Sermon, 2014-12-24, How One Silent Night Changes Us1
100 years ago tonight, during WWI,
in the trenches of that war somewhere in France and/or Belgium,
British and German soldiers are said to have heard the others
singing Christmas carols. And this is what happened.
Show video clip (Sainsbury Christmas ad)
On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 1914 during WWI,
there were unofficial truces all along the front between
Germany and the Allies.
At some locations along the front, soldiers came out of their trenches and had a day of peace.
And they allegedly had some soccer games, some football games.
I say allegedly, because about a week ago,
CBS Evening News had a piece about this event.
And they talked about how people in that region were commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the event.
(Show pics – memorial, soldiers)
They have built a little memorial statue with a soccer ball
to remember the game.
But, CBS reported that the game might NOT have taken place.
Because, they said that while there had been photographs of the soldiers from the opposing sides taken together,
there were no known photos of a soccer game.
So, the fact that there were pictures of the soldiers,
but no pictures of the soccer game,
has led some to conclude that the game must only be legend.
It couldn’t have happened, if we don’t have visual proof.
(Show pics – Eric Garner, protesters)
We like visual evidence, don’t we?
The case of the man in Ferguson MO,MichaelBrown,evokedcertainkinds of reaction from many people.
But the case of the NY City man, Eric Garner, resulted in another kind of reaction from many people.
Why?
In part, because in the first, there’s no visual evidence, no video.
But in the second, there is video tape, visual evidence to consider.
We like visual proof.
(Show pics – Santa list, trees, presents)
How many of you kids made a list, or gave Santa a list, this year?
How many knowexactly what you’re getting tomorrow morning for sure?
Do you know when you’ll know for sure?
When you see it, right?
When you wake up and find it under the tree
or rip off the wrapping paper and see it with your own two eyes
that’s when you’ll know if you were on Santa’s naughty list or nice.
Visual proof.You’ll believe it when you see it!
This seems to be the issue with one of Jesus’ followers named John
when he writes about Christ’s birth.
John, Jesus’ disciple, writes the story of Jesus’ life and ministry
And he writes a few letters that are also in the Bible.
We don’t know which came first. They’re not dated.
But listen to the beginning of his gospel, the story of Christ’s life.
He writes ....
John 1
In the beginning was the Word,and the Word was with God,and the Word was God.2He was with God in the beginning... 14The Word became fleshand made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory,the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of graceand truth.
“The Word,” here refers to God’s Son, Jesus.
John uses an unusual word for God’s Son - the Word.
He means the one who speaks for God, God’s messenger, God’s message.
And he says the Wordbecame flesh and made his dwelling among us.
That’s Christmas.
That’s the beautiful mystery of Christmas –
God become a man, a baby – taking on human flesh.
But now, listen to how John begins one of his letters.
The one in the Bible that we call 1 John.
1 John 1
That which was from the beginning,which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.2The life appeared;we have seen it and testify to it,and we proclaim to you the eternal life,which was with the Father and has appeared to us.3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard,so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.4We write thisto make our[a]joy complete.
Do you see the similarities?
Right at the beginning of both he uses the word beginning.
He echo’s the beginning of Torah – In the beginning God ...
God’s Son is called the Word in both
The Word comes to earth in both.
But, do you see the difference?
In 1 John, hewants to make it emphatically clear that he saw Jesus.
v. 1 - We have seen him.
We have looked at him!
Our hands have touched him!
v. 2 - The life appeared!
We have seen it and testify to it!
Which was with the father and has appeared to us!
v. 3 - We proclaim what we have SEEN and heard!
Six words about seeing him!
John wants the people who didn’t see Jesus for themselves,
To know that he has seen him.
He really saw Him.
He touched Him.
He really knew Jesus.
Jesus was real.
It seems that by the time John writes the letter,
and I think it comes later than the gospel,
He knows people want more evidence.
When we don’t have visual evidence, we’re less sure.
So he tries to be emphatic in saying,
I saw Him!
I looked at him.
I touched him!
The Word became flesh! and dwelt among us and I saw Him!
And what I say, I say as an eyewitness.
Here’s my testimony concerning what I saw.
So since it’s Christmas Eve,
and since John is referring to when the Word became flesh and appeared
we could say that John wants us to believe a few things
about his testimony about Christ, and about his birth, about Christmas.
I’d like you to see a couple of things he wants us to know about Christmas
The first, I think,he wants us to see is this:
1.Christmas is historical.
(1 John 1:1-2 That which was from the beginning,which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.2The life appeared;we have seen it and testify to it,and we proclaim to you the eternal life,which was with the Father and has appeared to us.)
John is saying,
When we give you these accounts of Jesus walking on the water,
of Jesus rising from the dead,
of Jesus speaking these words,
they are not legends.
These are not things we made up.
These are not wonderful spiritual parables.
These are things we saw.
We saw him do this.
We heard him do this.
We felt him do this.
The manger, the resurrection, the story of Jesus is not just a story.
It’s true.
It actually happened in history.
Here’s the one thing Christmas presses us on.
1 John 1:1-2 is saying:
These are either lies you’re reading in the New Testament
or they’re eyewitness accounts, but they can’t be legends.
For example, the story of Jesus walking on the water in John 6 says, “When they had rowed 3 or 3½ miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water.”
You may not be an expert in ancient literature,
but think of The Iliad or The Odyssey.
Can you imagine Homer saying,
“And Achilles met Hector in combat, and they were
either 3 or 3½ miles from the wall of Troy”?
He wouldnot have written that.
Because in ancient legends they didn’t put in details
that didn’t help the plot or develop the character.
When a man back then was writing a legend he wouldn’t say,
“They were 3 or 3½ miles out.”
That detail wouldn’t have occurred to him
unless he was writing an eyewitness account.
If it’s history, if the writer was there, he writes 3 to 3 ½ miles.
When John says, “I saw him, I felt him, I heard him with my own ears,
I saw him with my own eyes,” everyone would know immediately
he was claiming to be an eyewitness.
So, every early reader of the NT knew either these were deliberate lies
or they were true eyewitness accounts,
but they couldn’t be legends.
Also, if they are lies, these are some of the stupidest lies ever made.
Here’s why.
These accounts were written in the lifetime of the people who were there.
If you’re gonna write that 500 people saw Jesus risen from the dead
inthe Kidron Valley,
you wouldn’t write it 20 or 30 or 40 years later
like the Gospels were written.
You would write it 100 years later,
when everybody who lived in the Kidron Valley at that time was dead.
If you falsely write that 500 people saw Jesus in the Kidron Valley,
and lots of people are still living the Kidron Valley who were there at that time, you’re never going to have a religion that gets off the ground.
But it did get off the ground,
because they wrote these accounts
and they were not contradicted.
The point of Christmas is that Jesus Christ really lived, and he really died.
It happened in history.
He did these things. He said these things.
These are not just stories we tell children.
These are not just legends.
Then #2, John wants us to believe that
2. Christmas makes us spiritual.
So he makes the point emphatically that Jesus is real.
He was the Word.
He appeared.
And He looked at him, touched him, and heard him.
And then John says, so this is what should result from that.
1 John 1:3
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard,so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
I proclaim it to you, SO THAT ...
You also may have fellowship with us
And our fellowship is with the Father and the Son.
I want to address the second one first.
He says “Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son.”
He’s saying,
if Jesus Christ has come, if Christmas is true,
then we have a basis for a personal relationship with God.
Fellowship, is koinonia, it means a bond, a partnership,
a real relationship.
It even implied intimacy in certain contexts.
God is no longer a remote idea or just a force we cower before,
but we can know him personally.
He’s become graspable.
Here’s an example of how that could work.
Scholar A and Scholar B are both writing a biography of John Doe.
Sir John Doe lived in East Anywhere and died in 1721.
Both Scholar A &scholar B believe John Doe wrote 5 letters to his wife,
and they can learn a lot from them.
But there’s also a 500 page autobiography,
and it says in itself that it’s written by John Doe.
Scholar A says, “I believe it’s his, it’s genuine.”
Scholar B says, “I don’t.”
So they sit down to write their biographies.
Those biographies are gonna be different.
Scholar A’s biography of Sir John Doe is gonna be much more detailed,
much more personal.
When you’re done reading his, you’re going to feel you know this guy.
But Scholar B’s biography is gonna to be much more remote,
much more general, much more speculative.
You’re gonna feel you hardly know him at all.
It all comes down to whether the autobiography is genuine.
Here’s the point.
If Jesus Christ is actually the Word of God come in the flesh,
you’re gonna know much more about God.
He’s gonna be graspable.
He’s gonna be somebody you can relate to.
You’re seeing him weep.
You’re seeing him upset.
You’re seeing him cast down.
You’re seeing him exalted.
If Jesus is who he says he is,
we have,in a sense,a 500 page autobiography from God.
And our understanding will be vastly more personal and specific
than any philosophy or religion could give us.
That’s what God has done to let you be able to know him personally.
And it began at Christmas.
If the Son would come all this way to become a real person to you,
don’t you think the Holy Spirit will do anything in his power
to make Jesus a real person to you in your heart?
Christmas is an invitation to a spiritual relationship with God.
Christmas is an invitation to know God personally in Jesus Christ.
Christmas is an invitation by God to say:
Look what I’ve done to come near to you.
Now draw near to me.
I don’t want to be a concept, an“I believe in a God, maybe.”
I want to be a real friend and Father.
Then, John seems to be saying
3. Christmas makes us relational.
1 John 1:3
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard,so that you also may have fellowship with us.
He’s telling the gospel of Christmas,
the story of Christ’s appearing,
so that other people can have fellowship with the followers of Christ.
The incarnation imprints on us an attitude toward relationships.
Jesus says, I want fellowship with you.
The test that you know what Christmas is about is
that you become more open to intimate personal relationships
with other people
and that you get better at them,
because the Incarnation is the secret of good personal relationships.
When two people are different culturally or linguistically,
how are they going to have a relationship?
One of them must learn the other’s language,
speak in a broken dialect,
and become vulnerable . and in a way weak.
If you enter into another person’s world you become weak;
the other person keeps the power.
But then you have a relationship.
That’s what Jesus did.
He emptied himself of all his divine prerogatives,
and became weak, taking the form of a man, a servant,
so that we could be his friends.
The incarnation shows us
that we can work on entering into the world of others
in order to giving that person what they need,
grace, and truth, and love.
Christmas, the incarnation,
if it’s imprinted in you,
if you see what Jesus Christ has done,
calls you to be better at relationships –
to give, to love, to be forgiving, to be open
to be concerned with others, and to be inclusive.
Finally,
4. Christmas makes us emotional.
He says
1 John 1:4
These things we write, so that ourjoy may be made complete. (NASB)
John says:
I want you to see that Christ and his appearing is historical.
He’s real.I saw him! I saw Him!
I want you to believe what I’m saying,
So that it will lead to fellowship between you and the Father and Son.
it will lead you to have fellowship with God.
So that it will lead you to having fellowship with us.
Good relationships, a community, oflove and belief and purpose.
And so thatour joy may be made complete.
He doesn’t say,
I need your lives to be okay, so I can have any joy at all.
He already has joy.
He says,
If you believe this and get this, my joy will be complete.
There’s a balance there.
He’s got a joy no matter what they do.
Christ gives you a foundation of joy in your life.
I’m from the suburbs of Philadelphia,
And I know someone from there whose basement was always wet.
They didn’t know why.
And then someone told them,
there was a subterranean river that went underneath
all the houses on their street.
It was always flowing, even in droughts.
On the one hand,
Christ, Christmas gives you a subterranean river of joy.
No matter how bad life is on the surface,
no matter how bad circumstances are, the joy can always be there.
After all, Jesus Christ has come.
God is with us.
He has opened a cleft in the pitiless walls of the world,
and the kingdom of God is coming, come hell or high water.
That’s subterranean joy.
But on the other hand, John says:
I can’t havecomplete joy unless you believe.
That means this.
Many of us are afraid to enmesh ourselves in the lives of other people, because we can’t stand the idea of tying our hearts to other people.
If they’re unhappy, we’re unhappy.
So we pull back. We withdraw.
We don’t get involved in the lives of people.
But the incarnation means that Jesus Christ, God himself,
got enmeshed in our brokenness.
He got involved in a major way.
He was weeping.
He came in and he fell, and he had nails in his hands.
But here’s what’s great. It’s a subterranean joy.
It’s a joy that cannot run out.
And it will give you the freedom to get involved in the lives of others.
Christmas makes you free to be emotional.
It makes you realize the emotion of grief
is not going to take you all the way down,
because you have a subterranean joy.
God declared a truce on Christmas.
He rose up out of the trenches of human sin and pain.
And he made an offer of peace.