Pastor Cal Lord's Recent Sermons
Make Sure You Don’t Miss Christmas
Luke 2:1-7 December 14, 2003
Christmas is coming! We all know it! The angels are singing again. We are getting ready too!
Shopping and partying and singing carols in church is all part of our preparation.
In our house everyone has made up their Christmas list. Maybe you do that too.This morning I
have some actual letters that were written to Santa from other kids as they were getting ready for
Christmas :
Dear Santa Claus,
When you come to my house there will be cookies for you. But if you are real hungry you can
use our phone and order a pizza to go.
Dear Santa,
I want a Puppy. I want a playhouse. Thank you. I’ve been good most of the time. Sometimes I’
m wild.
Dear Santa, (From a 4-year-old) I
I’ll take anything because I haven’t been that good.
Dear Santa,
I’m not going to ask for a lot. Here’s my list: The Etch-A-Sketch animator, 2 packs of #2
pencils, Crayola fat markers and the big gift...my own color TV! Well, maybe you could drop the
pencils; I don’t want to be really selfish.
Are you really getting ready for Christmas? What are you doing? If you are not careful, if you are
not deliberate in your attempts to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it could come and go and you
could miss it. I’m not talking about the exchange of presents or the gathering of family. I’m
talking about the blessing that Christmas brings.
I am reminded of the story of a small community on the east coast that was having an open town
meeting about some financial problems that they were facing. Among the two dozen or so people
there, one man showed up who no one seemed to know. He was apparently visiting in that area
and had dropped in on the meeting.
He started to make a comment, but he was interrupted; As various possibilities were offered he
tried to make a suggestion a few more times but each time, he was ignored. So for the rest of the
time, he kept still, and he left early.
Just as he went out someone arriving late came in, and said breathlessly, “What was he doing
here? Is he going to help us?” The rest of them said, “Who are you talking about? Who was that
man?” The person who had just arrived said, “You mean you don’t know? That was John D.
Rockefeller.
His yacht is in our harbor. Didn’t you get his help? In despair someone said, “No, we didn’t get
his help; we didn’t know who he was!
We didn’t know who he was. You know, sometimes I think that we forget just whose birthday
it is at Christmas. We get so caught up in what we are trying to do, that we leave Christ out of
Christmas. We are not the first to do that. In our Bible text today, there are several people who
missed that first Christmas and I think we can learn from them.
They weren’t bad people. They just had other things on their minds. They got caught up in their
own problems and missed the blessing of that first Christmas.
The first person I want to mention is the innkeeper. The Bible doesn’t specifically mention the
innkeeper by name, but that night in Bethlehem an innkeeper was confronted by a man and his
pregnant wife. He turned them away saying he had no room for them. And so he missed
Christmas.
Luke 2 verse 7 is explicitly concerned with a lonely birth.
There are no midwives. No assistance to Mary at all. The Bible doesn’t even mention that Joseph
was present. Perhaps he was, but if he was typical of first time fathers he would have been of
little help to Mary! She was basically on her own. Mary brought forth the child; she wrapped
Him in swaddling cloth; and she laid Him in a manger. Where usually a midwife would clean the
baby and wrap him, there was no-one. Mary did it herself. And where usually there would have
been a cradle or basket for the baby, there was none. Mary had to put Him in an animal feeding
trough.
Now, while the innkeeper is not specifically mentioned, whatever hospitality Joseph and Mary
sought, it was unavailable to them. They were turned away by the innkeeper. Think about this:
The Son of God might have been born on his property but he turned away a young mother about
to deliver a child, and so he missed the first Christmas.
You could say that the innkeeper missed it because he was preoccupied. His inn was full. It was
census time in Bethlehem and the city was bulging with everyone whose ancestry went back to
the little town. The town was crowded. The innkeeper was busy. There is no indication that he
was hostile or even unsympathetic. He was just busy, that’s all.
Is that a picture of you? It sure sounds like most people I know. We are just too busy to stop
and take notice. We don’t think about the simple opportunities that come before us so we miss
them.
One of my favorite Christmas stories is about a 7th-grade boy by the name of William Spurling.
William Spurling was big for his age and a little slow mentally. But he was a good boy and all the
kids liked him.
When it came time for the Christmas program to be presented, William Spurling wanted to be a
shepherd, but the teacher decided that he would make a better inn keeper than a shepherd since
he was so big. So she gave him the task of being the rough, mean inn keeper.
When Mary & Joseph came to the inn and knocked on the door, William Spurling opened it. And
when they asked for a place to stay, he said harshly, "There is no place for you to stay. There is
no room in the inn." Joseph said, "But my wife is tired and weary and she is expecting a baby.
Isn’t there just a small room somewhere where we could rest?"
Once more Joseph pleaded just for some place for them to stay the night. Then there was a long
pause, one of those pauses that is as embarrassing for the audience as it is for the cast. William
Spurling had forgotten his next line.
Back behind the props you could hear the prompter saying, "No, be gone! No, be gone!" That
was his next speech. Finally, William Spurling regained his voice & said, "Wait a minute! Don’t
go. You can stay in my room, and I’ll sleep in the shed."
In the stunned silence that followed, the teacher thought the play was ruined, until she thought
again of the words of a 7th-grade boy, who may have communicated the real truth of Christmas
better than any. "No, you can stay in my room, and I’ll sleep in the shed."
William Spurling was listening and he could not ignore what he heard. Are you really listening or
are you too preoccupied?
A second man who missed the first Christmas was Herod. He was very different from the
innkeeper. Herod pretended he wanted to worship Jesus Christ, but he was fearful of the One
who was called the King of the Jews. He didn’t want any competition for his throne.
Herod was a brutal, merciless man and when he learned that a child had been born who,
according to prophecy, was the King of the Jews he was furious. In a mad effort to wipe out the
child Herod had scores of children slaughtered. Not only did he miss the first Christmas, but his
fear also propagated great tragedy. All this because of fear - jealous fear.
There are Herod types today. They won’t allow anything to interfere with their career, position,
power, ambition, plans, lifestyle, etc. They are not about to let someone else be king of their
lives. They see Jesus as a threat, and so they miss Christmas.
They are not bad people. The truth is that some of us fit into this category. We come to
church. We celebrate our faith… but only to a point. Christmas comes and we see it only as a
big party and never look deep enough to see the tiny child and let him claim our hearts. Because
if we do, our whole world would change.
A third group of people who missed Christmas are mentioned in passing in Matthew’s account.
They are the religious leaders. That is shocking. The chief priests and scribes knew exactly
where Christ was to be born. These were the theologians, the minds, the brains, the religious elite
of Israel. They knew Scripture well enough to quote Micah 5 verse 2 which prophesied that
Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Yet they missed Christmas.
Why did the religious leaders miss Christmas? Indifference.
They didn’t care. They had all the facts, but the Messiah was not really important to them. They
believed they were already all that God could ever ask of them. They were proud.
You know the root of indifference is always pride. These men were too busy with themselves to
be concerned about Jesus. They carried on their ritual and their petty discussions in the confines
of their own comfortable system. They had no time for the Son of God.
Indifference is a profound sin against Jesus. Sadly, it is one of the most common reactions to
Him. It is typical of people who don’t think they need a Saviour. “I’m all right the way I am” is a
dangerous attitude. It is an attitude that could cause you to miss Christmas and the message of
God’s love.
A fourth group that missed Christmas were the people of the Roman world. All of Rome could
have shared in the Saviour’s birth, but they missed it. Why? Idolatry. They had their own gods.
Jesus Christ did not fit into their pantheon. So the Roman Empire totally ignored His birth. The
new-born baby became just one more number in the census.
Paganism has a strong grip on our world today, and millions miss Christmas because of it. But
this isn’t just the dark paganism of distant lands where Jesus Christ is unknown and unheard of,
but there is a subtler form of pagan idolatry. Most people I know don’t worship carved idols or
follow demonic superstition like the Romans did, but they nevertheless follow false gods :money,
sex, cars, boats, houses, power, prestige, popularity, fame. These things can be idols. Today’s
idolatry is selfishness and materialism, and if that is what you worship, you’ll miss Christmas.
Finally, and perhaps saddest of all, Nazareth missed Christmas. Nazareth was an uncultured
town, quite a distance from Bethlehem.
Although He was born in Bethlehem, Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and lived His perfect life before
all the people there. Yet they completely overlooked Him. The people of Nazareth, who knew
Him better than anyone, had no idea who He really was!
What was their problem? Familiarity. They knew Him too well. They knew Him so well that they
couldn’t believe He was anyone special.
Some years ago, a cartoon appeared in newspapers across the land. It pictured two farmers in
Kentucky, standing in a field as snow fell softly. One turned to the other & asked, "Anything
exciting happen today?" "Nah, nothing exciting," said the other farmer. "Oh, there was a baby
born over at Tom Lincoln’s home, but nothing exciting ever happens around here."
But that baby born in the home of Tom Lincoln one day became the President of the United
States. He changed the course of history & liberated the slaves. One life can make a difference!
I wonder if there were people in Bethlehem on that night so long ago, asking, "Anything exciting
happen today?" Maybe they were told, "No, nothing much. Oh, I hear some woman gave birth to
a baby in a stable, but nothing exciting ever happens around here." Except that a baby was born,
a baby that changed the world.
When people tell me that they have been raised in a Christian home but don’t go to church, I
inwardly cringe. Familiarity sometimes strangles our faith. Perhaps the most tragic sin of all is
the lack of faith in a young man or woman who :
- has heard all the sermons;
- has sat through all the Bible readings;
- knows the Christmas story back to front;
but then questions their faith.
What a sad way to miss Christmas!
But listen! NO ONE HAS TO MISS CHRISTMAS. You don’t have to miss Christmas. God made
that clear on that first Christmas eve. He wanted everyone to enjoy it.
Luke 2:1-7 December 14, 2003
Christmas is coming! We all know it! The angels are singing again. We are getting ready too!
Shopping and partying and singing carols in church is all part of our preparation.
In our house everyone has made up their Christmas list. Maybe you do that too.This morning I
have some actual letters that were written to Santa from other kids as they were getting ready for
Christmas :
Dear Santa Claus,
When you come to my house there will be cookies for you. But if you are real hungry you can
use our phone and order a pizza to go.
Dear Santa,
I want a Puppy. I want a playhouse. Thank you. I’ve been good most of the time. Sometimes I’
m wild.
Dear Santa, (From a 4-year-old) I
I’ll take anything because I haven’t been that good.
Dear Santa,
I’m not going to ask for a lot. Here’s my list: The Etch-A-Sketch animator, 2 packs of #2
pencils, Crayola fat markers and the big gift...my own color TV! Well, maybe you could drop the
pencils; I don’t want to be really selfish.
Are you really getting ready for Christmas? What are you doing? If you are not careful, if you are
not deliberate in your attempts to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it could come and go and you
could miss it. I’m not talking about the exchange of presents or the gathering of family. I’m
talking about the blessing that Christmas brings.
I am reminded of the story of a small community on the east coast that was having an open town
meeting about some financial problems that they were facing. Among the two dozen or so people
there, one man showed up who no one seemed to know. He was apparently visiting in that area
and had dropped in on the meeting.
He started to make a comment, but he was interrupted; As various possibilities were offered he
tried to make a suggestion a few more times but each time, he was ignored. So for the rest of the
time, he kept still, and he left early.
Just as he went out someone arriving late came in, and said breathlessly, “What was he doing
here? Is he going to help us?” The rest of them said, “Who are you talking about? Who was that
man?” The person who had just arrived said, “You mean you don’t know? That was John D.
Rockefeller.
His yacht is in our harbor. Didn’t you get his help? In despair someone said, “No, we didn’t get
his help; we didn’t know who he was!
We didn’t know who he was. You know, sometimes I think that we forget just whose birthday
it is at Christmas. We get so caught up in what we are trying to do, that we leave Christ out of
Christmas. We are not the first to do that. In our Bible text today, there are several people who
missed that first Christmas and I think we can learn from them.
They weren’t bad people. They just had other things on their minds. They got caught up in their
own problems and missed the blessing of that first Christmas.
The first person I want to mention is the innkeeper. The Bible doesn’t specifically mention the
innkeeper by name, but that night in Bethlehem an innkeeper was confronted by a man and his
pregnant wife. He turned them away saying he had no room for them. And so he missed
Christmas.
Luke 2 verse 7 is explicitly concerned with a lonely birth.
There are no midwives. No assistance to Mary at all. The Bible doesn’t even mention that Joseph
was present. Perhaps he was, but if he was typical of first time fathers he would have been of
little help to Mary! She was basically on her own. Mary brought forth the child; she wrapped
Him in swaddling cloth; and she laid Him in a manger. Where usually a midwife would clean the
baby and wrap him, there was no-one. Mary did it herself. And where usually there would have
been a cradle or basket for the baby, there was none. Mary had to put Him in an animal feeding
trough.
Now, while the innkeeper is not specifically mentioned, whatever hospitality Joseph and Mary
sought, it was unavailable to them. They were turned away by the innkeeper. Think about this:
The Son of God might have been born on his property but he turned away a young mother about
to deliver a child, and so he missed the first Christmas.
You could say that the innkeeper missed it because he was preoccupied. His inn was full. It was
census time in Bethlehem and the city was bulging with everyone whose ancestry went back to
the little town. The town was crowded. The innkeeper was busy. There is no indication that he
was hostile or even unsympathetic. He was just busy, that’s all.
Is that a picture of you? It sure sounds like most people I know. We are just too busy to stop
and take notice. We don’t think about the simple opportunities that come before us so we miss
them.
One of my favorite Christmas stories is about a 7th-grade boy by the name of William Spurling.
William Spurling was big for his age and a little slow mentally. But he was a good boy and all the
kids liked him.
When it came time for the Christmas program to be presented, William Spurling wanted to be a
shepherd, but the teacher decided that he would make a better inn keeper than a shepherd since
he was so big. So she gave him the task of being the rough, mean inn keeper.
When Mary & Joseph came to the inn and knocked on the door, William Spurling opened it. And
when they asked for a place to stay, he said harshly, "There is no place for you to stay. There is
no room in the inn." Joseph said, "But my wife is tired and weary and she is expecting a baby.
Isn’t there just a small room somewhere where we could rest?"
Once more Joseph pleaded just for some place for them to stay the night. Then there was a long
pause, one of those pauses that is as embarrassing for the audience as it is for the cast. William
Spurling had forgotten his next line.
Back behind the props you could hear the prompter saying, "No, be gone! No, be gone!" That
was his next speech. Finally, William Spurling regained his voice & said, "Wait a minute! Don’t
go. You can stay in my room, and I’ll sleep in the shed."
In the stunned silence that followed, the teacher thought the play was ruined, until she thought
again of the words of a 7th-grade boy, who may have communicated the real truth of Christmas
better than any. "No, you can stay in my room, and I’ll sleep in the shed."
William Spurling was listening and he could not ignore what he heard. Are you really listening or
are you too preoccupied?
A second man who missed the first Christmas was Herod. He was very different from the
innkeeper. Herod pretended he wanted to worship Jesus Christ, but he was fearful of the One
who was called the King of the Jews. He didn’t want any competition for his throne.
Herod was a brutal, merciless man and when he learned that a child had been born who,
according to prophecy, was the King of the Jews he was furious. In a mad effort to wipe out the
child Herod had scores of children slaughtered. Not only did he miss the first Christmas, but his
fear also propagated great tragedy. All this because of fear - jealous fear.
There are Herod types today. They won’t allow anything to interfere with their career, position,
power, ambition, plans, lifestyle, etc. They are not about to let someone else be king of their
lives. They see Jesus as a threat, and so they miss Christmas.
They are not bad people. The truth is that some of us fit into this category. We come to
church. We celebrate our faith… but only to a point. Christmas comes and we see it only as a
big party and never look deep enough to see the tiny child and let him claim our hearts. Because
if we do, our whole world would change.
A third group of people who missed Christmas are mentioned in passing in Matthew’s account.
They are the religious leaders. That is shocking. The chief priests and scribes knew exactly
where Christ was to be born. These were the theologians, the minds, the brains, the religious elite
of Israel. They knew Scripture well enough to quote Micah 5 verse 2 which prophesied that
Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Yet they missed Christmas.
Why did the religious leaders miss Christmas? Indifference.
They didn’t care. They had all the facts, but the Messiah was not really important to them. They
believed they were already all that God could ever ask of them. They were proud.
You know the root of indifference is always pride. These men were too busy with themselves to
be concerned about Jesus. They carried on their ritual and their petty discussions in the confines
of their own comfortable system. They had no time for the Son of God.
Indifference is a profound sin against Jesus. Sadly, it is one of the most common reactions to
Him. It is typical of people who don’t think they need a Saviour. “I’m all right the way I am” is a
dangerous attitude. It is an attitude that could cause you to miss Christmas and the message of
God’s love.
A fourth group that missed Christmas were the people of the Roman world. All of Rome could
have shared in the Saviour’s birth, but they missed it. Why? Idolatry. They had their own gods.
Jesus Christ did not fit into their pantheon. So the Roman Empire totally ignored His birth. The
new-born baby became just one more number in the census.
Paganism has a strong grip on our world today, and millions miss Christmas because of it. But
this isn’t just the dark paganism of distant lands where Jesus Christ is unknown and unheard of,
but there is a subtler form of pagan idolatry. Most people I know don’t worship carved idols or
follow demonic superstition like the Romans did, but they nevertheless follow false gods :money,
sex, cars, boats, houses, power, prestige, popularity, fame. These things can be idols. Today’s
idolatry is selfishness and materialism, and if that is what you worship, you’ll miss Christmas.
Finally, and perhaps saddest of all, Nazareth missed Christmas. Nazareth was an uncultured
town, quite a distance from Bethlehem.
Although He was born in Bethlehem, Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and lived His perfect life before
all the people there. Yet they completely overlooked Him. The people of Nazareth, who knew
Him better than anyone, had no idea who He really was!
What was their problem? Familiarity. They knew Him too well. They knew Him so well that they
couldn’t believe He was anyone special.
Some years ago, a cartoon appeared in newspapers across the land. It pictured two farmers in
Kentucky, standing in a field as snow fell softly. One turned to the other & asked, "Anything
exciting happen today?" "Nah, nothing exciting," said the other farmer. "Oh, there was a baby
born over at Tom Lincoln’s home, but nothing exciting ever happens around here."
But that baby born in the home of Tom Lincoln one day became the President of the United
States. He changed the course of history & liberated the slaves. One life can make a difference!
I wonder if there were people in Bethlehem on that night so long ago, asking, "Anything exciting
happen today?" Maybe they were told, "No, nothing much. Oh, I hear some woman gave birth to
a baby in a stable, but nothing exciting ever happens around here." Except that a baby was born,
a baby that changed the world.
When people tell me that they have been raised in a Christian home but don’t go to church, I
inwardly cringe. Familiarity sometimes strangles our faith. Perhaps the most tragic sin of all is
the lack of faith in a young man or woman who :
- has heard all the sermons;
- has sat through all the Bible readings;
- knows the Christmas story back to front;
but then questions their faith.
What a sad way to miss Christmas!
But listen! NO ONE HAS TO MISS CHRISTMAS. You don’t have to miss Christmas. God made
that clear on that first Christmas eve. He wanted everyone to enjoy it.
| Welcome to the First Baptist Church of Norwich 239 West Main Street Norwich, Connecticut Phone: 860-889-0369 |
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