Sermon Tone Analysis

I’m amazed at how receptive people are to The Christmas Story as told in Scripture.

Baffled by the acceptance of a message that for 51 weeks is ignored.

Stupefied at the general public's enthusiasm and emotional embrace of a story that is designed to disrupt their lifestyle equilibrium.

Therefore, it is my conclusion that our society’s response reveals an insight for which the church should and address.

I am amazed at how receptive people are to The Christmas Story as told in Scripture.

Baffled by the acceptance of a message that for 51 weeks is ignored.

Stupefied at the general public's enthusiasm and emotional embrace.

Such a response reveals an insight for which the church should and address.

Fill in the following blank

Christmas is about ______________________.

Christmas, for most, is summed up in the words of the Christmas hymn “Silent Night”.

Silent Night, holy night.

All is calm, all is bright.

Christmas is a story about peace (calm) but it pathway to that peace is all together foreign to most Christians.

What if I told you that today’s text answers that question with the word conflict.

Christmas is about conflict.

There is a combativeness about Christmas.

It is written in the carols and hymns that we sing.

O holy night!

The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.

Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.

Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Yet it’s very interesting how it’s in the carols, it’s in the hymns, it’s in the Christmas text, and people just blandly and sweetly listen to them and let them wash right over them.

They don’t see there’s a hardness, there’s a combativeness in the message of Christmas.

It comes out so explicitly that you can’t ignore it right here in what Simeon says.

“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

It’s written in the Christmas text’s and people just blandly let them wash right over them.

There is a hardness and combativeness in Christmas that goes undetected and the result is people are unaffected by its message.

Christmas has, in large part, lost its saving virtue and now possess nothing more than sentimental value in our culture.

Its combative message is not evasive it is explicit.

The combative message of Christmas is not being avoided but attenuated.

Attenuated means to weaken or reduce in force, intensity, effect, or value.

We read these passages every Advent season and yet most never fully feel the impact of what they are reading.

We read these passages every Advent season.

Luke 2:It comes out so explicitly that you can’t ignore it right here in what Simeon says.

“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Many, if not most Christians, find themselves in a similar condition as that of the teenage boy in the Febreze commercial.

Whereas the teenage boy had gone nose blind to his teenage stench most Christians have gone story blind.

We have become sterilized to the shocking message of Christmas.

The strong aroma of Christ birth no longer takes our breath away.

The Christmas Story is one infuse with a force that is meant to jolt us from our spiritual slumber.

It comes out so explicitly that you can’t ignore it right here in what Simeon says.

“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

It comes out so explicitly that you can’t ignore it right here in what Simeon says.

“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

To give you an example of how people, in a sense, don’t get it I could refer you to a review in the New York Times earlier this week.

It was in the Arts page, and the reviewer was just talking about whether it’s good or bad that every Christmas, and actually every Easter, we hear Handel’s Messiah so often.

He was asking the question, “Is it good that a work like Messiah is performed over and over and over again so it becomes so familiar?

Is it good or not?”

He answered the question by saying on the one hand the thing that is positive is no matter how poorly it’s performed, somehow its power always comes through.

In a sense, just to hear Messiah performed so many different ways and, so often, so poorly proves to us what a masterwork it is, proves to us it’s an enduring masterwork, because the power comes through no matter who and how it’s being performed.

He said something extremely interesting, and it illustrates our point.

He says on the other hand, we’ve gotten so used to it we’ve lost the meaning of what it really says.

He says we’ve lost sight of the elemental principles of the “Hallelujah” Chorus.

We have lost the sense of its “shocking force,” (those are his words).

Let me just read you how he closes his review.

He says, “After all, how well do we really know the ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus, so warm and familiar?

At St. Thomas Church I was paging through the Bible and came upon the passage in Revelation from which ‘Hallelujah’ was taken.

The true Messiah, it turns out, wears a linen cloth drenched in blood, and the words ‘Lord of Lords’ are written on his thigh.”

The reviewer says we always get a warm, wonderful, inspired feeling when we hear the “Hallelujah” Chorus.

When you actually look at the text on which it’s based, here comes this figure in heaven.

He’s wearing blood-drenched clothes.

He’s on a horse.

He’s coming in as a general.

He said, “I’m the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.”

He’s staking out a claim on everybody and demanding supreme lordship over all other kings, and all other faiths, and all other people.

The reviewer says maybe we’ve heard the “Hallelujah” Chorus so often that we don’t hear it anymore.

It has a “shocking force” to it.

What I’m trying to say is the Bible tells us Jesus Christ came at Christmastime to stake out a claim, an enormous claim.

We see this in the word used for Lord.

It means one who has absolute power.

The New Testament usually uses the word (kyrios) but in this case it uses the word for which we get our English word (despot).

It means one who has absolute power.

In using this word for Lord Simeon is reinforcing the truth that the Lord has staked out every inch of the physical universe, every inch of the spiritual universe, every inch of the mental universe, every inch of your and my lives, our lives and hearts, and he has claimed it as his.

He stakes it out and he says, “Mine!”

Every inch.

Therefore, it’s very clear he comes to divide.

He comes to cause conflict.

The New Testament shows us that with Christ there is no neutrality.

When a person encounters Christ he is either for him or against him.

He either trips over him, or is established by him, which fulfils, of course, the prophecy of Simeon.

Sproul, R. C. (1999).

A Walk with God: An Exposition of Luke (p.

38).

Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications.

He’s coming as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Somebody says, “Doesn’t he come to bring peace on earth?”

Yes, of course he comes to bring peace on earth.

Here’s how he brings peace on earth: notice in the very beginning of Simeon’s prophecy,