Christmas Eve
What if Jesus Really is God?
St. Luke 2:1-20
24 December 2013 – Redeemer
To listen to the sermon press the play button below:
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Tonight, for the sake of my sermon, I’m changing the traditional Christmas greeting. No longer do I wish you a “Merry Christmas.” This year I’m wishing you a “Dangerous Christmas!” Based on the text from Saint Luke I’m going to ask you a dangerous question, that, God willing, will lead to a dangerous Christmas for you.
What if Jesus really is God? That is the claim made tonight. The claim made by angels and believed by shepherds, Mary and Joseph is this – Jesus is really God in the flesh. It is a claim they believed and once believed, it is dangerous – dangerous to them and dangerous to you.
For the shepherds it was dangerous to their livelihood. Having harkened to the heavenly host they believed that God Himself had been born in Bethlehem. What else could explain the shepherds forsaking their flocks to behold a baby? What would the guys down at the Local 101 Sheepshearers say about this at the disciplinary hearing? You left your sheep why? Angels you say? A baby who’s going to save the world? Right? How much brandy was in your eggnog? Never mind the sheep, the union, or the possible loss of their job – they abandoned their post and ran for a stable to look at a baby because they believed Jesus really is God.
Joseph’s reputation is in danger because of Jesus. Mary is pregnant and the child isn’t his. The engagement is off until an angel appears telling Joseph that the Lord has come to earth and He’s living in Mary’s womb. The Lord (that is what Jesus’ name means – The Lord saves.) The Lord who made heaven and earth, the Lord who fashioned Adam from the dirt, the Lord who delivered Israel from Egypt –is now a baby in Mary’s womb. That is what Joseph is told and that is what Joseph believes when he takes Mary home to be his wife, but everyone in Nazareth knows the timing isn’t right. Mary got pregnant before they were married – that may seem normal today, but it is a sin according to God’s Word, and a scandal for believers. Joseph will endure the scandal because Jesus really is God.
The baby in your womb Mary is the Most High God. That reality put Mary’s life in danger. To be pregnant and unmarried meant you broke the sixth commandment – you shall not commit adultery. Today unmarried mothers get baby showers. In Mary’s day they got showered with rocks outside the city gate until they were dead. To the gift of a baby in her Virgin womb and to death, Mary says, “May it be to me as you have said.” She is willing to give up her life. Why? Because she believes that Jesus really is God.
What if Jesus really is God? Might that endanger your livelihood. If Jesus is really God where should you be on the Lord’s day – working or receiving the gifts God won for you by His death on a cross? Might your reputation be in danger as a baptized Christian? If you choose to remain a virgin till marriage, not engage in gossip and backstabbing at work, if you sacrifice your personal pleasures for your husband, wife, children, or church you will have a bad reputation – for today evil is called good and good is called evil. Our lives are not in danger like many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. Do you remember the Muslim attack on that mall in Nairobi, Kenya? Did you know it was aimed at Christians? The El-Shabbab terrorists separated the Muslims from the Christians by asking basic questions about Islam. They set the Muslims free and shot the Christians. You never heard that side of the story on the major news outlets.
Livelihood, reputation, life itself – if this baby bundled in a manger really is God you are in danger. Your love affair with yourself is in danger. Your “Old Adam,” as the Bible calls him, is in danger. Old Adam is the sinner you are, the corrupt human nature you inherited from your parents. If you believe Jesus is really God then your old Adam is in danger.
You see, Old Adam has been chasing ipads and ipods and PS4s and spending money and believing that toys, gadgets, gifts and grandkids are the essence of Christmas. Old Adam enjoys hearing the latest gossip at work or school because if other people look worse old Adam looks better. Old Adam neglects his wife for his hobbies and pleasures. Old Adam works or sleeps or plays instead of going to the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day. Old Adam spends far more time playing and preaching Santa Claus than teaching his children to confess their sins and cling to Christ. Old Adam waits in line two hours a $1.99 DVDs on Black Friday, but he’s already watching the clock at 45 minutes into the Christmas Eve service. Old Adam loves you and you love Him. He’s a lot of fun and he’s got your best interest at heart (or so he says).
If you believe that Jesus is really God then Old Adam must die. If Jesus really is God it means we are in serious trouble, trouble from which we cannot deliver ourselves. It means Old Adam has been lying to us about life.
If tonight you were awakened by an ambulance and firetrucks in front of your neighbor’s house, you would know that your neighbor was in great peril. If heaven opens and the angels come down, if the Holy Spirit conceives a child in the womb of a Virgin, if God Himself takes on flesh to dwell among us it means we are in deadly trouble. If this little baby is truly God then this birth preaches the seriousness of our sin and the folly of old Adam’s wisdom. That God must come Himself, that God must take on human flesh, means my condition is terminal and Old Adam is a liar. If Jesus is really God this birth cuts us to the heart of the problem – the problem is me and my sin. Those angels on that hillside are like a siren and flashing lights to the shepherds and to us. God has come in the flesh because your sin is deadly, your death is imminent, and God’s judgment is against you if you remain in sin and remain friends with old Adam.
At the very same time, when we see sirens and lights, we take great comfort because help is on the way. If Jesus is really God then it means God loves you. It means God has not left you alone in your sin. If Jesus is really God then it means that God has taken your sin upon Himself. It means that God’s blood was shed for you. It means that God suffered hell, God died on the cross, God was buried in the tomb. It means that God Himself paid for your sins with His precious body and blood and with His innocent suffering and death. It means you are forgiven. It means you are a child of God. It means you have better days ahead – days of eternal life and resurrection from the grave, days of joyful reunion with those whom you love who have died in the faith that Jesus is really God. It means you have the certainty of forgiveness and love, for what can Satan and death say against the suffering, blood, and death of God Himself for you?
The Shepherds were willing to lose their jobs, Joseph his reputation and Mary her life because they believed that Jesus is really God. You might argue, “Well, easy for them. They had angels from heaven preaching to them, all we have is Pastor Timm and he ain’t no angel.” Tonight I want to solidify the claim that Jesus is God, not with my own testimony, but with the testimony of eyewitnesses to the most significant event in the life of Jesus – His resurrection. If Jesus rose from the dead (and He did – the evidence is overwhelming) then He is truly God. Saint Paul tells us that over 500 eyewitnesses saw Jesus alive three days after He was pronounced dead by Roman soldiers. Those witnesses were available for anyone to question. The Romans and the Jews were never able to produce the body of Jesus and they controlled the whole “crime” scene and displaying the body would have been to their great advantage. Meanwhile the twelve apostles believed Jesus rose from the dead and preached His life, death and resurrection without any personal benefit to themselves – in fact all twelve were either killed or imprisoned for confessing, “Jesus Christ is Lord and God. He is risen from the dead.”
Now I know you might say, “But pastor we know the Bible is filled with errors and contradictions and there’s other documents like the Bible.” Let me tell you about the unequaled documentary evidence of the Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If you studied Plato in philosophy or believe that Homer wrote the Iliad then you must believe the historical record of Scripture as accurate and true.
Plato wrote a document called the Tetraologies. We have 9 copies of that document. We have 643 copies of Homer’s Iliad. On average those documents appeared 400 and 1300 years after the authors lived. We have over 15,000 documents of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that appear a mere 140 years after Christ ascended. The documentary evidence for Jesus is greater than any other event of antiquity. (Apologetic Information from Craig Parton Religion on Trial, p. 47-48)
So when someone tells you to be suspicious about the Scriptural record or to doubt that Jesus is God you can bet Satan and Old Adam have been sharing some eggnog and brandy while they talked about deceiving you. The last thing they want for you is a dangerous Christmas. The last thing they want is for you to believe the truth that Jesus is really God in the flesh. To believe Jesus is God is dangerous in the way that soap is dangerous to germs, chemo is dangerous to cancer, forgiveness is dangerous to sin, and the resurrection is dangerous to death. To believe Jesus is really God is to believe your sins are forgiven, that death is dead, and that old Adam is gasping his last breath. As strange as it sounds a dangerous Christmas is a Merry Christmas for you because Jesus really is God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
24 December 2013 anno Domini