i said maybe...

yeh, blogeverything... here's my script from Chichester College carol service this afternoon. as always its not totally what i said, but mostly...

So why is Christmas so important? Why do Christians keep talking about Jesus? This man whose birth we celebrate at Christmas? What’s so special about this man, who was born, literally in those days, in the middle of nowhere, over 2000 years ago, that means shortly the whole country will close down for a week? Why do we have Christmas at all? What is it that Jesus came to achieve when He was born? I wonder what it was that bought you to this service today. What do you think about the relevance of Jesus to Christmas and beyond?

Well let’s have a look at what a bit of the Bible says about Jesus. The part we’re going to look at is a letter from Paul, whose letters make up a lot of the New Testament, to a guy called Titus, who was the leader of a church on Crete. Titus 2:11 says: For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. This is, if you like, the nativity according to Paul. And it’s a very different kind of nativity to the ones that we’re used to, to the ones that tell us in detail about angels and shepherds and the virgin birth. Paul focuses on the explanation of what of what happened at Christmas, rather than on the events themselves. We’ve already been asking the question about why we still celebrate Christmas, why Jesus still matters, so perhaps this is an answer.

Paul says ‘The grace of God appeared’. What does that mean? Why does Paul say that rather than ‘a child is born’ as it says elsewhere in the Bible. Well Paul is here talking about Jesus mission. What the point and end of Jesus birth was. Why is Jesus birth linked with grace appearing? The grace of God sums up all His actions on our behalf. But grace appeared, isn’t that a funny thing to say? Isn’t that a weird description? It says in John 1:17 ‘the law come through Moses: grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’ So maybe we’re already getting inkling that Jesus birth did more than give us an excuse for a week off every December. We’re beginning to see that Jesus appearing might be of huge significance.

Jesus birth meant that the grace of God would explode over the people that love Him, and are saved by faith. God sent His Son, Jesus, who had been with Him in perfect relationship for an eternity past, even before creation, when all that existed was the Father, Son and Holy Spirit worshipping and loving each other, in the form of a man, to live and to work like any other man. To feel exactly what men felt, to be tired, to be tempted, to be overcome with grief. This was the grace of God appearing. Jesus birth means more than a reason to have a party in winter, it means more than a reason to take some time off work. Paul present’s Jesus birth here as one of eternal significance. This is not an opinion we see reflected in the world today is it? Something like 90% of all Christmas cards bare no relation at all to any sort of Christianity, pretty much every light you see, every decoration on the outside of people’s houses depicts father Christmas, or reindeer, or something else patently unbiblical. Christmas has lost its entire meaning. Christmas is about the grace of God appearing in Jesus Christ. It’s about the way God stepped into human history, at a time, in a place, to…well to do what? What happened to this baby? Did He grow up? Isn’t Easter something to do with Jesus as well?

Well, lets have a look at the second part of this verse ‘bringing salvation for all people’. Again, Paul is suggesting that this birth is more than it seems. This baby, this man, bought salvation to all mankind. How? This one little verse sweeps us across Jesus entire life in one breath. ‘Grace appeared’ meaning, He was born…’bringing salvation’, meaning He died. But it’s not just that Jesus died, because eventually He was bound to die. What if I was to tell you that the God I worship, the God I want to live my life for, was executed in the most brutal way known to man? That He was killed alongside criminals, and instead of a murderer? What if I was to tell you that far from being a mistake, the Bible teaches that this was the plan all along, that to be killed was the reason that Jesus was born? Jesus, this baby whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, was crucified 33 years later. He was arrested, tried and executed. And yet, His trial was a sham. No one who accused Him could get their stories straight. Pilate, the Roman who was in charge of the trial, couldn’t find anything to convict Him of, and tried to set Him free. His friends, those who had lived and followed Him for three years said that He had never sinned, never broken any law, certainly never done anything that would deserve this kind of punishment. So why did this perfect man, this God-man die on a cross? To bring salvation for all people, is what this verse says. When He died, it wasn’t the physical torment that killed Him, the Bible records that He died too quickly for that…it was God’s anger against Him. On the cross a great exchange took place. All the things I’ve ever done that cause God anger, all the things you’ve ever done that cause God anger, were all put onto Jesus, and He was punished instead of us. He bore the penalty for our sins against God, which is death. This is How He bought salvation for all mankind. By clearing the way back to God so that we can be in relationship with Him, so that whoever believes in what Jesus has done for us would be able to enjoy Heaven with God forever. How can we trust this? Because the Bible records that Jesus didn’t only die, but that He came back to life three days later, just as He claimed, showing His authority over death. That’s why Jesus was born, that’s why He died, so that we might be able, if we believe, to have the perfect relationship with God that we were made for, but we’d never be able to have because of our sin.

So, the Bible teaches that Christmas is more than just about a baby being born in a manger. Faith in Jesus is not just an optional extra, it’s a matter of life or death. The Bible teaches that the events that we celebrate at Christmas are of eternal and absolute significance. What we do with them, what we believe about them really matters. There is nothing more important in life than the question of the identity of Jesus, and what our response to Him is going to be. I want to leave you with a challenge now. Either you can ignore what I’ve been talking about and have Christmas as something warm and lovely, turkey, stuffing, father Christmas, reindeer, but ultimately totally devoid of meaning, or, you can celebrate Christmas for real. As the time when God stepped into human history, to rescue us, to save us to give us life. That is what we should be celebrating at Christmas, that Almighty God laid aside all His glory to be born, to live and die, to save you and me…