Good morning, everyone. My name is James. It's good to be with you today.
I really like all of the stories that add up to the colour of Christmas.
The Christmas lights and the decorations, Santa, the elves, the movies and the Christmas carols.
Yesterday, my family, we bought a real Christmas tree for the first time in years,
and it just smells delightful. I'll bring in a piece of it next week if you just want to smell it.
It's great. I love it. But this week, I thought I would do some investigation into the origin of some of these Christmas stories.
So I started with Santa Claus. One author describes the history of Santa...
Let me see if I can get this guy to work this morning. There we go.
One author describes the history of Santa as involving a building project by a Byzantine emperor,
a story about a father preparing to sell his own daughters into prostitution,
a hoard of stolen bones reported to have magical properties,
armies of crusading knights, Protestant zealots,
the author of Twas the Night Before Christmas,
a poem you probably read as a child but didn't realise how influential it was,
Santa Claus, and Coca-Cola.
All of these different aspects build up to the magic of whatever Santa Claus is.
Now, I feel like I could do a deep dive into each of those different aspects of history,
but we're going to move on.
What about the elves?
Well, they come from German and Scandinavian origins, from folk stories.
Our elves were house gnomes with magical powers to protect their homes from evil.
The stories were modernised in the 1800s to look about how we would expect elves to look.
There's a story of some classic little fairy pixie-looking elves.
And then what about the Christmas tree?
The Christmas tree that I put up in my house yesterday.
Well, one article I read suggested that the evergreen tree
represents the pagan themes of fertility and new life in the darkness of winter.
And this is why we have...
What plant is this representing, Carmen?
What is this?
Greenery.
Okay, thank you.
Well, holly, ivy, and mistletoe, these are the Christmas plants.
You know, you have them hanging and you kiss people under them.
These are the only plants that flower in winter.
And so it's a symbol of new life.
But then, as one legend goes, an English monk, Boniface,
was doing some missionary work in Germany in the 8th century.
And the story goes that some native Germans were sacrificing to the oak trees
because they were pagans.
They worshipped the trees.
And so Boniface grabbed his axe and he chopped down to the tree
to stop the pagans from worshipping it.
And the legend has it that a fir tree, the Christmas-shaped tree,
a fir tree grew out of the fallen oak tree.
The fir tree has a triangular shape, represents the Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And so they brought the fir tree into the house
as a sign of their new Christian faith.
And then I learned a new one on Thursday night.
In recent years, in Chinese culture, in China at least,
there's been a new tradition.
Christmas Eve is called Ping An Ye, peace night in Chinese.
And it kind of sounds like apple in Chinese, which is Ping Guo.
And so Christmas Eve is called Ping An Guo,
which means peace apples.
And so in recent years, Christmas Eve,
you would give apples to each other
until it was banned by the Chinese government.
Christmas just has this long history of strange stories
and exaggerations all being amalgamated into each other.
And so it's just this mix of pagan worship,
ancient folklore, legends, corporate greed,
all coming together.
The stories of Christmas seem so far from their origins.
But what about that other Christmas story?
The story of God becoming a person,
born as a baby, to die on the cross,
raised to life so that we might have life ourselves.
Is this just a hodgepodge story?
Is this just a hodgepodge of a special baby?
And there was another story about a man who could do miracles.
And maybe there was another story from another culture
about a resurrection.
And then there's another story about a nation waiting for salvation.
Is the story of the baby at Christmas
and the Christian faith just an exaggeration?
Is it just an amalgamation of stories that we'll never really know the true origin of?
Can we trust anything the Bible says?
This month we're asking the question,
Is Christmas unbelievable?
We're asking some pointed questions.
And there is going to be a phone number on the screen texting your questions.
We'll answer them straight after the service.
Or you can come and ask me straight after church.
But the challenge for us today is to question
whether we believe the story of Jesus at Christmas
just because it's the story we know.
Maybe there's exaggerations.
Or is the story of Christmas real?
And can we trust the Bible?
Is there a truthful core to it that we'll never get to?
Or is it true and we can believe it?
Let me pray as we have a look at this.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for Christmas,
for this time that seems to come quickly every year
where our shops sing of your greatness,
where Christmas carols are on and Christmas movies are on
and we put up decorations.
But Lord, help us to understand
whether we can trust your word,
especially about Christmas.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
We're going to start by having a look.
Oh, there's that great picture.
I keep missing that picture.
We're going to start with the eyewitnesses to the truth.
In John's record of the gospel,
there is a character who sits in the same seat as us
asking the same question.
Can I trust you?
What can I believe?
His name is Thomas.
And he missed out on seeing the risen Jesus
when he appeared to his disciples.
So have a look at verse 24 with me.
Wendy's going to push the buttons for me, I think.
Thank you, Wendy.
Now, Thomas, also known as Didymus,
one of the 12,
was not with disciples when Jesus came.
So the other disciples told him,
we have seen the Lord just like us.
Thomas missed out on seeing the risen Jesus.
He didn't believe the story.
But he said to them,
unless I see the nail marks
and put my finger where the nails were
and put my hand into his side,
I will not believe.
He doesn't say,
I'm finding this hard to believe.
I just really can't believe it.
He says, I will not believe.
Can you imagine if your 12 or your 11 best friends
came up to you and told you,
there's a cure for COVID.
It is over.
It's done.
And you said,
do you know what?
I'm not going to believe
until I get a PhD in microbiology.
I will not believe
until I fully investigate everything myself.
Thomas even then was living in a post-truth environment.
I don't believe your truth,
but only my truth.
He's only risen if I have seen that he is risen.
Thomas doubted because he hadn't seen it for himself.
He wanted to trust his own senses.
And now Jesus,
Jesus is good.
He is good and generous to Thomas,
even though he doubted.
Verse 26,
a week later,
when Thomas is there,
Jesus appears to Thomas
and he says,
peace be with you.
Okay,
come on,
Thomas,
put your finger into my side.
Come on,
you can do it.
I'll let you,
here's exactly what you wanted.
And Thomas says,
he reacts and calls him God,
my Lord and my God.
And then Jesus really speaking to us says,
because you have seen me,
you have believed.
Blessed are those,
us,
who have not seen Jesus
and yet have believed.
And then we get the whole purpose.
This is the purpose.
This is the point.
This is the key part of John 20 for us today.
These are written
that you may believe
that Jesus is the Messiah,
the son of God,
and that by believing
you may have life in his name.
John wrote down the records
of the eyewitnesses
to be trustworthy
with the purpose
of believing in Jesus.
These are not just a collection of stories.
It's not just interesting.
John wasn't hoping
for a bestseller for Christmas.
These are eyewitness testimony
recorded
so that we might believe
that Jesus is the Messiah.
Trusting others
is how people have always operated.
Not all of us
are experts in science
and historians
and social scientists.
We are always people
who have listened
to other people's opinion.
This is why
we pull out our phones
in the morning
and check the weather
and find out
it's going to be
pretty hot today, I think.
We are people
who routinely trust others
and the same goes
for with history.
We trust the eyewitnesses.
But if there were eyewitnesses,
why is there such a lag
between the events happening
and the writing?
Surely that means
it's open to exaggeration.
Surely it means that
they've forgotten the story
and they've just written it down
and they've written it down wrong.
Jesus is reported
to have been crucified
around AD 30
and then the first
of the books of the Bible
of the New Testament,
Galatians,
was written about AD 50.
Mark
is written
between about 50 and 60
and then John,
the most recent gospel,
was written around AD 90.
That is a fair time lag,
some might say.
Can we trust the reports
if they were written later?
There's a children's game
that I remember
and fondly remember playing
called Telephone.
It has another,
a more unhelpful name,
Chinese Whispers,
but we'll go with Telephone,
where you start with one person,
I'm going to pick on Nick,
I'm going to tell Nick a phrase,
I'm going to get back on camera,
Nick,
the phrase is,
you know,
yellow jelly bean
and then Nick's going to tell people
and it's going to get to the line
and it's going to get over here
and Kel is finally
going to be the last one
and he's going to tell us
what he's heard
and it's morphed into
potato piano
or something like this.
We know this game,
this is quite a fun game,
I always loved it as a kid.
Some think that
the story of the Bible
starts with that,
you know,
the phrase was originally
Jewish leader
and it's retold
and told
over so many years
that the meaning
has been completely lost
and that Jesus,
who was maybe
just a guy
and influential leader,
all of a sudden
by the time we get to
it being written down,
Jesus is now
God himself
who can walk on water
and come back to life.
Clearly
an exaggeration
some might say.
One historian,
Richard Baucom,
argues that
one of the key reasons
that there is
a time delay
between the events
of the writing
between the events
and the writing
is that the eyewitnesses
were dying out.
Unlike the game
of telephone with kids,
the stories
were not passed
along a single line.
They were told
to many people.
So when Jesus
was alive,
he proclaimed
in synagogues,
he preached
to thousands of people.
You think about
the feeding of the 5,000.
Large crowds
followed him
and he had
an intimate group
of 12
that followed
his every step.
And then
with the eyewitnesses,
there are
so many specific
people mentioned
in the Bible.
Specific eyewitnesses.
Mary Magdalene,
Peter and Andrew,
sons of Jonah.
James and John,
sons of Zebedee.
Even Thomas Didymus
here
has a specific name.
In the news
immediately after
Jesus' death
and resurrection,
you can imagine
people would have
gone up to Thomas
and said,
oh,
you're the guy
who doubted Jesus.
Did you really see him?
And then maybe
he would
remember
his doubt
that Jesus was alive
and be grieved.
But then maybe
his face would light up
remembering how good
Jesus was to him.
And so what do you do
as the eyewitnesses
who saw Jesus
start aging
and dying out?
You visit them
and you write it down
and you record it.
And if this is true,
the Gospels
are not like
a story passed
along many years.
It is
the story
to the first person.
This is what
really happened.
And the beauty is
that when it's written down,
there are still people
around who are eyewitnesses.
So you could say,
hey, I got this letter.
Did this really happen?
One of my children
recently thought
it would be a really
good idea
to start spreading
some rumours.
They were at school
saying they had COVID
and their friends
were rightly distressed.
And so Alyssa
got a call
from the school
saying,
your child
is saying
that they took
a COVID test
and that you
were eyewitnesses,
you saw the test
and you let them
go to school anyway?
Yes,
they did take
a COVID test.
No,
they don't
have COVID.
And so
there's an exaggeration.
A change
in the story
got told.
It was right
to a point
but then it was
exaggerated.
And you could check
with the eyewitnesses.
Did this happen?
No,
it didn't.
Don't let the facts
get in the way
of a good story,
my child,
maybe you would have thought.
The Bible
can be trusted
because it is
not an exaggeration.
Written down
when eyewitnesses
were still alive.
Written very early.
We might think
it is a time lag
but there is
no time lag there.
The Bible
was written
very early
with eyewitnesses
still around
so it could be checked.
It was written
very early
and if it wasn't
real,
people would have
called it out.
No,
don't be silly.
Jesus didn't really
walk on water.
It was just
low tide
that day.
Eyewitnesses
like Thomas
were around
long after
they were written.
So what we have
recorded
is history
and the Bible
can be trusted.
But not only that,
the Bible
has
embarrassing
truth to it.
There is a phrase
called the ring
of truth.
It is a test
to see whether
a story sounds
like a fanciful tale
and an exaggerated
story or real
history.
The idea of it
says that when
people lie
or make up a story,
they don't add
material to make
them lose
credibility.
I know a man
who broke
his leg.
Now,
he could have
said that he
had just fallen
over,
but the truth
is more
embarrassing.
He was trying
to show his
son how to
do a bike
trick on a
half pipe
that he'd set
up,
thinking he
was much
younger than
he really
was,
and he
came off
it and
landed
heavily and
broke his
leg.
One story
I fell
is true,
but the real
story is far
more embarrassing,
far more
shameful,
and it's not
the story you'd
choose to tell
unless it was
true.
If you were
going to make
up a story to
try and convince
people that Jesus
was real,
and not only that
he was real,
but he'd come
back to life and
that he is
God, you
would want to
make it the
most plausible
story ever.
But the
Gospels are
actually really
embarrassing.
Peter, one
of Jesus'
closest friends,
had a key
hand in writing
Mark's Gospel.
If I were
Peter, and I
was involved in
writing it, I
would have made
myself look a
lot better.
Instead, Peter
betrays Jesus
three times.
His most
cowardly and
moral failure.
Peter was one
of the key
leaders in the
early church.
The only way
he'd let his
betrayal be
told was if it
was really
true.
If I was
writing about
Jesus'
resurrection, I'd
want it to be
as believable and
plausible as
possible.
And there's two
small aspects of
the resurrection
that are just
embarrassing, and
lean it to have
the ring of truth
to it.
And they both
involve the first
witnesses.
John records
Mary Magdalene
went to Jesus'
tomb, but
found it empty.
Standing there
crying, Jesus
comes up to her,
and Jesus says,
if you can go to
the next slide,
thank you, Wendy.
Jesus says to
Mary, woman, why
are you crying?
Who is it you
are looking for?
Thinking he was
the gardener, she
said, sir, if you've
carried him away,
tell me where you've
put him.
Mary confuses
Jesus with a
gardener.
It's just a
small, little
note, embarrassing
for the future of
Mary.
I saw Jesus, I
thought he was
just tidying up
the gardens.
In all four
gospels about
Jesus, the first
witnesses to the
resurrection are
women.
Luke 24, it
was Mary Magdalene,
Joanna, Mary the
mother of James, and
the others with
them who told this
to the apostles.
But the apostles,
they did not
believe the
women because
their words seemed
to them like
nonsense.
In the first
century Jewish
culture, women's
testimony wasn't
accepted in court.
People didn't
listen to them.
And even Jesus'
friends, the
apostles, didn't
believe what seemed
to them like a
ridiculous story.
Jesus coming back
to life.
You would not
report that.
You would not
tell that women
were the first to
see him and were
the first to share
the good news,
unless it actually
happened.
It's another deeply
embarrassing aspect
for the early church
leaders.
An exaggerated
story told by a
bunch of women was
easily discredited.
You're going to
trust those women?
That's ridiculous.
But again, these
women's names were
recorded because
they were eyewitnesses.
They could be
trusted and they
could be visited to
ask if this really
happened.
Now, none of this
is its own proof.
But when it's
read, it holds
together as a story
that has the ring of
truth to it.
One that clearly
suggests that the
Gospels are history
and they're not an
exaggeration.
So the stories
about Christmas
like Santa and
the elves, the
Christmas tree and
even peace apples,
these have been
added together into
a hodgepodge
boiling mess of
Germanic, American,
Chinese, religious,
cultural mishmash.
But the story at the
heart of it, God
become man, born and
placed in an animal's
food trough.
raised to be
murdered in the
most embarrassing,
shameful way,
crucified on a
cross.
This story is true.
The Bible can be
trusted.
My kids have the
best conversations
with me at the
most annoying times.
And that is, just
after I've tucked
them into bed and
just after I've said
goodnight, that's
when their brains
just start ticking.
And recently I'd
prayed with one of
them, we'd read the
Bible, saying
goodnight, you
know, just about to
step out the door.
And one of them
started asking the
question, how can I
know?
How can I know that
it's real?
Can Jesus speak to
me?
Then I'd know.
My heart went out
for them.
They wanted
certainty.
In a time where
kids are juggling
with all the
different stories and
finding out what is
true, what is
fairy tale, what can
be trusted, my kid
wanted certainty.
I want to know that
this magnificent,
wonderful, life-changing
story is real.
Don't let me be
disappointed.
Not again, not
after I believed all
these fairy tales.
Don't let me be
disappointed again.
I want you to
have the same
comfort that I
gave my child.
Jesus is real.
God is real.
Jesus, God made
flesh, came and
dwelt with us.
It is no mere
story or
exaggeration.
People saw him.
They touched him.
They knew him.
They ate with him.
And just as John
20 said, it was
written down so
that we might
believe.
The Bible is no
exaggeration, is no
fairy tale.
But Jesus came,
giving us the
comfort that God
is with us.
He knows us.
Because we are in
need of him.
Because we are
people who are
prone to
exaggeration
ourselves.
We are prone to
tell ourselves that
we've got everything
together.
Prone to think that
we don't need help
from God.
that we pretend
that we can do
it.
Effectively, we're
telling ourselves
fairy tales and
we're living in
those fairy tales.
Very rarely do we
reveal the deep
embarrassing and
shameful truth of
who we are.
We might let it
slip in front of a
good friend.
Sometimes the
mask of our
identity might
drop.
But God sees
through our
exaggerations, the
walls and the
masks we put on.
He knows deeply
who we are.
He knows our
secret sins and
our shame.
But despite that,
he offers us love
and forgiveness.
1 Peter 2 says
that we are chosen
and precious to
God.
This is no
exaggeration.
Now it sounds
like a wild tale
that we could be
loved and chosen
and precious to
the God of the
universe.
But this is the
wonderful truth of
the gospel.
we who were
once far off are
brought close in
Jesus.
Today, in a
minute as we head
out to eat, drink
coffee, head to
the shops to buy
Christmas decorations,
to buy a Christmas
ham.
That's a note for
you, Alyssa, buy a
Christmas ham.
As we head off and
to do many different
things, we will tell
many tales about
ourselves that we're
okay.
Many other people
will tell us tales
about them.
They will
exaggerate.
You should buy
this.
You should trust
me.
But there is only
one God who would
shamefully and
embarrassingly die on
the cross, showing
his love for you.
Hold fast to him
this Christmas.
Let me pray.
Heavenly Father, I
thank you for your
word and that we
can indeed trust in
you.
We can trust in
you because your
word was written
down.
As John 20 said,
it was written so
that we might
believe that Jesus
is the Messiah, the
Son of God, sent by
you to die for us so
that we could be
precious with you.
Father, help us to
trust in you today.
Amen.