Christmas 2008
Luke 2: 1-20
Children’s Christmas Sermon
By Pastor Chris Enstad
We all know the Christmas story don’t we? It’s one of those Bible stories that most if not all of us know by heart.
There’s Mary and Joseph, there’s a stable with animals and a manger and little baby Jesus.
But I want to take a few minutes today to talk to you about just how amazing this story is and how amazing our God is who comes to us this day as a child.
I remember when I got old enough to really hear the Christmas story and I remember thining to myself, “wow, I can’t believe those people didn’t have any room for Mary and Joseph and little baby Jesus… if I were there I would have done much better than that.” I think many of us feel that way when we read the Bible, well, I’m sure glad I’m not those people because I would do better than that.
No room for them in the inn? Don’t they know that this is the son of God? That this is God’s Word made of flesh like one of us… don’t they realize just how cool this is?
But you know what? I don’t know that you or I would have done any better. When we look out at the world today we see the hustle and bustle of people hurrying here and there in crowds. We hear about wars and we hear rumors of wars. We like to get together with people hwo look and act like us and we don’t like being alone or being outsiders or not being on the inside track.
But the story we will hear today, the story that we celebrate tonight is about a God who is unlike any idea of God you or I could ever have.
This is a God that cannot be born in the crowd as just another person, this is a God whose birth is announced by an angel and who has a name, Jesus. This is a God whose birth announcement does not come to the rich and mighty and powerful but is announced to shepherds, shepherds so on the outside that they could not be found with the rest of the crowds in the cities that night.
And this is proclaimed as Good News. There is so much news around us isn’t there? There is a way to watch or hear or read news 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week. It gets so that the folks who make the news have to make everything seem like a crisis with its own theme music and graphics on the TV. My wife and I always joke about how the Today show does this incessantly… there is terror lurking in your refrigerator… stay tuned!
But through all of this news comes an announcement of good news, of great joy for all people. Today a savior is born to you. Wow.
But I want you to look at this manger and this ceiling that represents the stable… our savior cannot be born in an inn, he cannot be born in the crowds, he cannot come to the rich or mighty or powerful. He is born to an unwed mother, in a stable, and laid in a manger. Our savior comes to the outsider, the ones who don’t “belong” to the crowds, with the rejected, and the weak, to people who have no access to the things you or I have like justice or the courts or even a name.
Hidden in the least and the lowly comes a savior a little baby.
So I ask you, do you think you would have done better for Mary and Joseph and the little baby Jesus? If you were only there would you have made room for them in your home, or in your heart? Guess what, you still can. Just as Jesus comes to us today in the form of a little child, to a people who don’t deserve him… he comes to the outsider today, the rejected today, to the least and the lowly, today… you can still serve him, yes even today.
Merry Christmas and thanks be to God who sees us for who we are, clinging to a power that will pass away and in need of a savior, this little tiny child.
Amen.
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