The Promise of Christmas

I'd get you to please turn with me to Luke chapter 2, and we're gonna read from verse 15, essentially following on from some of the things that Tony has already said about the shepherds and their arrival to see the Lord Jesus. Luke chapter 2, verses 15 through to verse 21. When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.

And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

So far, our reading, this is God's word. Christmas is a time of promise. When you, whether you consider yourself a Christian or not, talk to most people and you get the same idea. Christmas is full of promise. It's why so many people get excited at Christmas time.

They love Christmas because of what it holds in store for them. For some, it is the promise of spending time with family. Others, it's the promise of gifts. Still for others, it's food traditions like my mum's prawn cocktails that we get every year. If we're honest, it's about these types of promises that get us excited when Christmas comes along.

Family, friends, rest from our work, rest from school, and yummy things to eat. We are excited about Christmas because of the promise that it holds every time it comes along. But we also know, don't we, that Christmas can be an especially disappointing time of the year as well. It can be a very lonely and sad time, precisely because Christmas promises so much, and then it can so badly under deliver. Many people feel their loneliest at Christmas because somewhere in their heart, they've hoped for a promise that they would enjoy time with their family, with their friends, and for whatever reason, there are broken relationships that prevent that from happening.

Others are at their most depressed, their most anxious, because Christmas is a time of joy and glad tidings. And when they wake up this morning, there's a hollowness and a sadness inside that no one can take away. There's nothing quite as hollow as a Christmas that hasn't lived up to all the promise. But the biblical story of Christmas is, of course, the ultimate example of a promise. Not a promise that is given.

We are not given a promise at Christmas. It is about a promise that has been kept. And there's a difference. Christmas is the day where we celebrate the arrival of Jesus, the fulfilment of God's great promise of salvation. Over the past few weeks, many of us have been here to follow it. We've been looking at the Old Testament and the promise of the Messiah throughout the various archetypes that are given to us.

So we saw that Jesus, the Messiah, would come as the better Moses, the better prophet. We saw that the Messiah would come who would be a better priest than Aaron. We saw that the Messiah would come who would be a better king than David. This morning, friends, we come to the point where we see God fulfil these age-long promises by sending His son into the world. Theologians call this event, this moment, the incarnation: God taking on flesh.

God Himself stepping into the space-time continuum to dwell with us in this moment of time. But perhaps the most profound and astonishing thing is not how God has come to us. What is more profound, what is more moving, is that He fulfilled what He had promised in doing so. The amazing thing about Christmas time is remembering that the God of the Bible is a God who does what He says He will do. That is the promise of Christmas.

That is the marvel of it. So the conviction of Christmas is that it is not enough for us to see that God promises things. It's not enough to marvel at even the internal consistency of the Bible story from Genesis to Revelation to see how everything was pointing towards Jesus, pointing towards a Messiah who was to come. It's not enough that we even believe that these promises in the Old Testament are true promises, genuine promises. For God and for us, what is most important is this: not that the promises are true, but that the promise came true.

We don't just remember a promise at Christmas. We revel in its fulfilment. We lift our hands in worship at the completion of the plan. We are struck with a deep gratitude at a God who would be so faithful to see it through, despite the worst obstacles that we could throw against Him. We're gonna be reminded of a few profound promises that have been made in the Bible concerning Jesus' birth. We have four readers from our church that are going to do that.

Let's marvel as we hear these things at how faithful God was, as we listen to promises that were made spanning hundreds of years and coming sometimes hundreds of years before Jesus arrived as well. The first one we see is in Micah 5:2, the promise of where Jesus would be born. Micah 5:2. But you, O Bethlehem, Ephratha, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Then we see Isaiah 7:14, how Jesus the Messiah would be born.

Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call him Immanuel. Then we see in Jeremiah 23:5-6, the purpose of the Messiah's birth. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. And he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In his days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: the Lord is our righteousness. Across different eras, across different kingdoms, across different authors, across very different contexts, the same promise is being made. A king will be sent and it would be good news for God's people. Yet, what's important isn't that these promises were genuine promises.

What's important is that these promises came true. And at the very end of Jesus' earthly ministry, we find Jesus Himself pointing out to a couple of disheartened disciples who didn't recognise Him as the resurrected Christ, and He speaks to them on the road to Emmaus and He says this to them in Luke 24:25. And He said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.

So here we find, remember, Jesus after His death, after His resurrection, and before His ascension saying to His disciples, these events have all taken place to point to me. I am that ancient ruler that would come to Bethlehem, the one whose days are of old. I am the promised king. I am Emmanuel of Isaiah 7. I am the one who will execute justice for His people.

I am the one by whose name you will know me as the Lord is my righteousness. In other words, friends, if Christmas is the promise, then Easter is the proof. A little while ago in the newspaper, there was a story about a British man who had lent $11 to a cash-strapped Aussie backpacker while he was travelling through Europe. The article says that this man was repaid this $11 loan forty years later. The story goes that a British man by the name of Jim Webb, who was now aged 72, was in the Belgian town of Ostend in April 1969.

There he met an Aussie by the name of Gary Fenton, who asked to borrow money to pay for a ferry trip back to Britain. Mister Fenton promised to repay Mister Webb, and he took down his address for when he would arrive back in England. The article reads, last Sunday, Mister Webb returned to his home in Sheffield to find a hand-delivered package with $439 in it. $11 for each year the loan had not been paid. A note was found in it that said, to Jim Webb, a good man, from Gary Fenton, a tardy payer of debts.

The British man told the BBC, I was quite emotional when I read it. In this day and age, promises are made and promises are broken. This was a lovely gesture. It's a really heartwarming story, isn't it? But ask yourself, why did it end up in a BBC article?

If this man had written to the BBC to complain about a man who had broken a promise that was made forty years ago, they would have put the phone down in his ear. People hear about broken promises all the time. But a promise kept after forty years, that is a story. It might not be our practice to keep promises, but it is God's. This is the deeply moving thing about Jesus at Christmas.

Whatever your doubts may be, whether you struggle today with whether God really is on your side or not, Christmas promises you this. God is faithful. God is dependable. Born in a place called Bethlehem, in the royal line of King David, to a virgin. This baby was born to grow into a man.

He would take on the responsibility of a king. And as king, that responsibility would be to win back the kingdom. If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist.

If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was His forgiveness, and so God sent us a Saviour. Friend, let me ask you, if the promise of Christmas is that a Saviour has arrived with a mission of dying on a cross for your sin, if that is the message of Christmas, is that a promise that you are willing to believe today? Will you lay down your weapons to accept Him as your king?

Will you bend your knee to make Him the Lord of your life in every part of it? If there was ever a time to do it, it would be Christmas day. Tim Keller in his book Hidden Christmas writes about this choice that we are faced with on Christmas. He writes, Christmas is about receiving presents, but consider how challenging it is to receive certain kinds of gifts.

Some gifts, by their very nature, make you swallow your pride. Imagine opening a present on Christmas morning from a friend and it's a dieting book. Then you take off another ribbon and wrapper and you find it is another book from another friend called Overcoming Selfishness. If you say to them, thank you so much for these gifts, you are in a sense admitting, yes, I am fat and obnoxious. In other words, some gifts are hard to receive because to do so is to admit that you have a need for these things, that you have flaws and weaknesses and that you need help.

Perhaps on some occasion, Keller writes, you had a friend who figured out that you were in financial trouble and came and offered a large sum of money to get you out of your predicament. If you have ever had to accept something like that, you probably know what it means to receive a gift like that and to swallow your pride in doing so. Well, says Keller, there has never been a gift offered that makes you swallow your pride to the depths that the gift of Jesus requires us to do. Christmas means that we are so lost, so unable to save ourselves, that nothing less than the death of the Son of God Himself can save us. So friend, the greatest tragedy of your life would be to spend and celebrate seventy, eighty, ninety Christmases and never receive the gift of Jesus Christ.

Let the words of Jesus Himself spur you on to receiving Him in faith. O foolish ones, Jesus said to those two disciples, so slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer all these things and then enter into His glory? Jesus entered the world in humility, a baby in a manger in little old Bethlehem.

But Jesus has now entered heaven in glory and He will return with that glory. Jesus is not just the promise of Christmas; He is the promise of God that came true. May you and I bow our hearts in humble worship to receive Him gratefully as a Saviour King who came to save us. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the miracle of Christmas.

We thank you that because we have Christmas, we will have Easter. And the promise that is so laid in this event, Lord, is pointing to the proof of the work that would be done on the cross. We pray, Lord, that we will today be truly thankful, because in Your coming, we see Your love. In Your coming, we see Your faithfulness. In Your coming, we know that You are worthy of our trust.

And so, Lord, today, on Christmas day, we know that our faith is not a gift that we give You. Our faith simply means we receive a gift. Help us all, Lord, to receive that gift. Help us to find hope in that gift. And so, Lord, for some of us here, I pray that You will forgive us of our sin.

We know that we have not lived a life according to Your will, according to Your holy and good and righteous law that You have given to all mankind. Lord, we say sorry for those things, but we receive, Lord, in faith the forgiveness that You have given us through Your arrival and through the cross. And so, Father, renew us by the working of Your Spirit. Help us from today to live a life that is for You, not for us anymore. We make You both our Saviour and our King.

In the powerful name of Jesus, we ask and we pray for these things. Amen.