The Hope of Christmas

A few days before Christmas, my grandfather passed away peacefully at home, after a long illness. Drawing on this experience, I preached the following sermon on Christmas Eve, to talk about the real hope of Christmas.

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Earlier this week my grandfather passed away. He had been unwell for a couple of years, and over the last few months had been cared for by mother at home. On Thursday morning I received a phone call from my father to inform me that my grandfather’s health had suddenly deteriorated. By the time Beata and I reached my parents home near Stoke, my grandfather had died.

My grandfather has been a Christian all his life, and always had a strong faith. Shortly before he died, my father was able to pray with him and administer the last rites. My grandfather was able to join in with the prayers and responses, and died peacefully half an hour later surrounded by his family.

The death of my grandfather made me think again about the significance of Christmas, and why it is so important. Jesus came into the world, to bring us the hope of everlasting life. In Scripture, hope is not wishful thinking that everything is going to be all right, it is an assurance based on the promises of God. As Christians we do not need to be afraid of death, because we know that death is not the end of our journey, but only the beginning. As one person expressed it, “Death is not extinguishing the light from the Christian; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”

We are able to have this assurance, because God came into the world as one of us, to reveal his love to us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) This is why Christmas is such an important celebration.

In the news this week it revealed what are the most popular names at present. For boys the top names are Jack, Joshua and Thomas, and for girls it is Emily, Ellie and Jessica. When Beata and I were choosing names for Tomek and Adam, are main consideration was whether we like the sound of the name or not, and that our family in Britain and Poland could pronounce their names, we didn’t give much consideration to what the names actually mean. But in the Bible names are highly significant, and the names given to Jesus reveal something very important about him.
The name Jesus for example means ‘God Saves’. Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. If Jesus had not been born, we would still be left struggling to find our own way to God, without any real reassurance that we were on the right track. If Jesus had not come into the world, we would still be living under the condemnation of sin, but with no hope of a way out. If Jesus had not been born, then there could not be assurance in death. But God did come into the world in Jesus, and that through his death on the cross Jesus became the one perfect sacrifice that takes away sin, and opens to us the gates of heaven. And so, in the words of Hebrews, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10)
1 Peter 3:18 reminds us that “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”

Without the birth of Jesus, there could be no hope for forgiveness, no new life, only judgement and condemnation.
There would be nothing to comfort and encourage us.
There would be no assurance for the future.
There would be no Holy Spirit, to live inside us, and to teach and guide us through live, and we would not have Jesus’ own example to live by.

The other name that Jesus was given was Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us’. None of us had any choice in the matter of how and where we were born. But God had a choice, and he chose a rough stable, a young teenage mother, from a very ordinary family, from a very ordinary town. Mary herself recognises this in her great hymn of praise, the Magnificat. "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.” (Luke 1:46-48)

And when the angels announced his birth, they didn’t go to the kings and rulers, but went to shepherds out in the fields. Being a shepherd was considered a very lowly job, and shepherds were not considered reliable witnesses in Jewish society. They lived outdoors, amongst the unclean wild animals. But yet it is these people, those on the very margins of society, to whom God chooses to announce the birth of Jesus, ordinary people, like you and me.

The fact that Jesus was willing to live as one of us, facing the same hardships and difficulties we face is incredible. In Philippians 2:5-8 we are reminded that our “attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

He experienced the pain, suffering and hurt that we all face as human beings, including the pain of bereavement. He did it in order to heal the breach which separated humanity from God.
Imagine what the world would be like if Jesus had not been born? When we begin to think just what this Christmas story means, we realise just how much we have to be thankful for. God was born as a human baby and entered time and space—clothing Himself in flesh—to serve weak and failing human beings. He came to do for us what only He could do: to save us in every meaningful sense of the word.