Can we trust the Bible?

Good morning, everyone. My name is James. It's good to be with you today.

I really like all of the stories that add up to the colour of Christmas.

The Christmas lights and the decorations, Santa, the elves, the movies and the Christmas carols.

Yesterday, my family, we bought a real Christmas tree for the first time in years,

and it just smells delightful. I'll bring in a piece of it next week if you just want to smell it.

It's great. I love it. But this week, I thought I would do some investigation into the origin of some of these Christmas stories.

So I started with Santa Claus. One author describes the history of Santa...

Let me see if I can get this guy to work this morning. There we go.

One author describes the history of Santa as involving a building project by a Byzantine emperor,

a story about a father preparing to sell his own daughters into prostitution,

a hoard of stolen bones reported to have magical properties,

armies of crusading knights, Protestant zealots,

the author of Twas the Night Before Christmas,

a poem you probably read as a child but didn't realise how influential it was,

Santa Claus, and Coca-Cola.

All of these different aspects build up to the magic of whatever Santa Claus is.

Now, I feel like I could do a deep dive into each of those different aspects of history,

but we're going to move on.

What about the elves?

Well, they come from German and Scandinavian origins, from folk stories.

Our elves were house gnomes with magical powers to protect their homes from evil.

The stories were modernised in the 1800s to look about how we would expect elves to look.

There's a story of some classic little fairy pixie-looking elves.

And then what about the Christmas tree?

The Christmas tree that I put up in my house yesterday.

Well, one article I read suggested that the evergreen tree

represents the pagan themes of fertility and new life in the darkness of winter.

And this is why we have...

What plant is this representing, Carmen?

What is this?

Greenery.

Okay, thank you.

Well, holly, ivy, and mistletoe, these are the Christmas plants.

You know, you have them hanging and you kiss people under them.

These are the only plants that flower in winter.

And so it's a symbol of new life.

But then, as one legend goes, an English monk, Boniface,

was doing some missionary work in Germany in the 8th century.

And the story goes that some native Germans were sacrificing to the oak trees

because they were pagans.

They worshipped the trees.

And so Boniface grabbed his axe and he chopped down to the tree

to stop the pagans from worshipping it.

And the legend has it that a fir tree, the Christmas-shaped tree,

a fir tree grew out of the fallen oak tree.

The fir tree has a triangular shape, represents the Trinity,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And so they brought the fir tree into the house

as a sign of their new Christian faith.

And then I learned a new one on Thursday night.

In recent years, in Chinese culture, in China at least,

there's been a new tradition.

Christmas Eve is called Ping An Ye, peace night in Chinese.

And it kind of sounds like apple in Chinese, which is Ping Guo.

And so Christmas Eve is called Ping An Guo,

which means peace apples.

And so in recent years, Christmas Eve,

you would give apples to each other

until it was banned by the Chinese government.

Christmas just has this long history of strange stories

and exaggerations all being amalgamated into each other.

And so it's just this mix of pagan worship,

ancient folklore, legends, corporate greed,

all coming together.

The stories of Christmas seem so far from their origins.

But what about that other Christmas story?

The story of God becoming a person,

born as a baby, to die on the cross,

raised to life so that we might have life ourselves.

Is this just a hodgepodge story?

Is this just a hodgepodge of a special baby?

And there was another story about a man who could do miracles.

And maybe there was another story from another culture

about a resurrection.

And then there's another story about a nation waiting for salvation.

Is the story of the baby at Christmas

and the Christian faith just an exaggeration?

Is it just an amalgamation of stories that we'll never really know the true origin of?

Can we trust anything the Bible says?

This month we're asking the question,

Is Christmas unbelievable?

We're asking some pointed questions.

And there is going to be a phone number on the screen texting your questions.

We'll answer them straight after the service.

Or you can come and ask me straight after church.

But the challenge for us today is to question

whether we believe the story of Jesus at Christmas

just because it's the story we know.

Maybe there's exaggerations.

Or is the story of Christmas real?

And can we trust the Bible?

Is there a truthful core to it that we'll never get to?

Or is it true and we can believe it?

Let me pray as we have a look at this.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for Christmas,

for this time that seems to come quickly every year

where our shops sing of your greatness,

where Christmas carols are on and Christmas movies are on

and we put up decorations.

But Lord, help us to understand

whether we can trust your word,

especially about Christmas.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're going to start by having a look.

Oh, there's that great picture.

I keep missing that picture.

We're going to start with the eyewitnesses to the truth.

In John's record of the gospel,

there is a character who sits in the same seat as us

asking the same question.

Can I trust you?

What can I believe?

His name is Thomas.

And he missed out on seeing the risen Jesus

when he appeared to his disciples.

So have a look at verse 24 with me.

Wendy's going to push the buttons for me, I think.

Thank you, Wendy.

Now, Thomas, also known as Didymus,

one of the 12,

was not with disciples when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him,

we have seen the Lord just like us.

Thomas missed out on seeing the risen Jesus.

He didn't believe the story.

But he said to them,

unless I see the nail marks

and put my finger where the nails were

and put my hand into his side,

I will not believe.

He doesn't say,

I'm finding this hard to believe.

I just really can't believe it.

He says, I will not believe.

Can you imagine if your 12 or your 11 best friends

came up to you and told you,

there's a cure for COVID.

It is over.

It's done.

And you said,

do you know what?

I'm not going to believe

until I get a PhD in microbiology.

I will not believe

until I fully investigate everything myself.

Thomas even then was living in a post-truth environment.

I don't believe your truth,

but only my truth.

He's only risen if I have seen that he is risen.

Thomas doubted because he hadn't seen it for himself.

He wanted to trust his own senses.

And now Jesus,

Jesus is good.

He is good and generous to Thomas,

even though he doubted.

Verse 26,

a week later,

when Thomas is there,

Jesus appears to Thomas

and he says,

peace be with you.

Okay,

come on,

Thomas,

put your finger into my side.

Come on,

you can do it.

I'll let you,

here's exactly what you wanted.

And Thomas says,

he reacts and calls him God,

my Lord and my God.

And then Jesus really speaking to us says,

because you have seen me,

you have believed.

Blessed are those,

us,

who have not seen Jesus

and yet have believed.

And then we get the whole purpose.

This is the purpose.

This is the point.

This is the key part of John 20 for us today.

These are written

that you may believe

that Jesus is the Messiah,

the son of God,

and that by believing

you may have life in his name.

John wrote down the records

of the eyewitnesses

to be trustworthy

with the purpose

of believing in Jesus.

These are not just a collection of stories.

It's not just interesting.

John wasn't hoping

for a bestseller for Christmas.

These are eyewitness testimony

recorded

so that we might believe

that Jesus is the Messiah.

Trusting others

is how people have always operated.

Not all of us

are experts in science

and historians

and social scientists.

We are always people

who have listened

to other people's opinion.

This is why

we pull out our phones

in the morning

and check the weather

and find out

it's going to be

pretty hot today, I think.

We are people

who routinely trust others

and the same goes

for with history.

We trust the eyewitnesses.

But if there were eyewitnesses,

why is there such a lag

between the events happening

and the writing?

Surely that means

it's open to exaggeration.

Surely it means that

they've forgotten the story

and they've just written it down

and they've written it down wrong.

Jesus is reported

to have been crucified

around AD 30

and then the first

of the books of the Bible

of the New Testament,

Galatians,

was written about AD 50.

Mark

is written

between about 50 and 60

and then John,

the most recent gospel,

was written around AD 90.

That is a fair time lag,

some might say.

Can we trust the reports

if they were written later?

There's a children's game

that I remember

and fondly remember playing

called Telephone.

It has another,

a more unhelpful name,

Chinese Whispers,

but we'll go with Telephone,

where you start with one person,

I'm going to pick on Nick,

I'm going to tell Nick a phrase,

I'm going to get back on camera,

Nick,

the phrase is,

you know,

yellow jelly bean

and then Nick's going to tell people

and it's going to get to the line

and it's going to get over here

and Kel is finally

going to be the last one

and he's going to tell us

what he's heard

and it's morphed into

potato piano

or something like this.

We know this game,

this is quite a fun game,

I always loved it as a kid.

Some think that

the story of the Bible

starts with that,

you know,

the phrase was originally

Jewish leader

and it's retold

and told

over so many years

that the meaning

has been completely lost

and that Jesus,

who was maybe

just a guy

and influential leader,

all of a sudden

by the time we get to

it being written down,

Jesus is now

God himself

who can walk on water

and come back to life.

Clearly

an exaggeration

some might say.

One historian,

Richard Baucom,

argues that

one of the key reasons

that there is

a time delay

between the events

of the writing

between the events

and the writing

is that the eyewitnesses

were dying out.

Unlike the game

of telephone with kids,

the stories

were not passed

along a single line.

They were told

to many people.

So when Jesus

was alive,

he proclaimed

in synagogues,

he preached

to thousands of people.

You think about

the feeding of the 5,000.

Large crowds

followed him

and he had

an intimate group

of 12

that followed

his every step.

And then

with the eyewitnesses,

there are

so many specific

people mentioned

in the Bible.

Specific eyewitnesses.

Mary Magdalene,

Peter and Andrew,

sons of Jonah.

James and John,

sons of Zebedee.

Even Thomas Didymus

here

has a specific name.

In the news

immediately after

Jesus' death

and resurrection,

you can imagine

people would have

gone up to Thomas

and said,

oh,

you're the guy

who doubted Jesus.

Did you really see him?

And then maybe

he would

remember

his doubt

that Jesus was alive

and be grieved.

But then maybe

his face would light up

remembering how good

Jesus was to him.

And so what do you do

as the eyewitnesses

who saw Jesus

start aging

and dying out?

You visit them

and you write it down

and you record it.

And if this is true,

the Gospels

are not like

a story passed

along many years.

It is

the story

to the first person.

This is what

really happened.

And the beauty is

that when it's written down,

there are still people

around who are eyewitnesses.

So you could say,

hey, I got this letter.

Did this really happen?

One of my children

recently thought

it would be a really

good idea

to start spreading

some rumours.

They were at school

saying they had COVID

and their friends

were rightly distressed.

And so Alyssa

got a call

from the school

saying,

your child

is saying

that they took

a COVID test

and that you

were eyewitnesses,

you saw the test

and you let them

go to school anyway?

Yes,

they did take

a COVID test.

No,

they don't

have COVID.

And so

there's an exaggeration.

A change

in the story

got told.

It was right

to a point

but then it was

exaggerated.

And you could check

with the eyewitnesses.

Did this happen?

No,

it didn't.

Don't let the facts

get in the way

of a good story,

my child,

maybe you would have thought.

The Bible

can be trusted

because it is

not an exaggeration.

Written down

when eyewitnesses

were still alive.

Written very early.

We might think

it is a time lag

but there is

no time lag there.

The Bible

was written

very early

with eyewitnesses

still around

so it could be checked.

It was written

very early

and if it wasn't

real,

people would have

called it out.

No,

don't be silly.

Jesus didn't really

walk on water.

It was just

low tide

that day.

Eyewitnesses

like Thomas

were around

long after

they were written.

So what we have

recorded

is history

and the Bible

can be trusted.

But not only that,

the Bible

has

embarrassing

truth to it.

There is a phrase

called the ring

of truth.

It is a test

to see whether

a story sounds

like a fanciful tale

and an exaggerated

story or real

history.

The idea of it

says that when

people lie

or make up a story,

they don't add

material to make

them lose

credibility.

I know a man

who broke

his leg.

Now,

he could have

said that he

had just fallen

over,

but the truth

is more

embarrassing.

He was trying

to show his

son how to

do a bike

trick on a

half pipe

that he'd set

up,

thinking he

was much

younger than

he really

was,

and he

came off

it and

landed

heavily and

broke his

leg.

One story

I fell

is true,

but the real

story is far

more embarrassing,

far more

shameful,

and it's not

the story you'd

choose to tell

unless it was

true.

If you were

going to make

up a story to

try and convince

people that Jesus

was real,

and not only that

he was real,

but he'd come

back to life and

that he is

God, you

would want to

make it the

most plausible

story ever.

But the

Gospels are

actually really

embarrassing.

Peter, one

of Jesus'

closest friends,

had a key

hand in writing

Mark's Gospel.

If I were

Peter, and I

was involved in

writing it, I

would have made

myself look a

lot better.

Instead, Peter

betrays Jesus

three times.

His most

cowardly and

moral failure.

Peter was one

of the key

leaders in the

early church.

The only way

he'd let his

betrayal be

told was if it

was really

true.

If I was

writing about

Jesus'

resurrection, I'd

want it to be

as believable and

plausible as

possible.

And there's two

small aspects of

the resurrection

that are just

embarrassing, and

lean it to have

the ring of truth

to it.

And they both

involve the first

witnesses.

John records

Mary Magdalene

went to Jesus'

tomb, but

found it empty.

Standing there

crying, Jesus

comes up to her,

and Jesus says,

if you can go to

the next slide,

thank you, Wendy.

Jesus says to

Mary, woman, why

are you crying?

Who is it you

are looking for?

Thinking he was

the gardener, she

said, sir, if you've

carried him away,

tell me where you've

put him.

Mary confuses

Jesus with a

gardener.

It's just a

small, little

note, embarrassing

for the future of

Mary.

I saw Jesus, I

thought he was

just tidying up

the gardens.

In all four

gospels about

Jesus, the first

witnesses to the

resurrection are

women.

Luke 24, it

was Mary Magdalene,

Joanna, Mary the

mother of James, and

the others with

them who told this

to the apostles.

But the apostles,

they did not

believe the

women because

their words seemed

to them like

nonsense.

In the first

century Jewish

culture, women's

testimony wasn't

accepted in court.

People didn't

listen to them.

And even Jesus'

friends, the

apostles, didn't

believe what seemed

to them like a

ridiculous story.

Jesus coming back

to life.

You would not

report that.

You would not

tell that women

were the first to

see him and were

the first to share

the good news,

unless it actually

happened.

It's another deeply

embarrassing aspect

for the early church

leaders.

An exaggerated

story told by a

bunch of women was

easily discredited.

You're going to

trust those women?

That's ridiculous.

But again, these

women's names were

recorded because

they were eyewitnesses.

They could be

trusted and they

could be visited to

ask if this really

happened.

Now, none of this

is its own proof.

But when it's

read, it holds

together as a story

that has the ring of

truth to it.

One that clearly

suggests that the

Gospels are history

and they're not an

exaggeration.

So the stories

about Christmas

like Santa and

the elves, the

Christmas tree and

even peace apples,

these have been

added together into

a hodgepodge

boiling mess of

Germanic, American,

Chinese, religious,

cultural mishmash.

But the story at the

heart of it, God

become man, born and

placed in an animal's

food trough.

raised to be

murdered in the

most embarrassing,

shameful way,

crucified on a

cross.

This story is true.

The Bible can be

trusted.

My kids have the

best conversations

with me at the

most annoying times.

And that is, just

after I've tucked

them into bed and

just after I've said

goodnight, that's

when their brains

just start ticking.

And recently I'd

prayed with one of

them, we'd read the

Bible, saying

goodnight, you

know, just about to

step out the door.

And one of them

started asking the

question, how can I

know?

How can I know that

it's real?

Can Jesus speak to

me?

Then I'd know.

My heart went out

for them.

They wanted

certainty.

In a time where

kids are juggling

with all the

different stories and

finding out what is

true, what is

fairy tale, what can

be trusted, my kid

wanted certainty.

I want to know that

this magnificent,

wonderful, life-changing

story is real.

Don't let me be

disappointed.

Not again, not

after I believed all

these fairy tales.

Don't let me be

disappointed again.

I want you to

have the same

comfort that I

gave my child.

Jesus is real.

God is real.

Jesus, God made

flesh, came and

dwelt with us.

It is no mere

story or

exaggeration.

People saw him.

They touched him.

They knew him.

They ate with him.

And just as John

20 said, it was

written down so

that we might

believe.

The Bible is no

exaggeration, is no

fairy tale.

But Jesus came,

giving us the

comfort that God

is with us.

He knows us.

Because we are in

need of him.

Because we are

people who are

prone to

exaggeration

ourselves.

We are prone to

tell ourselves that

we've got everything

together.

Prone to think that

we don't need help

from God.

that we pretend

that we can do

it.

Effectively, we're

telling ourselves

fairy tales and

we're living in

those fairy tales.

Very rarely do we

reveal the deep

embarrassing and

shameful truth of

who we are.

We might let it

slip in front of a

good friend.

Sometimes the

mask of our

identity might

drop.

But God sees

through our

exaggerations, the

walls and the

masks we put on.

He knows deeply

who we are.

He knows our

secret sins and

our shame.

But despite that,

he offers us love

and forgiveness.

1 Peter 2 says

that we are chosen

and precious to

God.

This is no

exaggeration.

Now it sounds

like a wild tale

that we could be

loved and chosen

and precious to

the God of the

universe.

But this is the

wonderful truth of

the gospel.

we who were

once far off are

brought close in

Jesus.

Today, in a

minute as we head

out to eat, drink

coffee, head to

the shops to buy

Christmas decorations,

to buy a Christmas

ham.

That's a note for

you, Alyssa, buy a

Christmas ham.

As we head off and

to do many different

things, we will tell

many tales about

ourselves that we're

okay.

Many other people

will tell us tales

about them.

They will

exaggerate.

You should buy

this.

You should trust

me.

But there is only

one God who would

shamefully and

embarrassingly die on

the cross, showing

his love for you.

Hold fast to him

this Christmas.

Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, I

thank you for your

word and that we

can indeed trust in

you.

We can trust in

you because your

word was written

down.

As John 20 said,

it was written so

that we might

believe that Jesus

is the Messiah, the

Son of God, sent by

you to die for us so

that we could be

precious with you.

Father, help us to

trust in you today.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.