AN UNPREACHED SERMON (156)
I was born and brought up in the tenements of Glasgow. One room, one kitchen, an outside shared lavatory and no running hot water or bath. Four boys in the one bed and plenty of pillow fights for entertainment. My first memory of the Christmas story was hearing it at Sunday School and there was a phrase that completely baffled me. Let me read it to you from the Bible. It’s the part where the shepherds leave their sheep to travel to the stable to gaze upon the newborn Baby Jesus. It says, “They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Baby lying in a manger” (Luke 2:16). The word that baffled me was “manger”; I can assure you, there weren’t many mangers where I was growing up. And that’s when my imagination began to work overtime. I reckoned that a manger was an enormous bed. The bed I slept in was big enough for four boys, so if Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus could all get into a manger, then it could only have been some kind of king size bed.
Of course, in those early days I didn’t know anything about punctuation either, otherwise I would have understood the Bible sentence properly. “They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, (COMMA, SLIGHT PAUSE) and the Baby lying in the manger”.
Do you see the difference? The infant Christ stands apart in the sentence, but that doesn’t mean Mary and Joseph don’t have their part to play in what is taking place. By looking at Mary and Joseph and Jesus we can find out at least a little of what Christmas is all about, and what it could mean to us tonight. There are three words that come to mind as I look upon this original nativity scene.
• The integrity of Joseph
• The honesty of Mary
• The centrality of Jesus
THE INTEGRITY OF JOSEPH.
The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Joseph. He only really features in the Christmas story. There has been a strong tradition that being older than Mary, he died long before her. The main thing we are told is that he was a man “who always did what was right”. Faced with this bombshell of finding his fiancé pregnant, and knowing it had nothing to do with him, he wanted to put things right in a way that pleased God and safeguarded Mary.
He wanted to avoid the scandal and gossip of having her dragged before the village court, so made up his mind to deal with the situation privately.
Although they weren’t publicly recognised as husband and wife yet, they were in the Jewish betrothal stage. The marriage was as good as settled. Once betrothed, the couple continued to live apart in their family homes for a whole year. Twelve months later the ceremony was finalised, and the marriage consummated.
Once Joseph was convinced that all this was God’s doing, he needed no persuasion to go through with the wedding and, when the time came, to recognise and bring Jesus up as if He were his own flesh and blood. He showed real integrity and acceptance.
Just outside Liverpool in the town of Kirkby there was a famous sculptor by the name of Arthur Dooley. He only died in 1994. He specialised in producing sculptures of Bible characters, and on one occasion was asked to produce a statue of Joseph with Jesus. Not one for creating traditional holy statues, the finished article caused a sensation. He depicted a life-size Joseph throwing Jesus up into the air, in much the same way some of you fathers have done with your daughters and sons when they were small. It was Dooley’s way of saying, “Joseph did the right thing and accepted Jesus”. And that’s what our Christmas celebrations should be about as well. As we hear again the old, old story, God is asking us to accept Jesus into our lives and families. It’s the right thing to do!
THE HONESTY OF MARY.
When we look at Mary in the Christmas story, we find a young woman who was looking for answers. The angel announcement must have taken her breath away. Even though every Jewish girl and woman longed to be the mother of the promised Messiah, here the actual privilege was being granted to this young teenager in the obscure village of Nazareth.
Her big question, of course, was “How? How can this be for I have never had sexual relations with any man?” The answer she was given pointed to a miracle taking place. This would be a special creative act of the Holy Spirit overshadowing her and the result would be God Himself coming into the world that He had made. Once she is clear in her own mind that this is entirely God’s doing, she gladly says “yes” to what He was asking of her. And again, that’s what our Christmas celebrations should be about as well; saying “Yes” to what God is asking us to do.
I wonder how many carol services you have been to over the years? And each time you have come away saying to yourself, “I must do something about this; I need to start going back to church; I need to look for answers in the Bible; I need to find out more and ask serious questions about all this”.
All those questions, but you have never followed them through. How can you expect to find answers if you aren’t honest with yourself about really finding out?
THE CENTRALITY OF JESUS.
I overheard two women in Morrisons the other day who had stopped for a blether in one of the aisles. Judging by their bulging trolleys, they had started to stock up early for Christmas. As I squeezed passed, one said to the other, “You wonder what it’s all about, don’t you?”
Well, this is what it’s all about! Jesus at the centre of things. “The shepherds came with haste and found Mary and Joseph” but it wasn’t them they had come to see. It was “the Baby lying in the manger”.
One of the saddest homes I ever knew was when a wee boy was rushed into hospital on Christmas Eve. The little boy was the first child and grandchild and nearly one year old. Everyone felt he was just old enough to enjoy his first Christmas. The decorations and tree were put up with him in mind. Four grandparents arrived ready for the happiest Christmas ever. But when he was rushed into intensive care six people felt nothing really mattered any more. The presents, the cards, the decorations the dinner meant nothing because the child wasn’t there.
On the very first Christmas it was the presence of the Child that made all the difference. Those who came looking for Him found Him. Those like wicked King Herod who were disturbed by Him never did find Him.
I wonder if you will find Him this Christmas? Or will He be obscured and hidden, left out of His own celebrations? There is no reason at all why He can’t be at the centre, but you will need the integrity of Joseph and the honesty of Mary to find Him.
Thirty-three years later this Baby, now grown to be a Man, ended up nailed to a Cross. And that’s when the Name that was given to Him when He was born really came into its own. His Name is Jesus, and the name means Saviour. This could be the best Christmas ever if you repent and believe and ask Him into your life. Like Joseph, do the right thing. Like Mary, give the right response.
“In the stable of your soul Jesus wants to take control;
Can’t you see God changes lives in just this way?
From the stable to the Cross Jesus came to seek the lost
And when you know it – why, it’s Christmas every day”
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