That
last scripture we read is one that gets left out a lot when we tell the
Christmas story. We like to leave the
story with the baby lying in the manger surrounded by shepherds. Maybe we include the wise men, too. That’s kind of a neat story, after all, the
way they followed the star to the manger and gave Jesus gifts. And then we kind of like the part about how
they tricked mean old Herod, too, and went home another way so they would not
have to tell Herod where Jesus was.
But
that’s about as far as we want to go with the story. We don’t want to go on and hear about how
Mary and Joseph had to go on the run for their lives, and Jesus’ life too, of
course. We don’t want to hear about how
they had to go live in Egypt to escape Herod.
And we certainly don’t want to hear the part about all those male babies
and toddlers, up to two years old, being killed in Herod’s attempt to kill the
one baby who was to become the king and savior of the world.
And
quite honestly, I don’t like to hear about it, either. I mean, it’s one thing to read those words,
but it’s another thing entirely to actually think about the reality of it. Some of you have children, or grandchildren,
or great-grandchildren, who are two years old or younger. Think about what that would be like. You’re at home one day, minding your own
business, and there’s a knock on the door.
You answer it, and there are soldiers standing there. They walk into the house and start searching
for little boys. They probably don’t
even tell you why. They find your son,
or your grandson, or your great-grandson.
And they kill him. And then they
leave and go on to the next house. No
explanation. No expression of
regret. No nothing.
You’re
stunned. You cannot believe what just
happened. Then the reality of it hits
you. And you mourn. And you grieve. And most of all, you ask “Why?” Why did this happen? Why would anyone do this?
That’s
not the message we want to hear at Christmas.
And again, I don’t want to hear it, either. We want to hear the warm, sentimental story
about the baby being born in the manger.
We don’t want to think about what came next.
Now,
there’s nothing wrong with feeling warm and sentimental at Christmas. But the thing is, Jesus did not come to earth
to give us a warm, sentimental story.
Jesus came to earth to change us.
Each and every one of us.
And
throughout Jesus’ life, everyone who came in to contact with Jesus was
changed. That’s certainly true of everyone
in the Christmas story. Mary and
Joseph’s lives were changed forever. The
shepherds who saw the angel and came to worship the baby had their lives
changed. The wise men, too, who traveled
so far to worship the baby and give him gifts, had their lives changed. I suspect even the innkeeper had his life
changed when he found out what had happened and heard about these shepherds
coming and about an angel and all that.
And
that’s still true today. Everyone who
comes into contact with Jesus has his or her life changed in some way. We cannot help it. If we come to believe in Jesus, and if we
take that belief seriously, and if we decide to follow Jesus to the best of our
ability, then obviously that is going to change our lives.
Even if we don’t,
though, even if we say we believe in Jesus but just kind of compartmentalize
our belief and think we’re not going to let it change our lives, it will. It’ll be that nagging voice in the back of
our minds that says we’re not who we should be.
It’ll be that feeling that something’s not quite right about our lives,
that even if things are going okay, they’re not going as well as they could
be. We can try to ignore that voice, we
can try to ignore that feeling, but it’s still there. It keeps after us. We can decide not to listen to it, but it
never goes away. And it affects us. It changes us, whether we realize it or not.
Even people who
don’t come to believe in Jesus at all, if they’ve truly come into contact with
him, will have their lives changed in some way.
They’ll look at Christians a little differently. They’ll look at life a little
differently. If we, as Christians, truly
live our Christian faith, so that when people who don’t believe come into
contact with us, they can see it, that will affect them in some way. Maybe, at some point, they’ll want to learn
more about our faith. Maybe they
won’t. But they’ll still be changed,
they’ll still be affected in some way by having come into contact with Jesus
Christ.
Now, again, the
change Jesus makes in us may not be a warm, sentimental, happy one. Sometimes, as we heard in our last reading,
coming into contact with Jesus can cause sorrow and grief and pain. Not because that’s what Jesus wants, but
because of the way some people react to him.
We’re never promised that coming into contact with Jesus would make our
lives easy and carefree. Ask the people
who right now are being persecuted for their faith if coming into contact with
Jesus has made their lives easy.
Jesus did not
come just to give us a warm, sentimental story.
Jesus came to change us. And the
only way we can truly celebrate Christmas is to open our hearts and open our
souls. The only way we can truly
celebrate Christmas is to allow the Holy Spirit to come into our lives. If we do that, we will be changed. And if we allow Jesus to truly change us, we
will have the happiest and most blessed Christmas ever.
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