On Christmas Eve, we spent our time together reading the
Christmas story. I do not know if you do that at your house, but it is a neat
tradition that Julie and I have done with our daughter. If you are thinking
about reading the Christmas story, I would recommend doing so out of the Book
of Luke, because the Christmas story in the gospel of Matthew is more difficult
and messier.
In our culture, we like things to be neat and tidy, and we
tend to like our Christmas in a box, neatly wrapped, with little or no
complications. Just think of the manger scene you can pick up at a store. The
scene with the animals, the angels, the shepherds, Mary, Joseph, and the baby
Jesus, all neat and tidy. Now, if you have ever tried to purchase a really nice
nativity scene, you know that these scenes can go fast, so you have to shop
early to get just the right one.
Recently I discovered an amazing statistic. Over this past
thanksgiving weekend, $21.6 billion was spent in online retail sales. Economists
estimate that the total retail sales for the Christmas season will reach over 717
Billion dollars. Much of the sales were done with credit cards that will need
to be paid off later.
To give a bit of perspective, what we as a nation spend over
the Thanksgiving weekend is more than the entire Gross Domestic Product for the
nations of Yugoslavia, India, Pakistan, Cuba, and the Sudan, amongst others. We
as a country spend that much on Christmas because, in many ways, Christmas
comes in a box which we wrap neatly, put under the tree, and open. The gospel
of Matthew’s account of Christmas goes into more detail, and really reveals to
us that it was a hard thing to get Christ to earth.
Not only that, but it also reveals that in God’s economy,
Christmas was by far the most costly thing that ever happened in the universe. We
see that starting in Matthew 1:1-2:
The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son
of Abraham: 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the
father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.
At about this point we
begin to look for where the record of the genealogy ends and skip down to
verses 16-17:
Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born,
who is called the Messiah. 17 So all the generations from
Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to
Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the
Messiah, fourteen generations.
Now a natural question that could arise here is “Why did Matthew place the genealogy
in his Christmas story?” The genealogy shows us the high cost of Christmas in
the promise of a redeemer fulfilled. The genealogy shows God’s faithfulness to
His promise to Abraham in Genesis 12. God even set up a system to point us to
the promise.
God gave us the Law to
show us our need for a Savior. God gave us the prophets to point us to a
Savior, as we learned in the when God speaks series this fall. It is important
to understand that this promise was not a knee jerk reaction due to what
happened in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.
And Christmas was not
some wild thought by God while sitting in Heaven. It wasn’t like God said to
Himself “Hey I have an idea! Let’s do something different this year. Let’s have
this new thing called Christmas. People can buy gifts for each other and
decorate trees and even get a day off work”. Christ was set to be sent from the
foundations of the earth.
Christmas was a
systematic and clear fulfillment of a promise and is an outworking of God’s
plan and activity in His story. The high cost of Christmas is not only seen in
His master plan in history. The high cost of Christmas is also seen in a
romance interrupted in Matthew 1:18-25:
Now the
birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed
to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy
Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not
wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But
when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a
dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as
your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21
"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save
His people from their sins." 22 Now all this took place to
fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23
"BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY
SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL," which translated means, "GOD WITH
US." 24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of
the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as
his wife, 25 but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son;
and he called His name Jesus.
To truly understand what happened that first
Christmas season, we must understand the tradition of marriage during Jesus’
day. For Joseph and Mary, their romance was supposed to go something like this.
Joseph would ask Mary and her family, Mary and her family would then agree to
the wedding proposal.
At this point, however, things become much
different than today, because Joseph would then go back to where his family
lived and would prepare a place for them to live, with his family. Joseph would
basically build an addition on his parent’s house for them to live in. After
the addition was completed, Joseph would then come back with his entire family
banging pots and pans in a loud parade-like celebration. The parade would then
stop at Mary’s house, pick her up, and take her to be with his family.
That is why Jesus’ words in John 14 are so
significant, that Jesus went to go and prepare a place for us and will come
again to receive us to Himself. The image that was given to the disciples, and
us today, is one of a wedding procession and of an intimate and eternal
relationship that is far beyond anything we can imagine. So we have Mary
waiting for Joseph, but instead of Joseph showing up an angel shows up, which
we see in the account from the gospel of Luke, in Luke 1:26-38:
Now in
the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called
Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of
the descendants of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And
coming in, he said to her, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." 29 But
she was very perplexed at this statement,
and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. 30 The angel
said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. 31
"And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall
name Him Jesus. 32 "He will be great and will be called the Son
of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father
David; 33 and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His
kingdom will have no end." 34 Mary said to the angel, "How
can this be, since I am a virgin?" 35 The angel answered and
said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be
called the Son of God. 36 "And behold, even your relative
Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called
barren is now in her sixth month. 37 "For nothing will be
impossible with God." 38 And Mary said, "Behold, the
bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word." And
the angel departed from her.
Imagine being Mary for a moment. You are excited
about the new life you are about to start with Joseph. An angel appears and
then states “Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you”. The passage says
that Mary was very perplexed at this greeting. If you are Mary, you might be
thinking “hey Joseph must be coming soon and God is really going to bless our
marriage. Maybe we even got one of those upscale camels and maybe Joseph was
able to really get us a nice large addition that has some distance and privacy
from the rest of his family. Maybe he even was able to get a promotion and
raise at work”.
Mary quickly learned, however, that it is not
worldly favor, but supernatural favor that she is receiving. If you are Mary,
how do you respond? All of your plans and dreams have just been shattered by an
announcement by an angel. How are you going to explain this to Joseph and his
family when they all show up banging pots and pans?
“Hi y’all. You would not believe what happened
while you were gone. An angel named Gabriel showed up one night and explained
that I was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that I was going to deliver the
Messiah”. “Yah, sure, isn’t that great. Holy Spirit, Messiah”. “Sinner, Scarlet
Letter”. Joseph, as the passage in Matthew states, being a righteous man, was
just going to divorce her quietly instead of having her stoned, as the Law
allowed. That is until he had his own encounter with the angel of the Lord.
As Mary and Joseph found out in a most incredible
way, the Lord was about to fulfill an echo of Christmas that He had proclaimed over
700 years earlier in Isaiah 7:14. An echo fulfilling the promise of a
child who would serve as a sign from the Lord of a deliverer, who the Lord
would send to deliver humanity in the face of their unfaithfulness. An echo fulfilled
of a child who would be the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to send a greater
deliverer, who would arrive in a more miraculous fashion, to provide a greater
deliverance for humanity in the face of humanities unfaithfulness to the Lord.
As Mary
and Joseph found out in a most incredible way, when God moves supernaturally, our lives can be
interrupted. What follows is an amazing exercise of faith by Mary and Joseph.
In spite of a life that will be stigmatized and dramatically altered, Mary and
Joseph do as the angel commanded them. Mary and Joseph’s faith would be put to
test, however, with a new threat, which we see in Matthew 2:1-3:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the
king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 2 "Where
is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and
have come to worship Him." 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all
Jerusalem with him.
Herod was threatened by
this word of a King that could take his power. So he summoned the chief priests
and scribes to find out where this king was to be born, which we see in verse
4-6:
Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he
inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They said to
him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written by the
prophet: 6 'AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH, ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST
AMONG THE LEADERS OF JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A RULER WHO WILL
SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.'"
As Herod discovered, the
Lord was about to fulfill an echo of Christmas that He had proclaimed some
700 years earlier in Micah 5:2. An echo that the Lord often does what is most
significant in the world in places that are viewed as being insignificant by
the world. An echo of a descendant of the Jewish nations most famous king, king
David, that be the fulfillment of a promise to send a Messiah and King who
would bring the Jewish people back to God and back to prominence in the world.
An echo fulfilled in an insignificant, small backwater town of
Bethlehem. An echo fulfilling the Lord’s promise to do what would be most
significant for the world in a place that was viewed as being insignificant by
the world. After finding out the location of this new king, King Herod sent the
magi, unknowingly, on a secret spy
mission. The magi find Jesus, not as an infant in the manger, as this scene
shows, because Jesus is now a child and his family is in a house as we see in
verse 7-18:
Then Herod secretly called the magi and determined from them the exact time
the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said,
"Go and search carefully for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, so that I too may
come and worship Him." 9 After hearing the king, they went
their way; and the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them
until it came and stood over the place
where the Child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced
exceedingly with great joy. 11 After coming into the house they saw
the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him.
Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to
Herod, the magi left for their own country by another way. 13 ¶
Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a
dream and said, "Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt,
and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child
to destroy Him." 14 So Joseph got up and took the Child and His
mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. 15 He remained
there until the death of Herod. This
was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
"OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON." 16 ¶ Then when Herod
saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and
slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two
years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the
magi. 17 Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was
fulfilled: 18 "A VOICE WAS HEARD IN RAMAH, WEEPING AND GREAT
MOURNING, RACHEL WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN; AND SHE REFUSED TO BE COMFORTED,
BECAUSE THEY WERE NO MORE."
Now that is a part of the
first Christmas season that we don’t talk about. We do not talk about it
because the first Christmas season was not neat and tidy. When you read the
gospel of Matthew, you get a whole different slant on the Christmas story. The
Christmas story seems more like a soap opera, messy, complicated, not the
eloquent story like we see in the gospel of Luke. There are messages in dreams,
late night escapes, and evil forces with devious plans.
The high cost of
Christmas is also seen in these devious plans that leave a region weeping. Bethlehem
You see, we celebrate
Christmas to celebrate life in the birth of Christ. But Christmas is as much
about death as it is life. It is often said, and maybe you have heard this
several times, that “Jesus is the reason for the season”. But Jesus is not the
reason for the season. Instead, we are the reason for the season. The reason
for the Christmas season is the result of our selfishness and rebellion, our
desire to do things our way instead of God’s way. See, the problem is that our
selfishness, and rebellion kills everything. This revolt of humanity against
God cost the lives of every boy under two years old in Bethlehem.
Now a natural question
that could arise here is “Well why didn’t God work differently?” That is a
great question and my response to that great question is this: God used our
rebellion to set up a system of predictions and promises that echoed from the
past to demonstrate that Jesus was the fulfillment of His promise to send a
rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah, who would provide
humanity the opportunity to experience forgiveness and the relationship with
God that they were created for.
Because the high cost of
Christmas is most clearly seen in Christ. These echoes of Christmas pointed to
the reality that Jesus as God would become God in a bod as God got the Son of
God into the manger. Jesus exchanged the glory and majesty of Heaven for the
manger and flesh. Jesus exchanged that glory not for a carol, or a gift, or His
own special day. He exchanged all of that for a mission. Jesus had a mission, not just to get into a body, but to get that body to the
cross.
Now another question that
could arise here is “Why would He do that?” The reason what Jesus would embrace
the mission that He had been given not just to get into a body, but to get that
body to the cross was because like the credit card that we use to buy our 717
Billion dollars’ worth of gifts, our selfishness and rebellion creates a debt.
Unlike our credit card, however, we cannot do anything to pay our debt that
comes from our selfishness and rebellion. Jesus mission was to take that debt
of our selfishness and rebellion and nail it on the cross, thus paying it off,
past, present, and future.
You see, 717 Billion
dollars is nothing compared to the cost to God, and we cannot put that cost
into a box. Christmas is costly, and we can rejoice in the fact that we have an
all powerful and totally sufficient being that was willing to exchange the
glory of Heaven to be Immanuel- God with us, and to pay the highest price for
us out of His amazing love and grace.
Because that is what
Christmas is all about. And the echoes of Christmas remind us that Jesus
entered into humanity to pay the cost so that all humanity could have the
opportunity to experience forgiveness and a relationship with Him. Christmas is
about the echo of Jesus entering into humanity to pay the cost so that all
humanity could have the opportunity to experience forgiveness and the
relationship with God that we were created for. Christmas is about an event in
history that echoes throughout history.
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