Luke 2:1-20
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
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 they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen, we are in the middle of the Christmas celebration. If you came last night, you got to see all the candles and all of the singing. We ended with the traditional Silent Night. And now today, we are in the middle of our Christmas Day celebration. I love how we get to extend this celebration, not just for a single day or even two, but we have Christmas for 12 whole days, all the way up until we celebrate Epiphany on January 6, which means we get to hear all sorts of versions of the Christmas story and the things that happen. Last night, we read about the angels and the shepherds and we saw Jesus in the manger. This morning, we read about the Word made flesh that dwelt among us. But today I'd like to focus once again, on the story from Luke and something that it says there. So Luke, chapter two, starting at verse 16, says, So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger when they had seen him. They spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them, But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart, the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen which were just as they had been told.
The Christmas story is an amazing story. We get to hear the versions of it many times throughout our Christmas preparation and during this season, but they're limited to just a couple of places. Actually, Matthew has a very short snippet of the Christmas story. Basically. It says, When she had given birth, the rest happens. It's like, Thank you, Matthew, we wish we could have some more detail, please. Luke gives us the most detailed account, the one that we read over and over. The kids memorized it when they did those old plays with the in those days. Caesar Augustus, Mark skips it entirely. He just starts with the baptism of Jesus, and we're off to the races. And John, well, he starts with the creation of the world, and then skips to the skips to John the Baptist. And yet we ponder these stories every year. In the Luke story, Gabriel comes to Mary, tells her that she's going to have a child. When Mary begins to show she races off to Elizabeth, who recognizes the baby immediately, because child in her womb leaps and is filled with the Holy Spirit. Then Mary travels to Bethlehem with Joseph, likely not in the way that we see in our in the movies. It's probably not that Mary is on the donkey and she's like, Oh, hurry up, Joseph. He's where he's almost here. That makes for some good drama, but they would have been smarter than that. I we see the story, though, when we read about the angels and the shepherds and Jesus and all of that from the Bible's perspective, I want you to imagine for a second being in Mary and Joseph's shoes, after all the angels and all of that happens. It happens early on, and then you get six months or so of nothing. They get to Bethlehem, it's crowded. They're staying in the house, probably on the lower level with the animals. And then she has the baby, and you're like, whoo, it's all done. And suddenly a bunch of shepherds barge into your house and they're like, Where's the baby? Can you imagine? Mary's like, Oh, let me hold him. She. Birds show up, and they've got this weird message. A bunch of angels showed up and told us where he was and that he'd be wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger, and he's the savior. And she goes, Are you sure you didn't eat some of the funny grass with the sheep? That's of course, not how Mary responds. She hears the message everybody is wondering about the Savior, Christ, the Lord born in Bethlehem to save the world. And she treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Luke doesn't write this just because he wants to say, Isn't Mary neat? See, he's got a plan for his gospel. He wants all of us to do exactly what Mary was doing to treasure up these things in our heart. He wants us to ponder and think not just about the Christmas story, but about the story of Jesus throughout his whole life. In fact, he tells us that's why he wrote this gospel right away in the very first chapter in verse three, he writes, it seemed good to me, also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that You have been taught. So Luke wrote the wrote this gospel so we could ponder these stories, treasure them up in our hearts and have them with us our whole lives. He wants us to hear and learn and read and ponder and treasure the stories of Jesus Christ every day, every moment, because He is our Savior, the Word made flesh, who came to dwell among us to deliver the grace and peace of God. Of course, it's not just that story, is it? Story of Jesus's birth, the manger, the shepherds. Right now we're beginning a journey with Christ, a journey that we take every year as he grows, as he begins his ministry, as he continues to serve, and eventually it leads us to the season of Lent, where he dies on a cross, rises from the dead and ascends into heaven. This powerful and amazing story of Jesus is the story of grace going out into all the world, and we read it every single year, because they are a treasure to be pondered, to think about. These stories are for us to help us, to guide us and lead us in faithful following of Jesus Christ. But as we ponder these stories, there can be a challenge to each one of us reading them and hearing them over and over again. And pastors feel this challenge right about this time of year, because we say, Okay, I have been preaching on this story of Mary and the shepherds and the angels on the passages of John every single Christmas for the last 20 years. How do we say something new and some of you have been at this a little longer than 20 years. Some of you have been hearing pastors preach on these stories, hearing them spoken and read. And the temptation might be, I've gotten everything out of it. I've heard this over and over and over again, but these stories are for us to be treasured and remembered. It's not because they are a thing that we we learn, we know the facts and then we move on, but because they are a central part of our life, to see a Savior who would leave a heavenly throne and come amongst us to live among the muck of human life.
For you and you know the facts that. It. But the thing is, about what do you do with them?
What do they mean for your life? How do they change every moment, every action, everything that you might do, that's what we need to ponder and learn is that Christ is not just a story with a plot, but a God who is present among you now through his word to drive you into faithfulness. I think there's another temptation though, as we ponder Christ, as we look at God's Holy Word, we look at it and we think, wow, I missed those days when it was new. I've been working with some people who it is actually new for them. We've had some baptisms, people who came to me, one of our our newest members, showed up one Sunday morning and said, so
I started with Genesis. And you go, okay, that's new, isn't it?
And when you're reading this stuff for the first time, or really into it for the first time, it's really cool, you get really excited. You're like, amazing. I've never learned this before. Isn't the grace of God outstanding? I can't believe all the cool things that are written down. Do you? Do you really understand what Paul is saying? And I'm like, Yeah, I've read it before, but by year 80 of that, you don't have that moment. Do you the AHA of reading something new, the moment where you go, wow, I am learning something amazing and different. Sometimes we chase them. I've seen teachers online that are really trying to do that if you watch Instagram reels, about every other Instagram reel that talks about the Bible is trying to chase that amazing aha moment where someone breaks down the Greek word or shows a pattern in the Bible that maybe you've never heard, and all the hosts on the show go, wow. And you know what it is, it's a bunch of crap every single time, because what you're chasing is a high a moment, the AHA, I had a member bring me a video from a former church Once it was talking about the story of when Jesus had his feet anointed and that were washed with the woman's tears. This was a a woman who came from a sinful background, and she was washing Jesus His feet with the tears. And the Pharisees looked at him and said, if, if he was really a prophet, He would know that that woman is a sinner, and this teacher was chasing that aha moment. He said, You know what? People of those days, they would have these tear jars, and the tear jars, they would cry into it, and they would store up the tears of generation after generation. And that must be what she had done. Isn't it amazing about the grace of God, the generations of pain and hurt were poured out on his feet? Sounds cool, doesn't it? Nowhere in the Bible, no indication that there are tear jars or anything like that. And in fact, that distracts us from what Jesus is actually doing. This sinful woman was forgiven and welcomed by Christ, who cares about the generations before her. This woman needed love and grace, and Christ welcomed her against the wishes of the men who are trying to reject her. And the reason I bring this up is because the stories of the Bible, they don't change, which is actually really good. They mean the same thing every time you read them over and over and over again. What changes is not the scriptures, but you because every year, you approach God's word from a slightly different place with slightly different needs you approach with with new problems, new victories, new hopes, new prayers, new new life. Situations and what what we need is not for the scripture to give us an aha moment, but an AHA application.
This new thing in my. Life. The baby Jesus now speaks to that this new hurt in my life, the grace of Jesus Christ heals
this new problem that I need to solve. The service of Jesus Christ drives me to serve as he did. We don't need to search for a new thing. We take the old thing and apply it in our life. So it's okay. Bible never changes. It's okay if the book of Romans says the same thing it said last year and the year before and the year before that. It's okay if we sing glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth the same way we do every year. Because when we ponder Christ, treasure up his stories in our hearts. They mean new things in action, in application, in salvation for you, they drive us towards new problems and give us new solutions, where the grace of Christ can be new for you in that moment. And so that's why we do this story. Every year. We start with the manger, we end with the ascension, and we ponder and treasure up the stories that Jesus gives us, because we need to hear them in every new situation, in every new moment of our lives, so that the grace of Christ can live in us in each of these situations. How wonderful and beautiful, this majestic story of Jesus, Christ is the story that doesn't change, but becomes new for us as our lives are different. And so we ponder, just as Mary does when we treasure up all these things and ponder them in our hearts, the grace of Christ drives us a new each day in Jesus, name Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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