The Cradle and the Cross

I preached this on Sunday, December 27, two days after Christmas 2020. 

My text for today comes from Matthew 1:20-21 “But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

 

As we embrace this Christmas season of 2020, I ask God again to remind us Christmas is not about the parties and the presents and the meals – and COVID has certainly put a damper on all those things hasn’t it?

 

But what COVD cannot do is overcome the reason for the season, and that is about Christ Himself.

 

December 25 is the time many Christians celebrate Holy Communion – or as some call it – the Eucharistic Mass. The word Eucharist means ‘Thanksgiving’. We do this because of what Jesus said to His disciples during their Last Supper together. Here is how Luke records it:

 

Luke 22:19-20 “And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.”

 

Over the centuries, the celebration of the Mass of Christ became abbreviated to Christ’s Mass. Now, it is simply ‘Christmas.’  But as happens so often when we abbreviate truth, the meaning of Christ’s Mass has devolved into what Christmas is today in many places: Santa Clause and reindeer, and so forth. And because of the misplaced focus, so many of us – even churched folk – have lost the meaning of the birth of the one we celebrate.

 

And that then is one of the reasons I have chosen to do something a little different for this Christmas message two days after the Holy Day.

 

I want to focus attention on that manger in Bethlehem – and then fast forward to Good Friday. Why Good Friday? Because Good Friday IS THE REASON Jesus was laid in that manger in the first place. As that text in Matthew declares to us, Jesus was born to die so He could save His people from the punishment our sins deserve.

 

Many of you are familiar with the prophecy about Messiah Jesus found in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. That Jewish prophet penned the prophecy 700 years before Jesus was laid in the Bethlehem manger. For the sake of time, I read only a portion of the chapter and make a few comments relevant to the reason for Christmas.

 

The context of chapter 53 begins in the last section of chapter 52:

“Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. ¹⁴ Just as many were astonished at you, so His appearance was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; ¹⁵ So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; For what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.”

 

And then Isaiah writes: “Who has believed our report?”

 

Now, we should ask ourselves, “Why did the Holy Spirit move upon Isaiah to ask that question?” It was because sin-sickened and corrupted men and women will typically and as a majority, CHOOSE to NOT believe what God says about sin, righteousness, judgment. It’s been a problem endemic to humanity since God warned Adam about eating the forbidden fruit. I won’t turn there now, but you might later look at what St. Paul wrote to Timothy about humanity’s typical choices in 2 Timothy chapter 4.

 

Isaiah continues: ⁴ Surely [Messiah] has borne our griefs [pains that sin brings us in mind and body, in relationships, in spirit, in death for eternity] and carried our sorrows; Yet we considered Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted “(In other words, many thought then, as there are those who think the same thing today, Jesus got what He deserved).

 

Ahh, but how wrong they were, and how wrong are so many today. Isaiah goes on:

 

But He was wounded [Hebrew: pierced, to wound fatally) for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The punishment for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, everyone, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all . . . Yet it pleased the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief . . . ¹¹ [And] by His knowledge [e.g by our knowing Him. See Jn 17:3, Phil 3:10) My righteous Servant shall justify many [e.g. make them guiltless, righteous in God’s eyes] for He shall bear their iniquities.

 

Christmas is when Immanuel – ‘God with us’, as Isaiah told us – Christmas is the time when God Almighty laid aside His glory and took the form of a slave to save all who WANT to be saved from eternal agony in the Lake of Fire.

 

The phrase, ‘who want to be saved’ is the crucial part of the incarnation we celebrate at Christmas. Not everyone is willing to do what absolutely must be done to be saved from that Lake of Fire; And that is to trust in Jesus’ death alone that saves them from the punishment for their sins; And obedience to Christ gives evidence of the faith that saves us.

 

Scripture tells us Jesus became the substitutionary sacrifice for us and, thereby and utterly satisfied God’s justice – His unbreakable rule – that sin must be punished.

 

Listen! Sin doesn’t just separate us from friendship with God! I don’t know why some people – even pastors and theologians – why would they ignore the abundantly clear evidence of God’s word to say all sin does is to separate us from God’s friendship.

 

On the contrary, sin makes us enemies of God. Scripture says it so often, I don’t know why some people miss it.  For example, James 4:4   You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

 

Romans 5:6-10 ⁶ For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

 

That’s why the manger is much more than what many relegate to children’s picture books. It’s much more than the silent night, the holy night when shepherd’s quaked at the sight.

 

The message of the manger and that First Advent is about me. And it’s about you. It’s the message of God’s personal intervention into history to rescue all of us from eternal torment in the Lake of Fire because of our sins. The Christmas manger is about Golgotha’s cross looming above the manger where the little Lord Jesus lay asleep on the hay.

 

The cross.

 

I hope you still love that old cross, where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners, was slain.

 

Many people don’t often think about it this way, but Christianity is a bloody, gruesome religion.  But it had to be bloody, for only blood – in this case, the blood of the Innocent Son of God – only blood could atone for, or wash away, the sins of the guilty.

 

Jews of Jesus’ day fully understood ‘Blood Atonement.’ The ritual dates back to the books of Moses. For example, Leviticus 17:11  ¹¹ For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’

 

That’s also why we read in Hebrews 9:22 “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [of sins].”

          
And that is why the Lord Jesus, during that Last Supper, took a cup and said to His disciples, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:27, 28)

 

Yes, Christianity is a bloody faith. And Christ’s cross was as ugly as it was gruesome. Before hammering spikes into His flesh, Roman soldiers tied Him the whipping post and stripped off His clothes. Then they swung rock-embedded whips against Jesus’ back, buttocks and legs. Again, and again, until strips of skin hung from His body. Small capillaries and arteries oozed and spurted blood with each beat of His heart. The warm fluid tracked down His back, His thighs, His legs until the pavement at His feet was moist with dirt and clotted blood.

 

Yes, it was a hideous scene. But it was a God-ordained and utterly necessary scene. Without the shed blood of Jesus, there could be no forgiveness of sins to the penitent. Not my sins. Not your sins. Not anyone’s sins. As the Holy Spirit told us through that passage in Isaiah: All humanity has gone astray. We have each turned to our own way. But God, being rich in mercy, laid all those on Jesus (see Isaiah 53:6).

 

Our sins did not at all break our friendship with an utterly holy God. Our sins placed us under the wrath of God. Turn later to john 3:36; Romans 1:18, 2:5, 5:9, Ephesians 2:3, 5:6, and dozens of other texts demonstrating our sin would have brought down on our heads God’s eternal wrath – were it not for the sacrificial and bloody death of Jesus the Savior.

 
If the Christmas Baby in that manger had not grown into the Man whose bloody death would be our atonement for our own sins, there would be no hope for God’s forgiveness.

 

Did you catch that? Without the Cradle and also the Cross and the subsequent empty tomb, there would be no hope for God’s forgiveness. No hope for eternal life, but instead only an inescapable judgment and eternal damnation facing us after the grave.

Which is why St. Paul wrote: In [Christ] we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:7). 

 

God paid an enormous price to save us. He paid all He could pay. His gift to you and me as described in John 3:16 began on Christmas day, but payment occurred on Good Friday.

 

Christian, listen! Be reminded! We’ve been bought with a precious price. And so, what are we going to do with His unspeakably expensive and precious gift?

 

The apostle Paul wrote these words to the Christians at Corinth (1 Corinthians 13:11) When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

 

Unless and until we mature from the manger to the cross, we will never become the men and women of God that He designed us to be, because the manger and the old rugged cross is the true message of Christmas.

 

How then ought we live, knowing the cost God paid to redeem us back to Himself? Reverently, yes. Obedient to His Word. Of course. And many would also add, “By falling more deeply in love with Jesus.”

 

I’ve quoted this before, and it is good to quote it again in closing. It was written by Fr. Pedro Arrupe, a former Superior General of the Society of Jesus, wrote:

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that  is, falling in love [with Him] in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with seizes your imagination; it will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the morning, what you will do in the evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, what you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love [with God], stay in love, and it will decide everything."
           
Falling deeper in love with Jesus is NOT something we are able to do of our own will, strength, desire, talent, or wishful thinking. It is something possible ONLY by the supernatural work and favor of our supernatural God.

 

We are now only 48 hours beyond Christmas day 2020. Let us implore the Holy Spirit to help us grow deeper in love with God – and that He (the Holy Spirit) will train our hearts to reverence and obedience.