WEBVTT 00:00:00.520 --> 00:00:10.560 The kids read for us tonight parts of the story of Christmas, the very famous story of the birth of Jesus Christ from the Gospels, from the New Testament in the Bible. 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:14.660 And then the very last thing that we read tonight was from 1 John chapter 1. 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:20.240 That is a letter that one of Jesus Christ's dearest friends wrote. 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:26.060 Jesus referred to him as his beloved disciple, John, the apostle in the first century. 00:00:26.059 --> 00:00:33.159 And John used in that letter some of the language that you actually see throughout the other Gospels that were written in the Bible. 00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:37.679 And he says things like this, I bear witness to what I saw. 00:00:38.519 --> 00:00:43.820 He uses this sense of a courtroom oath to say, I testify to you. 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:46.840 I swear an oath before you of what I saw. 00:00:47.340 --> 00:00:54.439 And so he says that he heard, he saw, he touched the word of life. 00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:56.820 And that's his special way of talking about Jesus. 00:00:58.039 --> 00:01:01.759 And so John is making some very, very big claims there. 00:01:02.359 --> 00:01:08.939 He is saying that he heard the Son of God, he saw God, and he touched him. 00:01:09.799 --> 00:01:14.019 And so let me just offer to you tonight two things that John says there. 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:20.979 The first thing he tells you, and I really hope tonight from whatever background you may come from that you'll really think about this and consider it. 00:01:20.980 --> 00:01:27.920 He says that Christmas is real, it's historical, and that Christmas has power for you. 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:32.820 And so the first thing he says here is that Christmas is real, it's historical. 00:01:32.980 --> 00:01:35.760 So we are people in the year of our Lord, 2024. 00:01:36.140 --> 00:01:37.420 We're very modern people. 00:01:38.380 --> 00:01:42.620 And where do modern people put their trust? 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:46.280 We put our trust in the weight of empirical evidence. 00:01:47.160 --> 00:01:49.540 So we want to believe in things that are verified. 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:50.859 We want objective facts. 00:01:51.500 --> 00:01:58.680 We want to know that our scientists and our historians search for things that are invention versus reliability. 00:01:59.260 --> 00:02:00.240 We want it to be reliable. 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:01.180 We want it to be verified. 00:02:01.180 --> 00:02:23.640 And that means that many of us maybe, we're trained, you know, no matter what you believe in, we are trained by the modern world, the culture we live in, to look at things like religion, Christianity, what we might think of as traditional religion, and think, you know, that is old-fashioned, pre-modern, and we now know, we know, we know better. 00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:34.500 And this has been exposed, this mindset of our contemporary modern culture, and it's been called the myth of chronological snobbery, the myth of chronological snobbery. 00:02:34.959 --> 00:02:46.979 And it's that we intuitively think, based on our experiences in the world around us, to think that people that lived in centuries before us, pre-modern people, ancient people, were far more gullible than we are. 00:02:47.579 --> 00:02:52.179 And that the things they wrote were far more mythological than the things we write about today. 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:55.120 Anyway, that's been called the myth of chronological snobbery. 00:02:55.219 --> 00:03:06.120 And it's important to know, all I want to say about that tonight is, it's important, I want you to know that the best scholarship, the best scholars in a place like the United Kingdom, where we have so much good scholarship, 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:14.800 on what happened in the first century in the Greco-Roman and Jewish context into which Jesus was born is overwhelming. 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:21.540 And it says one very important thing, no one, no one in the first century believed that resurrection was possible. 00:03:22.740 --> 00:03:23.180 Nobody. 00:03:23.980 --> 00:03:27.020 One very important scholar at St. Andrews today, he writes this, 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:32.540 the idea of an individual being resurrected in the middle of history was inconceivable to the first century person. 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:36.740 If you said to a first century Greco-Roman or Jewish person, 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:40.659 so-and-so was resurrected from the dead, the response would be, how could that be? 00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:42.900 Has disease and death now ended? 00:03:42.900 --> 00:03:59.879 If you read the gospel stories, Mary and Joseph could not in the beginning believe the claim that Jesus, the boy that was to be born to them, his earthly parents, was to be the son of God, God himself. 00:04:00.140 --> 00:04:01.099 They couldn't believe it. 00:04:01.099 --> 00:04:09.799 And you see that the barriers that pre-modern people, ancient people faced in belief is the very same barriers we face today. 00:04:10.359 --> 00:04:10.979 They're no different. 00:04:11.799 --> 00:04:18.399 No one in the first century believed that the resurrection was possible until they saw, they heard, they touched. 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:26.219 And I just want to ask you, have you considered in your life ever the way the Bible makes its claims? 00:04:26.419 --> 00:04:26.939 Have you read it? 00:04:26.979 --> 00:04:27.879 Have you considered it at all? 00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:36.100 The shepherds reported, we're told in Luke's gospel, all that they heard and saw when they saw the baby. 00:04:37.159 --> 00:04:39.879 And then Luke writes this, one of the gospel writers, he says, 00:04:40.259 --> 00:04:47.319 I've carefully investigated everything from the beginning of the story of Jesus to give an orderly testimony, an account. 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:51.639 And a well-investigated, a well-researched account of the historical evidence. 00:04:51.639 --> 00:04:56.439 And then we read from John, 1 John here, and he uses sense perception. 00:04:56.659 --> 00:04:59.360 He puts it in the form of a court oath, and he says, 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:06.719 I testify, I bear witness as if I'm in the dock being asked questions by the legal team 00:05:06.719 --> 00:05:15.279 that I really did see and touch and heard God himself, that he really was in the flesh before me. 00:05:15.279 --> 00:05:22.699 And so what's unique about Christianity from all the other world religions is that the history of Jesus Christ 00:05:22.699 --> 00:05:25.279 is the best reason to believe in Christianity. 00:05:26.099 --> 00:05:27.039 Jesus himself. 00:05:27.939 --> 00:05:33.279 If you read the gospels, the unexpected Messiah, the unexpected Savior, the unexpected one. 00:05:33.799 --> 00:05:36.159 Nobody believed in the first century that a man could rise from the dead. 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:44.160 And the unexpected reality of Jesus is that so many people within a year, within months, within decades of his life 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:49.440 were giving their lives away, were giving their lives away to death to say, 00:05:49.860 --> 00:05:52.620 I saw, I touched, I heard. 00:05:53.660 --> 00:05:57.420 C.S. Lewis once responded, the great writer in the middle of the 20th century, 00:05:57.500 --> 00:06:01.160 he wrote books like The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the stories we now love today here. 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:09.140 He responded once to a quote by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. 00:06:10.080 --> 00:06:13.380 Khrushchev had said this, 00:06:13.540 --> 00:06:19.280 Our cosmonauts, our astronauts, the Russian astronauts, went to space, but they did not find God there. 00:06:20.260 --> 00:06:21.780 And C.S. Lewis responded like this. 00:06:21.840 --> 00:06:22.120 He said, 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:28.620 Looking for God by exploring space is like reading or seeing all of Shakespeare's plays 00:06:28.620 --> 00:06:30.580 in the hope that you would find Shakespeare. 00:06:31.820 --> 00:06:37.780 Shakespeare is in one sense present in every moment of the play, 00:06:37.980 --> 00:06:41.060 but he is never present in the same way as Lady Macbeth. 00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:45.760 No, he's not diffused in the play like some gas. 00:06:46.820 --> 00:06:50.840 Finding God is not like a man on the first floor walking upstairs to the second floor. 00:06:50.839 --> 00:06:58.079 My point is this, is that if God exists, he is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play 00:06:58.079 --> 00:07:01.199 than as one object in the universe is related to another. 00:07:02.379 --> 00:07:05.799 And you see, Bertrand Russell, a very famous atheist in the early 20th century, 00:07:05.859 --> 00:07:09.519 he said that when I die, if I find out that God actually does exist, I'm going to say, 00:07:09.579 --> 00:07:10.599 God, there's not enough evidence. 00:07:10.719 --> 00:07:11.620 There wasn't enough evidence. 00:07:11.620 --> 00:07:13.060 But it's a category mistake. 00:07:14.060 --> 00:07:17.660 It's a category mistake because, see, if we're going to find God, 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:20.899 it's not as if we can investigate God like he's some object. 00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:21.819 No. 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:22.899 God is the author. 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:25.600 He is the one who wrote the play. 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:29.340 And, oh, boy, you can't find him through the empirical way. 00:07:29.420 --> 00:07:32.220 But Luke and John come tonight and say, oh, but yes, you can. 00:07:32.759 --> 00:07:33.480 Yes, you can. 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:39.060 Because in Jesus Christ, in this baby, God has written himself into the drama. 00:07:40.259 --> 00:07:41.420 He's written himself into the story. 00:07:42.520 --> 00:07:44.939 I just want to ask you, would you be willing to consider that claim tonight? 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:47.400 Would you be willing to read the Gospels if you never have? 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:53.340 It is, let me suggest this, that the reason the nativity, the story of Jesus, is a great story, 00:07:53.660 --> 00:07:56.960 is the greatest story, is because it is a true story. 00:07:56.959 --> 00:08:04.279 Secondly, finally, in just a couple minutes, it's not just that it's history. 00:08:04.379 --> 00:08:05.599 It's also got power for you. 00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:07.899 That's the big second claim that John makes. 00:08:08.039 --> 00:08:12.519 And he wraps up the whole of the Christmas story in one word. 00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:18.159 He says, I want you to know that I saw, I heard, and I touched Jesus, God himself, 00:08:18.659 --> 00:08:21.479 so that you would be able to find fellowship with God. 00:08:21.679 --> 00:08:22.439 So he uses this word. 00:08:22.500 --> 00:08:25.000 This is a word that means table fellowship. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.560 He very literally means so that you could one day find yourself seated with God. 00:08:30.540 --> 00:08:33.860 In a relationship, in a friendship, that's the kind of thing he's talking about. 00:08:34.159 --> 00:08:35.980 Matthew sums up Christmas in one word. 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:41.519 He says, Emmanuel, this older word, God with us, God is with us, God is for us. 00:08:41.580 --> 00:08:46.580 And so the overwhelming meaning and power of Christmas is that every single human being, 00:08:46.659 --> 00:08:51.120 the Christian claim, was made to be friends with God, was made to find a relationship with God, 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:52.860 was made to be in the presence of God. 00:08:53.139 --> 00:08:54.759 And we've run away from that. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:58.559 And in Jesus Christ, God has said, I've come to find you. 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:02.220 That's the meaning, the power of Christmas tonight. 00:09:02.919 --> 00:09:06.840 You might have heard before of the word gospel. 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:08.740 We use it in Christianity all the time. 00:09:09.159 --> 00:09:11.539 Gospel means good news. 00:09:11.940 --> 00:09:17.220 And what's at the core of Christianity, unlike all the other world religions or philosophies, 00:09:17.220 --> 00:09:23.399 is that the gospel is more like opening the morning newspaper than it is anything else. 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:27.580 It's not like going to a counselor or therapist or psychologist, which is very good and helpful sometimes. 00:09:27.660 --> 00:09:28.240 We need that. 00:09:28.779 --> 00:09:33.120 But actually, the gospel is more like opening the newspaper and reading the headline. 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:37.560 The gospel is the pronouncement of a history that is for you. 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:38.740 It's good news. 00:09:38.820 --> 00:09:39.500 It's not advice. 00:09:39.960 --> 00:09:42.379 It's not a call to fix yourself. 00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:44.539 It's not a call to have better behavior in your life. 00:09:44.600 --> 00:09:45.100 No, not at all. 00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:49.799 It is the pronouncement that God has come to rescue you while you are running away. 00:09:50.799 --> 00:09:55.979 And I think as long as I've been able to do this role that I'm in here and be a pastor, 00:09:56.779 --> 00:09:59.679 it's not been that long, but as long as I've been able to do it, 00:10:00.099 --> 00:10:04.019 one of the things that I've come to see more and more in the opportunities I have 00:10:04.019 --> 00:10:06.759 to get to talk to people from all different walks of life, backgrounds, religions, 00:10:06.759 --> 00:10:09.699 we see a lot of people here in this church because we're on the Royal Mile 00:10:09.699 --> 00:10:12.419 from different backgrounds and belief systems. 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:16.120 One thing I've seen is I think there's a religious consciousness, 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:19.460 a deep sense in the soul of religion. 00:10:20.620 --> 00:10:21.500 What do I mean by that? 00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:24.460 I mean something like I think everybody knows, 00:10:24.679 --> 00:10:27.360 everybody knows that they ought to be something that they're not. 00:10:27.899 --> 00:10:30.700 Everybody has a sense, you know, I should be just. 00:10:31.299 --> 00:10:32.220 I should be kind. 00:10:32.700 --> 00:10:33.600 I should be humble. 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:35.240 And I'm not. 00:10:36.060 --> 00:10:40.019 I think we all feel the lack, some sense of guilt in our lives from that. 00:10:40.419 --> 00:10:42.919 And I think everybody also, the religious consciousness, 00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:46.360 has some sense of an appetite, a hunger, a longing. 00:10:47.479 --> 00:10:48.979 I want to know God. 00:10:49.179 --> 00:10:50.339 I want to know if he's there. 00:10:51.240 --> 00:10:54.059 And so, so many people in a great city like this wonderful city, Edinburgh, 00:10:54.959 --> 00:10:57.219 a city we deeply love here at St. Columbus, 00:10:58.839 --> 00:11:00.559 we say that we're spiritual. 00:11:00.819 --> 00:11:01.959 We're searching for something. 00:11:02.019 --> 00:11:03.539 We're searching for something we have not found. 00:11:05.539 --> 00:11:07.000 Christmas says to you tonight, 00:11:07.959 --> 00:11:08.939 God loves you. 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:12.220 God knows you to your depths, 00:11:13.180 --> 00:11:16.080 when really nobody else in your life can know you all the way to the bottom of the soul. 00:11:16.180 --> 00:11:16.640 God does. 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:20.560 And he has come for you because he loves you anyway. 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:21.600 He loves you so much. 00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:23.100 That's what Christmas says. 00:11:23.500 --> 00:11:24.500 And in other words, it says, 00:11:24.860 --> 00:11:26.040 the spiritual search is over. 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:27.280 In other words, it says, 00:11:28.420 --> 00:11:31.200 stop searching for God because God has come to look for you. 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:32.840 God has come to find you. 00:11:33.340 --> 00:11:34.580 God made the first move. 00:11:35.260 --> 00:11:36.640 God came to speak to you. 00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:38.540 And so, I'll wrap up with this. 00:11:39.480 --> 00:11:41.400 One writer, to go back to our first point, 00:11:41.920 --> 00:11:42.520 says it like this. 00:11:42.620 --> 00:11:44.860 Everything in the Hebrew worldview, 00:11:45.300 --> 00:11:47.980 the first century worldview that Jesus was born into, 00:11:48.860 --> 00:11:52.240 militated against the idea that a human being could ever be God. 00:11:52.840 --> 00:11:54.920 They would not even pronounce God's name. 00:11:55.680 --> 00:12:00.240 And yet, Jesus Christ convinced by his life, death, and his resurrection, 00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:02.100 so many people, 00:12:02.760 --> 00:12:04.460 that he was not just a prophet, 00:12:04.460 --> 00:12:06.880 but that he was God himself in the flesh. 00:12:07.860 --> 00:12:09.519 You know, it's one thing to look for God and say, 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:10.980 I expect God to come in a whirlwind. 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:13.460 I expect God to come in a cloud and thunder. 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:15.639 I expect God to come in a booming voice. 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:19.840 I expect God to sound like Charlton Heston did in the Ten Commandments movie. 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:26.639 You know, it's a very different thing to say that God became a vulnerable little baby 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:30.700 that put his head on the shoulder of mom and dad, 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:31.500 that wept at night, 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:33.919 that had to be fed. 00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:38.779 And you see, he came and identified himself so much with you that he became a human. 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:40.480 He came to die for you. 00:12:40.519 --> 00:12:41.519 He loves you so much. 00:12:41.679 --> 00:12:43.379 That's the claim of Christianity. 00:12:44.220 --> 00:12:47.799 Christmas says you can have peace with God even if you've been running away your whole life. 00:12:49.139 --> 00:12:51.659 And so I want to ask you this question. 00:12:51.840 --> 00:12:53.000 Walk away with this question tonight. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:56.139 You might have a thousand questions. 00:12:56.820 --> 00:12:59.659 Maybe you're seriously considering the claims of Christianity. 00:12:59.779 --> 00:13:01.139 You might have a thousand questions. 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:02.679 And that's important. 00:13:03.500 --> 00:13:05.340 But one question I want to ask you is, 00:13:05.860 --> 00:13:06.559 ask yourself, 00:13:07.220 --> 00:13:11.840 am I this Christmas season moving toward God or away from God right now? 00:13:12.740 --> 00:13:16.919 Because Christmas is all about the claim that God has come to get near to you. 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:22.699 And so are you moving toward God or away from God in this Christmas season? 00:13:22.779 --> 00:13:23.500 And here's an invitation. 00:13:23.719 --> 00:13:25.279 Maybe you've never done this before. 00:13:25.419 --> 00:13:26.939 Maybe you've done this so many years ago. 00:13:27.839 --> 00:13:30.659 Would you consider praying to God and saying, 00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:34.199 I might not know everything that the claims mean. 00:13:34.299 --> 00:13:35.799 I might not completely understand it. 00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:37.719 But I do want to know. 00:13:38.939 --> 00:13:43.120 I do want to confess that I know I'm not who I want to be. 00:13:43.219 --> 00:13:44.219 I want to be rescued. 00:13:45.639 --> 00:13:46.839 That's an invitation for you. 00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:48.539 Let me pray. 00:13:48.719 --> 00:13:50.719 Father, we ask, Lord, that you would help us all 00:13:50.719 --> 00:13:53.819 to see the meaning of Christmas, the power of Christmas, 00:13:54.019 --> 00:13:55.659 based on the history of Christmas. 00:13:55.879 --> 00:13:57.839 And so we ask, Lord, that you would speak. 00:13:58.299 --> 00:13:59.579 And we pray that in Jesus' name. 00:13:59.939 --> 00:14:00.199 Amen.