Thanks to everyone involved for tonight’s Christmas Eve presentation called “What if?”
“What if?”
That’s the question Ned Flanders wrestled with in the special Christmas episode of The Simpsons: “O C’mon all ye faithful.” Ned Flanders is devoutly religious. But after a psychological illusionist visits Springfield, Flanders has a life—and faith—crisis. Flanders questions whether God is real following some tragic events in his life. He wonders whether he had simply gone along with the power of suggestion and believed the story of others. He ponders what the meaning of life would be with no God. (Ned asserts: “If there is no God, then there’s no Satan—no one’s in control!” Distressed and confused over his new outlook that there’s no spiritual reality, Flanders asks Marge: “What if this is all there is?”)
What if this is all there is? That’s a good question! It’s actually the most important question we will ever have to answer. As our beautiful nativity set has been unboxed and arranged in this evening’s Christmas Eve presentation, at different points the question has been posed: “What if?” What if the Christmas story was just that…only a story to bring cheer and comfort in the midst of all the troubles of life and tumult in the world around us?
That’s where Luke’s account of the birth of Christ is so helpful. Luke was a historian who captured a real time in history with real people and particular detail: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” (This was the census that took place before Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.” (Luke 2:1-5).
Of all times for a Saviour to be born, it was during a worldwide census! Jesus is no figment of imagination. He’s a stat, accounted for by officials on Bethlehem’s register of births, deaths and marriages! Through the census decreed by Caesar, God ensured the prophecy from Micah would be fulfilled that a ruler for Israel shall come forth from Bethlehem: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” (Micah 5:2).
How could Israel possibly have this ruler, at the height of Rome’s supremacy? Who would dare resist Caesar’s will? Israel was never less likely to produce a king. But this was the very time Christ was born, right under Augustus’ nose. Hundreds of years before his birth, Isaiah prophesied:
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
Unlike Caesar Augustus, Quirinius, and every world ruler before and after him, the Christ child’s Kingdom will never end. His rule will not be overcome by any world leader, or even the leader of the underworld, Satan. Jesus is the One whom God promised right back in the beginning. When Adam and Eve declared independence against God and rose up against him by placing their own reason and will over what God had said, imprisoning the whole human race under the power of sin, death
and Satan, God promised a saviour who would crush Satan’s head:
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15).
What if this hadn’t have happened? It’s easy, each year, to romanticise the Christmas Eve event because we are so used to hearing it. But let’s stop and think. Women, imagine you are Mary. Why has God involved you, that you should be the mother of the Son of God? And how can you be the mother of the Son of God? How on earth are you going to tell Joseph? How is he going to believe you when you tell him: “Joseph I haven’t been unfaithful. You know, the Holy Spirit conceived the child in me and he is the Son of God!” How are you going to survive after Joseph divorces you…a young, unmarried mother with nothing behind you?
It would just be easier to not go ahead with this, wouldn’t it? So what if Mary didn’t obey God’s word through the angel Gabriel? The devil would be triumphant, and we slaves in the Kingdom of Darkness forever. But Mary didn’t resist God’s word. She is the better Eve, who said to Gabriel… “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38).
And what about Joseph? Men—imagine if you were him! “Yeah, right Mary, an angel called Grabriel visited you. What were you on? Sure, the Holy Spirit got you pregnant. What a likely story! I loved you Mary, I trusted you, I’ve been faithful to you…but the wedding’s off!” Why would God put them in this position? Jesus’ conception had to be this way, so that the sinful human nature wouldn’t be passed on to the child by his parents in the normal way and Jesus was born as the sinless Son of God to save us.
So, what if Joseph had divorced Mary? In the culture of the day, unfaithfulness was a matter punishable by death. Joseph cared about Mary which is why he sought to divorce her quietly…but people would have found out. Divorce meant Mary’s life was at risk—and if Mary died, so would Jesus. It’s almost as though from the moment Jesus was conceived, he was destined to die.
But God didn’t let that happen. He didn’t let Joseph, a human being, derail the divine plan. God intervened—he revealed to Joseph that Mary was exactly right, to ensure Joseph was on board: “After Joseph had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 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.” (Matthew 1:20-21).
And what about the Wise Men and King Herod? Why were they warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, but return to their country by another route? Because Herod saw Jesus as a rival; a threat to his earthly plans. Herod wanted Jesus dead. There’s that Adam and Eve thing again—the desire to rule our way, not God’s way.
What if Herod had have succeeded in his plan to take Jesus’ life? Mere humans would have interfered in the divine plan and brought it to nought—leaving us all captive to sin, death and hell forever. But Herod’s plan did not succeed. God intervened.
What if the shepherds never heard the Good News announced by the angels while they were watching their flocks by night? What if nobody ever heard what the angels told the shepherds? Well, a Saviour born for us who we could never know because we’d never heard of them wouldn’t be much help to us. We need God to reveal himself and his saving will to us. So that’s exactly what God did.
The Christmas Eve Gospel tells us that God didn’t turn his back on us or hide himself from us. God did not choose to be distant and far away from us. He came all the way from heaven to earth in the Christchild born at Bethlehem. He foretold this thousands of years before it happened. And he made sure all the key characters throughout history played their parts—just like tonight’s play at St Paul’s. He did this to fulfil his plan for you.
At the end of the Simpsons episode, Ned Flanders found his faith. He was miraculously rescued from a freak underwater accident in a submarine. Through this experience, he knew God had rescued him. He regained faith in God.
We don’t have to wait for such a miraculous event to take place for us. It already has.
God sent his Son to save us. Yet there was no guestroom for him at the inn, so he was born in something animals eat from, surrounded by the excrement and filth of a stable. what an ironic picture—Jesus has come to a messy world, to save us from the muck of our sin. For people who cry out for God to be real, they need only to turn to Luke 2. it is a messy world, a broken world, a hurting world, it’s a spiritually dead world, dying to have hope, that still goes against God’s will, in war, violence and crime. Humans try all the time to derail God’s plan. But God comes even to the hardest, most unbelieving of hearts to make a manger of faith for the Christ child to dwell in.
Ned Flanders through that because of his right living God should bless him rather than receiving tragedy in life. But God doesn’t work that way. Jesus said: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). That is why Jesus came—to save the unrighteous, the unworthy—us, when all other hopes fail. No matter what life looks like—even if, like Ned Flanders, you are experiencing a crisis in life and faith—may you make your heart a manger for the Christ child today. For all this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means “God with us”—God with us in all of life’s circumstances, broken and breaking, hurting and grieving—until he will wipe away all tears from our eyes when he takes us with him to heavenly glory.
The angels greeted the shepherds: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ, the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11). If Jesus was just sent to save the people of the day, Christmas would have been merely a historical event. But the words in Luke’s Gospel “to you”: make this true for all who hear. These words make it true for you: God was faithful to his plan for you. Christ was born for you. In the Person of Jesus, God has wrapped divine love, grace and favour in strips of linen, and written your name on the gift tag, that through faith you might have life with him forever. Amen
