helping those who are less fortunate.
Well, let me add one more idea to the list. An old one; so old, in fact, that it is almost as old as Christmas itself. Yet you might have never heard it before.
To learn of this idea we have to go back to time perhaps 30 or 35 years after Jesus was crucified, or to put it another way, some 65 years after the very first Christmas. By this time there were thousands of believers in Jesus Christ, scattered over most of the Mediterranean world very possibly reaching as far as India in one direction, Ethiopia in another, and the British Isles in still another. Although the Christian movement was growing rapidly, believers were still a despised sect almost everywhere. Sometimes the despising was only unpleasant -- the kind of thing that would make people mock and ridicule any who identified themselves as Christians. Often though, the response toward those claimed Christ as their Savior was much more violent and hateful.
Often the attacks were organized by the government itself. The Christian movement was driven underground repeatedly. At times it was common for Christians to pay for their faith with their lives -- just as it is today in a number of places in our world. But in those days there were no strongholds of Christianity as there are today, so the persecuted believers had no place to turn for defense and no international bodies that might be called upon to plead their cause. To be a Christian in those days was to make one susceptible to torture and death.
It was at such a time that some unknown Christian leader wrote an open letter to Christians scattered here and there throughout a fairly wide region. We now call it “the letter to the Hebrews,” partly because the document is full of references to the Hebrew Scriptures, what we would refer to as the Old Testament.
The purpose of the letter was intended to encourage these persecuted believers to remain steadfast in the face of their mistreatment. It does this by taking its readers on a rather breathtaking trip through the Old Testament, making the case that God had spent centuries preparing the world in general and the Jewish people in particular for the coming of Jesus the Messiah.
And because this was so, the readers of the letter needed to consider themselves to be the most fortunate of all people. They had received what everyone from Adam and Eve, to Abraham, Moses and John the Baptist had waited for. They were now experiencing the reality of God coming to the earth as the God man Jesus, who came for only one purpose, to provide for our redemption.
The writer of the Epistle goes into more detail than I have time for this morning, but what he wrote was that for centuries the Jews had followed intricate patterns of ritual and animal sacrifice to seek forgiveness of sin. Let me take a moment here to tell you that the Jewish people were doing in a sense what nearly all the other cultures of their time did.
In many ancient cultures, people sacrificed other humans -- often the best of their young men and women -- in the hope that by doing so they would be delivered from their sense of guilt. The Jewish people did not sacrifice humans, but animals, and the animals had always to meet strict codes of cleanliness and appropriateness.
The problem was that none of the sacrifices worked. The people were sincere. They were deadly earnest, and they were often carried out with intricate, mystical ceremony, but they did not work.
The writer to the Hebrews wrote just before the text we are looking at today, “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Why did he write that? Well, it is because, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Human sin cannot be dealt with permanently, by some kind of animal sacrifice, or by even the most intricate and beautiful rituals.
The writer of Hebrews continues with, “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.’”
Jesus the Christ had come to do for our human race what no ritual, what no sacrifice, either animal or human, could ever achieve. And of course as we all know Jesus accomplished this work by his own death and resurrection. As important as that is, that is not the point the writer of Hebrews wants to get across. He quotes Jesus’ words to God: “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book." And then the writer, as if to emphasize the matter, puts the same point another way: “See, I have come to do your will”., continuing with, “It is by God’s will” that our human needs have been met.
You see, it is not our will that caused God to come to us, but God’s will, for he wanted our human race to be redeemed. God wanted the power of sin and death to be broken. God wanted all to gain eternal life. That was the will of God. But there was something in our own natures -- that was opposed to the will of God.
And that something, our natural attraction to those things of Satan kept us from coming to God and so according to the writer of this ancient letter that is what Jesus did, as he stepped forward in a sense, and said to God, “I have come to do your will, O God.”
That is what I wanted to share with you this morning, the new idea of what Christmas is all about. This is the meaning of Christmas. Jesus came into our world in order to bring God’s will to pass.
He brought to us all the things God always wanted our human race to have: freedom from sin, a right relationship with God and with one another, a whole new way of life, namely, eternal life, just as he originally created it.
Maybe we should call Christmas Day the “Will of God Day.” Because that is the day Jesus brought the will of God to our world
Before I finish let me add two more thoughts to the idea of calling Christmas, “Will of God” day. On the night Jesus was betrayed he went alone to Gethsemane to pray; and in that place of prayer he struggled with what it would mean to do the will of God. You might remember that Jesus asked if the suffering ahead of him might be avoided; but then he added, “Not my will, but yours be done.” On the night before his crucifixion Jesus announced again, in the hour of agonizing prayer, “I have come to do your will, O God.”
That is one thought. Here is the second one. It is found in the Lord’s Prayer. We say, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” You see, each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking God to carry out his will among us, the will Jesus Christ began on the first Christmas. We are asking God to bring his will to complete fulfillment in our time.
That is what Christmas is all about. It is about something Jesus began and will finish when he comes back on that last day of Judgment, a day we look forward to with great joy, just as the shepherds did when they were told of Jesus birth. We live in both the now and not yet, so while we wait we are to be about the will of the will of God, that is telling others that their only hope in life is Jesus, who came to do the will of God. This is the true meaning of Christmas. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 11:28 AM
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