Advent Carols 2005

The story is told of a little boy at school who was set a project to investigate his family tree. So he came home, found his mother and said, ‘Mummy, how did I get here?’ She didn’t want to go into the birds and the bees at that point so she said, ‘The stork brought you.’ ‘Oh.’ he said. He then found his father and said, ‘Daddy, how did you get here?’ And not wanting to go into the details, he also said, ‘The stork brought me.’ ‘Really?’ said little Johnny. And since granny happened to be staying, he went and asked her, as well: ‘Granny, how did you get here?’ And granny said, ‘The stork.’ So next day he went off to school and began writing his project: ‘There has not now been a normal birth in our family for three generations.’

Well as far as I know, my own birth was entirely normal. And I’m confident that in 2000 years time it’ll be remembered by no-one.

So what is it about Jesus Christ - the person at the centre of Christmas? Why is it that 2000 years on, his birth is about to be celebrated all over the world? And why is it that one in five of the world’s population would say they live for him?

Well, what those one in five would say is this: that his birth was not just abnormal, but unique; that no human father was involved; but that through that birth the Son of God stepped into his creation as a human being. That’s the central claim of Christianity. And tonight we’re going to look at one of the pieces of evidence for that claim. It’s one of the accounts of Jesus’ birth, in Matthew’s Gospel. And it begins like this:

18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about… (v18)

Now that’s a line you won’t find in any other biography. Because biographers can assume we know about the birds and the bees - how births come about. But in this case, Matthew knows our natural assumptions will be wrong. So reading from v18 again:

18This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. [Only at this point, Joseph doesn’t know it’s through the Holy Spirit – ie, a work of God, involving no sexual relations of any kind. So his natural assumption is what ours would have been: she’s pregnant; so she’s slept with someone. So he decides to call off the wedding. But, v19:] 19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. (vv18-19)

But what happens next is a challenge to all our natural assumptions – not just about childbirth, but about the way the whole universe is. Let me read on from v20:

20But after [Joseph] had considered this, 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. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." 22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: [and this is a quote from a prophecy written 700 years before Jesus] 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" - which means, "God with us." (vv20-23)

Now some of us will be saying to ourselves, ‘I can’t believe that.’ And my question is, ‘Why not?’ Why can’t you believe in a God who can tell us in advance what he’s going to do; or in angels; or in a virgin birth?

In 1848, someone by the name of Johannes Rebmann became the first explorer to see Mount Kilimanjaro – that beautiful snow-covered volcano in Tanzania. And he came back to the Royal Geographical Society in London and told them he’d seen snow in Africa. And they said, ‘There can’t be.’ In fact, according to the minutes of the meeting, one of them suggested he needed his eyes tested. Which is a classic example of a clash between what someone has witnessed and what people believe is possible.

And people often say they can’t believe in the virgin birth at the start of Jesus’ life; or in his rising from the dead at the other end of his life. Or in the miracles he did in between. And yet the first Christians – the eye-witnesses whose testimony is in the New Testament – claimed to have witnessed those things. But people today say modern, scientific people can’t believe those things.

But in fact that’s a very unscientific thing to say, because the way science makes progress is to let data challenge current beliefs and, if necessary, to change those beliefs. So, eg, for 2000 years everyone believed the sun and the planets went round the Earth. And then Copernicus looked up his telescope and made people face the fact that a whole lot of data didn’t fit that belief. At which point either your telescope is wrong or your beliefs are. And Copernicus realised his beliefs were wrong and he let the data change his mind.

Now if you’re just looking into Christianity, the Bible – especially the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – are the data you need to work on. Or perhaps I should say Jesus is the data, and the Bible is the ‘telescope’ through which you get to see him. And you’ve got to work out whether the ‘telescope’ is telling the truth, and if it is, to go where the data leads you. And if at the moment you’re saying to yourself, ‘I can’t believe this,’ will you at least look at the evidence and let it challenge your current beliefs? Maybe you’ve never read one of the four Gospels as an adult and asked yourself, ‘Does this have the ring of truth?’ Well please be our guest and pick up a copy of Mark’s Gospel from the Welcome Desk near the way out. Or you might like to join our Christianity Explored course and not only read Mark’s Gospel but meet with others to ask questions and challenge anything you want to. There’s a leaflet about that with your service sheet. [For website readers, you can find details of Christianity Explored at: www.christianityexplored.com.]

So that’s the central claim of Christianity. That Jesus was the Son of God become human. When we were conceived, it was the beginning of people who’d never existed before. When Jesus was conceived, someone who’d existed for all eternity with his Father in heaven stepped into his own creation as a man.

But if that’s what happened that first Christmas, it begs the question why? And the answer is in v21 of our reading:

21 “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.” (v21)

In those days, names were chosen for their meaning. And even today there are websites to help parents with meanings of names. So with the England cricket team in mind, I typed in a few. Eg, for Kevin Pietersen, Kevin means ‘handsome’, which I’m sure will please him and any Kevins here tonight. For Marcus Trescothick, Marcus means ‘warlike’ - very appropriate. And for Michael Vaughan? Michael means ‘one like a god’ – which, after the Ashes, he was - although his god-likeness has slipped a bit since.

Well, the angel said to give him the name Jesus. And if you’d typed that into a Hebrew parenthood website, it would have said, ‘God saves’ or ‘God to the rescue’. That’s what it means. And in fact what the angel says is the Christian message in a nutshell. And I’m simply going to unpack it in the rest of our time.


So the first thing the angel says is that THERE IS SOMETHING WE NEED SAVING FROM

It was one Christmas when I first heard Letter to Daniel. It was a piece for radio by Fergal Keane – a BBC foreign correspondent. It’s about the birth of his first son, and it began like this:

“My dear son, it is six o'clock in the morning on the island of Hong Kong. You are asleep cradled in my left arm and I am learning the art of one-handed typing. Your mother, more tired yet more happy than I've ever known her, is sound asleep in the room next door and there is a soft quiet in our apartment.”

He then goes on to talk to Daniel about some of the awful things he’s seen as a foreign correspondent - and his horror at the thought that Daniel should ever be caught up in anything similar. And finally he tells him the story of his own birth into a family with an alcoholic father who drank himself to death before he even really knew him. This is how it ends:

“Daniel… when you let out your first powerful cry in the delivery room… and I became a father, I thought of your grandfather and, foolish though it may seem, hoped that in some way he could hear, across the infinity between the living and the dead, your proud statement of arrival. For if he could hear, he would recognize the distinct voice of family, and the sound of hope and new beginnings that you and all your innocence… have brought into the world.”

And we do have this idea that we’re born innocent, don’t we? That human beings are basically good. But if we were born innocent, how come we didn’t grow up innocent? How come no-one in this building would seriously get up and say, ‘I’ve never thought, said or done anything wrong, anything unloving, anything untrue.’? And if human beings are basically good, how come you locked your house or room to come out tonight? And locked your car or bike just now? How come you keep your money in a bank and panic when you lose your purse or wallet? So much for our being basically good.

What explains experience far better is what the Bible says, which is: that God created the first humans good, but that they then rebelled against him – so that from then on it became human nature to say to God, consciously or subconsciously, ‘Keep out. I want to run my own life.’ And that attitude to God is what the Bible calls ‘sin’. And all the wrong doing (and thinking and talking) that flows from it, the Bible calls ‘sins’. That’s the Bible’s diagnosis of us, and of why we need saving. Because God is offended by our ignoring him, and all the consequences. And ultimately we have to face him as Judge.

In actual fact, we’ll face Jesus, his Son. Because he did rise from the dead – he made a supernatural exit from this world as well as a supernatural entry – to show that he was the Son of God, and that we will ultimately meet him when we die. And God his Father has delegated the whole business of judgment to him. So if up to the end of our lives we’ve said to him, ‘I don’t want you as my King,’ then with no pleasure at all, he will have to say to us, ‘Then I can’t have you in my heaven.’ That’ll be the judgment. Because you can’t be part of a kingdom if you won’t accept the King.

So there is something we need saving from. And on the one hand, deep down our consciences will be saying, ‘That’s true.’ On the other hand, our minds may be rationalising that we’re OK. But if I were to ask, ‘Just by your own standards, are you the person you really want to be - the husband, wife, son, daughter, sibling, friend you ought to be’ – could you honestly say ‘Yes’? And if you fail your own judgment, by your own standards, how do you think you’ll fare in God’s judgement? There is something we need saving from.


Then the second thing the angel says is that THERE’S ONLY ONE PERSON WHO CAN SAVE US

If you’re with me so far, you can’t help but ask: Is there any way out of God’s judgment?

And the natural thing is to think that we can somehow make up for what we’ve done. But we can’t. I remember having to learn a poem at school called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. And one bit of it goes like this. It’s talking about the record of our lives, and it says:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all your Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Another writer, John Clare, said this: ‘If only life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs.’ But it doesn’t. And we can’t correct any of the things God should hold against us in the end. We can’t save ourselves. Which is why the angel says:

“…you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (v21)

Imagine that an ugly scene broke out down here just after the service. Imagine one of the violinists accused the cellist of coming in late and the cellist in turn thumped the violinist. And there’s a bleeding nose and people are pulling them apart like Lee Bowyer and Kieran Dyer, and I come across and say to the cellist, ‘I forgive you.’ What would you make of that? What would the violinist make of that? You see, to save that relationship, there has to be forgiveness. But only the offended party can forgive. And in the ultimate relationship - with God – only God can forgive. A priest can’t forgive you. A ritual can’t forgive you. Only God can forgive you. And the Christmas message is that he can do so, and is willing to, through what Jesus came into the world to do.

You remember Fergal Keane talking about Daniel’s first cry: “the sound of hope and new beginnings that you and all your innocence… have brought into the world.”

But Daniel didn’t bring any ‘new beginning’ or ‘innocence’ into the world - any more than you or I did. Because sinners give birth to sinners, who in turn give birth to sinners, who in turn give birth to sinners… and there’s only ever been one interruption in that process, one exception - the birth of Jesus.

Because he wasn’t a product from within the human race, if I can put like that. He was the Son of God who entered it from outside. So that if Mary, with him in her arms had talked about ‘the hope and new beginnings that he and all his innocence… had brought into the world’ – she’d have been absolutely right. Because he was the only person not born sinful, and the only person who never sinned.

But that in itself would have been no help to us – as if all we needed was a perfect example. I mean, imagine you took a tumble off the Millennium Bridge into the Tyne, and you couldn’t swim and you’re drowning. It’s no help in itself that someone’s dived in after you who can swim and who’s doing perfect front crawl and then some exemplary breaststroke while you’re going under for the third time. But it does put them in a position to help. And living a sinless life put Jesus in a position to help us – by dying for us on the cross. Because that above all is what Jesus came into the world to do. Because for God to forgive us, a problem had to be solved. The problem is: how can he forgive what we’ve done wrong without it looking as if right and wrong don’t matter? It’s just the issue that’s been in the news from Northern Ireland this week. I wonder if you heard the woman whose daughter was killed by a bomb. She was asked about these plans for terrorists to be tried and, even if found guilty, for no sentence to be carried out. And she simply said, ‘But we want justice’ - ie, appropriate punishment.

And if you’re beginning to see the truth, your conscience will be telling you that God can’t just overlook our sins. There has to be justice. And the very heart of the Christmas message is this. That God, in love that we will never really fathom, has made a way for justice to be done on our sins, without it being done on us. And that way was Jesus dying on the cross. He was the only person who never sinned. And therefore the only person who deserved no punishment of his own. And that put him in a position to take our punishment in our place. So when Jesus died on the cross, it was the Son of God, who was infinitely ‘in credit’ with his Father, paying off the moral debt of the rest of us. It was the Judge taking on himself the sentence he ought to hand down to us. Another part of the Bible explains the cross like this:

He was pierced for our wrongdoing…the punishment that brought us peace was upon him. (Isaiah 53.5)

So he wasn’t just the perfect example, as if that’s what drowning sinners needed. But the perfect Saviour.

So 2000 years ago, God did something that means that every sin of every person in this building can be forgiven – however bad they seem to us, however heavy they weigh on our consciences. The Christmas message is that God can forgive you and wants to forgive you back into relationship with him - before you meet him as Judge, and the time for sorting these things out is past. And in fact, there’s only one obstacle to you being forgiven and starting a new relationship with God - even tonight. And that obstacle is you. Which brings us to the last, and perhaps the most unpopular, thing the angel says.


The angel says that ONLY SOME PEOPLE ARE SAVED

Let me read out Matthew 1.21 once more:

“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.” (v21)

The angel has already offended us by talking about our sin. And now he offends us by saying not everyone will be saved. Because it doesn’t say he will save ‘all people’, or ‘good people’, or ‘churchgoing people’, or ‘sincere people of any religion’ - but, ‘his people’. So what does that mean?

Well, think of the Queen doing her Christmas broadcast. There she is, surrounded by portraits, with the corgis hanging on her every word, and she sometimes refers to us as ‘you, my people.’ And that’s right. We are ‘her people’ – we’re the people she rules over. And when the angel talks about ‘his people’ - Jesus’ people - he means the same. He means the people Jesus rules over, the people who willingly accept Jesus as their King.

Now lots of us started out life under the rule of Elisabeth because we were born under it. But none of us starts out life under the rule of Jesus. Because we’re born with this nature that wants to keep him out from being in charge. So to be one of his people you have to become one: there’s a definite step to be taken. And it means admitting that up until now you’ve not been living for Christ as you should; it means asking his forgiveness for that; and it means accepting him from now on as King over your life.

Now imagine I were to draw a line of where people stand in relation to these things. One end stands for people who’ve already taken that step - you know you’re forgiven and (albeit imperfectly) living for Jesus as your King. The other end of the line stands for people who are much further back. Maybe you’re unconvinced that any of this is true. Maybe you’re a bit further on but need to know more of what it would involve to be one of Christ’s people – and what it would cost to change or stand up for him. But there will be some people here in the middle of the line: you know this is true, you know enough to take that step and you’d like to know how. So as I close, would you turn to the back page of your service sheet. And at the top of the back page you’ll see a prayer. Let me say straight away: it’s not appropriate for everyone here. But it’s a way of taking that step of becoming one of Christ’s people. Let me read it out to you:

Lord Jesus Christ,I confess I have I have not lived for you as my rightful God and King.I have rejected you and so deserve your judgement.And yet you came to die for me, to save me from my sins.I now turn to you.Please forgive me all that is past and come into my life to change me, so that I may live for you from this day on. Amen

Now if you’re at the ‘already one of Christ’s people’ end of the line, you don’t need to pray that again - but it’s a good reminder of the step you’ve already taken. If you’re at the other end, with much more thinking to do, it wouldn’t be appropriate, either. But if you want to take that step, you could use that prayer. Now you may be wary of the heat of the moment and prefer to use it later, on your own. But you might like to use it now. So I’m going to lead us in this prayer. If it’s not appropriate for you, you could pray something else. But if it is, you could follow it on the page and echo it in your mind:

Lord Jesus Christ,I confess I have I have not lived for you as my rightful God and King.I have rejected you and so deserve your judgement.And yet you came to die for me, to save me from my sins.I now turn to you.Please forgive me all that is past and come into my life to change me, so that I may live for you from this day on. Amen

If you have just prayed that prayer and meant, it, can I assure you that the Lord Jesus Christ has heard and answered it. And if you have just done that, can I encourage you to tell another Christian you know, so they can help you get going in the Christian life. And if you’re anywhere further back on my line of where people stand in relation to these things, please do take away the details of the Christianity Explored course I mentioned earlier. It would be great to welcome you on that.