Rev. David Holwick ZQ Christmas Sunday
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 23, 2012
2 Peter 1:16-19, Matthew 2:1-2
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I. Christmas has always been a mixture.
A. It is religious and secular - probably more secular.
1) A survey of the top 25 Christmas songs played on the radio
found that only one was religious at all.
a) Number 8 is "Little Drummer Boy," which isn't very
Biblical.
2) Most of them deal with Santa, or white snow, or being with
your family.
a) Number 1 is "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" by
Nat King Cole. No theology there.
b) Half of those 25 songs were written by Jews.
c) There is really nothing wrong with this - we get to
share the holiday with everyone, believer and
non-believer. But non-theology wins.
#63896
B. There is even a mixture in the purely religious content.
1) Most of you are educated Christians, so you are aware of
the embellishments for the holiday.
a) Three Wise Men - actually, there are three gifts.
We have no idea how many wise men there were.
b) And they were not kings of different races - that is
a theological application that goes beyond the text.
c) Wise men came to the manger.
1> Actually, they came to a house.
2> Jesus was probably in a manger only a day or two.
2) Timelines have been compressed or invented.
a) Was Jesus really born on December 25?
1> This date can be traced to the fourth century but
no earlier.
2> It was probably chosen to replace a pagan holiday.
3> December is cold in Israel so it was more likely
late autumn, when animals are pastured at night.
b) Did the Wise Men arrive on January 6?
1> This is known as Epiphany, and is celebrated by
Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
A> The 12 Days of Christmas is from Dec 25 to Jan 6.
B> It does make more sense to exchange gifts later.
2> In reality, the Wise Men could have taken much
longer to arrive.
A> King Herod killed every boy under 2 years old.
B> Even allowing for a "fudge factor," they could
have arrived much later than 12 days after
the birth.
II. Some see something more sinister than embellishment.
A. Newsweek cover article raises questions about Christmas.
1) It is actually a long-standing tradition for major magazines
to come out with debunking articles on the holidays.
2) This one is written by a Dr. Bart Ehrman. [recent Newsweek]
a) He is a noted New Testament scholar, and graduated from
Wheaton College the same year I did.
(I don't remember the guy and he isn't in my yearbooks.)
b) He later went on to Princeton.
1> He became the pastor of Princeton Baptist Church.
2> He also became a Bible scholar and professor.
3) Ehrman went from evangelical to liberal, to agnostic.
a) He feels the New Testament has been warped by warring
theological parties.
1> The true teaching of Jesus cannot be recovered.
b) He came to the conclusion that there are so many
discrepancies and viewpoints, the Bible is just a
human book like any other. [1]
B. Can we trust what the Bible says about Christmas?
1) Does it present solid facts about a historical event?
2) Or is all of it on the level of Santa and his elves?
III. The Christmas narratives contain some significant differences.
A. Matthew and Luke have divergent storylines.
1) In Matthew you have wise men, in Luke, shepherds.
2) In Matthew they follow a star, in Luke there is no star but
there is an angelic choir that gives directions.
3) In Matthew Jesus is in a house, in Luke, a manger.
4) In Matthew, Jesus is hustled off to Egypt for protection
from Herod who is in Jerusalem.
In Luke, he is dedicated right in the temple in Jerusalem,
then they go back to Nazareth.
5) And in Mark and John, you don't have Christmas stories at
all, in the regular sense.
B. Differences are not the same as contradictions.
1) Luke focuses on events leading up to Jesus' birth, and
Matthew looks more at what happens after the birth.
2) There are no flat-out contradictions between them.
3) Even the dedication of Jesus in Jerusalem under the nose
of an angry King Herod doesn't have to be a problem.
a) Herod doesn't know what Jesus looks like, or his name.
b) The Magi never got around to sending information back.
c) When word did get to the king, the family was able to
flee to safety.
IV. The central Christmas story is a unity.
A. A Jewish child was born of devout parents in Bethlehem.
1) In common, the two gospels all have Mary and Joseph, baby
Jesus, Bethlehem and Nazareth, and the angel of the Lord.
2) You can question the details, but existence of a 1st-century
Jewish prophet named Jesus is pretty well established.
3) The Jewish historian Josephus, who lived in the same period,
wrote a history of the Jews that mentions Jesus as a
miracle-worker and teacher.
4) Other Roman historians mention Jesus as the founder of a
small religious sect whose members were called Christians.
B. Hebrew prophecies were being fulfilled.
1) Both Matthew and Luke make extensive references to Old
Testament prophecies, and believed Jesus fulfilled them.
2) Christmas is thoroughly Jewish. If you cut out the Old
Testament foundation, you gut the meaning.
3) The gospel writers saw Jesus not just as a fulfillment of
the past, but also of our future.
C. Jesus came with a purpose.
1) He was an ordinary child, in a supernatural way.
a) Both Christmas stories stress the virgin birth.
b) But they also mention that he had to grow and learn.
2) God became one of us.
a) Matthew hints at this in the Old Testament name for
the Messiah, Immanuel. It means "God with us." 1:23
b) Later writings in the New Testament, and the words of
Jesus himself, make divine claims for him.
c) Notice why the Wise Men came - they wanted to worship
Jesus.
3) He came to save us. Matthew 1:21
a) His very name indicates this, because Jesus means
"God saves."
b) He came not only for the Jews in Israel, but for
everyone else too.
1> (The Wise Men would represent foreign nations.)
c) He came for you.
V. Christmas can be more real than you think.
A. One family's hard but beautiful Christmas.
Glenn West was a decent man.
He once brought a drunk home so he wouldn't have to go to jail.
The day before Christmas, 1987, Glenn bought a friend a
large-print Bible.
That is a very appropriate gift for Christmas but unusual in
that Glenn himself wasn't a Christian.
His wife Janice wasn't allowed to date him for a while because
of it.
Glenn looked forward to getting home with his family and began
to close up his gas station.
Janice was going to pick him up in a few minutes.
It was then that Glenn noticed the yellow van circling the
station.
A teenager got out and came to the office. He had a gun.
"Give me your money and open the safe."
Glenn gave him $45 and said, "I can't open the safe."
"Do it or I'll shoot you."
"Don't shoot. Believe me - I don't know how to open it."
The boy paused a moment and fired the gun.
Another in the van yelled, "Let's get out of here!" and they fled.
Janice pulled onto the highway just as a police car raced past,
its siren wailing.
She turned and said to her daughter, "Isn't that terrible - on
Christmas Eve."
She stared in disbelief as the police car pulled into Glenn's
gas station.
Rescue personnel blocked the door as she tried to enter.
She saw her husband on the floor with paramedics working on him.
Glenn was still conscious.
At the hospital Glenn asked for a minister and within five
minutes a friend of the family, David Rowland, was by his
bedside.
"At a time like this I get right to the point.
Glenn, are you saved?"
"No, but I want to be."
Rowland told Glenn how Jesus Christ had died for his sins.
Glenn nodded that he believed, and he prayed to receive Christ
as his Savior, something for which his wife Janice had
prayed for ten years.
He turned to Janice and said, "I love you so much."
They took him into surgery and he got out five hours later.
It was Christmas day.
Ten minutes after the doctors gave an encouraging report,
"code blue" was announced on the P.A. system.
Glenn West never regained consciousness.
Five men were found guilty and sentenced for his murder.
They did not receive the death penalty, but they stand under
God's judgment.
Glenn West, a decent guy, would have been under that
same judgment.
But on Christmas day he died with Jesus on his side.
#509
B. Christmas can be more than decorations and presents.
1) What it stands for can change your life.
a) How conversion changed Christmas for me...
b) Do you know the Savior that Christmas points to?
2) It is a story that will never go out of style.
a) A side note: Newsweek ceases its print edition this month.
b) The Bible remains in print.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
1. Bart D. Ehrman, “What Do We Really Know About Jesus?,” Newsweek,
Monday, December 17, 2012. <link>.
# 509 “The Night the Angels Rejoiced,” Angela Elwell Hunt,
Fundamentalist Journal, December 1988, page 18. The original
article can be downloaded at <http:// digitalcommons.liberty.edu~
/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=fun_88>
#63896 “The Top 25 Holiday Songs Played on the Radio,” Corey Deitz,
adapted by David Holwick, November 28, 2006,
<http://radio.about.com/od/christmasradi1/a/aa112806a.htm>.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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