Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah.
! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah,
either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us
that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian,
we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the
Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do
what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian,
checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us
questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things
that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
Let us bow our heads in prayer. Father, for many of us, the story of the birth of Jesus is very familiar,
and because it is so very familiar, it can be something that we no longer really think about.
So we ask that you would do a small Christmas Eve miracle in our hearts and help us to hear this
story and hear it afresh, and may it come into our lives and form us. And we ask this all in the name
of Jesus, your son and our savior. Amen. Please be seated.
So this is always a bit of a different sermon for me, for a variety of reasons. It's 725. So if I was
to do my normal sermon, I would put you to sleep earlier than I usually do. And the only thing that
might wake people up wouldn't be my odd joke, but the snoring of some of us. So I do something a bit
different. I show mini movies. I divide the sermon up and I show these little mini movies. And part of
that is just to help keep us fresh and attentive, and especially because there are kids that are
present. The other thing is several things about this story. It's a little bit autobiographical, but
I, this past May, I was ordained 40 years ago, this past May. And as a, as the first stage of
ordination and the second stage of ordination to make me a presbyter or a priest or an elder, that was
40 years ago, just about three weeks ago or something like that. So I've done lots of Christmas services
and preached on these texts for a long time. And on one level, it can be a little bit daunting to try
to preach on a text, which I have to preach on every single year and which is so very familiar.
On the other hand, I really enjoy meditating upon the text. You have this odd experience where you
enjoy the preparation, but you're not sure if you'd enjoy the delivery. And I want you to enjoy the
delivery. But it is just such a rich experience for me to meditate upon either John, you know, John 1,
1 to 14, which I'll talk about tomorrow, or in this case, Luke 2, 1 to 7. And to get to meditate upon it
and think about it and do some research. And so this year, I decided I was going to do something a
little bit different. I teach people and coach people about how to preach. And just in case you
think that means I think I'm an unbelievably good preacher, I always tell people the best coaches are
usually the ones who weren't very good athletes. And because they have to think a lot more about
what they're trying to do. They just can't sort of wing it and do it naturally. And so I'm going to
do something that I would tell people not to do tonight, partially just because it's Christmas,
and partially because I was just thinking, you know, so normally I'd have to come up with sort of a
melodic line through the text and create different ways of creating tension and interest and all of that
type of stuff. And I thought, you know what, tonight, this year, I think I'm just going to share from my
heart, I always share from my heart, I'm just going to share four different types of things for each of
the texts, tonight and tomorrow, that really struck me this time as I was meditating upon the text and
praying through the text. I'm just going to share four simple truths. And if there was something which
was to unite them all, there was one idea that might unite these different points, it would be this.
Probably if I was to ask each of us, now you wouldn't do it now after with during the cake time,
because I've warned you against it. But generally speaking, if you ask people, what do you think
you need to do over the next couple of years of your life to have your life be better? And people
would give different answers. And probably what most of the answers would be, if you want to summarize it,
is that I need to be more like Augustus Caesar was. I need more power. I need more people to listen to me.
I need more money. I need more glory. You know, more of a whole pile of other types of disreputable
things as well. And I need to win more battles. And probably nobody would actually say, I think I really
need to be more humble like Jesus. Well, the fact of the matter is, the way we instinctively try to solve the
problems in our lives is partially what makes our lives very problematic. And it's partially why our
lives are problematic, because it's all right if I was the only person in the universe trying to be
like Caesar. But if I'm in a room of 90 people, and all of us think our solutions are to be more like
Caesar, we're going to keep running into all sorts of problems. And if there was a univine thought
throughout all of these four different reflections, that might be it. And I'll try to remember to come to
it at the end. But let's read the text just again. I'm going to read the text several times. And if
nothing else comes out of it tonight, you'll hear the text four times. And here's how the text goes
again. It's very simple text. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the
world should be registered. And what that basically means, it's they're trying to get your addresses so
they can figure out tax bases and tax loads, and if they need to do conscription and all of that type of
stuff. And when Luke writes this, he's not making a negative comment about it. He's just reporting it.
He's an historian. He writes a biography of Jesus that all the world should be registered. Verse 2,
this was the first registration when Quirnerius 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, which is a feeding trough for animals, because there was no
place for them in the inn. In other words, they were in the shelter where the animals would be at night,
and that's where Jesus was born, and they put the baby in the feeding trough for the animals.
So here's the first thing. If you could put up the point, Claire, that would be helpful.
The Nativity of Jesus, I say here day, I should have said night, but the day of the Nativity of
Jesus was a night of solemnity and hilarity. I'm sorry for using two big words. I have all these
degrees. Every once in a while, I have to use big words. It was a night to be very solemn, and a night
to tell to be that was very funny. The Nativity of Jesus was a night or a time of solemnity and
hilarity. All births are on one hand a bit like, I mean, one of my daughters-in-law is a midwife,
and good grief, I hear all these really quite amazing stories about births,
maintaining confidentially at all times. But on one level, the birth of the baby is always very
solemn and joyous at the same time. And if you read around the story of Jesus, you hear that Jesus,
Luke is very clear that he has come. He was a pagan who became a Christian,
and he believes, really believes, that Jesus taught and others taught, and because of his resurrection,
it's valid to believe that Jesus actually was God, the Son of God. And so we have here the birth of God,
the Son of God, and it's really interesting. This is why I say it's a day of solemnity and clarity.
Who greeted Jesus as he came out of Mary's womb, as Joseph cut the umbilical cord and held him?
Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, moo!
Hee-haw! Hee-haw! And isn't that funny? The first witnesses of the birth of the Son of God,
the Savior of the entire universe, the first witnesses were cows and chickens and goats and donkeys.
I mean, that's funny, isn't it? That's hilarious. It's too childlike to be true, we'd almost think.
So with that note, we're going to watch our first video. A shout out to all the children who are present.
A bit of a take off on the Toy Story videos.
Look, I know we're all excited for Christmas morning, but if I hear one toe hit the ground before sunrise...
Mom and Dad are sleeping in.
Ah!
What? Come on!
We're playing!
It's almost here. A wonderful celebration is at hand.
I love watching the family Christmas Eve ritual. Bake, wrap, collapse.
And by family, you mean just the mom, right?
I'd give anything to taste those cookies.
And help clean up?
And help clean up. Love helping clean up that cookie mess.
Huh?
What was that?
Likely just a drab blowing through the house.
That or Grandma's fruitcake finally detonated.
It's a child!
Get to your places!
Go, go, go, go, go!
And freeze!
Zip it, everybody!
Gloria!
Sorry.
Hey, buddy.
What are you doing out of bed?
Oh, uh, sorry, Daddy. I was just checking on Jesus.
Mm-hmm. And how's he doing?
Pretty good.
It's his birthday, you know?
That's right.
You thinking about what to give him?
No, but I think I should give him to someone else. Maybe Justin next door?
Hold up. You want to give Jesus away?
Yeah, so Justin can know him too.
You know what, bud? I think you just figured out Christmas.
Hey, Dad, can Jesus sleep with my turtle tonight?
How about just on the nightstand?
I'm going to be the best.
Armor up, boys. We're going to battle.
Oh, my stars, what kind of father loses? The redeemer of mankind.
Hey, everyone, settle down.
Gabriel to Angel Legion Alpha, do you copy. It's go time.
Roger that. Moving in, over.
We need torches and pitchforks. Everyone on my six.
Everyone, hey, it's okay. We must let him go.
Okay, Blessed Mother. Please explain yourself.
This is why he came. To be poured out for many. Given as a sacrifice.
We will each do well to re-gift him to all we can.
So, should I call off the Angel Hit Squad or no?
Yeah, buddy. Our work here is done.
Have the merriest of Christmases, friends. All of you.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched an interview with a high-tech entrepreneur who lives in Dubai,
who's a regular guest on a top-ranked podcast. And he had, sort of as a complete and utter surprise to
himself, become a Christian in his late 30s. After making lots and lots of money and still hoping to
make lots and lots of more money, he became a Christian. He began his quest a little bit because
he started to think to himself, is this all there is? After you have, you know, you're young, you're good-looking,
the house, tax-free haven, making lots of money. And he starts to read the Bible, he read the
Quran and a whole pile of things, starts to read the Bible, gets very fascinated with it. And a real
turning point in his coming to Christ was when he read Psalm 22, which I'm not going to read right now.
But he read Psalm 22, and by this point in time, he'd read the Gospel several times. And he just said,
I mean, he didn't use the word gobsmacked, I'm using the word gobsmacked, a good old Irish word.
He was gobsmacked by it, because he said it, Psalm 22 read like it was a historian writing about
the crucifixion of Jesus, not something written a thousand years before the crucifixion of Jesus.
And I mention this because I think if you were to have asked Caesar a little bit about what was going
on with him deciding he would move big parts of the empire around to register them so he could
understand a little bit better about his cash flow issues, potentials for getting people to work as
his soldiers and stuff like that, that he would have said that, you know, when I made this decree and I
make people move all around the world, that is a display of the glory and power of Rome.
And it is a display of the glory and power of Caesar Augustus.
Now, I don't know if Luke put this in on purpose, because he wasn't Jewish, he had been a pagan,
was well-educated, he was a Roman citizen himself, but I can well imagine him saying, you know, dude,
you don't know what you're talking about. You just went ahead and made sure that a whole pile of
biblical prophecies were fulfilled that were written six, seven, eight hundred years ago.
Because that's what he did.
He thought he was showing off his glory, but he actually ended up just being a tool
used by the almighty God to get Jesus born in Bethlehem. And not only that, he ended up being
the means by which he got Jesus born in Bethlehem in such a way that his birth would be very, very, very
public and remembered and talked about for years to come. You see, because it was written at this time,
the city's completely and utterly full, the village is full, and so there's people from all far and wide.
And I am sure that people of olden days were no different than us, that if something like that
had happened and we were in a crowded city and somebody had their baby outdoors, we would talk
about it to everybody for years to come. We might even use it as an object lesson to our children about
being better prepared and better organized. That's what we would do. And so a lot of these historical
details that Luke puts in his gospel are in a sense, in an ancient way, a footnote. Because he wrote his
ancient biography, the biography of Jesus based on eyewitness testimony when eyewitnesses were alive,
there are all these details that some inquirer could still go back and say, do you remember there
being a baby born in Bethlehem in a stable all those years ago? And the other things that would have
went along with it. But the main thing is that here, Caesar thinks he's showing off his glory, his power,
and all he ends up being is a tool used by almighty God to fulfill a prophecy and others that he spoke
600 to a thousand years earlier. Pretty cool. You see, Luke quietly, here's the second point,
if you could put it up, Claire. Luke quietly juxtaposes, juxtapose means put together two things,
he quietly juxtaposes pagan earthly power with the power of the triune God.
And so we're going to look at another video. And this video, for those of you who are very familiar
with the Christian, what we call the Old Testament, our Jewish friends call the Tanakh or the Torah,
you'll see a whole range of stories that go story to story to story to culminate in the birth of Jesus.
And it's quite nicely done. So let's watch the video. It shows this long historical sweep that
culminates in the birth of Jesus.
Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.
Until the Son of God
The God of the earth
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel
Shall talk to thee, O Israel
O Israel
The angel voices
O eternal
eternal
God is the Lord.
Oh, praise His name forever.
His power of glory.
Oh, praise His name forever.
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O Israel.
Let's listen to the story again.
It's actually quite shocking if you just...
Here's maybe to help you listen before I read it.
Sometimes at night or on an afternoon, I'll do some exercises in the family room.
And some of those exercises, you know, like do push-ups and other types of things.
And usually I'm watching a YouTube video trying to get, you know, some competent person trying to become more informed.
But sometimes I watch a show or something like that.
And so sometimes I'll start watching something because I'm not sure if Louise would like to watch it.
And after I've watched a couple of episodes, I'll say, you know, Louise, I think you'd really like watching this.
I think you'd really enjoy it.
And so depending on the situation, I might finish them all and then we'd watch it together.
But I say, listen, I...
First of all, I just like to watch it with you, sit with you and watch it.
And the second thing is because I'm exercising, I miss things in the movies, right?
Because, you know, I'm looking down or doing some other type of thing.
And sometimes important things are done quite silently and quickly.
And when I'm watching the second time with Louise just watching, I think, oh, in fact, just the other night I said, oh.
She probably would have heard me say, oh.
Because it explains something really important at the end of the movie, which I didn't see and didn't hear because I was exercising.
So just keep that in mind when you listen to this story again.
I'm going to read Luke 2, verses 1 to 7.
And here's how it goes.
And if you think about it for a second, those of you who are familiar with the Bible and you've heard my other sermons,
coming up to this we did the Songs of the Saviour.
So we looked at the Magnificat, Mary's song, and the Benedictus, Zechariah's song,
and then the story of the Song of the Angels, the glory of Excelsis to the shepherds, which takes place right after this story.
And the story of Simeon, also called the Nunc Dimittis, which Simeon meeting Jesus in the temple when Jesus was 40 days old.
And in all of these stories that surround the birth of Jesus, there's angels, there's the Holy Spirit.
I mean, it's quiet.
It's not dramatic other than the angels singing to the shepherds.
But even then, that might not have been seen by other people.
That's something you can ask me over coffee about why maybe nobody else saw it other than the shepherds.
But it's very, very supernatural.
And in the middle of these supernatural and very historical stories,
you know, by the way, did you know that when skeptical scholars first started to study the New Testament with skeptical lens,
they would make fun of Luke as being a bad historian because they'd say there's no record that Nazareth existed in those days.
And that would have been a very commonplace if you were reading critics and skeptics about the New Testament.
But that all stopped around the year 2006 when our Jewish archaeologists, trusting the New Testament as being true, discovered the village of Nazareth.
Go figure.
And now if you go on a tour of the Holy Land, you can go to Nazareth.
And they've excavated some houses and stuff like that, the floor plan of the houses.
So Luke's in a story.
And but giving these spectacular other supernatural things, because of supernatural things happen in the real world, why can't in the story and talk about it?
It would only be a type of prejudice to think you can't say that happened when it really did happen.
But in the midst of all these things, you get this story in the middle and listen to it again.
It's here.
Here's a go.
Luke chapter two, verses one to seven.
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.
Now you might not have noticed what was so special.
And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.
That's all.
No fireworks.
No musicians.
No jugglers.
No pizzazz.
Very simple sentence.
The sort of thing that if you were with like me and exercising, you'd miss it.
Then maybe later on you'd say, when did that baby get born?
Like, did they talk about that yet?
I think I missed it.
So here's the third reflection, if you could put it up.
Claire.
The shocking, mind-blowing revelation of the humility of the true God.
I mean, that just doesn't make sense to the way our minds work.
That the true God, the triune God, is humble.
I mean, all the gods that we know of and the goddesses that we know of are proud and strong and mighty and like a tension.
And those of you who know, you know, chess very well, you know that in the game of chess, you regularly sacrifice a pawn so the king can survive.
And the gospel tells the story of the king who sacrifices himself so the pawn can survive.
And that just goes away completely and utterly against the way our minds work.
That God would be humble.
That he would humble himself.
That the God of all the universe, the creator of the stars, the sustainer of all things, would choose to enter into this human story as a zygote in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
And then would be born in this manner with, as I said in an earlier point, the spectators to the birth going cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck and moo, moo, moo.
As they sat in their stalls.
And this is the story of Christmas.
Christians struggle with, in fact, let me rephrase that.
A lot of Christians don't struggle with pride at all.
Not because they're humble, but because they're just completely and utterly arrogant.
And seem to show no guilt whatsoever about being unbelievably arrogant.
I got, I was talking to this Christian woman the other day and it was really quite astounding.
Her arrogance and her ignorance.
The only thing that was as high as her arrogance was her ignorance about things.
And unbelievably opinionated.
And she kept trying to make me feel like I was a teensy weensy little person.
And what she said was nonsense.
So it's not the case that Christians all struggle with pride and arrogance.
Most of us don't most of the time, but we do.
Or we should.
Because of stories like this.
In fact, it begins to be part of the reason why, if you think about it for a second.
Why is it that we think that Caesar, who's been dead 2,000 years.
And frankly, a lot of people only know about him because they had to take a history course at school.
And most of us don't know anything at all about him really, including myself.
But why is it that when we think we need to solve the problems of our lives,
we unconsciously think we have to be more like Caesar at the beginning of the story,
than like the true God, who enters the story in just one sentence, laid in a manger.
I'm going to watch another video called The Story of Christmas.
That's a spoken word video that captures some of the powerful things that come together in this story.
Silent night. Holy night. A manger in a stable in the middle of nowhere.
It's dark. Cold. The unlikeliest of places for the king of kings to lay his head.
Yet, he came. No audience. No entourage. The light of the world. Who came for you and for me.
This is the story of Christmas.
That night, everything changed. Heaven touched earth and love entered with a tiny breath.
The cry of a newborn king echoed through all eternity. I am with you.
This is the story of Christmas. A star appeared in the heavens that night.
A star so bright, astronomers began to follow. Angels filled the skies with songs of praise,
calling shepherds to leave their flocks and see for themselves what had transpired.
And when they arrived, they were so compelled, they bowed down in awe and worshipped him.
This is the story of Christmas.
Jesus' arrival brought the fulfillment of promises to a people who had lost all faith.
To a people living in despair, hope was born.
In the midst of strife and division, the Prince of Peace came to silence our storms.
In a world of hate, love won and broke through the darkness.
This is the story of Christmas. This is no ordinary story.
This is the greatest story. This is the greatest story ever told.
The Savior of the world, Emmanuel, God with us, who stepped down from heaven to earth,
born for you and for me. This is the story of Christmas.
The final reflection I had when I've been meditating upon Luke chapter 2 verses 1 to 7 is,
if you could put the point up, that would be helpful, Claire.
The melody of humility in the good news.
The melody of humility in all of the good news.
As I said at the beginning, most of us, if we asked what we needed to have our life be better in the coming year,
we'd unconsciously want to be like Caesar.
We'd think that we need more power, more money, more glory, more fame,
more people doing exactly what we say,
more people being afraid if they don't do exactly what we say,
people just constantly fawning over us.
We'd unconsciously think that those are the types of things that we need.
But are they really what we need?
And what would it be like if every single one of us got all of those things as we desired?
Every single one of us in this room, every single one of us in our family,
all got all of those things.
We would be completely and utterly insufferable one with the other.
Now I'm saying that not because people shouldn't try to get promotions.
I'm not saying that.
And not because obviously sometimes it is good to have people listen to you.
I'm not saying that.
But I'm saying something that, you know, the thing about the Bible is it reveals God as a God of humility.
It's one of the reasons it's a hard, we have a hard time accepting that Christianity is true,
is because it goes so deeply against the grain, our natural way of thinking,
that greatness can't be connected to humbling, God humbling himself and being so humble.
But if we think about it, I was just talking to a Muslim who became a Christian.
And one of the things that helped him become a Christian is he realized that how important love is.
And out of all of the religions and spiritualities in the world,
only Christianity can truly say that God is love.
Allah can't be a God of love.
If he is a God of love, he's a God of need love, which we don't even think of as love.
And he's just himself. There's no one else other than Allah.
He would have had to create angels or people or something else,
so there'd be someone he could love or could love him.
But Christians believe that from all eternity the Father loved the Son,
and the Son loved the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit loved the Father,
and round and round in all of those different directions.
And in that sense, it's easy to see how God is ineffably humble,
because you see, what's involved in the Christian virtue of humility is not saying lies about yourself.
If you're really, really good at math, it's not humble to say you suck at math.
If you're really athletic, it's not humility to say that you suck at athletics.
Lies aren't humility.
But what is at the heart of humility?
It's a little bit like, some of you have heard me use this analogy before,
but you see a little baby, maybe at six or seven months,
and maybe a bit younger than that, maybe a bit older,
and you know they can be fascinated by their fingers.
I don't even know if they know that those are their fingers.
But you just look at a baby, and you can see they're completely enchanted and entranced by their fingers,
or by a thing on their mobile.
It's almost as if they've forgotten they exist,
because they see they're so completely outwardly focused.
But when we look at a baby like that and see them,
it's almost as if the baby has forgotten that the baby exists.
Yet the baby is still very much the baby.
In fact, if anything, the baby is even more adorable.
Right?
So adorable, we say, hey, look, look at the baby with their fingers.
Isn't that adorable?
Isn't that just so wonderful and beautiful?
And you don't want to say it too loud in case you distract them and they stop looking at their fingers.
Right?
And in a sense, what the Christian virtue of humility is, amongst other things,
is you see pride is inherently a little bit like a black hole,
where we're always looking inside and evaluating every single thing in terms of how it affects us.
But humility is that ability to look outward.
It's why God gave two eyes to look outward and no eyes to look inward.
Two ears to look out and no ears to look in,
although we hear ourselves speaking to ourselves all the time.
And then you see, if you think about that, the love of the Trinity, it's inherently a humble love.
It's as if for all eternity the Father is captivated with the Son.
And from all eternity the Son is captivated by the Holy Spirit.
And so it is not only out of a surplus of love that God creates,
unlike all of the other creation stories and myths and spiritualities and philosophies,
it's also then that not only out of the surplus of unending love that God creates,
but that even in his creation it's humble.
He bestows causality and dignity and strength and flourishing upon human beings.
And it is at one with his nature that he would enter into this human race,
looking out at us, looking at us.
I shared at my last sermon what something I shared with a person I was sharing the gospel with.
And I said to her, and I'll say it to you again because it's something well worth repeating,
that if you read the rest of Luke's gospel and you see all of the miracles that he did,
and then you see him hanging on the cross at the end,
you realize that when he hangs on the cross at the end,
anyone who can calm the sea and feed 5,000 and bring the dead back to the end,
and bring the dead back to life as he does in Luke 9 or 7 or whatever it is,
and how he can heal lepers and do all of those things,
there is no way whatsoever that he could actually be kept on a cross.
You look at him and after you've read the whole story and you see his humility and his gentleness and his love for us,
and you realize the only reason he stood on the cross was for love.
And I shared with this person, it was his love for you, he saw you when he hung on the cross.
That's why he died.
Looking at you.
That's why he died.
Just one or two more things, but let's watch the final video and then we're almost done.
This just been an invitation just to rejoice and be proud.
Remember I began with, you know, the Christian faith, it's both very solemn but filled with joy and laughter.
It's exciting.
So let's watch this final video.
We gather again.
We rejoice again.
Because of the wonder from Bethlehem.
A child is born.
The saviors come.
This is the incarnation of love.
We can sing again.
We have hope again.
Because of the wonder from Bethlehem.
Shepherds gather.
Heavens ring.
From throne to manger comes our King.
The hero of the eternal story.
Behold the centerpiece of glory.
We gaze again.
Bow down again.
Because of the wonder from Bethlehem.
Peace on earth through holy child.
God and sinner reconciled.
We breathe again.
We can live again.
Because of the wonder from Bethlehem.
His name is Jesus.
His word is life.
In our deep darkness, he is light.
Light.
So raise your voice.
Lift up your hands.
Because of the child.
Because of the hope.
Because of the wonder from Bethlehem.
The good news of Jesus.
The melody is humility.
And when we receive the gospel.
The good news about who Jesus is.
It has to be in the melody of humility.
And Jesus asks you and me to bow our knee to him.
And in a sense, to lay down our sword and shield and our armor.
And call out to him and say, will you be my savior and will you be my lord.
And that is an act of humility.
in a sense, to lay down our sword and shield and our armor and call out to him and say,
will you be my savior and will you be my Lord? And that is an act of humility.
But it's not an act of humiliation. It is an act of humility where you see, in a sense,
Jesus for what he is and in seeing him for what he is, actually begin to understand yourself.
And you enter the Christian life with this act of humility. And you grow in the Christian life
by growing in humility because we want to be like him. I invite you to stand.
Bow our heads in prayer.
Father, we can be really too serious and sometimes we can be really too silly, but we give you thanks
and praise that you want us to be solemn and serious at times. And you also want us to just be funny and
hilarious and have jokes and laughter, that there are times that we are to be sacrificially generous
and there are other times when we are to feast and to really enjoy good food and good company.
And we give you thanks and praise, Father, that Jesus, God, the Son of God, humbled himself to come
among us, to be Emmanuel, to die on the cross for us, to taste all there is to taste of death for us,
to rise from the dead, conquering death and sin, which is the responsible for death,
in his great resurrection. And we give you thanks and praise that out of love for us and humility
that he offers his great victory, his great destiny to us, that he will take the doom that we deserve
when we put our hands in his hands and he will bestow upon us the destiny that he deserves.
And we give you thanks and praise that this all comes from your loving heart and the heart of love
of the Trinity and the love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so, Father, we ask that as we
accept your humility and humble ourselves before you and receive Jesus, Father, that we might know
your solemnity and we might know your hilarity and we might know your joy, that we might know Jesus
and become more like him. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.