Christmas Cards You Probably Wont Receive

I want to thank Pastor Jason for allowing me to speak these two weeks.

Like he had any choice right now, right?

No, we trust that he'll come back taller than ever and ready to serve and minister here some more.

No, Christmas is a season that we often send cards to one another to let one another know what's going on in each other's lives.

And it used to be that Christmas cards were kind of all the same.

There would be, you know, the picture of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, and then the shepherds would be kneeling nearby with some sheep, and standing behind them would be the three wise men.

And up above there would be a star that shone down on this whole scene.

And inside the card would say something like, you know, may the joy of that first Christmas season be yours now and all year long.

And that was a Christmas card, and we tended to buy into that Christmas card, except if you're like me and have read the scriptures, you realize that the first Christmas wasn't all joy and peace and excitement that we sometimes think it was.

So I'm going to propose a few other cards that you might not find in the Hallmark store, but maybe are a little more actual to what went on that first Christmas.

Now it may strike you as funny, some of them, but I think as you think about this, you'll realize there were a tremendous amount of different emotions that took place during that bringing of Christ into this world.

And you want to think, well, God sent his son into this world.

It must have been just something easy to happen.

But no, it wasn't easy.

And there were lots of emotions.

And maybe this morning you are having some similar type of emotions, and hopefully, we can learn some lessons that might help you as you face what the Lord is allowing you to go through this Christmas season.

So the first Christmas card is kind of a traditional one.

This is just a prototype, understand.

It's not the real one.

It's a small village scene, and the stars are shining over the Judean hills.

Mary and Joseph are facing each other and holding hands, looking into each other's eyes, and inside the card reads, Will you marry me?

Now that's what we like to think of happened that first Christmas.

Now, in those days, betrothal was not the same as our engagement.

When you were betrothed, you were really married, although you didn't live together.

And after a year's time, usually, there would be a wedding, and the husband would go to the parents where the bride was and take the bride to his house, and they would live together as man and wife.

This year was used to demonstrate the purity of the bride, because if she had been found unfaithful in that time frame, then the contract, the marriage contract could be broken.

But as I said, if that proved to be not the case, they would be married usually within a year's time.

So there's love in the air that first Christmas.

Don't forget that.

Certainly there was.

Can you imagine the stress on Mary and Joseph during this particular time?

We're told that Mary had visited her cousin Elizabeth for three months and then came back home, and maybe by that point she couldn't hide her pregnancy.

And Joseph and she are talking, and she is telling the story of how she became pregnant.

And he's thinking, you were unfaithful to me.

What do you think Mary's parents thought?

Would they have believed her story?

What about Joseph's parents?

Would they have believed Mary?

Would you have believed that story?

What about Joseph?

Did he believe the one that he loves so deeply?

I don't think he would have.

Because the text tells us that because Joseph, her husband, was faithful in the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

So the answer is no, he didn't believe Mary.

So the third card would show a young couple in deep discussion.

Mary's eyes are full of sadness and tears.

Joseph says, it's not me.

It is you.

You know, sometimes when a couple are having difficulty and one of them wants to break off the relationship so that the other person doesn't feel bad, they say, it's not you, it's me who's having a problem.

But Joseph could have really said, no, it isn't me.

It is you.

And he was contemplating divorcing her quietly.

He had a couple choices.

He could have brought her before the town's leaders and publicly charged her with immorality and had her stoned.

Or he could divorce her.

And we're told in the text that Joseph was considering doing this quietly, privately, as to not embarrass Mary any further.

Let's back up here now.

We're talking about the incarnation of Jesus Christ into this world, and it's a marvelous thing that happened, but wow! What emotions, what difficulties for this young couple.

Now the next card would probably be much more saleable.

It has Joseph, and Mary's in his arms, and he's actually lifted her up off of the floor.

And the caption reads, An angel told me to marry you.

You see, Mary was not Joseph's only angel that first Christmas.

It would take something very special to get Joseph out of this predicament, and God delivered through an angel in a dream.

The text says, but after he had considered this, that is, divorcing Mary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

But she will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

Long before ultrasound, the angel revealed that Mary was going to have a son, and Joseph was to give his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

It's the same name that had been revealed to Mary earlier.

And this babe also would be called Emmanuel or God with us.

Now Joseph obeyed the revelation we're told that he got from the angel.

And I wish I could have been there for this, don't you?

When he woke up, he went to bed with sorrow, thinking that he was going to put away his love of his life because she had been unfaithful to him.

And he woke up to a new and wonderful supernatural beginning.

Now, do you think that Joseph just casually walked over to Mary's house to tell her what had happened?

No, I don't.

You don't act like you don't understand my question.

Don't you think he would have run all the way over to Mary's house?

He would have pounded on the door, and Mary's father would have come to the door and he'd have burst right past him.

Where's Mary?

When he found her, he would have lifted her up off her feet and said, An angel told me to marry you.

So I don't know how quickly the ladies in the house got together and started planning the wedding.

But if I know ladies, it wasn't very long.

So there's excitement again in the house as the wedding is again back on track.

We read the text says when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.

Now we don't know just how quickly that happened because later in Luke's gospel, we read that when they traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, that they were still betrothed at the time that Jesus was born, so it probably took some time before they were actually husband and wife.

Now the next card most men can identify with, it's a very pregnant Mary riding on a donkey, and Joseph is knocking on the door of the inn in Bethlehem.

And there's a no vacancy sign in the window, and Joseph says we should have made reservations.

In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

This was the first census that took place while Corinius was governor of Syria.

And everyone went to his own town to register.

Now, the purpose of that registration was for taxation, and they had to go to the home where they had land or inheritance of land.

And so Joseph and Mary are making their way, inconvenient though it be, because she was very pregnant at the time.

And they're going to Bethlehem to figure out how much tax they owe.

Now, I sort of feel like this is what we feel like right after Christmas.

You know, we've spent a lot of money at Christmas, and then the city decides to send us the property tax amount that we have to pay.

Who needs extra bills at a time like this?

So here's a young couple.

They work their way through this very difficult time of betrothal, and now they go to Bethlehem to register for this taxation.

Perhaps Joseph said, you know, honey, we'll just find a place on the way.

Have you ever said that, husband?

One time we said that, I said that.

We were going to Lincoln, Nebraska, and we didn't realize it was the state fair of Nebraska, and Lincoln is the home of Nebraska football, and they were playing Iowa, their rival.

So we're driving into this and we go to hotel after hotel after hotel.

No vacancy, no vacancy.

Go back to Omaha.

Maybe you'll find something back there.

So I can identify with Joseph.

But we know the rest of the story, don't we?

Don't we?

I discovered something not on my own, but somebody else pointed this out.

Excuse me, that I find extremely fascinating.

Because the text says there was no room in the inn.

Is that what your Bible says?

Luke chapter 2, verse 5, or verse 7, there was no room in the inn.

Luke 2:5

But you know that word inn, better translated, is guest room.

It's translated that way in Luke chapter 22, when Jesus tells his disciples, follow this man that's carrying the water pitcher, and when he comes to a house, talk to the owner of the house and say, You have a guest room where we can celebrate the Passover.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

And we know it as the upper room.

That's where they celebrated the Passover.

That was where the guest room was in the upper level.

And that's the word that's translated here.

There was no room in the guest room.

If Luke would have wanted to use the word in, there was a word for in.

And he uses that word in the story of the Good Samaritan.

You remember when the Good Samaritan found the man in the ditch?

He bandaged him up and he took him to an inn.

That word isn't used in Luke chapter 2.7.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

It's guestroom.

So what I, and I'm sorry if this is going to destroy your sense of what Christmas is, what I picture, Mary and Joseph are going to the home in Bethlehem, which was their family home.

So where would they stay?

In an inn?

No, they would stay with relatives.

And when they got there, there was no room in the guest room.

So they stayed downstairs with the family, because the family wouldn't throw them out, especially if Mary's about to give birth to a child.

So they stayed down in the lower level.

But we stumble over this not only bad translation, but also the word manger.

Jesus was placed in a manger.

So therefore he must have been in a stable somewhere, in a cave stable.

But just as is still true in parts of Europe, the place where animals are kept, the farm, barn, not like we know barns, but the place where they keep some of the animals is right on the first level adjacent to the family living area.

So if animals are ill or whatever, they can care for them and they can take the manger out of that area, bring it into the room where the family is staying.

You don't buy it.

I think it makes perfect sense.

Especially because later on it says that the wise men came to a home.

So study it for yourself.

Maybe you'll come to a different conclusion.

And when we get to heaven, you'll see that I was right.

Okay, my next card.

My next card is a typical Christmas scene again of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, the shepherds and the magi, and Mary says to Joseph, Were you expecting company?

Because when the baby was born, like even today, babies attract visitors.

I know as a pastor I didn't want to visit too soon after birth, but I didn't want to wait too long because then they'd be gone already from the hospital.

But ladies, can you imagine just delivering your first baby and have a bunch of guys in coveralls smelling like farm animals gathered around you while you're holding this tiny bundle of joy?

I wonder if she thought, couldn't they have found a more convenient time?

And later, there's another group that visits her, the magi.

We're told in Matthew chapter 2 that they're really astrologers from the east and not kings.

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

And they arrived at a different time from the shepherds.

We think maybe they arrived as much as two years later.

Because it was Herod's wish to make sure that this new baby was destroyed, so he passed an edict that all babies up to two years old were to be killed.

Interesting visitors.

Shepherds.

Shepherds.

You'd think that the priests, the religious leaders, those who knew where Jesus was going to be born, would be the ones to come and visit.

But shepherds?

And then Gentiles, not even from Israel, but from a ways away.

Come and visit the baby Jesus.

But they bring gifts.

That's always nice.

And those gifts were going to be needed because the next card that we see.

Says Mary holding baby Jesus on her hip in the kitchen, steam coming up from the stove, and Joseph hurriedly comes into the kitchen, slipping his arms through his suspenders, and he says, We're moving today.

We read.

When they Magi were the Magi were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.

Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.

I don't know how we can even relate to that.

Maybe you've had a time when your child or children were in mortal danger.

Maybe you had somebody in the military and your heart is just with them all the time, that they'd be safe.

But to think that somebody's out to kill this child, and you have to get up and you have to get going in the middle of the night.

You don't have much time to pack, you throw some things together, and it's not like jumping into your SUV and turning on the GPS and pulling a U-Haul, and you're going 400 miles to escape.

And while you're gone, babies would die because of the baby Jesus.

Another card would say Mary and Joseph sorting through their belongings in Egypt while Joseph fills out a change of address form, and the card reads, Address change, we're moving again.

So after Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Get up and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take your child's life are dead.

So he got up and he went to the land of Israel.

Another dream, another angel, and another move, this time back to Israel, because Herod had died and their threat was gone, they thought.

And they were coming home.

I imagine they were excited to be coming back.

And they're excited to establish a home in Bethlehem.

But while they're on the way to Bethlehem, there's another card.

This card has Mary and Joseph traveling with the babe in arms, and they pass a road sign that says to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

And the sign points north to the sign that reads, To Galilee and Nazareth.

And the caption says, No, not Bethlehem, honey.

Nazareth again.

We have to start somewhere.

Back to Nazareth.

Nazareth was not their first choice.

It appears that they intended to go to Bethlehem, but the angel says, you know, you're not free of danger yet.

Archelus in charge, and he's also a bloody king.

Go to Nazareth.

So they go north of Jerusalem to Nazareth again.

And it's not a great place.

They estimate maybe 400 people lived there at the time, but a Roman garrison was nearby.

It was kind of a crossroads area.

There was corruption, there was crime, there was what sometimes happens near military bases, and it's there that baby Jesus and his mother and Joseph settled.

You remember what Nathaniel said when he heard Jesus was from Nazareth?

He says, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?

Now I'm not trying to ruin your picture of the Christmas story, but what I do want you to see is that Christmas in that first Christmas was not all joy and peace.

There were tremendous emotions.

There was fear, emotional and relational pain, the unexpected breakup, possibly grief, loneliness, unexpected pregnancy, loved ones in harm's ray, there were the financial problems like Mary and Joseph's moves, their taxation, unexpected expenditures, their spiritual questions.

Do you think they thought, well, if Mary is highly favored among women and blessed among women, then why all this problem?

If the Son of God is coming into this world, then why do we have all this turmoil, all this drama?

I don't know where you are today, but it's very possible there's something going on in some of your lives that are similar to what was going on in Joseph and Mary's life.

When you're you might be saying, okay, Christmas, big deal.

And you can perhaps learn a lesson, not something new that you don't already know, but a lesson to remind you this Christmas season.

The first is this that God allows both good and bad things into the lives of his children.

You know, we say we believe that, but more often we believe our circumstances over the scriptures.

We believe that if God is good, then he wouldn't allow bad things in our lives, especially if we're living in obedience to him.

We don't realize that sometimes God allows bad things, as well as the good, to teach us lessons that we would know we would not learn in any other way.

Did you know some of the bad things that God allowed into marrying Joseph's life?

A couple contemplating divorce was not a good thing.

A baby born in a crowded little town and having unexpected expenses is not a good thing.

Having to move repeatedly is usually not good.

Other babies dying because of your baby's birth is a bad thing.

Having to flee to another country to save the life of your infant is a bad thing.

Living in fear that some knock on your door would be a Roman soldier establishing or brandishing a sword?

That's not a good thing.

Was God in all of those things?

Or was he only in the good things?

I think we'd have to say as we look at the text that he was in the bad as well as the good.

Not that he caused sin, but he allowed people to experience difficult things in bringing his son into this world.

We accept that for Mary and Joseph, but can we accept that for ourselves?

But there's a related lesson, and there's a cause and effect to this first point.

Notice that the good things didn't happen to Mary and Joseph because they were obedient, and the bad things because they were disobedient.

Both the good and the bad were under God's control and were not connected by the good or bad behavior of Mary and Joseph.

You know, we're quick to say if something bad happens to somebody, well, they must have really been disobedient or that something's wrong with them, that God would allow this to happen to them.

Or if something good happens to people, what we usually do is not thank God when we say, we did it.

That's us.

But in this case, both the good and the bad are not connected to whether Joseph and Mary were obedient or disobedient.

Because you see, God has reasons that we will not understand in this life.

It wasn't very long in ministry that I came to realize when people ask why when bad things happen?

I don't know.

You know, preachers are supposed to have the answers.

But some things, I don't know, eternity will help us understand.

You remember Joseph and the raw deal he got from his brothers and thrown into jail and accused of infidelity and all the mess that he had?

And then at the end he was able to save his brothers, and he could say to them, You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.

So this Christmas, when you're going through difficult times, perhaps, and you don't understand why, and you know you're trying to follow the Lord, what can you do?

Well, I look again at Mary and Joseph, and I come up with a couple ideas, and one of the things I learned from them that in both the good and the bad, they were consistently obedient and trusting.

Trust and obey.

For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.

It's good advice.

Second thing, they gained insight from the Word of God.

They didn't totally understand what was happening, but they could reflect on some of God's promises in the Old Testament that helped them.

We may not have angelic visitors like Joseph did repeatedly, but we have the scriptures that give us insight into times when it's difficult to understand what God's up to.

And then we need to realize that some things happen in our life and happen in Mary and Joseph's life because of their association with the Christ child.

You know, if you're a believer in Christ and living for Him, the world isn't gonna fall in love with you.

Jesus made it very clear if they persecuted me, they're gonna persecute you.

If you stand for Him and you do the right thing, then you can expect that not everybody's gonna rise up and call you blessed.

And Mary and Joseph experienced some of those difficulties because of their association with Christ.

So this Christmas, it may come to you in different ways than it has in years past.

Most times there's joy and laughter at Christmas, but not always.

Sometimes there's sorrow and tears.

But can we believe that all of this is under God's control, even the bad?

But I have one more card.

It's baby Jesus lying in a manger.

And the card reads, and she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

For it is he who will save his people from their sins.

You know, Scripture teaches us there's three parts to salvation.

There's the past that God forgives us for the penalty of sin.

There's the present that the Holy Spirit enables us to deal with the power of sin.

And there's the future part of salvation when we will be free from the very presence of sin.

And most of us here have accepted Jesus' gift for forgiveness of our sins.

Past, present, future, whatever sins we may commit, He has forgiven.

But boy, we struggle with salvation over the power of sin.

Sometimes it's habits, sometimes it's addictions, sometimes it's things that we know we shouldn't be messing with, and we're just playing with fire, and we haven't allowed the Spirit of God to give us victory over the power of sin.

Maybe it's something as simple as carrying a grudge for another believer, not willing to forgive them as you have been forgiven by the Lord.

And so you sit here in church every Sunday, but you know you don't get along with so-and-so who's sitting over there.

I invite you this morning to meet Jesus who saves us from our sins.

By placing your faith in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again.

You're delivered from the penalty of sin.

And as you rely upon the word and the Spirit of God, you can be delivered from the power of sin.

And praise God, one day we will be delivered from the oppressed of sin.

You know, as an old pastor, I don't know everybody here now.

And yet, sometimes I feel like we don't make much attempt to know each other anymore.

But that person sitting next to you is probably going through the same thing that you have gone through or going through.

And they need your support.

I remember one old lady that came to church when I was pastoring, and she went out the side door, and I ran around and met her, and I gave her a big hug.

She's well, you know, you can't even do that today.

But the Bible talks about a holy kiss, so maybe there's a holy hug.

But the point is, she didn't hear anything I said in the sermon.

Or if she did, it was a little bit.

What she felt was somebody cared enough to get to me before I went out the door and say, I love you.

Did you still do that here?

Christmas.

Jesus Christ who saves his people from their sins.

And yet how difficult it was for certain people who we look to as just making it happen without much thought about it.

We realize what they had to go through as a couple, as a family, in being the instruments that you brought Jesus Christ into this world to save us.

So, Lord, help those of us who are struggling, whatever the emotion is that we're in right now, to realize that first Christmas there were struggles too.

And God's purposes aren't always clearly seen to us.

But as we trust and obey and gain insight in the Scripture and realize that some of the difficulties we face are because we stand for the Lord Jesus Christ, that we can go through them with your support and strength, and the support of your family, the church.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.