Christmas Eve 2017

Merry Christmas and welcome to Christmas Eve at Orchard Hill.

It's good to be together here in the worship center, in the chapel, in the lobby, and just to have a chance to celebrate Christmas.

You know, this time of year uh brings about some predictable things for us.

There are the times where we have family events and things that are going on, maybe some parties to go to, some shopping.

And one of the things that also happens is people think about Jesus a little more than maybe other times of year.

I saw one email where some people were considering Jesus and they asked the question: where would he have been born or lived today if he came today?

And the time that he came, it was the Middle East, but now they'd say, where would it be?

And so the question was asked, and the first person responded and said, Well, I think Jesus would have come from California.

And the reason that they said California was because they said when Jesus lived on the earth, he rarely wore shoes or sandals or whatever he wore, never cut his hair, and he started his own religion.

It sounds like California.

Not to be outdone, the next person said, No, no, I think Jesus would have been Scandinavian because, as the creator of all things, he invented coffee.

He lived with his mother until he was over 30, and we have no record of him laughing out loud.

And still another said, no, no, if Jesus had come today, he would have come as a woman.

And they said that because they said he spent all of his time trying to convince men of the truth, and nobody believed him.

And he had to be ready to feed large crowds at a moment's notice, and even when he was dead, he had to come back to life because there was still more work to be done.

Now that's probably not too serious of a consideration of Jesus, but what we want to do here, just for the next 15, 20 minutes together, is consider the spiritual significance of Jesus.

And so I'm going to read from Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 3.

Hebrews 1:1–3

Here's what it says.

In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways.

But in these last days he's spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the universe.

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

After he provided the purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

This is the word of the Lord.

Now, my guess is when I read that, that whether you've been around church for a long time or church is kind of new to you, or you're not even sure about God or Jesus or where it fits for you, that you glossed over a little bit because there are a lot of different phrases there, and probably the thought is, okay, it's Hebrews.

What does it have to do with Christmas?

And what does it have to do with me?

But I believe that in these few verses we see a lot about what Christmas means and a lot about how it can impact our life.

In fact, I believe that there are two things in this passage that if we understand them, if we make them part of our life, they can change our life.

So here's the first one.

And that is, this passage and shows us that Christmas shows us God.

And what I mean when I say that is the passage says that in the times gone by, that God spoke in various ways and through the prophets, but in these last days he's spoken to us through his son.

And what that means is that the age in which we live, the way that God has revealed himself, is in Jesus Christ.

And then a little later in Hebrews, it says, right there in Hebrews 1, it says that he's the exact representation of God.

In other words, if you want to know what God is like, we see a picture of him that's complete in Jesus Christ.

And the reason this is important is because in our day and age, really in any day and age, there are so many different ideas about what God is like.

Sometimes we see it in the music that we have.

Bet Medler did a song years ago called From a Distance, and the version of God that she portrayed was that God is up there, out there somewhere, watching us from a distance, but he's not involved in our lives in any significant way.

Then Bob Dylan did a song.

It was covered by Billy Joel and Adele.

This way I'm hitting all the generations.

And it was called To Make You Feel My Love.

And if you first hear the song, it sounds like somebody's singing a love song to somebody else.

Like they're just saying, I would do anything so that you would feel my love.

But if you listen to it closely, you can see that when Bob Dylan wrote it, he was actually saying that it was God's way of relating to people.

And what he was basically saying is that as good as romantic love is, that when we experience God's love, it's even better.

And then there's Kanye West, even more recently.

And he has a song called Jesus Walks, and in it there's uh an interplay where he kind of talks about how the devil seems to want to get him to go a different direction, but he wants Jesus to walk with him, so he stays on the path.

And there could be a hundred other versions of God, but what Christmas shows us, what Hebrews shows us, is that the God who is is the God who is in charge of everything.

That's what Hebrews says, that he's the creator of everything, he's the heir of everything, he's the sustainer of everything.

In other words, God is all powerful, but what Christmas shows us is that that very God came to earth, inhabited a human body in order so that he could make a way to relate to you and for me to relate to him and for you to relate to him.

And that's an amazing story.

Now, sometimes when we hear that, we sound we say it sounds almost too good to be true.

In fact, some people look at this and they feel like, well, it's just a myth.

That this isn't reality, it's just a myth.

But New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham says that this really can't be a myth because he says the gospels were written too soon to Jesus' life, they were too detailed, and they were too counterproductive to be a myth, because he says that myths always kind of came into being long after something happened, that they weren't very detailed, and that they really um were counterproductive to the people who were who were there or they weren't counterproductive.

So here's what this means.

If I were to say to you, last Sunday night I went to the Steeler game when they played that team, that the cheaters.

Um Just kidding, just kidding.

Kind of.

Um and if I were to say, I went and I parked at Station Square and I walked across the Ohio River to get to Hines Field, what you would say rightly is, no, you didn't.

It's not frozen, nobody saw you do it, and it's not possible.

But here's what what Jesus' life was like.

It would be as if somebody said, I saw somebody walk across the Ohio River, make a little right turn up the Allegheny River, and go to the old Three River Stadium in the 70s to a game.

Because we still know people who were around in the 70s who could tell us I was there, and as that had been documented to several people.

That's what the gospels do.

They give us accounts of different people that we could say, this really happened.

And not only that, when we say that it's counterproductive, the disciples weren't portrayed as Myths would have portrayed the disciples as being all put together, all good at what they did.

Instead, they were people who were weak in faith, people who were flawed in character.

And so it isn't really reasonable to say it's a myth.

Some would say, well, maybe it was just a mistake.

Maybe what happened was Jesus was a person and he was one of the would-be kind of zealots, messiahs, deliverers of his people.

But Jesus wasn't really God.

It was just a mistake.

It would be like auto-correct, gone wrong.

Have you ever had that happen where you type something into your auto, into a phone and you get a word and it just keeps coming back every time you type it and it's the wrong word?

I had that happen to me recently with thanks.

I got a B in it, and I keep, every time I start to write the word thanks, I get thanks with a B.

Somebody already told me how to fix that.

But some people think that that's how we got Jesus as the God figure.

Others just look at it and say, well, maybe it's just a big mystery.

Maybe we don't really know what it means.

But Jesus coming to earth, Christmas shows us who God is.

Paul Harvey, the noted newsman from another generation, had a story that he would tell about Christmas.

And it was about a man who didn't want to go to the Christmas Eve service with his family, and so he told his wife he wasn't gonna go.

He said, I just don't believe.

I feel like I'd be a hypocrite if I went to Christmas Eve.

And so his family went and he stayed home and the snow was falling.

It was a heavy, wet snow, and he was reading the newspaper, and all of a sudden he hears a thud on the window.

Doesn't think much of it, he hears another thud.

So he goes outside to investigate, and when he gets outside to investigate, what he sees is he sees some birds where the snow was too heavy for them to fly, and they'd seen the light at his window and tried to get whatever lift they could to get inside to shelter.

And he feels compelled to try to help them.

So he goes outside and tries to lure them into his barn.

He gives them kind of a wave and lights up the barn and tries to get them to come in, but they won't.

And so then he goes and he gets some food and he tries to entice them in with food and they won't go in with food.

And he has a moment where he just thinks, maybe they would come if they weren't afraid of me, if I could become a bird for a little bit and show them the way.

And as Paul Harvey tells the story, he basically says, that's exactly what happened in Christmas.

And it's what the man realized in that moment.

So Christmas shows us who God is, but it doesn't just show us who God is.

There's something else that Hebrews tells us about Jesus, and that is it tells us that God is on the move.

Now that's a phrase that I use because it comes from literature.

It comes from C.S.

Lewis and his Chronicles of Narnia.

Narnia are some children's books where there's an alternate reality that these kids go back and forth between their real home and Narnia.

And in Narnia, it's always winter but never Christmas, and the wicked witch of Narnia has everything under her thumb and makes things miserable for the people.

But when the kids go there, they hear of a figure called Aslan, who's in the books is the God figure, and it's said that Aslan is on the move.

And all of a sudden the snow begins to melt, things begin to change, hope comes into people's lives.

And we see here that Christmas shows us that God is on the move.

Here's what it says in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3.

Hebrews 1:3

It says, And he, after he had provided a purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

So it says, after he had provided a purification for sins, he sat down.

Now to sit down was to say, in essence, my work is finished.

I've done what I needed to do.

And it's God's way of basically saying, I am going to make everything right.

But here's the challenge.

You and I live in a world in which we know everything isn't right.

We know that there is injustice.

We watch the news, we know of pain, we know of it personally, to know that there's brokenness in our world.

I heard about a man who was talking to his wife, and he was looking in the mirror and he said, I am fat, I am old, and I am ugly.

Then he said to his wife, he said, I could use some encouragement.

His wife thought for a moment and she said, Your eyesight's still really good.

Now, who of us who isn't older than 25 hasn't at some point looked in the mirror?

Maybe we haven't said, I'm old, I'm fat, and I'm ugly, but hasn't at least said it isn't what it used to be?

And who hasn't experienced some physical breakdown or known somebody where disease has ravaged their body?

And what Christmas is, is it's a reminder that God is on the move and that one day all that ails us physically, all that breaks down the lives of the people we love physically, that the great healer can one day rebuild and restore.

Who of us hasn't at some point experienced somebody who's let us down?

Some of us in the last year have been stabbed in the back.

Some of us have experienced a great betrayal at the hands of somebody.

And what Christmas is, is it's a reminder that God is on the move and that God can be trusted even when people can't be.

Some of us have experienced incredible loneliness.

We feel alone even when we're with people.

Maybe we've experienced the loss of somebody through death.

Maybe a relationship that was important to us kind of dissolved in the last year, or maybe we're we're in a relationship and yet we can't even articulate it, but we feel just as alone in the relationship, and we haven't told anybody really how alone we feel.

And Christmas is a reminder that God is on the move and that one day God will create a community for those who know him and love him, where we'll have fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but not just that with his people.

That's what John 14 is talking about when Jesus says, When I go, I go to prepare a place for you.

And in my Father's house are many rooms.

What he's doing is he's painting a picture of beautiful community and saying, saying, the way that we'll live in the future is in community.

Some of us, as we look back in the last year, we we hear of the wars and rumors of wars around the world, or we see the political turmoil in our own country.

And whichever way you voted in the last election, you have to agree that the acrimony between the sides is steep.

And as a result, sometimes we think, where's the hope in this?

A generation ago, we had the hope that the children of this country would be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

But if you've watched the news, it feels like we've taken a step backwards as a country.

But Christmas is a reminder that God is on the move and that one day the King of Kings and Prince of Peace will rule, and that people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue will worship together in a beautiful display of human unity.

Some of us have seen people who are unethical, unscrupulous, people who are unenlightened get ahead, and Christmas is a reminder that God is on the move and one day he'll right every wrong.

Some of us have experienced the frustration of not getting the things that we've longed for, and we've longed for things.

We've longed for a different job or for a different relationship.

We've longed to hit a financial plateau.

Maybe we've wanted a baby, and those things haven't happened.

And so we wonder where God has been, but Christmas is a reminder that God is on the move and that He can give the desires of the heart or fulfill us even when those don't come to fruition right now.

Some of us have gotten what we wanted.

This last year has been filled with getting the things we always thought we wanted.

We have the new job, we got into the relationship, we got into the school we wanted, we had the baby, we've reached a financial plateau.

And yet we still feel a sense of emptiness, like all isn't as it could be, and that thing that we longed for didn't prom didn't give what it promised.

Well, Christmas is a reminder that God is on the move, and that the things that give us joy in this life are but a taste of what we'll ultimately get.

Some of us have made mistakes this year.

We've done things that we wish we hadn't done.

Things that cost us, things that hurt people around us.

Things that if we could take them back, we would.

We would rewind the time and go a different direction.

But Christmas is a reminder that God is on the move and that he can bring beauty out of the brokenness that even we've brought into our own lives.

But God is on the move.

Not just in those ways, but but for us in our sin.

One of the things that Hebrews says here is it says that he makes a purification for sin.

He's the one who makes it.

I saw a stat that said that 92% of Americans believe that when they die, they have an excellent chance to go to heaven.

And then the survey asked people, Do you think that your friends and family have a good chance of going to heaven?

Not excellent, just good.

And only 60% said yes.

Now here's what that means.

If you came here today with more than one other person, so you have at least three people that you came with, at least one of the people that you came here with doesn't think you have a very good chance of going to heaven.

And do you know why that is?

The reason that is, is because what we do in our society is we tend to think there's good people and there's bad people, and we put ourselves among the good people and we say, those are the ones that God takes care of, and the bad people, well, they're the people in my family, kind of a thing.

But when we read in Hebrews that He makes purification for sins, what it's saying is that Jesus has done what we could never do.

He lived a perfect life.

And so we don't come to God and bring a little bit of ourselves, and then God says, Well, that's enough, now I'll give to you.

We come and we bring nothing, and God through Jesus brings everything, and because of that, what we have is we have him making a purification for sins, which gives us a chance to share in all that God has and the future that he promises.

And here's what this means: it means that you and I can live with nothing to prove.

We don't have to try to be morally superior to anybody or try to prove that somehow we have it all together.

It means that we can live with nothing to hide.

We don't have to worry that some allegation from the past will come out and it will surprise God.

We don't have to worry that God is making a list and checking it twice and he's gonna find out who's been naughty or nice.

Because what we learn from the pages of the Bible is we all belong on the naughty list.

But God through Jesus has made it possible for us to share and to have a purification for sins made for us and on our on our behalf by Jesus.

For us, this also means that we can live with nothing to fear, that we can say, This God is worthy of my trust.

I can I can give my life to this God.

Now, here's the challenge.

Just because this is true, it doesn't make it true for you or for me.

And here's why I say this in John chapter 1, we're told that Jesus has come into the world to be the light.

John 1 · chapter mention

This is why we light candles on Christmas Eve.

In just a few moments, we'll light candles as a representation of Jesus coming into the world and then our response of believing, receiving that light.

Here's where we see this John chapter 1, verse 9.

John 1:9

It says, the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world, speaking of Jesus.

And then it says this, verse 12.

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.

Do you hear what it says?

To those who believe.

So if we stayed with the light analogy, not with the candles, but with lights with electricity, when you walk into a room, the fact that there's electricity and lights, if it's dark, doesn't mean that you have light.

You have to actually turn the switch on.

And spiritually, belief, faith, is saying, I do believe.

Now I don't know how you come here today.

Some of you come here and you say, I'm not really sure where I am.

Maybe for you, a step toward belief would just be to say, I'll investigate, I'll consider whether or not Christmas shows me who God is.

We have a great series coming in January at Orchard Hill, Butler Strip District here in Wexford.

And what it is, is it's a series that's going to look at how Jesus interacts with agnosticism, sexism, racism, and materialism.

And maybe this would be a great time for you to say, let me just give it a month to try and see if this idea of God resonates with me.

Maybe for you, you're here and this year has been filled with hard things, and you just need the reminder that God is on the move, that Christmas means that he sat down at the right hand, but it feels so far from you that when the light comes, you can just say, God, I do believe that you're on the move.

Or maybe today is your day just to say, God, I've always kind of thought that the way that I was right with you is by being better than my family and friends.

And maybe just today is your day to say, God, I trust.

And I believe that Jesus did for me what I could never do, that he made a purification for sins.

And I want to share.

Not just in your eternity, but in your now.

And you can do that just in the quiet of this next moment.

The team's going to come and Paige is going to sing a song called I Believe.

And it's a declaration.

If you're a follower of Jesus, it's a moment just to worship and say, I do believe.

But if you're kind of at the beginning phases, it's a moment to say, Do I really believe that?

Maybe.

And in that moment, you can say, God, I do believe.

And in a sense, turn on the switch and become a child of God.

And then I'll come back and we'll light candles together.

Father, we thank you for a chance just to gather here today.

And Lord, we ask that you would help each one of us here to see that Christmas means that we get a chance to see who you are.

And it reminds us that you are on the move and you are at work even in our broken world.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.