Christmas, The Gift That Gives All Year Round | Associate Pastor: Matt

Alright, so Christmas sermon.

So there's going to be a Christmas movie.

My favorite Christmas movie is Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase.

I know I'm not alone in this.

You know, and you know, your mileage may vary.

This is not for everyone.

There are some parts that are not, you know, appropriate for young people or anyone.

But I love it.

It's hilarious.

It's not really about Jesus in any way.

But it's as as the title, you know, National Lampoon, it lampoons kind of the things that happen during the holidays, especially with family, and um just makes me laugh.

And uh Stacy and I quote various lines from this movie throughout the year.

So it is, it's the it's the gift that keeps on giving all year round.

Uh the underlying tension of the movie, if you really want to get into it, Clark Griswold, the main character, the the father, the patriarch of the family, he has put a down payment on a pool for their home in Chicago.

I didn't know people in Chicago had pools, but he has put down a down payment, but he his check can't clear.

That's how old the movie is.

His check can't clear without his end-of-year bonus.

And so he needs his bonus check to be arrived, to be deposited, or you know, his check's gonna bounce, he can't have this uh swimming pool for his family that he's impulsively paid for.

Uh and as Christmas is drawing near, right, end-of-year bonus check comes in December, the check has not arrived, and so there's this growing level of tension that just ripples through this movie.

Not really.

But that is what's going on.

Finally, uh Christmas Eve in the evening, there's a knock at the door, and it's the courier, and he has an envelope.

There it is, it had fallen between the seats, he's very sorry.

Clark takes the envelope from the courier's hand, closes the door in his face, he walks into the living room, transfixed.

His family gathers around him.

He says, This is it, this is the bonus.

They're so excited.

Uh and he tells them that uh if there's enough left over, he's gonna fly his whole family back to Chicago to open the pool.

This must be an incredible bonus check.

Uh I don't know.

I mean, I know what he did for a living, but uh spoiler alert for this movie.

I'm sorry, here it comes.

He opens the envelope.

It is not the bonus check he expected, but a membership in the Jelly of the Month Club.

To which Cousin Eddie, back there in his blue leisure suit, says, Clark, that's the gift that continues to give all year round.

To which Clark says, That it is, Eddie, that it is.

Now that may be the most Christian message in the movie.

It's the title of my sermon, and uh here's the point.

Though Christmas is a day that we celebrate uh once a year, or a 12-day season, Christmas is the gift that gives all year round.

So let's let's see how that is.

First point.

Christmas gives us the gift of hope all year round.

Now, the prophet Isaiah, from which our sermon text comes, uh, is known for his messianic prophecies.

Most of the prophecies you know about Jesus coming as Messiah probably come from Isaiah.

Listen to verse 10 again.

He says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.

My soul shall exalt in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels.

Through Isaiah, uh Messiah is speaking of what is to come, and he is rejoicing, he's exulting in God because God has clothed him, as he says, with the garments of salvation, the robe of righteousness.

And what he says, it's it's like a bride and a groom on their wedding day, who are meticulously preparing for the ceremony.

Every detail is considered, they are dressed to the nines.

And so too does Messiah take great care in his adornment as he prepares for what he has come to do.

Messiah is saying to God's people, some 300 years prior to his coming, that he is in the dressing room, right?

That green room, that ante-room right outside the sanctuary, ready and waiting to enter into the sanctuary for this grand wedding ceremony.

Now, to God's people, this is a message of incredible hope.

In the midst of all the chaos that's going on in Isaiah's time that we won't get into this morning, this was a word of hope spoken to a desperate people.

And yet, what struck me as I prayed over and meditated on this passage was that 300-year gap between the giving of the prophecy and its fulfillment in the first Christmas.

Have you ever felt the fatigue that comes from waiting on God's promises?

Have you ever looked around at the carnage of your own life?

Whether it's your marriage or your children, your parenting, your career, or the lack thereof?

Or you look around at the dysfunction and the world around us, and you've wondered, is God even paying attention?

What are all these grand promises that we gather from the scriptures that we sing about, especially at Christmas?

What is God doing?

Why is he waiting?

And sometimes the discouragement gets so heavy that we actually begin to wonder if God is even there at all.

This week, uh Stacy and I were hanging out and we were just talking through Christmas, the whole the season, the time with family, and just kind of talking through it, processing it.

And it was wonderful.

It was a great time, but there were also a number of little things that happened that just kind of injected a little bit of sadness and a little bit of grief kind of the whole week.

Um and it just reminds me, and as we're all familiar with, that the joy of Christmas is always mingled with the sadness of the reality that the world is still broken.

Now, part of the good news for me and for you is that that sense of fatigue, that those doubts that are raised, um waiting for God's promises to be fulfilled, is not unusual for God's people.

Here's a couple of my favorites, one from the old, one from the New Testament.

I love this line from Exodus chapter 17 that comes out of the mouths of the newly freed nation of Israel who've just been miraculously saved from slavery in Egypt.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

They say to Moses, they cry out, Why did you bring us out of Egypt?

To kill us?

Have you ever wondered that?

God, are you trying to kill me?

I love the disciples' response or question to Jesus after his resurrection, proving that they still don't get it.

Acts 1.6, they say, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

I don't mention these to make fun of, God's people, uh, but to identify with them.

These are the questions that I continue to ask.

As a follower of Christ, I grow weary and even doubt at times.

Now, the apostles and the New Testament writers were so aware of this in themselves and in those they ministered to, they they even addressed it in some of their writings.

Listen to what Peter wrote in one of his letters.

He said, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not waiting, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

But he says, the day of the Lord will come.

That's what the people of God were wondering, that's what they were waiting for.

Will God keep his promises?

And that's why, just as an aside, the Old Testament, this is why the Old Testament is so important for the church, so important for us.

Because the time between God's promises to Abraham in Genesis 12, to the coming of Messiah at the birth of Jesus, God's people had a multitude of opportunities to wonder at God's promises, to doubt, to ask, to cry out.

And so it meets us in a special way.

Because we also are in a time in between promise and fulfillment.

Yes, we have seen the birth of Christ, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, and yet we await his second coming and the fulfillment of all things.

And so the reason Christmas gives us hope is that we sit on the other side of this promise's fulfillment.

God's people through Isaiah heard this promise that Messiah was coming, that he was decked out as a bride or a groom.

And yet it took 300 years.

But we who sit on the other side of the first Christmas, we know that these very words were fulfilled.

And as we look at their fulfillment, it defies our imagination.

If you've studied Old Testament prophecy and the promises of Messiah, the intricate and beautiful way that God was able to pull together hundreds of prophecies that all came to their fulfillment in Jesus.

When you look at the grandeur of God's ability to orchestrate so much in history to come to this one focal point, it's enough to make us bow down and worship.

And so when we look at Christmas, we are reminded that God has all ability to fulfill his promises in ways that we cannot imagine, but we can trust and hope that when they come to fulfillment in his second coming and the restoration of the new heavens and the new earth, that it will be more grand and better than anything we could have imagined.

And so Christmas is that gift of hope that gives all year round.

Point two, Christmas gives us, is the gift of patience all year round.

Now I bring in patience here because it's what Scripture does.

Scripture tightly ties together the ideas of patience and hope.

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul identifies with this same idea of groaning, if you're familiar with Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

He says this.

He says, Not only does the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we have been saved.

But hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Hope, when nurtured in Christian maturity, yields patience.

So it's Christmas time.

I have an 18-year-old, a 16-year-old, and a 12-year-old.

And my 12-year-old is still young enough that he just cannot wait to open Christmas gifts, right?

If you guys have little kids, uh I assume they're as bad as mine.

He is incessant at asking, can I, can I, can we open a gift early?

Can I just, can I just one?

Can we just can I open one gift?

It's uh and you know, once I had officially shut that down, he just he just he just wouldn't shut up.

I just can't I can't wait for Christmas morning.

I can't wait to open presents.

And as annoyed as that makes me, uh it's also um really beautiful.

That longing, that anticipation in a kid that they can barely contain, you know.

This may be his last year, you know.

He'll officially be a teenager next year, so it'll probably be too cool for presents like his sisters.

Um but that anticipation is contagious for adults, I think, and I think it's a beautiful thing.

Uh and I still I love Christmas morning, I love opening gifts with family and all of that.

But as I have experienced a number of Christmas mornings, and I have grown in my Christian maturity, I actually appreciate the waiting.

I know it's coming, I anticipate it, I look forward to it, but the waiting contains a lot of the joy, and so I have learned the gift of patience in that sense, something that I couldn't and didn't have as a small child.

Now listen to Isaiah 62:1 in our passage.

Isaiah 62:1

He says, For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, as her salvation, a burning torch.

This is the prophet Isaiah himself, filled with the zeal for God's people, love for God's people given to him from the Lord.

He says, I will not keep silent, I will never stop crying out to the Lord until he has fulfilled all his promises.

He declares and foreshadows the ministry of Jesus himself, Messiah, that Jesus, even after his death and resurrection, he is seated now at the right hand of the Father in heaven and he intercedes for us, he prays for us, he reminds the Father to be faithful.

And he points at his own wounds, his own faithfulness, and says, You have every reason to be faithful to your people because I was the perfect sacrifice.

And knowing what Jesus has done for us allows us to be patient.

We know that he has done the work and he continues to do the work.

Jesus will never stop until the Father has ultimately fulfilled all his promises.

It's the tenacity of God that we see so brilliantly fulfilled at the first Christmas that allows us, his children, to now, though we wait and though we long and though we pray with John, who wrote the book of Revelation, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

How long we can wait in patience.

Point three, Christmas gives us the gift of comfort and joy all year long.

And now again, I'm gonna return and kind of promote this is why it's so important to know biblical history and to understand the history between the time of Isaiah's prophecy and the coming of Jesus, the first Christmas.

At the time of Isaiah, Israel was under incredible distress.

Now, they were kind of the cause of that.

They were wandering away from the Lord, and the Lord was calling them back to himself.

But it was during that time that major nations, neighboring nations, came and completely devastated the nation of Israel.

First, the kingdom of Assyria came and wiped out ten of the northern tribes, and then a couple hundred years later, Babylon came and took out the remaining two southern tribes.

And many in Israel were taken away into exile.

If you know much about Israel's history, you know about the exile.

And they they lived under the reign of foreign kings like Nebuchadnezzar and King Cyrus of the Persians.

Now, what's fascinating about this time is that through the prophets, God continues to show and to say that he is just as in control and just as engaged and active as he was when Israel was safe in the promised land.

He humbled Nebuchadnezzar through madness, and he caused Cyrus, King Cyrus, to send the Israelites back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple.

And though they awaited the full advent of the Lord's promises that were certainly not seen to them in this time of exile, they experienced countless many resurrections or acts of salvation all around them.

And beloved, the same is true for us.

The Lord speaks of it in our own passage.

Listen to these last couple verses.

The nations will see your righteousness.

This is Isaiah speaking to God's people.

He says, The nations will see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.

You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

This is that theme that we talk about every week here at Redeemer because it's so vital, so foundational, so important, that those who are in Christ are God's beloved.

Adopted daughters and sons.

That the Lord calls here crowns of beauty, a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.

What does the Lord do with that crown?

He puts it on his head and he says, My people are my crowning glory.

He's not ashamed of us.

We are beloved.

But you see, it's not only his works of salvation that are promised here, it's his love for us is promised here.

And that's vitally important for us to remember because as we've been saying, his timing is not our timing.

And so as we wait with patience over time, years and decades, we must remember God's love.

Because we will be tempted to doubt it.

And yet the reality of Christmas brings us back again and again how far God was willing to go for us, whom He loved.

Again, He didn't stay far off and kind of send a lightning bolt like Zeus would do and kind of save us from afar and stay clean and detached.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and God took on our suffering, our mess, our sin, our suffering for us.

This is incredible love.

And beloved, this is our Christian superpower.

The ability to have joy and comfort in the midst of a dark and a broken world.

It's less our ability to be righteous, right?

To do the right thing in the world and kind of show non-Christians what's right.

It's more the ability to live with joy and comfort in the midst of the brokenness around us and inside of us.

That is God's glory that radiates through us.

And it's the ability to love those who are unlovely, our neighbors, with the love that God has given us.

This is how the kings and nations will see God's glory.

That's what Isaiah is talking about.

When we are able to love and walk in the love we've been given in Christ, people see and people are drawn towards our Lord.

That is the comfort and the joy of Christmas that we are given all year round.

Okay, the end of Christmas Vacation has always baffled me.

I don't know if you, again, if you've if you've ever watched this movie.

Clark realizes that his company has uh canceled these year-end bonuses, and he goes on a rant.

It's a beautiful, poetic rant full of cuss words and creative things.

And uh he tells his family how angry he is at his boss, the president of the company, Mr.

Shirley.

And then cousin Eddie, whose heart is bigger than his brain.

Uh thank you, Clerk, he says.

Uh he actually goes and he kidnapped Mr.

Shirley from his house, and he brings him back to his house wrapped as a gift.

And it just fits perfectly with the flow of this movie because things just get progressively worse and worse and worse.

Now they have, you know, kidnapped someone, someone's going to jail, uh, things are bad.

We've reached the climax, everything is falling apart.

But then Mr.

Shirley hears uh Clark's disappointment and canceling Christmas bonuses.

And guess what happens?

Mr.

Shirley repents.

Like Zacchaeus, the tax collector, he reinstates Christmas bonuses and he says, add 20%.

To which Clark just passes out on the floor.

Beloved, this is a resurrection story.

This is what this movie is all about.

This is what Tolkien, right, the the author of The Lord of the Rings, he dubbed this a U catastrophe.

Which comes from uh U means good catastrophe.

We know that means it means something good coming out of something terrible.

And this is what uh this is what he dubbed the cross.

Out of a catastrophe, God brings about a great good.

And so out of this kidnapping, out of a horrible Christmas season, uh Christmas bonuses get reinstated and added onto.

So Christmas vacation is a real Christmas movie.

Uh we have dubbed it that.

And beloved, I what I want you to hear this morning is that though life often feels like it is falling apart, the gift of Christmas all year round is a gift of hope, of patience, of joy, and comfort for us all year round.

Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, Lord, hallowed be your name.

Thank you that you are the God who keeps his promises.

Fill our hearts with hope, Lord, we pray, this Christmas season, that we will carry with us all year round for your glory and our good.

We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.