THE BIRTH OF JESUS
DR. JIM DIXON
CHRISTMAS SERVICE
HEBREWS 1
DECEMBER 23, 1990
When the third child of Queen Elizabeth II was born, within one hour telegrams were sent to 128 nations of the Earth. In Buckingham Palace, in the home office, in the foreign office, colonial office, the lights burned all night in honor of this child born. At Buckingham palace, the switchboard was manned all night to handle the flood of calls that came pouring in, all because a child was born that was not even destined to ascend the throne. Jesus Christ is destined to ascend the throne. He is King of Kings, He is Lord of Lords and He will rule the heavens above and the earth beneath. Yet when He was born, the announcement was made only to lowly shepherds on a Judean hillside. But through the centuries, the announcement has spread and today one billion-seven hundred million people call Jesus Christ Lord.
Of course, most people in the world today do not believe in Him. Some of them because they have not yet heard the announcement, others because they are not fully convinced. What child is this? That’s the question many ask at Christmas time. The answer is given in the first chapter of the book of Hebrews. Really, three answers are given to this question: what child is this? The first is this: this child is the child through whom God speaks.
The child born in Bethlehem is the child through whom God speaks. “In many and various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He has spoken through His Son.” God speaks through Jesus Christ.
I heard a story recently of a theological seminary where a student was taking a class in homiletics and his professor required the class to write a sermon. So he wrote his sermon and he turned it into the professor. He was stunned when later the sermon came back and it had a D on it. He was expecting a better grade. So he went to the professor and he said, “You know, I really think this is one of the best sermons I’ve ever written. I think the content is exceptional and I really think I deserved a better grade than D.” The professor said, “Well, the content is exceptional, but I gave you a D because of your title. You’ve entitled the sermon, The Pericopes of Jesus Christ in Relationship to the Eschatology of the Apostle Paul.” He said, “I must say the average congregation is not really going to relate to that. Even those people who are going to understand it aren’t going to care.” He said, “I’m going to give you 24 hours to lift your grade. I want you to come back to me tomorrow with a new title. I want this title to be a title that would grip the people an exciting title, a title so exciting that if a busload of people were to pass your church on Sunday morning and see the title of your sermon on the sign in front of the church they’d jump out of that bus and run into the church.”
So the student left the professor’s office, he went back to the dorm and he studied all night. He just racked his brain thinking about this. He came back the next day and gave a paper to the professor with a new title on it and the professor looked at the title and he was stunned to see this new title which said, Your Bus Has a Bomb On It.
Now it’s kind of a dumb story, but it does illustrate the struggle that people have in communicating with other people. I think it illustrates the struggle that pastors and ministers have in seeking to communicate God’s word to the people. But you see, pastors around the world wouldn’t struggle so much if they would focus on Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is God’s word for the people. He is the Word of God. Everything that God has to say is summed up in Him. Everything that God has to say is said through Him. He is the Word of God. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus said “The words that I speak to you are not My words, but they’re the words of Him who sent Me.” Do you believe that?
Do you really believe that Jesus Christ is the Word of God? That God speaks uniquely through Him? You see, we have the word printed on the pages of this book called the Bible. The words that Jesus Christ spoke are here. If you believe that He is the Word, then you trust the promises He has given. If you believe that God has spoken through Him, then you obey. You live daily to follow His word and His instruction. No one knows but you, whether you really believe that this child is the child through whom God speaks. Jesus said “He who hears My words and does them, I’ll tell you what he is like. He’s like a wise man who built his house upon the rock and the rain fell, the wind blew, the flood came, and the house stood firm because it was founded on the rock. But he who hears My words and does not do them, I’ll tell you what he is like. He’s like a fool who built his house upon the sand. The rain fell, the wind blew, the floods came, and the house fell down and great was the destruction of it.” He’s the word of God. God speaks through Him. Listen to Him.
Secondly, the author of Hebrews tells us that this child is the child through whom God is seen. He’s the child through whom God is heard and He’s the child through whom God is seen. “In many and various ways, God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. In these last days, He has spoken through a Son.” He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of His nature. When you look at Jesus Christ, you see God, not only hear God, you see God.
Some of you have heard of Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton is a brilliant man, graduated from Harvard and Harvard Medical School. He did postgraduate studies at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. He’s been a guest writer for MIT. He’s written many famous novels including The Andromeda Strain and The Great Train Robbery. Most recently, Michael Crichton has written a book called Jurassic Park. This book, in this novel, he describes a power broker who uses genetic engineering and corporate millions to clone dinosaurs. These dinosaurs are placed in this park, removed from the world, and it’s meant to be a kind of expensive amusement park where people can come and see these dinosaurs that have long since ceased to exist on the earth. Of course, the whole thing goes awry, but how incredible it is for people when they go to that Jurassic Park and look and see what they thought they would never see. They thought they were separated by 165 million years of time from these giant creatures that once walked the earth. Then to be able to go to this park and actually see these incredible animals, some of them docile, some of them violent, some of them majestic, some of them cumbersome, but to see what they thought they would never see.
Well, now obviously God is not a dinosaur and Jesus Christ is not a clone. Yet it is true that we live in a world where many people think they will never see God. They think they are removed from God by eternity itself. And if they do see God, they certainly will not see Him in this life. Now, in this book Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs were not exact replicas of the original dinosaurs because the DNA was flawed. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the exact replica of the Father. His nature is identical to the Father. He is, the Bible says, “the visible image of the invisible God.” That’s an incredible statement, profoundly important for you. Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of His nature, the exact replica of the nature of the Father. When you look at Jesus Christ, you see the Father.
Have you ever been to Rome? Have you gone to a palace called Rospigliosi Palace? In there you see this great work of art, Reni’s fresco, which is high up on a dome within the palace, a work of art called The Aurora. It portrays Aurora, the goddess of dawn, opening the gates of heaven for Apollo and his chariot. Tourists come from all over the world because this work of art is still admired though it was done early in the 17th century. It is still admired for the majesty of its line and the beauty of its color. People come into Rospigliosi Palace and they look up at the dome to see The Aurora and they cannot see it clearly. It’s a hundred feet above the floor. They cannot see it clearly. It looks as though it’s kind of blurry and it kind of shrouded and misted. Besides that, people’s necks get sore as they look up and try to study it. Some people become kind of faint and dizzy. So, the owner of this palace did a remarkable thing at great cost. He purchased, he had made, this giant high-quality mirror and installed it on the floor below. This mirror perfectly reflects every detail of the masterpiece above. He set chairs all around the floor beneath the dome and people can sit comfortably in those chairs and just look down at the mirror and they can study every detail of the glory of what’s above.
That’s what Jesus Christ does for us, the Bible says. You look at Jesus Christ and you see the Father. You look at Jesus Christ and you see Him raise the dead. You see Him turn water to wine, you see Him calm the sea and rebuke the wind. When you see this, you actually see the power of God and the majesty of God. You look at Jesus Christ and you see Him weep at the tomb of Lazarus and you see Him weep over the city of Jerusalem and time and again you see Him moved with compassion for the needs of the people. You see the heart of God. You see Jesus born in a lowly manger and reared in a lowly city and you see the humility of God. You see, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. You see the humility of God. Whoever could have imagined that God is humble. Yet we know that it’s true because we look at Jesus Christ and He’s an exact replica of the Father, bears one nature with the Father. Through Christ we understand that the Father longs to serve. We see this when we look at Jesus Christ.
We look at Jesus Christ and we see Him turn over the tables of the money changers and we see Him blast the Pharisees and we see Him call them hypocrites and a brood of vipers and we see Him pronounce judgment upon the cities of Chorazin and Bethesda and Capernaum. We see the righteous indignation of God. We see the very wrath of God. We look at Jesus Christ and we see Him resisting Satan’s temptation in the Judean wilderness and we see the holiness of God, the utter holiness without sin. We look at Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross and we see the love of God. It’s only in Christ we truly see the love of God. We look at Jesus, we see God, the visible image of the visible God. What child is this? Through him we see God.
Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father. We’ll be satisfied.” Jesus said, “Philip, have I been with you so long you don’t know Me? How can you say show us the Father? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?” What an incredible statement, a glorious truth. Do you really want to know God? If you want to hear God, if you want to see God, you need to listen and look to Jesus Christ.
Well finally, when we look at the first chapter of Hebrews, we see that through this child, God creates. You see, through this child, God speaks. Through this child, God is seen. Through this child, God creates. This is more important than anything to you. If you want to know the relevancy of this child born in Bethlehem to your life today, you only need to know that the creative power of God is released only through this child. The creative power of God is released only through His Son. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. In these last days, He has spoken through a Son through whom also He created the worlds.” What an amazing statement. Through Jesus Christ, God created the universe.
Imagine for just a second that this sanctuary is a spaceship. It takes a little imagination. But imagine this is a large giant spaceship. Today, we blast off from planet Earth. We blast off from the surface of this planet at a speed of 25,000 miles per hour, which is the speed necessary to counteract the gravitational pull of the earth. As we lift off from earth, we’re able to look back. You look through those windows and instead of seeing the highline canal, you can look through those windows and you can see the planet earth with its 24,000 mile circumference just floating in space. We begin to move, we begin to move towards the sun, giant ball of fire, almost a million miles across. Of course, we don’t want to get too close because the core temperature of the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. The surface temperature is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But we notice as we draw closer to the sun that it’s massive. 1,300,000 earths could fit inside the sun.
We continue to move through our solar system and we leave our solar system and we begin to go outward into our galaxy called the Milky Way galaxy. We’re going to need to move a lot faster now because 25,000 miles an hour isn’t going to get us anywhere. So imagine, theoretically, that we are able to move at the speed of light. This spaceship, with all of us on it, we begin to move at 186,000 miles a second out into the galaxy. We still move very slowly in terms of being able to see much. In fact, it’s only every four or five years that we draw near to a star. Every four to five years we draw near to a star as we move outward. As time goes by, we soon begin to realize that our star, called the sun, is really pretty small. There are other stars out there that are 500 million times larger than our star, called the sun.
As we move outward into our galaxy, of course we begin to die as time goes by. Even moving at the speed of light, we can’t last forever. Soon, this spaceship is empty. We’ve all passed on. But imagine that the ship just keeps moving, just keeps moving at the speed of light through our galaxy. It moves for 10,000 years, 20,000 years, 25,000 years. It comes upon the center of our galaxy called the Milky Way. Perhaps there’s a black hole there. It continues to move for another 50,000 years and comes to the end of our galaxy, moves into the void of space, and begins to head towards the next closest spiral galaxy. Our ship continues to move, even though it’s empty in it, and it moves towards Andromeda. It takes 2.2 million years moving 6 trillion miles a year. Moving at the speed of light it takes 2.2 million years just to reach that next spiral galaxy.
Then it takes tens of thousands of years passing through that galaxy and it comes out on the other side and it continues to move out into the universe. It moves for 10 million years and it continues to travel for 50 million years and a hundred million years and 500 million years and a billion years. It continues to move at the speed of light for 5 billion years. It continues to move at the speed of light for 10 billion years, and after 10 billion years it’s only gone through half of the known universe. Is that incredible? I mean that ought to seem incredible to you. Finally, after 20 billion years, it reaches the edge of the known universe where astronomers can look out and see quasars that are perhaps galaxies in birth, but they do not know. Beyond that, they know not what is there. God alone knows. The heavens declare the glory of God, and you see the wonder of it all is that God says he’s created it all through that child born in Bethlehem. The child born in Bethlehem is the one through whom all creation took place.
That is the mystery and the majesty of Christmas. Through Him, God created the worlds, “all things were made by Him and for Him and through Him, and in Him all things are held together.” He did found the earth in the beginning and the heavens of the works of his hands. And I want to tell you, God wants you to know God continues to create through His Son today. This is the relevancy to you. This is what makes the birth in Bethlehem so relevant to you today: that Jesus Christ is able to unleash God’s creative power in you. He is able to make you new.
You see, some of you are spiritually dead. You’re not a child of God, not a son of God, not biblically, not a daughter of God, not biblically. But the Bible says that through Christ, God is able to make you a new creation. Some of you are Christians, but you need radical transformation. In fact, we all do. Sins, habits, desperately need to be transformed.
I want to conclude this morning by sharing with you a story about a man named Harold. Harold was, as a teenager, kind of shy, kind of tongue tied. Harold had his first drink at a high school party and he felt like he was walking on air. Suddenly, he became the life of a party. Harold began to drink more and more. It didn’t bother him because all of his friends drank. Of course, soon Harold was having three drinks for every one his friends had. Truth was that even in high school and in college, Harold had already become an alcoholic.
After the first year of college, Harold dropped out and he married a beautiful raven-haired girl named Eva. They loved each other and they were happy except for the times that Harold was drinking. Then Harold’s brother Jesse died. Harold had been close to him. He was devastated. He died in a tragic automobile accident. So, Harold drank more just to kind of drown the pain. World War II came, and Harold went to war and he fought in the bloody campaigns in Northern Africa and Italy and he saw atrocities that no human being should ever have to see. He came home, he couldn’t get the memories out of his mind so he drank more just to drown the memories and the pain.
He came back from the war to his wife Eva and their two little girls. Harold got a good job with a trucking company and he began to become highly successful in the trucking business. Of course, he didn’t come home after work. He had long hours because he had to go out and drink with the guys. He did this night after night. When Eva finally said, “Harold, I’m worried about you, I think you’re an alcoholic, you’re drunk most of the time.” He became enraged whenever she’d bring it up, violently enraged. Sometimes he would look at Eva and he’d just see the black and blue marks around her eyes. He’d noticed how when he came home, the kids would lock themselves in the closet. It was like just a bad dream.
One night, Harold came home. Eva was gone, the kids were gone. He was devastated. It’s because of this that he made a promise before a judge he would never drink again. So Eva came home and the kids came home, the two little daughters. Harold tried. He went to a trucking convention in Ames, Iowa and somehow he woke up in Des Moines, Iowa in a little beat up hotel. He couldn’t remember anything, but he had a familiar dry, stale taste in his mouth. He went into the bathroom, he saw the vomit on everything. He knew that he’d just broken another promise. Well, he didn’t hide it now. He just came home and began to drink openly in front of his wife and kids. Time passed. Soon Eva was gone. The kids with her. He was all alone.
One night, in 1952, Harold was sitting all alone in his house. It’s like he just welled up with hatred for himself. He was a drunk. He hated himself. He’d been a failure and he’d ruined everyone he ever loved. He decided to take his life. He got a Remington 22 gauge shotgun and put it up to his head. He was going to just blow his head away right there in the living room. Then he had memories of World War II and some of the body parts he had seen blown away and how horrible that was. He didn’t want to do that to Eva. So he went into the bathroom, got into the tub, thought it would be cleaner there, easier to clean up. He got into the tub and he took that 22 gauge shotgun and he put the muzzle in his mouth and his finger just trembled. He felt the cold porcelain around him. He’s about to pull the trigger. Then suddenly he thought of God. Just bizarre. He never really thought of God, but he wondered what God thought of suicide and how God viewed that. He found himself just kind of talking to God there in the tub, explaining why he was going to blow himself away.
He said “God, I’m just a drunk. I’m a loser. I’ll always be a loser and an alcoholic. I’ll always be an alcoholic. I’ve destroyed everyone I love. Eva’s young, she can marry again. Lord, help my two daughters forget me. They should never have to go through life knowing they got a drunk for a dad.” Suddenly, he just began to shake and vibrate and tremble. He began to say “Jesus.” And as he said the name of Christ, and he didn’t even know Christ, and as he said the name of Christ, something happened. Suddenly He began to just kind of be filled with some peace He didn’t understand. He felt a power and a hope just kind of flood his being. And though he didn’t fully understand it, in that moment he gave his heart as best he could to Christ. It was like there was this transformation he couldn’t even understand. In that moment, he was transformed.
Harold Hughes had his wife returned to him and his two little girls. He lived to hear them say, “Daddy, I love you.” He had a third child, went on to become the governor of the state of Iowa, went on to become a United States Senator, went on to be a servant of Jesus Christ. I’ve got to tell you, there is no earthly explanation for that. This guy was gone. No explanation, no power on Earth could do that. You see, the power of God is released through the child born in Bethlehem. Through Him He creates and He can make a new creation out of you. He really can. He can make a new creation out of you.
If you’re sitting there today and you don’t know God and you don’t know what’s going to happen to you when you die, you can take care of that today. You can become a son of God, a daughter of God through Jesus Christ. You can allow Him to be born in you as surely as He was born in that manger. If you’ll say, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive me of my sin. I want to live for you.” He will come in and you’ll never be the same.
If you’re a Christian and there’s some sin you’re struggling with, I mean you’re really struggling with it, or some quality of your temperament and character that you know is just way out of whack, you might think God can’t do anything about it, he doesn’t really have the power. He does have the power through His Son, the power to transform you. Today can be the day when you begin to experience that transforming power in new. A great gift, this child born in Bethlehem. Let’s close with a word of prayer.