THE GIFT
CHRISTMAS EVE
DR. JIM DIXON
DECEMBER 24, 2005
JOHN 3:16-17
I want to welcome you this Christmas Eve. I know that perhaps some of you are not Bronco fans and perhaps some of you have TIVO or VCRs or DVDs and you’re just recording it, but we’re glad you’re here at this 3:00 service today as we look at the gift who is Jesus Christ. Most of the scriptures have already been shared with you by Rebecca, but I want to focus on a little passage from John’s Gospel, the third chapter, verses 16 and 17. These are two verses surely known to most of you. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him.”
This ends the reading from God’s Holy Word. Let’s look to the Lord before we have our message this day. Dear Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Abracadabra. Perhaps that’s what the wise men said when first they saw the Star of Bethlehem. Abracadabra. Scholars tell us that the wise men were probably Magi from the land of Persia. They were probably Zoroastrian priests. You see, the word abracadabra is a Zoroastrian word. It is a Persian word borrowed by the Persians from Chaldeans, from the Babylonians, and from the Assyrians. Some scholars, some philologists, believe the word abracadabra once referred to an Assyrian god but, you see, in Persia in the time of the wise men there were many gods and the Persians became tired. They grew tired of praying to all of these gods individually by name and so at least some etymologists believe and some philologists believe that the Persians began to use the word abracadabra as a kind of circumlocution, a way of referring to all of the gods without having to say the name of all the gods. Abracadabra.
Today the word Abracadabra is used in the context of magic and in the context of nonsense, hocus pocus. Perhaps that’s how the wise men viewed all of the religions of Persia—hocus pocus. Maybe they view all the religions of the world in their day as hocus pocus but they had come to a deeper understanding. These wise men, by the power of God, had come to a deeper understanding. Perhaps they understood that the Lord God is one God, omnipotent, omniscient, Creator of the worlds. Certainly the wise men had come to understand that God was invading the world. In Judea in Bethlehem, God was invading the world and so they came to see this child who was the gift of God, God’s gift to the world, God’s own Son, and on this Christmas Eve, we look at this child born in Bethlehem, God’s gift to the world.
I want us to take a look on this Christmas Eve at the three gifts of the wise men because the three gifts of the wise men tell us what this child had come to do and who this child is. First of all the wise men brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. These tell us three thing about Christ. First of all he is the Divine King. Jesus is the Divine King. Now, the wise men brought gold. Gold is mentioned in the Bible about 385 times and almost always within the context of divinity or royalty. Gold was appropriate in the worship of God and appropriate in the kind of submission or allegiance that was rendered to royalty.
Of course, gold was not indigenous to Israel. They had no gold there. They had to import gold. So in 1 Kings, chapter 10, you read how Solomon, King of Israel, imported 25 tons of gold annually into Israel because he was a king and kings had to have gold. These wise men understood this child born in Bethlehem was a King—no normal king, but a king nonetheless and they brought gold.
The issue this Christmas Eve is whether or not you, whether or not we, have embraced Christ as King, whether we’ve embraced Him as King, His Kingship and His Kingdom, whether we’ve embraced His reign.
In the year 1735, two brothers named Charles and John boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic towards Colonial America. These two brothers were brilliant. They had both graduated from Oxford. Charles was 28 years old and John was 32 years old. They were going to Colonial America to the Georgia Colony founded by James Oglethorpe and they were going to be Christian missionaries. They were going to be missionaries to the Native American Indians and also to the locals in the Georgia colony, some of whom had been in debtor prisons. There was only one problem. The problem was Charles and John were not Christians. They were going to be Christian missionaries but they weren’t Christians and of course that’s always a problem when you have non-Christians seeking to be Christian missionaries.
And so they came and they did believe in Christian doctrine. They believed in Christian liturgy and Christian ritual and they had reduced Christianity into various methods through which they thought they could earn their way into heaven. But they were not true Christians, not in the biblical sense. They later admitted this by their own testimony. They had reduced everything to a method. So when they came to Colonial America, they had to baptize by method. They baptized by three-fold immersion. They believed you had to baptize the person by full immersion. They could not be dunked or sprinkled and they had to be baptized by immersion three times—once in the name of the Father, once in the name of the Son, and once in the name of the Holy Spirit. They did this with infants as well as adults. In Colonial America, a lot of these moms just didn’t want their babies put under the water. They didn’t want them put under once. They certainly didn’t want them put under three times, but Charles and John said, “Hey! This is the method and if you don’t follow the method, you can’t be saved.” And so they began to baptize an infant by three-fold immersion. A mother pulled out a gun and she fired. This was no normal baptism. She pulled out a gun and she missed fortunately both John and Charles. Of course in the passage of time both John and Charles realized their mission work had failed.
They went back to England and it was there, when Charles was 31 years old and John was 35, they became Christians. They realized that you really only became a Christian through faith. It was not faith in doctrine or faith in method or in ritual or liturgy. It was faith in a person and that person is Jesus Christ. They gave their lives, Charles and John Wesley, to the person of Jesus Christ. They embraced His reign. The world would never be the same. Charles and John Wesley founded the Wesleyan Movement and of course the Methodist Church, although John Wesley always hated the term “Methodist.” And Charles Wesley went on to write over 6,000 hymns. He wrote one of the most famous Christmas hymns ever, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” That was written by Charles Wesley. The next phrase, “Glory to the new-born King,” that’s what meant everything to Him: Jesus is King.
And so, remember today that that child born in Bethlehem deserves gold. He is King. He is no longer a child. He is all grown up and He rules the Church Universal. He will one day come to rule the Creation. The only question this Christmas Eve is, “Does He reign in your life? Does He reign in my life? Have you embraced His reign?”
There’s a second gift the wise men brought, and that was frankincense. This shows us that Jesus Christ is not only the Divine King but He is the High Priest. You see, frankincense was a gift perfect for the priesthood. The word frankincense is a French word. It simply means “pure incense.” The Hebrew word for incense or frankincense is libona. The Greek word is libanos. These words are similar. In the Pentateuch, in the Book of Exodus, God instructs His people that when they worship, they are to use incense which includes frankincense. Of course it was the High Priest who led the children of Israel in worship. It was the High Priest who interceded for the children of Israel in prayer and it was the High Priest who led the sacrificial systems for the sin of the people.
I read just this past week where the Temple Institute in the City of Jerusalem has just completed a 3-year project that completed the re-making of the High Priestly vestments. They just did this last week in the Temple Institute in Jerusalem—the High Priestly vestments. They’ve only got a couple of problems. The first problem is, there is no High Priest in Israel right now and hasn’t been for 2,000 years. That’s a problem. The second problem is there’s no temple, no temple in which the High Priest could offer sacrifices and prayer and worship on behalf of the people. No temple. What’s on the Temple Mount in the city of Jerusalem today is of course the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest Muslim shrine in the world but to the Jew a desecrating sacrilege. The Jewish people pray that someday that might be able to rebuild the third temple and reinstitute the High Priestly office.
The High Priest in the time of Christ would go into the Temple on Yom Kippur and he would go into the Holy of Holies. He would enter into the Holy Place, pass the altar of incense where frankincense was burned, and then the High Priest would go into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood of animals on the Mercy Seat on the Ark of the Covenant, seeking to atone for the sin of the people. That same day, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would set the sin of the people on the scapegoat and send the scapegoat into the wilderness, symbolically removing the sin of the people from them.
Now of course tomorrow is Christmas day, but tomorrow is not only Christmas day, tomorrow is the first day of Hanukkah. I don’t know how many of you knew that. Tomorrow is the first day of Hanukkah and you might be thinking, “Well, Hanukkah is an Old Testament celebration and we’re more into the New Testament.” But understand that Hanukkah is never mentioned in the Old Testament. Hanukkah is only mentioned in the New Testament. Hanukkah is mentioned in John 10, chapter 22. Hanukkah is the Feast of Dedication. It’s also the Festival of Lights. It’s in John 10:22 that we’re told that in the wintertime there was the Feast of Dedication—Hanukkah—and Jesus went into the Temple. Jesus celebrated Hanukkah. I’m sure it had special meaning for Him. The reason, of course, Hanukkah is not mentioned in the Old Testament is that the events that are commemorated at Hanukkah took place in the intertestamental period between the writing of the Old and the New Testaments.
It was 168 BC when Antiochus IV, who called himself Theos Epiphanies, “God Manifest,” when he took his Seleucid armies from the north into Israel and he tried to Hellenize the Jews, corrupting them morally. He went into the Temple and he desecrated it and slaughtered a pig on the high altar. According to some traditions, he put a statue of Zeus in the Holy of Holies. According to other traditions, he placed a statue of himself. But he desecrated the Temple. Three years later in 165 BC Judah Maccabee lead a revolt and they forced the Seleucids out of Israel. In 165 BC, they went into the Temple again and they purified it. They relit the Menorah and they dedicated the Temple and once again began to burn frankincense, incense, in prayer and in sacrifice for the people.
Now understand Jesus deserves this gift of frankincense, for He is the True High Priest and He’s offered His own blood on behalf of all people. He has vested the sin of all who believe in Him upon Himself and He is our scapegoat. He offers to cleanse your temple and to dedicate your temple and to wash you whiter than snow. He is the greatest High Priest. The only issue is, what have you done with Him and have you embraced Him not only as Divine King but High Priest so that He intercedes for you and you’ve embraced His atoning sacrifice for your sin and you’ve allowed Him to come and cleanse the temple? Frankincense, a gift for a High Priest.
There’s a third gift that was given and the third gift that was given was the gift of myrrh. The Hebrew word is the word myrrh from which we get this English word myrrh. The Greek word is smurna. This gift was perfect for a mortician because morticians used myrrh in the preparation of the body for burial. Myrrh smelled beautiful and it was used in burials. John 19 tells us that Jesus, when He died, His body was prepared with myrrh for burial. Of course when the wise men brought myrrh, in a sense it was prophetic for Jesus would die and His body would be prepared for burial. But it also was a gift perfect for a mortician. Just like gold is perfect for a king and frankincense for a high priest, myrrh was perfect for a mortician. But Jesus was no normal mortician. I mean, most morticians are just undertakers. They literally take your body under but, you see, Jesus is an overtaker. He can take your body over. He can raise your body up.
We have in the Bible those beautiful passages in Luke, chapter 7, when Jesus comes to the village of Nain in the region of Galilee. In the village of Nain in the region of Galilee, Jesus sees a funeral procession coming out of the city and a widow’s only son has died, a young man, and he’s on the stretcher as they bear him out of the city in a funeral procession. They had probably already prepared his body with myrrh and Jesus arrives. His heart is moved as He sees this widow weeping because of the death of her only son. The Bible tells us Jesus goes up and He touches the stretcher and the people are stunned. Jesus tells the mother not to cry and Jesus says, “Young man, arise,” and the dead man rose. He sat up right in the stretcher. The crowd was filled with fear and they were stunned. They were in awe and Jesus gave that young man to his mother. I want a mortician like that. You see, that’s the kind of mortician I want.
In Luke, chapter 8, we’re told that Jesus is in Capernaum and Jairus, the ruler of the Synagogue, comes up to Jesus because his 12-year old daughter is close to death, extremely sick and she was dying. “Please come. Please help.” Jesus moves through the crowds to reach the place where the daughter of Jairus is and before He can arrive, the word comes that the daughter has died. Jesus takes with Him Peter, James, and John and goes in with the mom and dad in the midst of their tears, looks down at this 12-year old girl, and touches her. He says, “talitha cumi” in Aramaic, “little girl, arise,” and she rises from the dead. I want a mortician like that.
In John, Chapter 11, Jesus comes to Bethany, comes to the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus has died. Everybody is grieving. Mary and Martha have lost their brother and he’s been dead for four days and they’ve had the funeral and they’ve anointed him with myrrh and they’ve put him in the tomb. Jesus arrives. Martha runs out to Jesus, “Lord, if You’d only been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know whatever You ask the Father, He will do for You.” Jesus said, “Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live and he who lives and believes in Me will never truly die.” Jesus went to the tomb and He said, “Lazarus, come forth,” and the dead man came forth. I want a mortician like that.
Of course in Revelation, chapter 1, John the Apostle around the year 90 AD is on the island of Patmos incarcerated because of his testimony for Jesus. Jesus appears to him resurrected and alive. John falls down before Him because, “The voice of Jesus is like many waters and His face is like the sun shining at full strength.” Jesus reached down and touched John and said, “Fear not. I am the Living One. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One. I died but I am alive forevermore and I have the keys of death and Hades.” Don’t you want a mortician like that?
You see, Jesus Christ is the greatest gift ever given to this world. That’s why the wise men offered Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. He is the Divine King. He is the High Priest. He’s the Overtaker and He alone can set you free from sin and death. He alone can set me free from sin and death.
There’s a beautiful passage in Hebrews, chapter 2, verse 14, one of my favorite passages. It’s kind of a Christmas passage and kind of an Easter passage. It’s just one verse. It says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same nature.” That’s Christmas. “Since the children share in flesh and blood, Jesus Himself partook of the same nature.” Then it moves to Easter. “That by His death He might destroy him who has the power of death and deliver those who through fear of death are subject to lifelong bondage.”
You see, the Bible says the world is in bondage to sin and death and Jesus came into the world to set us free. I don’t think there’s any human picture I could give you that illustrates the freedom that Jesus brings from sin and death but I want you to see, as we conclude, this little clip from the movie “Hidalgo.”
“…Lieutenant McNulty?” “Who are you?” “Hopkins, Frank Hopkins.” “Hopkins! Did you bring a dispatch?” “Yes, Sir.” “Paid in full?” * Sound of horses. More triumphant music.*
I don’t know exactly what heaven is like but I know it’s something like that. It’s incredible, beautiful freedom. We’ll always be yoked to Christ but free, free from sin, free from death and I know that freedom can begin right now for all of us.
Maybe you’re still in bondage to sin and death. Maybe you’re in bondage to some addiction. Maybe you’re in bondage to some fear. Maybe there’s some pain you can’t let go of but, you see, Jesus has the power to set you free. That’s why He came into the world. So as we close this Christmas Eve, I want to give you a chance to embrace the freedom that only Jesus can bring. Let’s look to the Lord.
Dear Lord Jesus, thank You for coming into our world. Thank You for leaving Your throne of glory and coming to earth and taking our flesh upon Yourself. Thank you for Your sinless life.
Thank You for Your atoning death. We thank You Lord that death could not hold You but You rose in power and great glory and You are the hope of the world. Perhaps Lord Jesus there are people here today who are still in bondage to sin and to death and long to be set free. Lord, perhaps this day as You’ve touched them by Your Holy Spirit, they’re willing by faith to embrace You as Divine King, as High Priest, Lord, and as their Overtaker who brings victory over death. Lord, if that is the case, I just pray that in the stillness of this moment they might pray this prayer with me. “Come into my heart Lord Jesus. As once You were born in Bethlehem, so on this Christmas Eve, come into my heart. Thank You for dying for my sin. Wash me whiter than snow. Free me from my bondage to sin. Lord, forgive me and come, Lord Jesus. Sit on the throne of my soul. Be my Divine King. From this day forth I will seek to live for You. Set me free from the shackles of death and give me eternal life. Thank You, Lord Jesus.” When we pray that prayer, You do come in and we are Yours. You never let us go. Lord, there may be some here who are Christians but are still in bondage in some sense. Maybe their sin is forgiven but, dear Lord, they’re still struggling with an addiction or with fear or with some pain. Lord today, we bring that to Your altar and we ask you, Lord, to take it away by Your power, power the world cannot understand. We love You, Lord Jesus. We thank You for coming into our world. We pray this, Lord Jesus, in Your great and matchless name. Amen.