Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

December in Peru is just as hot as July.

The jungle is steaming and the insects are ferocious.

Yet in that jungle setting more than 300 people from the Wycliff Bible Translators celebrate Christmas.

The twinkling Christmas tree lights are not on a pine or fur tree, but on a banana or palm tree.

It is radically different from our idea of Christmas, but it is nevertheless a precious time for the families there, and the children who grow up with this environment.

They think ours is not really a true Christmas experience.

Bernie May is a pilot for Wycliff in that group, and his 3 boys were really excited as Christmas approached some years back.

He had to fly some medical supplies to an Indian tribe in the jungle, but he was scheduled to return to his family on Dec. 23rd.

He made the 5 hour fight and landed on the river near the Indian village.

He would return the next day, but in the night fog and rain came and he could not fly out.

It rained all day and night, and Christmas Eve was the same.

He was so frustrated he slipped on his poncho and trudged down to the river edge.

He crawled out onto the wing of the plane and sat there feeling desperately sorry for himself.

It was Christmas Eve and there he was stuck in the jungle, and he would not be with his family on Christmas.

That was what he most wanted in the world.

He sloshed his way back to the hut and laid down in his hammock feeling homesick, and he began to think.

This is what Christmas was for Jesus.

He was not home, for his home was heaven with the Father, and He was on earth far from His heavenly family.

Christmas for Jesus was not going home, but leaving home.

So it was also for Joseph and Mary.

They were not home, but were far away from home and their family.

It was a costly Christmas for those who made the first Christmas a reality.

The rain finally stopped so that by Christmas night Bernie was home with family, but he had learned this lesson-there is a lot of costs involved in Christmas besides the presents.

Christmas cost him a lot of misery, for had it been any other day he could have missed it and not been so lonely, but because it was Christmas the hurt was so much harder to bear.

Had there been no Christmas, however, he would not have been in the jungle in the first place, for he was there because Christ came into the world to seek and save the lost.

He was a part of that on going effort to fulfill the plan of Jesus to reach the whole world with the good news that unto you is born a Savior.

Had Jesus never come, He never would have gone.

So Christmas cost Him plenty, and it cost Him a life of compassion for other people.

It cost Him a radical change in His life work, and because He cared it cost Him the loss of precious time with His family.

The real cost of Christmas is not just in the multiplied millions of presents that people purchase.

In the United States alone people spend many billions of dollars for gifts.

In the 1800's Christmas presents were for children, and adults gave simple things to each other like fountain pens and handkerchiefs.

After World War I there was fear that the boom time of the war years would be followed by a stagnant economy, and so there was an all out push to get people to buy more expensive gifts.

It was implied that the more expensive gift you gave the more you cared.

In the New York Times on Dec. 15, 1919 this ad appeared that began the upward spiral of the cost of Christmas.

It said, "Don't give your family and friends frivolous gifts that are sure to disappoint.

Buy them worthy gifts that will let them know how much you care."

This has led to Christmas being very costly in a monetary way.

As we focus on the biblical characters in the cast of the first Christmas drama we discover each of them had to pay a cost.

Joseph and Mary had an enormous cost.

It cost them a great deal of stress and loss of reputation.

Joseph had to be devastated by the news that Mary was with child.

Mary would also be hurt by his doubt, and heavy with frustration in trying to explain the virgin birth.

It cost them the comfort of home to get to Bethlehem, and even more so during their exile in Egypt.

They were not prepared for such a disruption of their lives.

The birth of any baby brings added costs, but Jesus added costs to their lives that were extra-ordinary.

God's greatest gift was freely given, but it was costly for those who first received it.

There are all kinds of hidden costs we do not know about.

The loneliness and frustration of having no room in the Inn, being forced to deliver a baby in the stable, denial of all civil rights, and being forced to flee from your homeland.

Mary and Joseph had the natural joy that a Son was born, but it was far from a season to be jolly, for they were surrounded by human folly and cruelty.

They saved some money by not having to pay for a room, but the discount for spending the night in the stable did not make up for the cost in loss of dignity and feelings of being left out.

It was trial and trouble, and it got even worse when Herod set out to kill the child.

The good news is that their experience makes it clear that it is no sign you are out of God's will when things do not go right, and much goes wrong, and there is great cost in following His will.

The wise men were committed to a costly and time-consuming journey to travel to the land the star led them too.

It costs them a great deal of time and money, for they brought expensive gifts to the King.

They also risked their lives, for had Herod discovered in time that they were going to depart without telling him the location of the Christ child they would have been killed.

It cost them a great deal of research and thought as well.

It cost them labor of mind as well as of body.

The shepherds did not pay a heavy cost, for they were closest to the Inn where Jesus was born.

They doubtless lost a night's sleep as no one could go to sleep after what they experienced that night.

Their cost was minimal likely, but we have no idea how many sheep they may have lost by leaving them to go to the manger.

It may have been more costly than we realize.

The shepherds were not the only ones to lose a night's sleep over Christmas.

Matt.

2:3 says, "When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all of Jerusalem with him."

Herod was a very insecure man.

He was so threatened by the news of a birth of a King that this greatest news was bad news to him.

Christmas cost Herod his peace of mind, and when he was nervous all the people were nervous, for he would murder anyone when he felt threatened.

Because Christmas cost Herod his sense of security it cost a number of innocent families to lose their newborn babies.

Herod ordered all boy babies of Bethlehem two years old and under to be killed.

Imagine if that was your two-year-old son or grandson, and you can see that Christmas cost these families a price that was way too high.

Scholars estimate on the basis of the population of Bethlehem at that time that there would be between ten and twenty boy babies who were killed.

It is a relief that it was not hundreds, but for those ten to twenty families it was as bad as it could be, for Christmas cost them the loss of a son.

Someone suggested that Jesus may have experienced human guilt when He grew up, for He was alive and all of those other babies were not because of Him.

It was Herod who was the source of the evil, but it was the coming of the baby King, which provoked this evil against the innocent.

We would all prefer to focus on the heavenly hosts rather than the hatred of Herod.

We would rather point to the manger, the Magi, and the messages from heaven rather than this unpleasant picture of the murder of the innocent.

But that was part of the cost of Christmas.

Light came into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, and the result has been war between the forces of light and darkness.

Herod tried to kill Christmas by killing Christ, and this wicked rejection of God's gift has continued all through history.

Christmas has cost multitudes their lives down through the centuries.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, and so it is worth the cost.

Even if Christmas costs you your life it is the bargain of a lifetime, for to die in Christ is gain, for in Christ there is victory over death.

Those 10 to 20 boy babies lost their earthly life for Jesus, but Jesus later died for them that they might have eternal life.

Christmas is clearly inadequate without the cross, for the birth of Christ alone was very costly, and by itself it did not save anyone.

On the cross Jesus more than recouped the loses, and He made all those for whom Christmas was so costly rich forever.

Evil made Christmas costly, but that is why Jesus had to come.

Had the world been wonderful and righteous there would be no need for a Savior.

It was just because the world was so filled with such hellish hatred like that of Herod that the incarnation was a necessity for man's salvation.

Jesus could have washed His hands of the whole thing and cast the whole world into hell, but instead He paid the price of coming into the world to take upon Himself the full blow of evil in order that man might have a way out of hate and darkness into love and light.

The negative cost of Christmas, however, has been a reality all through history.

Even Christians have had to pay the price of conflict because of Christmas.

The Anglican Church decorated their churches for Christmas.

The Puritans felt this was pagan and they went all out to rid the church of such pagan influence.

They went to such extremes that they made it illegal to celebrate Christmas, and so we have the paradox of some Christians being sent to jail for celebrating the birth of their Savior, and the cost was being imposed by other Christians.

The Puritans were very godly people, but their anti-Christmas stand earned them a negative reputation they have never been able to live down.

It took America a long time to come out of the anti-Christmas slump.

Dec. 25 was just another day until 1856.

It was just another workday in Boston as late as 1870, and the Public schools were open on Christmas.