We celebrate Christmas because Jesus came to seek those who were far from God so that He could bring them back to God...

This week, we have been looking at a section of one of the accounts of Jesus life that are recorded for us in the Bible, called the gospel of Matthew. We have been looking at an event from history involving an encounter between Jesus and a Jewish tax collector named Matthew. We talked about the reality that Jews who were tax collectors were hated by their fellow countrymen and were viewed as traitors because they were working for the enemy. However, when Jesus saw Matthew sitting at the tax collector booth, He said to him “Follow Me”.

After receiving the invitation to follow Jesus as His disciple, he not only responded by leaving his tax collector booth to follow Him. In addition, Matthew responded by inviting all of his tax collector and sinner friends over to his house for a dinner party to meet and hang out with Jesus. Matthew responded to Jesus invitation to follow Him by inviting all of his tax collector and sinner friends to meet and hang out with Jesus.

And what is interesting is that all of Matthew's tax collector and sinner friend actually accepted the invitation. You see, there was something about Jesus that made people who were far from God comfortable enough to hang out with Son of God. While Jesus never lived a life that was marked by selfishness and sin, people who were far from God felt comfortable enough to engage and interact with Him.

While the tax collectors and sinners were drawn to and felt comfortable hanging out with Jesus, there were others who were not quite as comfortable. Another group of people, called the Pharisees, responded to what was happening between Jesus and Matthew and his tax collector and sinner friends by disengaging.

We talked about the reality that Jesus made insiders feel like outsiders while making outsiders feel like insiders when it came to how He related and engaged them. Jesus, however, overheard the conversation between His disciples and the Pharisees and responded with a timeless reality provides a timeless answer to the question “Why Christmas?” So let’s look at Jesus response together in Matthew 9:12-13:

But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. "But go and learn what this means: 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Jesus responded to the religious people of His day and their criticism with a metaphor to explain his actions: “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick”. You see, a physician, whose whole purpose is to cure physical ailments, does not spend a lot of time while he is at work seeing healthy people. And we intuitively know this, don’t we?

I mean, you usually do not go to the doctor because you want to, do you? You usually don’t say “I know what I’ll do today; I like going to the doctor so much that I’ll make an appointment to go today, even though I am healthy”. No, almost always, we go to the doctor because we have to. We have to go because we are ill, or have been ill, or need a check up to prove we are not ill.

Jesus then takes this metaphor and applies it to his actions and to the Pharisees religious lack of action when it came to those who were far from God. Jesus entered into this conversation and commanded these religious people to read their Bibles again. Jesus quoted a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the bible called the book of Hosea. In Hosea 6:6, God, through the prophet Hosea, condemned the Jewish people for focusing on religious rituals instead of focusing on displaying a faithful devotion to God and to those around them who were far from God and were lost, hurting, and broken.

Jesus then explained that just like a physician, His focus was for those who were far from God and were separated from Him. When Jesus states that He did not come to call the righteous, He is explaining that He did not come to invite those who are right before God. Instead Jesus states that He came to earth to call sinners. Jesus entered into humanity to call those who were far from God and were outsiders back to God.

You see, Jesus did not enter into humanity to see those who were close to Him; Jesus entered into humanity to rescue what was furthest from Him, the outsiders. And as Matthew looked back on his encounter with Jesus; as Matthew sat down to write, by God’s inspiration this letter that is now a part of our Bibles, Matthew recognized that he was not simply a part of the Christmas story, he was the point of the Christmas story.

And it is here, in this event from history from the life of Jesus involving a traitor tax collector, that we see revealed for us a timeless answer to the question “Why Christmas?”And that timeless answer is this: We celebrate Christmas because Jesus came to seek those who were far from God so that He could bring them back to God. Just as it was for Matthew the traitor tax collector, just as it has been for Christmases throughout history, we celebrate Christmas because Jesus came to seek those who were far from God so that He could bring them back to God.

You see, as Matthew sat down to write the divinely inspired account of Jesus life that we have in our Bibles today, Matthew wanted to communicate to us today that the reality is that the Christmas story is not something that we are simply a part of; the reality is that the Christmas story is all about us. You see, we are not a part of the Christmas story; we are the point of the Christmas story. Jesus came to earth to seek those who were far from God.

And to prove to the Jewish people that they were the point of the Christmas story, Matthew shared with us his story. Matthew shared with us his story because Matthew wanted us to understand that Jesus came to seek people who were flawed, broken, and far from God. And that is who we are, aren’t we? That is who I was before Jesus sought and rescued me. And that is who we all are before Jesus came to seek us.

Jesus came on that first Christmas to seek those who were far from God so that He could bring them back to God. And just as it was for Matthew, Christmas is about Jesus entering into humanity to seek those who were outsiders and who were furthest from Him. Just as it was for traitor Matthew, Christmas is about Jesus entering into humanity to provide an opportunity for the traitor race of humanity to experience forgiveness and the relationship with God that they were created for.