Titus 2:11-14

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What does Christmas mean for us?

A sermon preached by

Dr. William O. (Bud) R= eeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

December 21, 2008=

A local Christian radio station had a Christma= s ad that was one of those “person on the street” interviews, with various responses to the question, “What does Christmas mean?”<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> There were no unexpected answers i= n the ad. One said, “Getting presents.” Another said, “Being with family.” Another said, “Spending time with friends.” One actually said, “Helping o= ther people.” None of these = are bad answers; they are just not correct answers to the question, “What does Christmas mean?” F= inally a man said, “The love of God revealed in Jesus Christ,” then th= e announcer wished everyone a Merry Christmas from the radio station and the music came= up and out.

As I was listening to = this ad, two things struck me. One= , even on a Christian radio station, people were confused about the true meaning of Christmas. And two, this radio station made no attempt to clarify or correct the off-base answers.

It’s pretty hard= in our culture today to get clarity about the meaning of Christmas. Is it a winter festival? Is it a celebration of family and friendship? Is it an economic= ally driven rush toward the bottom line of the fiscal year? What does Christmas mean? What significance does the birth of Christ have for our world and our lives today? Let’s look at Christmas from that perspective this morning.

You have to admit, the= re was some pretty strange stuff going on two millennia ago when Jesus came to earth. There were visitations= by angelic beings; there was an unexplained pregnancy; there was a celestial phenomenon, a new star that scientists are still arguing about. There was the tragic story of a ma= n and a woman turned away from hospitality, having to give birth to a child amid = the filth of animals. There was a bizarre visit from three astrologers who followed the star until they found= the baby. This is the stuff of fa= ntasy and myth and legend—unless, of course, it’s true. Then it is the mighty work of God = in the world.

What God is doing at Christmas is taking matters into his own hands. His purpose from the beginning was= to save planet earth, to reconcile all creation unto himself. He tried making covenants with peo= ple; he tried giving them a set of laws; he tried sending prophets to lead the people back to the paths of righteousness.= Nothing worked. People= were still the hard-headed, stiff-necked people they had always been—inten= t on doing their own thing whatever the consequences. Finally God took the most radical = action of all. God became human. He took on flesh in the womb of Ma= ry and came into the world as the baby Jesus.&nbs= p; We say, “God sent his Son,” and that is true, but the Ba= by in the manger is the same God who created the universe. He finally could not depend on any= one else to get the job done. He = had to take matters into his own hands.

You may remember way b= ack to 1987 and a news story that held the nation in suspense for two days. Jessica McClure was a toddler from= Midland, Texas, who fell down an abandoned well shaft.&nbs= p; For fifty-nine hours, scores of rescue workers worked around the clo= ck to free the helpless child. T= he whole nation watched and waited in compassionate anticipation, praying and hoping for a good outcome. Jessica’s parents stayed there with her, their heartbreak beco= ming ours as the time marched on. = At first Jessica was singing Winnie-the-Pooh songs from down in the shaft. Then she went quiet. The oil field workers and paramedi= cs worked feverishly against death and time, overcoming one obstacle after ano= ther to save the child. Finally af= ter 2 ½ days of superhuman effort, a paramedic emerged from the hole with Jessica in his arms, bruised but safe and sound. The eyes of a nation filled with tears, and our collective voice let= out a cry of gratitude to God.

I think that drama is = a good parable of Christmas. For centuries, God’s people had been waiting for a Savior, a Messiah who = would save his people from their sins and establish the Kingdom of God on earth. For centuries, huma= nkind had been down a deep, dark hole—stuck in the shaft of sin—and n= ot one of the rescue attempts had been successful: not the law of Moses, not t= he words of the prophets, not the sacrifices in the Temple. Nothing worked until God entered h= istory in a baby born in Bethlehem. God came down into the hole himsel= f and set us free. Christ our Savio= r came down into a world of darkness and brought us light.

So God h= as opened up a new way of salvation for us.&n= bsp; The Letter to Titus puts it this way, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”= ;= = [1] The Gospel of John sums i= t up in two sentences: “For God so loved the world that= he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but = may have eternal life. Indeed, Go= d did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”[= 2] That’s the Gospel for Christm= as or any other day. It is salvatio= n, not dependent on sacrifice or law, but dependent on relationship. In this miraculous, supernatural b= irth in Bethlehem, God has bridged the gap between earth and heaven, and we can walk across.

Several years ago the United Press Internatio= nal carried a story about a British bank official who bridged the gap in a uniq= ue way. Andrew Parker and his fa= mily were taking the ferry across the English Channel. The weather got rough and the wate= r turbulent, and the ferry began to sink. As luck would have it, = the boat was near a stationary buoy in the channel that could provide safety at least to some of the passengers. But as close to the buoy as the boat could get was still six feet aw= ay from the little metal island. It was too far and the water too rough to jump. Acting spontaneously, Andrew Parker lunged across the gap, stretching his 6’3” frame between the fe= rry boat and the buoy. Then he sh= outed at the people to use him as a human bridge to safety. Starting with his own wife and dau= ghter, 20 people climbed across Andrew Parker’s back to safety. Once safely across, they waited un= til rescue workers could come and get them.&nb= sp; It was a petrifying experience, but because of Andrew Parker’s bravery, it was not the tragedy it could have been.

This is what Jesus does for us. He bridges the gap created by sin = so we can cross over into the safety of God’s Kingdom. This is the reason he was born. But what does this mean? What significance does this Christ= mas Gospel have for our lives today? What difference does the birth of Jesus make?

First, Christmas means our earthly home is not our permanent home. This life does not last forever. There is an eternal world of the s= pirit where God dwells. There is a heaven. And because God has c= ome to us, then by his grace we can go to him.&nb= sp; We have “a building fr= om God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”= = [= 3] We do not see this realm,= but we believe in it. It’s = the foundation of our hope.

Dr. James Dobson relates a story of an elderly= woman named Stella Thornhope who was struggling with her first Christmas alone. <= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Her husband had died of cancer just= a few months earlier. Now, several = days before Christmas, she was almost snowed in by a brutal blizzard. She felt terribly alone—so m= uch so she decided she was not even going to decorate for Christmas.

Late that afternoon the doorbell rang, and there was a delivery boy with a box. She invited him to step inside and closed the door to get away from the cold.= She signed the paper and said, "What's in the box?"

The young man laughed = and opened up the flap, and inside was a little puppy, a golden Labrador Retriever. The delivery boy p= icked up the squirming pup and explained, "This is for you, Ma'am. He's six weeks old, completely housebroken."

"Who sent this?&q= uot; Mrs. Thornhope asked.

The young man set the = animal down and handed her an envelope and said, "It's all explained here in = this envelope, Ma'am. The dog was = bought last July while its mother was still pregnant. It was meant to be a Christmas gif= t to you." The young man then handed her a book, How to Care for Your Labrador Retriev= er.

In desperation she aga= in asked, "Who sent me this puppy?"

As the young man turne= d to leave, he said, "Your husband, Ma'am. Merry Christmas."

She opened up the enve= lope, and there was a letter from her husband.&n= bsp; He had written it three weeks before he died and left it with the ke= nnel owners to be delivered with the puppy as his last Christmas gift to her. The letter was full of love and encouragement to be strong. He vowed that he was waiting for the day when she would join him. He had sent her this puppy to keep= her company until then.

She wiped away the tea= rs, put the letter down, and she picked up that golden furry ball and held it to her neck. Then she looked out the window at the lights that outlined the neighbor's house. From the kitchen she heard the radio playing "Joy to= the World, the Lord has Come." Suddenly Stella felt the most amazing sensation of peace washing over her. Her heart felt a joy and= a wonder greater than the grief and loneliness.

"Little fella,&qu= ot; she said to the dog, "It's just you and me. But you know what? There's a box down in the basement= I'll bet you'd like. It's got a li= ttle Christmas tree in it and some decorations and some lights that are going to impress you. And there's a ma= nger scene down there. Let's go get it."= [4]

This world is not our permanent home. The birth of Jesus is the sign. Therefore, our problems here are only temporary. This is the foundation of our courage. Whatever griefs we b= ear, whatever obstacles we face, whatever hardships come our way—death, disease, depression, anxiety, poverty, persecution, broken relationships—we can endure, because this world is not our only home. Paul says we can “= ;boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, a= nd endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.= 221;= = [= 5] When all is said and done, the trag= edies and troubles, the scars and wounds of our lives, will be healed in the heav= enly home that is waiting for us.

A few years ago Mitch Albom wrote= a best-seller called The Five People = You Meet in Heaven. It tells = the story of Eddie, a man who was raised in the Depression, hated his father, w= as held as a prisoner in World War II, lost the love of his life to cancer, and spent most of his life as a maintenance man at a cheesy seaside amusement p= ark in New Jersey. He was killed in a tragic accident= at the amusement park where he worked. The book is about Eddie’s experience in heaven, as five people from his earthly life who have preceded him in death help him resolve the tangled mess of his life and to see how important and significant his life really was.

In the last few paragraphs of the book, Eddie is led by a child to his final destination. He and the child are swept away by= a river, which carries him along like a leaf through all the colors of the rainbow, all the pain and weariness of his life washing away in the peaceful waters. Finally he emerges in brilliant light above an almost unimaginable scene:

“There was a pier filled wi= th thousands of people, men and women, fathers and mothers and children—= so many children—children from the past and the present, children who had not yet been born, side by side, hand in hand, in caps, in short pants, fil= ling the boardwalk and the rides and the wooden platforms, sitting on each other’s laps. They were there, or would be there, because of the simple, mundane things Eddie had d= one in his life, the accidents he had prevented, the rides he had kept safe, the unnoticed turns he had affected every day.= And while their lips did not move, Eddie heard their voices, more vo= ices than he could have imagined, and a peace came upon him that he had never kn= own before. He was free of [the child’s] grip now, and he floated up above the sand and above the boardwalk, above the tent tops and spires of the midway, toward the peak of= the big, white Ferris Wheel, where a cart, gently swaying, held a woman in a ye= llow dress—his wife, Marguerite, waiting with her arms extended. He reached for her and he saw her = smile and the voices melded into a single word from God: Home.”[6]<= /a>

For those who hope in the One who= was born in Bethlehem<= /st1:City>, the final word of God, beyond this earth, beyond our problems and pains, wi= ll be “home.” How do= we get there? We believe. We have faith. As Mary and Joseph believed the wo= rd of the messenger from God, as the shepherds and Wise Men believed and fell dow= n to worship him. Simply trust your heart to the One who made it.

Then live a life worthy of that relationship. Paul wrote to Titus: “For the grace of God has appear= ed, bringing salvation to all, trainin= g us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live li= ves that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior,= Jesus Christ.”[= 7] Like Eddie= at the amusement park, keep things in good repair. The combination of inward faith and outward behavior will take you home every time.

This is what Christmas means. It doesn’t mean counting your presents. It do= es mean counting on God’s love. That’s why he sent his Son. Because God’s love has been p= oured into us, we are capable of loving others.&= nbsp; This love gives us life everlasting and an eternal home. This Christmas, find the love of G= od in Jesus Christ, and you can come home forever. Amen!