Many thanks to the St Paul’s Youth for tonight’s drama called ‘A time for Christmas’! It’s incredible to think that the time for Christmas Eve has arrived once more! Christmas seems to come sooner every year, us adults think. Of course the actual date hasn’t changed, but the commercialization of Christmas seems to begin earlier each year, cleverly reflected by this cartoon: just 364 shopping days to Christmas!
But if you’re young, Christmas can’t come soon enough! The younger you are, the harder it is to wait for this time. It seems an eternity between opening each window on the Advent calendar. You hope the letters you wrote to Santa, and the requests you made as you sat on his knee will come true. The days drag on…and then, finally—it’s time for Christmas Eve. The excitement is intense. The anticipation of gifts awaiting you is almost excruciating. It’s nearly impossible to sleep! Then, when the time finally comes, Christmas is over so fast!
But for parents, the days pass too fast! Trees to put up, homes to decorate, food to prepare, gifts to buy and wrap, work parties to attend, friends to catch up with for end of year drinks, the end of school year wind up, family travel plans to sort…there’s so much to cram into that time. What pressure we put ourselves under! Have you ever thought about how there was none of this before the first Christmas?
Like children longing for Christmas to come, there was waiting and longing from the earliest times. In the beginning, after God’s good creation, Adam and Eve listened to the Devil’s temptation and obeyed their own desires to be like God. When they rebelled against God they brought sin and death into the world, a condition that impacts all humanity. In Genesis 6 we hear that God saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5). We don’t need to delve too deeply into the news reports to see how true this is.
But God had declared he would send a Saviour who would crush Satan’s head. Throughout the Old Testament there were many prophecies that pointed to this Saviour. People who knew their need for him longed for his arrival, but no one knew when that time would come. When King Ahaz ruled God’s people of old, they were still longing for a Saviour. Like Adam and Eve in the beginning, Ahaz also refused to listen to God. When Judah was attacked and every city except Jerusalem was either captured or destroyed, King Ahaz, like we humans tend to do, called on human strength for help, instead of first calling on the name of the Lord.
But even then, God gave Ahaz a sign of the Saviour he would bring: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
Eight centuries later God’s people were still longing for this son to come. The time of the first Christmas couldn’t come quickly enough. But God had set the time, and when the fullness of time had come, God fulfilled his promise made through Isaiah, of a virgin conceiving and giving birth to Immanuel.
The time for Christmas had arrived during, of all things, a census. Luke says: “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)” (Luke 2:1-2). Back then, the Bureau of Statistics didn’t letterbox drop the region. The people had to go to their own town to register. So Joseph went up 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 2:4-5).
It was while they were there that the time came for the baby to be born. This was the time for Christmas. The time that God chose. The busiest time, a time of hustle and bustle like that of the pre-Christmas midnight sales at Marion. Mary was so worried about the baby as she and Joseph were bumped and jostled in the crowded streets. Like Christmas Eve shoppers frantically circling for carparks in hope of finding an empty space, the couple went looking for accommodation. But there was no vacancy. No room for Jesus…only a cattle shed; the last place any of us would choose for our children to be born, with animals and their mess and the smell of their waste.
That was the time—God’s time—for the long-promised, long-awaited saviour to arrive into the world, as Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a son. It was at that time in history; that night of the first Christmas at Bethlehem, that Jesus—true God with the Father before time began—became flesh and dwelt among us. The first Christmas present was given by God, not wrapped in bright paper or shiny cellophane but in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger.
The youth showed so well that if Christmas was our DIY salvation project, we’d send a mighty warrior who would come with force, like a Viking, a pirate, or gun-toting cowboy. But a baby?! A baby is so powerless, so vulnerable, so fragile.
Exactly! God did not come to overtake the world by force and be high and mighty. God came in the most vulnerable circumstances; as a baby to experience the fullness of human life, from the first cell division to our final breath. In Jesus, God is the down to earth God who came in humility for the frail, the vulnerable, for those unable to help themselves. Just as there was no vacancy for him at the Bethlehem inn, he came for those who had no vacancy for him in their hearts. He came to bring good news for those distrusted and frowned upon, like the lowly shepherds who were among those despised by the society of the day, yet who were the first to whom the Good News was announced to that night: “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. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” The fulfillment of the sign announced to wicked King Ahaz eight centuries earlier.
Jesus came as a baby, so that there could be no mistaking God’s Saviour with mighty political leaders of the day. Jesus was not sent to win political wars but to triumph over the unseen spiritual battle between heaven and hell, and rescue us from the kingdom of darkness. So after Jesus grew to a man, when the time was right, Mary, who rested by the manger after her infant son took his first breath, stood before a Cross—where her son breathed his last, gasping: “It is finished!” Then he was wrapped in strips of cloth and laid him in a tomb.
A while ago on the Triple M breakfast show, Roo, Ditts and Loz (Mark Riccuito, Chris Ditmar and Laura O’Callaghan) were talking about how one of the major department stores was charging $29 for children just to sit on Santa’s knee. “It used to be free when I was a kid” they lamented. Understanding the increasing financial pressures young parents face, Roo said: “Don’t worry kids, Santa manages to get around to a lot of places. You can still get to see him—if you’re good he will still come.”
Thank God Jesus didn’t wait for us to be good enough before he came down to earth for us. He came for those who aren’t good enough, those who don’t measure up. The messy animal stable is an image synonymous with the depths of muck and filth of our world; a world darkened and unclean because of sin, a world tearing itself apart like a child ripping apart Christmas wrapping. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. He didn’t send Jesus into the world to condemn the world. He didn’t send Jesus to get even with wrongdoers, exclude people from blessing, or frown upon people who don’t meet expectations. That’s the human way—but not God’s way. That doesn’t make sense to us mere humans. But then: “Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding?” God asks in Isaiah 40.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Just before this passage from Isaiah are these verses:
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).
And so, now is the time. Tonight, Christmas is here again. So is the Christ of Christmas. He, whose kingdom will have no end, is alive, and is here, for you, with the fullness of God’s mercy, favour, blessing, forgiveness and grace. Hear again the angel’s message—God’s message to you: “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.” Now is the time. On the first Christmas there was no vacancy for Jesus in the inn at Bethlehem. On this Christmas, at this time in your life, will you have a vacancy for Jesus in your home…in your heart? Through the Christ child born in Bethlehem, God shows there is always room in his heart for you. Amen.
