What Child Is This?

Music.

The words of that song are pretty powerful when you think about it.

All of the meaning of the season has come to fruition with the birth of the

Christ child, the one who would be the one, the word made flesh,

the one who is coming to dwell us.

The word, what child is this who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping,

whom angels greet with anthem sweet while shepherds watch our keeping?

I wonder if they really knew what child this was.

When they were proclaiming him, the shepherds were told this on the mountainside,

on the hillsides when they were out with their sheep.

They were told that it was going to be the Christ, but you wonder if they really knew.

I wonder, isn't that really the question tonight?

In fact, isn't that the question that the world has been contemplating for a

thousand years or 2,000 years or more?

The question is this. Maybe, yeah. What child is this?

What child is this who laid to rest a mother's lap sleeping?

What child is this? Who is this really? Who is this person that's born in a

cattle feeding trough in a cave?

You think about it. I mean, would you want your baby to be born there? No, I don't think so.

Wouldn't you want your baby to be laying in the cattle's feeding trough after

they've been slobbering in and out of that thing?

Probably not. And yet, as we wonder, what is our response to this?

What should our response be to all of this?

Part of that song, I have to give you a little bit of when it says,

haste, haste to bring him laud, L-A-U-D.

That's Latin, which means praise.

Most of us, when we're singing those hymns, we really don't know what that means.

In fact, the word laud is praise, means praise.

And that's why when you go to graduations, especially college graduations,

you will have some who graduated with praise or with honors, cum laude.

You will get some that are graduating summa cum laude, some who are graduating

magna cum laude with highest praise.

And then when I crossed the stage at my college graduation President Stevens said Lottie how come.

But anyway, that one is in there for free. We wonder if the second question

should be for us after we ask the question, what child is this is,

then what should our response be to this child?

As I ponder that question tonight, I'd like for us to think about the characters

in the first Christmas scene, what they thought about this child.

I wonder what Mary thought.

Marry this young teenage girl

probably somewhere between 13 and

16 years old that's oftentimes the age they got

married then and no we're not trying to hurry any

kids along in here but this that's oftentimes the time

they would get married and marry this young teenager who was greeted by an angel

with these words greetings you who are highly favored the lord is with you can

you imagine a 13-year-old girl seeing

the vision of an angel and the angel saying, you are highly favored.

Wake up. I'm not sure this is real. Kind of wondering. So what did Mary do?

In the scriptures, we find that Mary held him.

While what was the request from heaven? Mary was to be the earthly mother of God's son.

Think about that. The earthly mother of God's son. She was to hold him this

teenage girl was to hold him, comfort him, nourish him, and ache for him.

In the reading that we have here, first Luke 1, chapters 47,

or verses 47 through 53, it says, and Mary said, my soul glorifies,

this is also known as Mary's song,

my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in me, in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.

She went on from now on all generations will

call me blessed for the mighty one has done great

things for me holy is his name his mercy extends to those who fear him from

generation to generation he has performed mighty deeds with his arm he has scattered

those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.

I am the Lord's servant is what she said. But can you imagine the words that

were said in that songs that are recorded in scripture, a 13 to 16 year old girl saying this?

Yeah, she was pretty highly favored, I would think. God was in her,

the spirit of God was in her. You could tell that she was being indwelt with the spirit.

And I can only imagine the thoughts that must have gone through her mind.

I'm only a child, how can I do this? Will I be a good mother?

What's going to become of my child?

What is Joseph going to think when I'm with child with somebody else's child?

I must care for God's son for a lifetime. With all of the commotion,

who can I trust with my baby?

When you ask a mother or a father about their child or grandparents about their child, what do they say?

It's the most beautiful child in the world. And they're right.

Every child is the most beautiful child in the world but to think of this that this mary,

when when the child is born an overwhelming

sense comes over the mother and all she can do is hold him when the mother with

mother gives birth to the child the first thing she wants is to have that baby

up next to her breast to hold that baby to cuddle that baby and just to clutch it tight,

There is this sense that she's not going to let go, that she doesn't want to

let go, that she will never let go of this child.

And even when that child is grown, there comes a point in time when the parents

have to kind of let go a little bit, but mama doesn't want to.

Those children are mama's children. Even our daughters, our two daughters,

one going to be 40 in January.

Yes, I am that old child.

But they're still our babies. They're still our kids.

They're going to be that way for the rest of life. And so she simply held him.

Mary just simply held him. She held him as her very life.

She had felt him grow inside her. She had felt him move around when she spoke to him.

She even felt him kick, anxious to get out and begin his journey of life.

I'm sure that's what he was thinking, but she held him and held him tight.

I wonder if our initial response in receiving the child of Christmas shouldn't

be simply to hold him and to hold him tight.

True, he holds us, but isn't there something about holding the king of kings

in our heart and pondering the love of God which brought him to us?

Could you imagine the love of God that when he created us in his own image at the beginning of time.

And man walked away out of his own volition, walked away from the love of God.

God has from the very beginning wanted to have that child back,

have us back, and wanted to hold us tight.

Isn't there something about simply marveling in who this child is?

Isn't there something about nurturing the Christ child that is born in our hearts?

And when we ask Christ to enter.

When we ask Christ to come into our lives, we have given a room,

we have given our house to him, and he comes in and dwells in us through the

power of the Holy Spirit.

But isn't he anxious to begin the transforming work within us as well,

not just enter in as a little boy, but to begin that work within us and really

transform us into the image of Christ, which is what we were made in and which

God is wanting to return us to.

And so, yeah, Mary held him. But then we also see sitting on the hillsides,

tending their sheep while their noses froze in the cold.

The angel proclaimed to them that the promised child had been born.

Sitting on the hillsides, in all of their stinkiness, These shepherds wondered

if they will be allowed to see the child.

But isn't it amazing that God had Jesus born in a cattle cave,

in a sheep cave, so that the shepherds would be allowed in?

If he had been in king's palace, do you think the shepherds would have been allowed in?

No, not at all. Would they have been allowed to enter any of the houses in town? No, not at all.

Yet God reached out to the lowest of the lows, the men who had lived out in

the wilderness and declared through them that he had come for everyone,

for all people. Doesn't matter what your status in life is.

Jesus, God has come in the form of man for you.

In Luke chapter 2, verses 15 through 17, it says this, when the angel had left.

Luke 2:15–17

Them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another,

let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.

They didn't say the angels, they said the Lord. They knew this was a message from the Lord.

And so they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger.

When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about the child.

Now, if this child had been born in a palace, the shepherds would not have been

allowed in, and who would they have told about it?

I can just imagine these shepherds out on this hillside blasted by 50 decibels of angel choir.

I don't even know what that is. I don't even know how much that is, but it has to be a lot.

Anyway, I can't imagine that they would be silent about it.

God came to us. The angels came to us and told us.

So I can imagine them running into Bethlehem, finding this baby in a manger,

looking at this baby and just automatically firing a bunch of questions out to the mother.

How'd this happen? When'd this happen? What's going on? And then as soon as

they got there, I can imagine them running out of there, going down through

the streets of Bethlehem yelling at the top of their lungs, Christ is born.

A savior is born for us. I wonder, what should our response be?

Should we be shouting it out or should we be keeping it secret to ourselves?

I mean, when I go to a new restaurant and I really like it, I really don't want

to tell anybody else around about it either because then they might get the

secret and go there too, right? No.

And as you know, I do like restaurants.

I like about anything. Speaking of food, there's going to be cake and punch

and cookies and stuff afterwards, but you can't go out there yet.

But anyway, so the shepherds are sitting there proclaiming all this.

And as soon as they heard the news, they ran into town to see the good news

that with their own eyes, it wasn't enough to simply hear about the Christ.

They had to see the Christ.

They had to experience him themselves.

Israel was looking for hope in a fallen and evil world.

They were anxious for the Messiah, the deliverer to come and redeem them from

their oppressors. The shepherds were living a dismal life of mere existence. They longed for hope.

They knew that if hope arrived, they must be near.

They must know it. They must see it. They must experience.

I wonder what our response would be to know it, to see it, to experience it.

And as I've been sharing in our Advent lightings this year, as we've been sharing

to experience the Christ, we must come in contact with him and remain in contact

with him. The shepherds drew near with hope.

I wonder if this world is any different than the world 2,000 years ago.

I wonder if there are any people in this room or even in this city who are looking

for hope in a fallen and evil and dismal world.

I wonder if there are any who are under the oppression of despair,

anxiety, any depression or addictions.

I wonder if there are any questions,

are simply living an existence of a life longing for hope.

The good news is that hope has arrived, but we must draw near to it.

We can't just watch it from afar.

We must know it. We must see it with our own eyes. We must experience it with our whole being.

And since the, once the Christ child has been born in us, we must remain in

close contact with him. Oftentimes when people give their hearts to Christ,

it seems like then life goes on as usual.

But when we give our hearts to Christ, if he really is coming in to dwell in

our hearts, then we need to give ourselves completely over to him and allow

that transformation of eternity to happen within us.

The shepherds saw him. The shepherds heard him.

The shepherds believed in him. The shepherds worshipped him.

But most importantly the separate experienced him

then there were the magi or wise

men as we call them and you know i don't know why scripture has wise men except

wise men were i mean men were the predominant cultural thing right women were

kind of second place in there but you know if it had been wise women,

they would have brought diapers,

formula, and a casserole, right?

But the wise men brought gold, frank incense, and a oil called myrrh.

They understood from the sights that they'd seen in the astronomy of the skies,

they had understood that a

great and powerful king, A wonderful king was to be born under this star,

this emblem in the sky.

They understood that this would be someone who was greater than they were.

This would be a king who would be a world changer, for he was announced in the

stars. So what was their response?

The shepherds humbled themselves before him.

These were the kings, the wise men, the magi, the leaders, the rich people who.

They humbled themselves before him. These men knew their position in life.

They knew they were wealthy, and yet they knew that beside this king, they were nothing.

So they humbled themselves before him and worshiped him as king.

Their response to the news was this newborn king was to lay themselves low in front of him.

What a sight that must have been for the young couple, the father or husband

and mother watching this baby in the cattle trough as these wise men came in.

We think probably they were in a house by that time, but when they came in and

these men decked out in wealth got down and prostrated themselves on the ground

in front of him, in front of their baby,

what must they have thought?

Scripture tells us that Mary pondered all these things in her heart.

She thought about them. She dwelt on them. She was trying to figure out what the sense of it was.

The wealthy decked out in all their finery, bowed themselves in front of a baby

and his peasant teenage mother.

But isn't it true that when we realize our position before the almighty God,

we have nothing else to do but humble ourselves before the king of kings who was born in our hearts.

When we realize the filthiness of our own rags, as the scripture says,

and we realize the powerfulness, the all good, all knowing,

all righteous love of God and how we have fallen so short of that,

how dare we do anything else but bow?

I wonder if we don't simply receive him as a child and hold him as a baby and

fail to surrender our treasures to him.

It's possible to hold a baby it's not possible excuse me to hold a baby when

you're holding onto your stuff right when you hold a baby that's all you're

holding you better not be holding anything else dads.

That baby is the most precious treasure you can have.

I wonder if the truth we see in the wise men is that all people,

no matter who they are, must recognize their nothingness before this Christ child.

Eight days after the child was

born, he was taken to the temple to be presented as the firstborn to God.

Luke chapter 2 verses 25 through 35 records this encounter.

Luke 2:25–35

Now there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon who was

righteous and devout he was waiting for the consolation of

Israel and the Holy Spirit was on him it had

been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had

seen this Lord's Messiah can you imagine how much prophecy there is about this

moved by the Spirit he went into the temple courts when the parents brought

in the child Jesus to do with for him what the custom of the law required Simeon

took him in his arms and praise God, saying.

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of

all nations, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and a glory of your people Israel.

The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him.

Then Simeon blessed them and said to marry his mother.

This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel and

to be a sign that will be spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts

will be revealed and a sword shall pierce your own soul too.

So it's been said that the prophecies about Jesus, if all of the prophecies

in scripture about the Messiah coming to be,

if for all of them to have been filled in

one person at this specific time which they

were would be like taking and filling

the state of texas with quarters

three feet deep marking one quarter with a red x mixing it all up in there and

telling somebody to go find that one quarter with a red x on the first time

pretty huge pretty small probability, right?

And yet that's what we do. Simeon was a righteous and devout man.

He loved God. He was humbled before God and knew the hope of the coming Messiah.

He was so completely in touch with God that it had been revealed to him that

he would not depart this life until he had seen the Christ.

Knowing that he was holding this Messiah, when he reached out to hold Jesus,

Simeon declared praise for God that salvation had come to the Jews,

and through this child that salvation would come to the rest of the world the

Gentiles as well which we are.

Honored Father God by lifting the child and dedicating him to,

you know, bringing redemption to the world.

And in the sight of God and the witnesses in the temple, he declared that this

child would be on the mission of transforming the lives of everyone that he came into be.

And we have this model we say, and I don't have it on there,

but God is on a mission to redeem a lost world to himself.

And he's chosen to use us, his chosen people to accomplish his mission.

So when we have come into this grace of Christ, we become on mission with Christ

to declare his glory to all the world, declare his presence.

Can you imagine what these people felt in the Jerusalem, in the temple,

when they saw Simeon and grabbed this child in the midst of all of the worshipers

at that time and hold this child up and say,

this is your deliverer, Israel.

This is your Messiah. He's going to try to cause the rising and the falling

of many, but he is your king.

So Luke chapter 2, verses 36 to 38. Do I have that up here?

Luke 2:36–38

No. Anyway, that's all right. So the next thing we see is then Anna.

Anna comes into the temple. She's a priestess in the temple, and she heralds him.

She proclaims who he is. In verse eight, we are told that it says here,

there was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel of the tribe of Asher.

She was very old, maybe like 67 or something.

Had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and then was a widow

until she was 84. Okay, so yeah, she wasn't 67.

Anyway, so in verse 38, we're told that she gave thanks to God and spoke about

the child to everyone who was looking for the redemption of Israel.

Isn't it interesting that Anna didn't keep the message to herself?

Isn't it interesting that this woman who normally, again

women are not very held in high esteem but

she was in the temple as a priestess and she declared a list this she along

with simeon knew that this child was the redeemer of israel isn't it also interesting

that it was for women that first saw jesus when he rose again from the tomb,

i wonder if there are others out there like us who recognize this world is a

fallen an evil world who recognize that their lives are simply a dismal attempt at mere existence.

I wonder if there are others out there who need for us to herald the good news

into their world, to share with them the good news of Jesus Christ and the hope that comes in this.

Christian life is incomplete if we simply hearken to him as our own hope and

don't share it with others.

But the bad news is there was some other characters in this story who responded

to the question of who is this child. First one is this.

There was King Harold. King Harold, Herod hated him.

No, we would never admit to hating Jesus, would we?

But when we refuse to accept him as Lord and Savior, when we refuse to do what

God has wanted us to do, aren't we saying we're rejecting him?

That's what Herod did. To Herod, this newborn child proclaimed to be the king

of the Jew was his competition.

This child could be his replacement. I wonder how many of us think that we don't

want this child because he would be the replacement of what our life has been like.

I don't know about you, but I think my life's pretty good with him.

When we allow anything to take control over our lives other than Jesus Christ

if we allow anything to take over our selfish desires,

we have given way to our desires and not to those of Christ the root of all

sin is self and we should strive to stay away from that and then finally there's another response,

you and I hung him this never became more real to me than when I watched The

Passion of the Christ I don't know how many of you ever watched that,

but when we watch those scenes of Jesus being crucified being beaten and scourged.

The joy on the centurion's faces as they whipped him, my thought was horror.

How could they take joy in whipping this guy?

But yet my sins, my disobedience, as Liz says, I was a hot mess.

And I've been that way. And it was my sin that caused Jesus to be crucified

on the cross. It was for me that he died.

It was for you that he died and

if you were the only one here in this world he

would have died for you simply alone why we

hung him we put him there it wasn't the jews it wasn't the romans it was our

sin that caused him to put on there paul writes this for all have sinned and

fall short of the glory of god he goes on to write that at just the right time

when we were still powerless.

Christ died for the ungodly. God demonstrates his own love for us in this.

While we were still in our lives of sin, Christ died for us.

And then it goes on to say, he later says that the wages of sin is death,

but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

The first five responses that we read about are responses of growth,

but friends, to receive eternal life, we must respond with,

oh, excuse me, we must reject the last two responses.

We must reject the rejection of Christ, and we must reject our sin.

And we must move away from that.

And I trust tonight that while we are ending this time and celebrating this

Christmas Eve and looking forward to the fun we have with eating cake and cookies,

I wonder if we will do even more than that, than not just celebrate the fun of the sugar.

And like we do like to do that, give to the kids before they go home to bed.

But we celebrate the fact that Christ came for us.

What is our response?

What is your response to this? Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, as we close this Christmas Eve service, we know that oftentimes

we do this as a ritual, as a, you know, we gotta do it.

I mean, it's Christmas Eve, you gotta go to church, right?

But Father, we are coming here because we are recognizing that you're Christ, your child.

This child was the son of God who came for us.

We ask, Father, that you would indeed visit us in Jesus' name. Amen.