Lord, we ask that You would bless the reading and the preaching of Your Word, that indeed the Son of Man would be lifted up, that we might be drawn to Him. Amen. May be seated. Indeed, you are the hardy ones for coming out here this evening. I know it's difficult for many of you, especially those with small children. As I was walking up to the church, I saw Natalie and Alton Brown. And Alton looked at me and said, this better be good. So the pressure is on. A slight deviation from the text, I'll be reading from Luke 1 to 12 and then Matthew 1 verses 24 and 25. Luke chapter 2 verses 1 to 12. Let us hear now the Word of God. Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth." This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all were proceeding to register for the census, everyone to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and family of David. In order to register, along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child, And it came about that while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. In the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened. The angel said to them, do not be afraid for behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a savior who was Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And then in Matthew chapter one, there's two verses, verses 24 and 25. And Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took her, that is Mary, as his wife, and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus." It is unmistakable as I scan the crowd here this evening that many of us perhaps are suffering from a bit of Christmas overload. We're tired, we've been up early, we've been setting up presents, we've been eating a lot. And not only that, perhaps even now there's a bit of that Christmas or post-Christmas letdown. It's a generally accepted fact that at Christmas time there is a spike in reports of adult depression, the Christmas blues. And there's various explanations as to why this happens. One explanation is a phenomenon called seasonal affective disorder. SAD, get it? S-A-D, SAD. And evidently it's the idea that a lack of sunlight as the days grow shorter that it physiologically affects us and makes us depressed. Now, I think there is some currency to this. About 10 days ago, my wife and I were in Scotland, much further to the north than we are, and the sun doesn't come up this time of the year until about 9 a.m., and it sets about 3.30. By 4.30, it's black. And it sort of explains why in the highlands there are so many distilleries, that it's so dark it drives you to drink. That's their explanation. Well, I don't know if that explains it all. In fact, on the internet the other day, I saw a report from a clinical psychologist that as she is dealing with Christmas depression among adults, she says people list three principal reasons why they are discouraged and depressed around Christmas time. One is the idea that Christmas has become so commercialized. They're depressed because that the influences of filthy lucre, of money, of commercialism has ruined Christmas and it makes people sad. The second is a sense of letdown. That is a day with which we instill so much expectations rarely if ever delivers the goods. And the third is a curious but a deep sense of personal loss. Now I believe that, believe it or not, and this is a topical sermon, if you care about such things, We believe in expository sermons here. This is going to be a biblical sermon, I think, but a topical one. I think the Bible addresses all three of those issues. Concerns about the commercialization of Christmas, the idea of Christmas being a letdown, and the idea of facing the sense of personal loss. For one thing, what does the Bible have to say about commercialization of Christmas? You know, many, especially lately, many are discouraged by what they see as a crash, crass commercialization and secularization of Christmas. That is, there is this widespread idea that a holy season has been corrupted by commercial concerns. And lately there has been this, there's this great effort going on to put Christ back into Christmas. Right? A fence is taken that places like Walmart and Target no longer say Merry Christmas, but they say Happy Holidays. And it's a concerted effort to counter that. Let's put Christ back into Christmas. Well, believe it or not, the Bible addresses this concern. And here it goes. You ready? It addresses it not by what it says, but it addresses it by what the Bible doesn't say. You see, nowhere in the Bible, by imperative suggestion or example, is the church told or we told to specifically celebrate the birth of Christ. Now, you may know this already. You've heard this stuff before, but you need to hear it again. You see, through the fourth century, it never occurred to the church to celebrate Christmas. Never did. It just wasn't on the radar screen. It wasn't until that the church spread rapidly through the Roman Empire that it became a matter of some concern. Now, I understand that Gene Veith takes some exception to this recently, but if he does, he has the enormous weight of Christian and secular scholarship against him. You see, throughout pagan Europe, from ancient days, there were always midwinter festivals. You can imagine being a superstitious pagan in ancient Europe. As the days grew shorter, you'd get really nervous. that darkness is overtaking us. But then you notice that a certain time during the year, apparently the gods were appeased and the days grew longer. So throughout ancient Europe, there were these midwinter festivals, people being very, very happy that the gods were appeased and the days were starting to get longer. And there's always much, there's a great festive occasion, much drinking, a lot of debauchery. Well, in 4th century Rome, there was something called Saturnalia. which was that kind of midwinter festival. And the church decided to embrace that, to Christianize it, and where it would be readily embraced by the populace. And so Christmas was set up as a way, as an alternate festival to the pagan festival Saturnalia, which was marked as a hedonistic time when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. It went on for a very, very long time. But it was marked basically by people going to church at Christmas and then going out and celebrating like it was Mardi Gras. There was still a tremendous amount of excess and debauchery connected with the practice of Christmas even through medieval times and beyond that. In fact, it was for this reason, among other reasons, that our theological forebears in England and America, Cromwell in England and the Puritans in Massachusetts, attempted to ban the practice of Christmas. They said it's not commanded anywhere and they were upset by the excess that was associated with this practice. Cromwell sought to outlaw it, had Parliament sit on Christmas Day. In Boston, the practice of Christmas was outlawed. You were fined five shillings if you were caught celebrating Christmas. Interestingly, even after the Revolutionary War, Christmas was seen as being too British. In 1789, Congress met on Christmas Day because Christmas was seen as a peculiarly British custom. It endured, but again, largely as a season, like a Mardi Gras-like festival. What we know as Christmas, the images of Christmas, it being a family time, a Christmas tree, a season of peace and goodwill, did not exist until the 19th century, and largely because of social and economic forces. In 1828, there were Christmas riots in New York City that were the result of some class warfare and debauchery that was connected with Christmas. And so Washington Irving, the famous American author, decided he wrote a series of stories about the observance of Christmas in an English country manor house. And he described Christmas as a time, a family time. A time when you were kind to your servants. A nostalgic time. You exchanged presents. He made it up. He created this. Across the Atlantic, Dickens did the same thing. Our whole mythology of Christmas, as we practice it, comes largely from Washington Irving and Charles Dickens. Dickens, again, celebrating Christmas as celebrating the nuclear family. You know, Bob Cratchit. Tiny Tim, God bless us everyone. And the redemptive power of observing the true meaning of Christmas. Ebenezer Scrooge being turned around not by the atonement blood of Jesus, but by the true meaning of Christ. And he learned to celebrate Christmas better than any man before him. As in the words of Tiny Tim, God bless us. everyone. Clement Moore, about the same time, wrote What's the Night Before Christmas, inventing the mythology of Santa Claus. And there arose the forces of the commercial interests, card companies, department stores, even Coca-Cola. And so we have this emergence of this idea of Christmas that lasts to this day. It's a family time. It's a festive time. But here's my point. My point is this. that when we hearken back, when we say, well, Christmas has always been, as we observe it in America and in the United Kingdom, in the world around us, Christmas has always been a weird alchemy. of spiritual and secular influences. It doesn't have to be in the church, but the way that it's out there, the images, the mythology, the nostalgia attached to it has always been driven by these forces. And so I say this, Christmas, the way that it is now, as it was in the beginning, it evermore shall be. You see, that's the way it grew up. That's the way it is in the world around us. And so to hearken back to this golden age of a practice of Christmas in the world around us simply does not exist. The Bible does not command it, nor do I believe does it forbid it. And so this effort recently of putting Christ back into Christmas, I don't like political correctness any more than the next person. But there's something a little disquieting about making sure someone from Walmart says Merry Christmas to you and not Happy Holidays. There's an unintended consequence to this. I was speaking just three days ago to a student who goes to a good reform church who is an employee of a well-known clothing company in a shopping mall. And it's this company's policy to say Happy Holidays to people. They all be fired for saying Merry Christmas, but we want you to say Happy Holidays. And so, as a good employee, she would say Happy Holidays. What she's noted this Christmas, among certain people, she's getting a visceral, angry response. She says, Happy Holidays, and she often hears, Merry Christmas. Now, is it just me, or is there something weird about that? It's a little strange. People are so mad about taking Christ out of Christmas that when she says, happy holidays, she gets an angry response. No, Merry Christmas. That's just kind of weird, don't you think? I think this whole effort, I think it sort of shows parts of the church as being a little insecure and a bit churlish. I really believe that. It doesn't depend, to redempt the work of Christ, the gospel does not depend on Walmart employees saying Merry Christmas to you. And again, this reflects the fact that our practice of Christmas in the world around us has always been this weird, odd alchemy. There is a Christian tradition, and part of our tradition, which does not celebrate Christmas. Again, in Scotland, we spent an evening one Sunday evening with an elder of a free church, which does not celebrate Christmas. He was a very, very happy man. appeared to be a well-adjusted man, had good humor. We went to his house, this was just 8, 9, 10 days ago. We went to his house and there was not any mistletoe or ivy. There was not a Christmas card to be seen. It was his conviction, the Bible does not command this. He doesn't like the exit. He doesn't celebrate it. We cannot bind his conscience on that one. And so, when we complain about the commercialization of Christmas, What more can you expect given the way that's emerged in the world around us? Why do we celebrate? I mean, if the Bible doesn't command the practice or forbid it, why should we do it? I don't want to be the Grinch here, okay? My heart is not three sizes too small. It's a lot worse than that, actually. I'm not trying to be a buzzkill here. But why would IPC or any Christian celebrate Christmas? There's so much about it that I don't know of. It happened this last night watching It's a Wonderful Life. Every single year when Harry Bailey raises his glass and says to my big brother George, the richest man in town, just guess me. All that stuff. I am reminded of a conversation that Al Freund, the late Al Freund of Savannah, a church history professor at Reform Seminary, had with his friend Peter Toone, an evangelical Anglican. And Al Freund was challenging Peter Toone on all the bells and whistles of Anglicanism. He kept saying, well, why do you have all that stuff? You know, the things you wear, and the incense, and all the liturgy. Why do you do all that? You have to do that. And Peter Toone looks at him and goes, No, but it's nice. It's nice. Now, if you believe in the regular principle, you might take issue with that. But why do we celebrate Christmas? I don't believe the Bible forbids it. And you can observe it in a way that's nice. That is Christ-centered. We can use as a way in our church to celebrate a part of the work of Christ that's important. It can be used as a platform to instill godliness in our children. But it doesn't matter if someone at Target says happy holidays to you. Let's get over that, okay? Let's get over that. It's nice and it can be made appropriate, but we can't bind the conscience of those who don't want to celebrate it. We instill sometimes too much into it or sometimes perhaps not enough. The psychologist also says that a sense of personal letdown is another reason why people are depressed at Christmas. That is, there is so much instilled in one day, so much expectation, that no day can possibly live up to that, and therefore we become depressed. Now, you've heard me say this before, you're going to hear it again. My background, my family background, is largely Irish Catholic, but my father's grandmother was a very dour German, and her Germanic practices of Christmas, they practiced in their home in North Philadelphia. You've heard this before, but it's true, that when my dad as a kid went to bed at night, there were no Christmas lights, there was no presents, there was no trees, there was no outward sign of Christmas anywhere. He'd wake up on Christmas morning and the entire house was decorated. The tree was up. There was decorations everywhere. Can you imagine what kind of night those parents had? But you see, there was not this huge Christmas that happened. And then the festivities would go on for several days. There was almost no lead-up to it, and it went on for several days. We would turn it on its head in our practice. The department stores have Christmas decorations in late August. We are bombarded with this lead-up to Christmas. And again, with all this mythology that's from the mid-19th century, of this, of family time, of getting along with each other, of being happy and joyous. Well, no day can deliver those goods, and it doesn't, and therefore we are depressed. Well, it reflects, doesn't it, just a phenomenon in life in general. What actually delivers the goods? We think by getting a new job, we will be satisfied. Moving to that new house will meet those personal needs. Having a different kind of relationship will deliver the emotional goods to us. But in reality, those things often and always, at times, will let us down. No human relationship delivers to us perfect compatibility or perfect faithfulness in every area of our life. Everything has a measure of disappointment to us. But when we read in Luke that today in the town of David, a seer has been born to you, And when the angels sing, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests, we know, don't we, that yes, one day in a year is never going to deliver the goods, but the gospel in saving us and giving us peace always delivers the goods. In Hebrews chapter 7, I love this passage, therefore he is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him. That is, we need not doubt the effectiveness, the completeness, the wholeness of our salvation in Christ. Friends and family may disappoint us and desert us. Christ is always there for us. We have a friend who sticks closer than a brother. peace to men on whom his favor rests. Romans 5 tells us that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus saying to his disciples, my peace I leave you, my peace not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." And so, of course, that which we emotionally invest in a kind of quasi-sacred, secular holiday, well, we'll let us down. And the gospel, of course, we know will not let us down. Our God is faithful, the gospel is true, and can be utterly and completely dependent upon. He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him. And so perhaps you are facing that even tonight, that Christmas was not what you expected it to be. Maybe kids did not get the bike they wanted or that red Ryder BB gun that they wanted so desperately. Who knows? Maybe that we fought with our family members. But the gospel never disappoints. And then the psychologist notes that there is a sense of personal loss that many adults, particularly older adults, feel at Christmas. Now this is easily explained. Because we instill so much nostalgia, almost maudlin sentimentality to Christmas at times, but often because of its real memories, that we often, Christmas is often a time when we are reminded of days past, when our children were young, when our husband was still alive, when things seemed to be simpler and easier and better. And we have this deep longing, almost inconsolable longing, nostalgia for days past, which can never be met, and it results in a sense of deep depression. C.S. Lewis referred to a German word called, pronounced, I think, Sehnsucht, a wistful, almost tearful longing. And it's best expressed by the English word nostalgia. It was paramount in his way of looking at the world of his theology. And he says this about beauty and memory. These things, the beauty, the memory of our own past, are good images of what we really desire. But if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself, they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not yet visited. That is, what he's saying is that this longing we have for days past, for beauty, even for art, really is a desire for something deeper, a longing for a home, a place of perfect acceptance, a place where we need not fear any longer, inconsolable longing. The other day, my mother sent me a DVD our family put together. And it was for, it was made by my brother for them. She sent me a copy and it was for their 50th wedding anniversary. 50 years being married together. Included us as small children, year by year almost. And hilarious eight minute home movie that my father made at Christmas time in 1964 when I was six years old. And I watched it with inconsolable longing. There's my dad, you know I'm 10 years younger than Nate. My mom, more beautiful than I remember. My brother, dead now at least 23 years. And even now, I just am overwhelmed by inconsolable longing. But here's the reality. Growing up, my home was not always perfect. I saw the home I grew up in, but my brothers, we fought like crazy. I mean, my house was sometimes just slightly above complete chaos at times. My dad and I have a close relationship, but it's not a perfect one. As I look back on it, even my brother, we didn't get along all that well at times. But watching those images, it was just inconsolable longing, just a yearning. And if Lewis is right, and I think he is, What it is when we see those things is I just yearn what the writer of Ecclesiastes says, he said, eternity in the hearts of men. I long for a place where this is really true, where I have a father who I get along with perfectly, who loves me unconditionally. I'm in a place of perfect fellowship with other people. And in the gospel, when we read that Simeon was looking forward to the consolation of Israel, when Christ is referred to as the desire of all nations. That's found, of course, in the Gospel. That sense of loss, of nostalgia, is bound up not in any one day. It can't be. It's not bound up in remembering loved ones who have gone before us, as precious as that is. It's not bound up in this almost invented mythology of Christmas. It's bound up only in the consolation of Israel, that Jesus Christ, our friend who sticks closer than a brother, is with us, God with us, that we have hope for this life and the next. So the basic message is this, we can live without Christmas. I had a, as going to Catholic school at Our Lady of Lourdes School in West Philadelphia, my first grade nun, Sister James, and we're all 300 pounds of her, used to try to convince us that Easter was more important than Christmas. Oh, right, we thought. Of course not. You got chocolate Easter. You got all the toys at Christmas. And she says, no, you can do without Christmas. But you can't do it without Easter. No, she was only partly right here. You see, the incarnation is part of the total work of Jesus. What started at Bethlehem leads to Calvary. That's what Simeon meant when he said to Mary, a sword shall pierce your own soul too. It is about the gospel. We can live without Christmas. We can live without burlives. We can live without all that stuff. We can live without the beautiful, I mean, think of the hymnody that we enjoy, and think of the weird way that it works together. The height of English hymnody occurs at our Christmas hymns. Mild he lays his glory by, born that men no more should die. And in the same breath on the radio we hear, they wouldn't let poor Rudolph join any reindeer games. It's weird, isn't it? But you sing that one with as much vim and verve as the other one is. You can live with all that stuff. You can live without Poinsettias. I can live without It's a Wonderful Life, as much as it gets to me. I can. But we can't live without the gospel. And to the extent that we choose to observe Christmas to the extent that it promotes the gospel in our hearts, to the extent that it exalts Christ, to the extent that it brings us to a greater sense of faith and repentance in Him and in our children, then it's nice. It's good. Other than that, we don't have to have it. And so let's not make the mistake of instilling too much into the idea of Christmas and therefore detracting from the power of the gospel, which gives us hope for this life and the next. Let's pray together. Lord, we ask now that you would be good to us in the year to come. We thank you for the year that's passed. And even on this Lord's Day evening, as we choose to observe Christmas, we do so because we love you, we love the gospel. And as even we enjoy those things that surround it, the secular trappings, as I believe we are free to enjoy, that it would not detract from or distract us from the importance of the gospel in our lives. We ask now that we will be drawn to you, that we will make it our ambition to be well-placing to you, praying all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.