My experience with Christmas, there are two stages of Christmas gift shopping. There is the, I got plenty of time, and there’s the, oh no. And there, there’s no in between. There’s only those two stages. I’ve been at different places in life. I remember probably 15 years ago before we had kids and I worked at a church, which means Christmas season is a little bit crazy. And I remember on Christmas Eve after the last Christmas Eve service stopping at Walgreens and just looking and saying, what is romantic in Walgreens that I can just add as a Christmas present at this time? It is no surprise that when they do studies that the single most stressful month of the year is December. Not a shock because we have so many different things that we’ve got going on. The busiest shopping day of the year, people tend to think that it’s Black Friday.

Black Friday isn’t even in the top 10 busiest shopping days of the year. Busiest shopping day of the year is always the Saturday before Christmas. So it was yesterday. The second busiest shopping day of the year is this Sunday before Christmas, which is today. The other eight are all around the, the, the period that we are in right now. It’s people cramming in everything they can. And, and here’s part of the challenge of buying gifts. I’m in a stage of life where, where my wife and I, we have three kids that are 12, 10, and six. And so we try and be fair with buying presents for our kids. But, but here’s the challenge of being fair. There’s really three different types of being fair. There’s fair of we’re gonna spend the same amount across the board on everybody. And that that would be pretty easy except what a 6-year-old wants and what a 12-year-old wants costs very different things from each other.

So the, the, the 12-year-old really wants things that cost a thousand dollars. That’s like everything that he wants. And then the 6-year-old just wants lots of stuff. And so if I’m fair on amounts, one will end up with one gift and one will end up with 97 gifts. So, so the second level of fair is does everybody have this same number of gifts? And then the third level of affair is how big physically are the, the gifts, not price wise, just the actual size. Like if you on Christmas morning, go down and the six year old’s presence are physically smaller than the 12 or the 10 year old’s presence, that in their mind is unfair. So there’s all this pressure that happens with Christmas and instead of being a time that is filled with peace and joy, we tend to fill it with stress. The last song that we’re gonna look at in this series where we’re looking at the Christmas songs, is about that.

It’s about peace. If you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to Luke chapter two. We’ve been in the Book of Luke, this whole series. We’re gonna finish up the third song today. It’s Luke chapter two. Probably the most famous song when it comes to Christmas carols, because this song is The Angels singing about Christmas. It’s Luke chapter two. We’re gonna start in verse eight. This is what it says. And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. Now, two important things to learn there. One is we’re talking about shepherds, shepherds culturally in the first century, the, the, the point of angels coming to shepherds is God saying the message of Christmas is for everybody. They were blue collar workers. They were common people. And so instead of God sending angels to kings or to culturally significant and important people in the first century, God shows up to shepherds.

And the second part is it says that they were keeping watch over their flock by night. Now, now here’s, here’s a loan. Let you in on a secret. We don’t know exactly the day that Jesus was born. So we, we picked December 25th. I mean, they, they picked that about 400 years after Jesus was born. They picked it because it’s connected to the winter solstice. There’s kind of this cool picture of every day becoming more and more bright. ’cause The winter solstice, which was yesterday’s, the darkest day of the year so scripture doesn’t say he was born on December 25th. Maybe he was, there’s, there’s about a one in 365% chance that it was, but most likely he wasn’t because of that phrase right there. They were keeping watch over their flocks by night. That’s not something that they would be doing in December in Israel.

But, you know, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, fear not for behold. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Now stop for just a moment and rest in that phrase that almost every time we see angels show up in scripture, they start by saying, fear not, which tells you what. They’re kind of scared. There’s something about angels. If they have to constantly say, fear, not. Fear not, it means that people are naturally scared of ’em. So the there’s this glory, there’s this presence that comes with these angels that causes them to say, fear not. And the message, the heart of Christmas is good news of great joy. That will be for all the people.

It’s for everybody. Christmas isn’t for a select few. It’s for all of us. And what is that good news of great joy for unto you, unto me, unto us is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You’ll find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And then suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. Get this picture that a shepherd, you’re in the middle of a field, probably bored, and then all of a sudden an angel shows up with a proclamation about the savior that Jesus has been born. And then after this message, it says, A host, a multitude just filling the sky.

Thousands, maybe, maybe millions of angels show up. And they start singing this message of Christmas. And the message of Christmas is about peace. Isn’t it interesting that the heart, the point, the purpose behind Christmas is that Jesus has brought a message of peace, and yet in our cultural context, the most stressful time of the year is Christmas, a time where we are supposed to be celebrating Jesus and what he means and what he brings in that message of peace. Why? Why is it, is it perhaps that instead of focusing on the right thing, that sometimes we tend to drift off to the wrong thing? There’s a little short video, kind of a commercial that came out during Covid 2020. They caught my eye and I just remember, ’cause it’s one of those commercials that that like hits you hard. And at the, the center of this commercial is simply that question, what matters in life? Let’s take a look.

Sorry if I made you cry. That wasn’t the goal, <laugh>, but it’s this cool picture of, of of his motivation that that we don’t know what the picture is the entire time until the very end. There’s this revelation that his motivation, what’s driving him is this desire to lift up his granddaughter and let her put the star at the top of the Christmas tree. Now it’s kind of funny, it’s a pharmaceutical company that’s that’s doing that advertisement <laugh>. But, but their, their, their heart behind the message of it I, I think is profound. And, and the message ends with this question. The question is simply what matters in life. And during this Christmas season, I would, I would pose that question to you with all the different things that are going on, what is your motivation? What is that picture, that reminder, that thing that you’re looking at, that is saying that’s the thing that’s at the center, that’s at the focus that is driving me.

I also thought it was kind of funny in the video, like it shows constantly slapping the alarm. But it’s not consistent what time it is. Like one time he’s slapping the alarm, it’s 10 o’clock and yeah, I don’t know. I don’t, most people probably not slapping the alarm at 10 o’clock, but who knows? But he’s motivated by this picture and, and at the center of what matters about Christmas, the heart, the message of Christmas is the person of Jesus, but not just the person of Jesus. It’s what Christmas means. It’s the incarnation. The incarnation is this fancy term that, that we use, but the incarnation means this, that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ, fully divine and fully human to redeem humanity and reveal God to the world. That this, when the angels talk about the peace of Christmas, this is the peace of Christmas that the center of the Christmas story is Jesus.

But the center of who Jesus is, is the incarnation, the God, the creator of the universe puts on human flesh that Jesus was wholly human, that he breathed in and out just like you and I. He had hu human frailty just like you and mine. He had human struggled just like you and I, and yet he never sinned. Why? Because he was holy God, fully and completely divine. He wasn’t 50%, 50% he who’s a hundred percent human and a hundred percent God. And I know the math doesn’t make sense. So wait a second, that’s 200%. How can it be both? I don’t know. But that’s what scripture teaches us, that God was both, that the gospel of John is written much after the first three gospels. We call the first three gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke. We call those the synoptic gospels. John lives the longest of the disciples.

And towards the end of his life likely because they were widespread, he, he had seen Matthew, mark, and Luke, and then he decides to write his own gospel. And in Matthew and Luke, we have the Christmas story. We have the birth of Jesus. But John starts his book off in a very different way, that famous John one, one, he says in the beginning was the word he’s talking about Jesus. He’s said in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. And the word was God. He’s saying that the Christmas story, that yes, the incarnation is God becoming human, but he’s saying that Jesus pre-existed that moment because Jesus is and always has been God. And then in John chapter one, verse 14, this profound verse where John writes, and the word Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, that we have the divine nature of God and the human nature of God coexisting throughout the entire life of Jesus.

And we see it in the Song of the Angels. There was a bishop in 1606. His name was Lancelot. Isn’t that a cool name? I mean I wish my name was as cool as Lancelot. His name was Bishop Lancelot Andrews in 1606. He, I think perfectly sums up this combination of what the incarnation represents. And he, he writes this all Jesus’ life. You see both his divine nature and human nature at his birth. You see a cradle for a child and a star for the divine Son, the shepherds honor the baby boy. The choir of angels celebrate the birth of God’s son in his life. You see him hungry, showing his human nature and yet still feeding the 5,000, showing his divine abilities at his death. He dies on the cross like any man, and yet opens up paradise as only the son of God could.

Why are both of these natures found in one person? Because our nature had sinned and therefore our humanity should suffer. That’s the reason why the Savior was born as a human child. But even though our nature should, our nature could not bear it, it not bear the weight of God’s wrath do because of sin, but the Son of God could. And thus he was born a son of God, the one ought but could not. The other could, but ought not, therefore either alone would not serve. They must be joined the child of humanity and the Son of God. But because he was the child, he could not have suffered. It would be too great. God has no shoulders, but we do. But ours are too weak to sustain the weight of our own sin, therefore, that he might be liable. He was a child, that he might be able, he was the son, that he might be both.

He was both the picture of the incarnation that, that Jesus comes in the Christmas story to help us have a peace that comes from him reconciling us back to God. It’s the story of God’s redemption, that we were incapable of doing it on our own. And so God steps out of heaven. The incarnation puts on human flesh to make a way for us. About 10 years ago in Germany, there was a doctor, her name was Rachel Eckert. Rachel Eckert is a senior physician at Berlin’s Evangelical Geriatric Center. And basically it means that she works with the elderly. And she was looking at the trend that would happen in the next 10 years and she realized okay, as baby boomers are retiring we have a, a large population of elderly, but the the younger generation is a smaller population. And so she was trying to encourage young doctors to go into elderly care.

But here’s what she found. Very few 20 something year olds wanted to go into elderly care. She had conversations, she tried to convince people, she tried to, to talk about the need, and people just didn’t care. And so she had this idea that she came up with a suit. They call it the old man suit. This is what the suit looks like. And the idea behind the suit would be to put a 20 something year old in it who’s in medical school and let them experience what it feels like to be elderly. The suit itself weighs about 25 pounds inside the chest area. There’s a Kevlar vest that pushes against the chest. It makes it slightly harder to breathe. Then inside the helmet that it’s colored yellow, it makes it slightly harder to see distort division. It’s a little bit fuzzy. It makes colors not, not quite as sharp and dynamic.

And then it makes it harder for you to hear it kind of fuzzies out noise around you that around the elbows and the knees, there were elbow pads and knee pads that, that make the joints harder to move and harder to bend. And that the, the hands had gloves on it to make fine motor skills more challenging. And so they would put a young medical school student in this suit and let ’em live in it for a while. And here’s what she said her purpose is. She said, my aim is to turn young, energetic people into slow creaking beans temporarily. At least that way. They will, I hope, develop a feeling for what it’s like to be old. Now, some of you feel very judged in this moment, and I apologize that’s not the point of that, but, but here’s what was remarkable. It worked.

Here’s why it worked, that the young people when they lived inside the the suit, it gave them an empathy that they did not have before they got into the suit. You see the author of Hebrews, they’re talking about Jesus. They say, we don’t have a God that’s just distant and far away and doesn’t understand us. Know that we have a God to put on human flesh. That whatever struggle you’re facing right now, whatever challenge you’re facing right now, whatever heartache you experience right now, that Jesus walked in your shoes, that literally he became human. That God, the something that doesn’t make any lick of sense. And God does it ’cause He loves us because of John three 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, have everlasting life. The peace of Christmas that the angels sing about that should be at the center of what Christmas is all about.

The incarnation, the person of who Jesus is. Let’s pray Heavenly Father. And we are grateful for this Christmas season to be able to come together and to celebrate, and to sing and to worship you, Lord, in a season that the studies tell us is the most stressful month of the year. Lord, help us to put those things off, that Jesus came so that we could have peace. That in a relationship with you, when you are at the center, when you are what matters most in our life and in this season, God, so many of the other things, the stresses, the anxieties begin to fade away. And so I gotta pray for anyone in this room right now that is full of stress right now, that is anxious right now. God, I pray that what matters most, the incarnation can be a reminder to them to live different, live different. God we give you this Christmas season. We pray that you would be honored, you’ll be glorified as the name. Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.