Word of Salvation – September 2018
B.C.18 – Confessing Christmas
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Readings: John 1:1-14, Galatians 4:1-4,
Text: Galatians 4:4
Introd: Is it just my imagination or are stores getting into Christmas earlier each year?
I recall that last year I saw the first signs of it already in the first week of October.
Christmas decorations, Christmas wrapping… it was all there. I confess I was surprised.
That was more than 11 weeks to go… that’s almost a quarter of a year!
And already Christmas was being keenly promoted.
The reason for that sort of enthusiasm about Christmas is obvious.
It’s to line the pockets of shareholders of the big department stores.
Christmas is still the big money spinner, every year.
Today we are dealing with the article of the Confession in which we confess the reality of Christmas.
We want to deal with the mystery of God become man.
But I want to say two things at the outset.
First: should we as Christians not be more keen on celebrating Christmas than the department stores?
For the Christian is the Christmas event not always relevant…?
And I guess we could say the same for the Belgic Confession.
if we ask: Why consider this from a document written more than 400 years ago?
Then we might just as well ask:
Why consider it at all since the event itself was nearly 2000 years ago?
Our Confession is simply summing up this very relevant teaching of Scripture.
For the Christian Christmas is always real and practical.
It’s not just an event 2000 years ago.
Nor is it only a meaningful matter to think about late in December.
For us it is an ongoing reality that we have a God who has become man;
A living Lord who became totally human… one of us.
There is a sense in which, for the Christian, it is always Christmas!
We are always living out of the reality that Christ came in the flesh.
If that is not meaningful for you
or if it isn’t very practical that your Saviour is fully human
then there is something wrong with YOUR faith.
Secondly, I would also ask: how can we say anything at all about our Lord that is not relevant.
I as a preacher may sometimes be dull or boring, but the subject itself is never dull or boring.
It is always very practical as we shall see again today.
And it is always exciting.
Because we are talking about the Lord of Lords and the King of kings
who laid aside all His splendour and became a helpless baby
so that helpless humans might become sons and daughters of God.
And if that doesn’t stir the depths of your soul
then there is something wrong with your faith.
Our confession concludes with that name EMMANUEL… God with us.
And that Christmas name should thrill us not just in December but also in October… or March… or June.
A] GOD’S PROMISES FULFILLED IN TIME.
1. The very opening words of our confession are already very practical and relevant.
The previous article of the Confession dealt with the gospel promise made in Eden – as found in Gen.3.
That the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.
Now tonight we are reminded that God fulfilled that promise and many others.
“God fulfilled the promise which He made to the fathers by the mouth of his holy prophets.”
What God promised… God actually did.
I can imagine that at times the O.T. saints had a lot of trouble with that.
They may have said to Isaiah: OK so you say, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…”
But you prophets have been saying that for a thousand years.
Think of it: There had been centuries of promises… not just years but centuries.
There must have been people who felt a little the way we do at times.
We have the promise of Jesus – “I am coming soon!”
Sure! But how soon is SOON? Lord Jesus when ARE you coming.
Come quickly.
Come, sort out this world with its anarchy and butchery… its lying and its perversions.
We have lots of promises that the Lord is coming to do something about it.
But we are still waiting and waiting for the fulfilment.
And now tonight we are focussing on the fulfilment of the gospel promises.
That in the fullness of time God DID send His Son.
Christmas is all about fulfilment – par excellence!
It happened… and it happened just as God said it would.
So we have here already at the very outset an extremely relevant and practical issue.
That God most certainly keeps His promise.
So as we confess the mystery of Christmas we at the same time confess God’s faithfulness.
So you and I with all our doubts and worries can always look back on the Christmas event.
And we can see it as a testimony to the utter reliability of our God.
His Word is more solid than Eyre’s Rock (Uluru!). You can count on Him.
That also means that we today who wait for the joy of the second coming now have this assurance…
That also the promise of His return is just as surely going to be fulfilled.
What God promises… God fulfils…!
That is a Christmas reality we can hold on to even in October… or in March… or in June.
Right throughout the year.
2. But there is another relevant issue that comes out here.
And that is that God did that just at His appointed time.
Not when someone in the Jewish Sanhedrin thought it would be a good idea.
But when the Lord God was ready… He did it with absolutely perfect timing.
It happened at a time that the apostle Paul called – the fullness of time.
“When the time had fully come God sent His Son… born of a woman…” (Gal.4:4)
God’s appointed time… a time when the gospel would have maximum effect.
A study of the history at that time shows what Paul means by ‘fullness of time’.
In many, many ways it was an admirably suitable time for the coming of Jesus.
Let me mention some things that made God’s timing perfect.
There were the Roman roads that made travel easier for missionaries such as Paul.
There was the famous Pax Romana – the Roman peace – that made travel possible.
Greek was an almost universal language at that time – great for communicating the gospel.
It was a very precise language… great for conveying fine shades of Bible truth.
God fulfils His promise…but at the appointed time.
And so not only are God’s promises reliable… but His timing is perfect.
So as we confess the reality of the Christmas event
we also confess a Sovereign God who knows what He is doing and when to do it.
That is greatly encouraging for us as we face life with its questions and uncertainties.
We so often wonder why things happen when they do… and why they happen the way they do.
But the God who acted in the birth of Jesus acted with perfect timing.
And we know He is still in control today… and His timing is always perfect.
Our problem is just that we can’t always see it at the time.
3. However there is also another side to this mention of Christmas being at God’s appointed time.
This ‘fullness of time’ is also a reference to a certain point in history.
It was at a particular moment of time… a certain day in history… that God fulfilled His promises.
And that makes Christianity a very historical religion.
It makes the faith of the Bible a faith rooted in history.
That is another of the great encouraging things about the Christian faith.
It is something that makes it different to many other religious systems.
God is not just to be found far out in some distant heaven.
Nor are the answers to life’s deepest questions out of our reach…
somewhere out in the remotest regions of infinity.
We do not have to find answers to our deepest questions the way many Eastern religions teach.
By us somehow aiming to be absorbed into the divine being… by escaping the material world.
Instead Christianity teaches that the God who made history stepped into history.
The Almighty God who is eternal entered into time.
Christianity is not some other-worldly religion that ignores and despises this world.
In the fullness of time God became man.
At a moment in history Jesus Christ assumed a human nature from the virgin Mary.
So as we confess the mystery of the Christmas event
we are also confessing that God involves Himself in our world and in our time.
Here is one of the unique and distinctive things about Christianity.
Many religions teach that we have to escape the material world… the Greeks already did.
They teach that we have to get beyond time… and beyond this world to find God.
In contrast Christianity teaches that God left eternity and entered time.
All to identify with us and to save us in our situation of sin and lostness.
The religion of the Bible shows that principle over and over again.
God repeatedly involves himself in human history and in our world.
We see that in the events around the Exodus as God comes to liberate His people.
But we see that especially in the event of Christmas.
That is a tremendous encouragement for us in our need of God.
We can come to that God who has identified with us…. who came to search us out.
And we can live daily out of the reality that we have a Saviour who is human.
The reality of Emmanuel… God with us.
B] CHRIST AS THE SINLESS HUMAN SERVANT BORN OF MARY.
1. It is the whole purpose of this article of our confession to stress just this.
The mystery that the Word become flesh.
That in the fullness of time God sent His Son born of a woman.
We can’t work that out… we can only confess that we believe it.
But the point is that this article wants us to confess then the full humanity of Jesus Christ.
It wants to make sure we don’t play down that truth in any way.
That’s why it has included so many direct Bible references to His humanity.
The authors had a good reason for stressing that.
At the time this article was written there were the Anabaptists
Many of them didn’t accept this teaching of the Bible.
Jesus was far too holy and exalted to take a human nature from Mary.
So they taught that He did not take His human nature from her.
Rather that He was especially created IN her… but not FROM her.
Otherwise He too would have had an unclean and impure human nature.
Over against that sort of teaching this article draws on all these Bible texts:
“Of the seed of Abraham… descended from the Jews according to the flesh…” etc.
Because it is essential for us.
And it is Biblical to stress the full, perfect humanity of our Lord.
He entered into our human family.
Now you may say: Yes, but that’s another of those theological battles of long ago.
It’s surely something irrelevant for us today.
Not so! It is still very relevant.
For one thing, I have talked to people who genuinely believe in God.
But to believe that God could have become fully and totally man is too much for them.
They cannot handle a God who so fully identifies with us in our humanity.
It also raises some other questions.
Why is it that people make Christmas into a festival that centres more around Santa than Jesus Christ?
I would suggest to you that it is because they cannot believe in this reality.
They reject that Christmas is the story of God become man… fully… totally.
Our God did not despise our human and earthly nature as too lowly for Him.
He didn’t reject it.
Instead in Jesus God humbled Himself and took on our human nature.
Yours and mine… and that ought to fill us with awe… with wonder and praise.
2. However we must not overlook either that there is another reality to Christmas.
Not only is Jesus a full and perfect human by His birth of Mary.
It’s not just that He had a fully human body as well as fully human soul.
But there is also the fact that His conception was miraculous.
Jesus was born of a woman… but not of a man.
IOW – without the means of a human father… and without IVF technology.
The reason for that was so that in some mysterious way
the sin cycle that has affected everyone ever born on planet earth
was broken in the life of Jesus.
So that somewhere during the years 1 AD to 33AD it so happened
that for the very first time since the creation of Adam
there walked on this planet someone who was totally sinless.
A Baby who was never naughty.
A teenager who was never rebellious.
An adult who was absolutely perfect.
That hadn’t happened since Adam and it hasn’t happened since.
Why? Because His was a virgin birth… and a Holy Spirit conception.
I know that we are talking about mysteries that are beyond understanding.
But the Christian church which confesses the reality of Christmas and lives out of it….
must keep stressing these truths today
in an age when people around us no longer knows what Christmas is about.
We must confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
And that as God He also took on not only our humanity but a perfect humanity.
And if we have problems about this…
as though somehow Jesus’ humanity too might be unclean and imperfect…
then we must uphold the role of the Holy Spirit and the virginity of Mary.
He took on a human form with all its weaknesses but without its sin and without moral impurity.
3. Now you may say – Well, this is all very true.
But it’s all catechism stuff…. theology… doctrine.
And today we don’t want dry theology… just give us practical religion about gut-level issues.
One of the problems is that today we are very much like the Corinthians.
We don’t want to go to the trouble of digesting the meat of God’s word…
we prefer the milk that we can gulp down quickly and then get on with real life.
So I want to say once again that the things in our confession are extremely relevant.
And they are gut level issues today.
First of all because we are talking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are talking about the One who loved us… loved us enough to die for us.
But this is also relevant today because we cannot talk about Him without also talking about us.
Jesus became what we are.
But He did that so that we might become what He Is.
By taking on a human nature He became like us in all things (sin excepted).
But He did that in order that we might be, like Him, children of God.
Jesus, you see, became what He is… as part of his servant role.
He took the form of a servant… and became man.
So that He might save us in our humanity.
Salvation is not found by human beings somehow escaping their humanity.
Rather by having their humanity restored and remade in and by Jesus Christ.
And there is nothing more relevant in the world.
On it hinges the whole destiny of human beings… your destiny and mine.
When you confess the mystery of Christmas in a Biblical sense.
Then you confess the wonder of your eternal salvation.
Meaning for today… and hope for tomorrow.
Hallelujah.
Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.