Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Christmas Past-Present-Future

     
    Christmas is sometimes overlooked because we look for it in the most obvious of places.  When in reality the first Christmas took place in the "not so obvious" place.  We preachers are just as bad when it comes to preaching about Christmas.  If the sermon doesn't lend itself to the obvious biblical texts of mangers, angels and predictions we believe Christmas is not to be found there.  But I want to break from the traditional texts and search for Christmas in a not so obvious passage.
    Colossians 1:19-22   For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight; 
    In 1843 Charles Dickens penned these words that begin what is known to you and me as "A Christmas Carol" . . . "I have endeavored in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me.  May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it."
    Christmas holds for each of us as mortal creatures a past that must be faced, a present that must be lived, and a future that must be longed for. God's gift was not one to be purchased, but the gift would purchase you and me.  From the manger to the cross we hear the whispered name of Immanuel, God with us. 
    Dr. Bruce Waltke said "The world is lost without a sense of God. Men and women everywhere desperately need to know that there is Someone in charge of life, and that there is a Source to whom they can turn for help and for deliverance. The world needs to know that Jesus Christ is God. If Jesus is not God, then I do not have a Savior." 
    So when the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4) had come God sent His Son into this world filled with the fullness of Himself (Colossians 1:19, 2:9), God in the flesh, so that you and me may receive of His fullness (John 1:16).  Christmas at its best! Man in his best efforts comes to the manger emptied handed only to receive the blessedness of God's peace and good will that offers him ... Forgiveness of the Christmas Past ... Help in the Christmas Present ... and Hope for the Future.

Merry Christmas

Pastor John J. Dodd