Well Merry Christmas.
We're finally here.
Christmas Eve, a warm spring day.
Maybe you're having a pool party.
I don't know.
We're glad you're here.
Excited you're here with us to celebrate.
Almost 20 years ago, I was hired at a church down in Atlanta called Church of the Apostles.
Christy and I showed up at this church in Buckhead.
We were we were kind of country bumpkins coming into the city.
We weren't from the city.
I owned one button-up shirt at the at the time.
But but what we found was a lovely church, a lovely, welcoming church.
And we also found other young people our age just married, starting out life, which became our best friends.
Here's a picture of the core group of my guy best friends.
That's us hiking out west.
Now the guy in the middle, his name's Jonathan.
A few months ago, my buddy Jonathan, who's a pastor in Virginia, he is having a difficult season at his church.
It got pretty serious.
Some people were trying to get him fired.
I mean, can you imagine can you imagine the fierce people in church?
I don't know if you knew that that could happen, but apparently it can.
Some people trying to get him fired, and he was put on leave while they worked through the conflict.
At first, we're all texting about it in our text group.
And he would chime in, how are you today?
You know, how what we can pray for, you know, we love you, we're for you.
And then slowly and then eventually nothing.
Just quiet, silent.
No response.
No response to texting, no response to calls.
My friend Kevin finally calls me, he says, Hey man, uh, usually Jonathan and I are talk twice a week.
I'm getting nothing from him.
He won't pick up, he won't call back, silence.
And then Kevin says, Do you think we should just go up there?
Just show up.
And Christy, my wife, had been saying, for about a year, she had been saying, love shows up.
So Kevin and I, we book a plane ticket to DC.
We wake up at 4 a.m.
By the time uh 10:30 a.m., we're at the door, knocking outside of Washington, D.C.
He opens the door, he's surprised, of course.
He smiles.
Uh, what are you doing?
Why are y'all here?
You don't even you don't even live in the state.
What are you doing here?
And we say, hey, we're here to check on you.
We love you.
We're here to spend the day with you.
And he tears up, we we spend a lovely day together.
We go to lunch, we have coffee, we go for a hike, and then Kevin and I get on an evening flight.
We're at home in bed by 11.
Because, as my wife, my wise wife, says, love shows up.
Listen how John writes it in 1 John, 1 John 4, 9 and 10.
In this, the love of God was made manifest among us.
Love shows up.
That's what Christmas is, the incarnation, love showing up.
In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
In this is love.
Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.
And he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
That's a big word to say, you're fully forgiven and fully right with God through Jesus.
Now let's ponder our Christmas text from Luke's gospel, Luke 2, 8 through 11.
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night, and an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone 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.
For unto you was born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Point number one is this the story of Jesus is good news for weary souls.
The beginning of the Christian faith was such good news that they had the word gospel for it, which just means good news.
They just called it good news.
It is such good news.
You've heard good news.
You got the job.
You don't have cancer anymore.
You passed the class, your 401k went up.
The boy likes you, the girl likes you.
And because it's such good news, when we receive good news, something done and accomplished outside of us, given to us, and we receive good news, there's great joy.
There's great joy.
You've been in a church or been around Christians, and there wasn't a lot of great joy.
Maybe you went somewhere and you left and you sort of felt just more tired than when you showed up, or maybe you were condemned.
Maybe you were ashamed.
Sort of like, if only I get better, then God will love me.
Jesus sort of forgives me, but I sort of need to add to it in order for it to be enough.
If I can only perform a little bit more, then God will accept me, love me, have me, secure me, forgive me.
Rather than good news, something done and accomplished outside of you, God, the divine creator, incarnating himself, made manifest among us into his creation to live, walk, teach, and eventually die on a cross.
Accomplish the forgiveness of sins.
Right relationship with God, not based on our work, but on his word.
That's the incarnation.
A baby happened upon the world.
See, God's love pursues you as you are, not as you should be, because none of us are as we should be.
We say it this way in our church: we are free from being performers and pretenders, and we're free to be receivers and worshipers.
The beginning of verse 10 calls us to move from fear to behold.
Fear's been our response to God since the beginning.
Think back to the beginning: Genesis, the creation, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve rebelled.
They chose independence from God.
And then they see that they're naked, right?
Where I'm from, we say naked.
Are you from the South?
Southerners say naked.
Naked.
They were naked and unashamed before.
But then sin entered the world.
They wanted independence from God.
Rather than surrender and submission and relationship with God, they wanted their own way.
So then there's guilt and there's shame.
And the question began, it's a question back then, it's all the way to now, to my heart, to your heart.
If God fully knew me, like the whole story.
Would he, could he possibly love me?
So Adam and Eve, they make temporary clothing, try to hide themselves.
It's a great symbol of how we try to cover up our shame and our guilt by our own work.
And God pursues them.
My mentor Scotty Smith says it this way: Apart from the garments of God's grace given to us freely in the gospel, we will reach for the rags of some futile covering.
Shame has to do with being seen, and we are convinced that being fully seen by God would destroy us.
To be seen as we really are is just too much to fathom.
Our guilt and shame demand a payment.
We can't pay.
So Adam and Eve are there, and all of a sudden they hear the Lord walking into the garden and they hid.
They're afraid.
They hid from the one who loves them the most.
They hid from the one who's actually pursuing them to provide for them, right?
And the Lord says, Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you at?
God's pursuing them to provide for them.
So it's no surprise when we get to our text in Luke.
The Lord comes to the shepherds and an angel has to say, fear not.
Behold.
You don't have to be afraid of God.
Remember last week we talked about the word behold.
Fear not, behold.
Behold means to pause, gaze, not just move on to the next thing or move on to work for God or to serve, as good as those things are, but behold, pause, gaze.
See how good he is.
And that's point number two.
By the gift of Christ, we transform from hiding in fear to treasuring him in peace.
Years ago, my wife and I went out to dinner with a mentor, a couple of ours.
It was kind of a fancy schmancy restaurant, so it was real dim.
You know, fancy restaurants like the dim the lights.
It was real dim.
And the the waitress came by, handed us the menu, and she handed it.
I couldn't see anything on that menu.
There was little words, it was dim.
I had no shot.
I think the week before I probably could have read it.
Something happened, you know, at age 45.
At that point, something happened.
And I'm looking at it like I don't have a shot.
I don't know if I'm gonna be the guy with the flashlight.
I don't have any readers yet at this point in my life.
And I see my friends across the table, Chris and Ashley, they both just do like this, you know, they do like this off here, wherever, and they just kind of do like some of you guys got it going right now, you know what I'm talking about.
And they're over there, they're talking about their food, and I don't know what to do.
And they they see, I have no idea.
I have no idea what to order, I can't order.
And Ashley just does like this, like this.
And I just put them on, and it's it's like magic, isn't it?
Old people, in it, old people.
It's unbelievable.
Every time, every time I'm like, wow, that is amazing.
We finish our dinner, about four days later in the mail, two pairs of readers show up from Chris and Ashley.
And that gift changed me because now I have these readers in the car, in my backpack, on my nightstand, in table, my desk.
Got a pair right here in the pulpit in case something horrible happens, ready to go.
My point is this I I did not pursue the gift, the gift showed up into my need.
The gift was sent to me.
Listen to these four verses about God's pursuit of you and your need.
Ephesians 2, 4 and 5.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
Titus 3, 4 and 5.
But when the goodness and the loving kindness of God, our Savior, appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.
Matthew 11, 28, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden.
I will give you rest.
2 Corinthians 8, 9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
See, as we come alive to God's love for us, right where we're at, our love and our life for him develops.
We could call it sanctification, transformation, walking with Jesus.
Carl Barth, a Swiss theologian in the 1900s, he wrote an essay called The Miracle of Christmas, and he notes, he reminds us that Joseph just contributes nothing to this whole Christmas story.
He doesn't contribute anything to Jesus' coming.
Joseph is absent in causing Jesus.
Jesus happens to Joseph.
See, Jesus happens to us.
Here's what Bart says the miracle is done upon man.
It is man who is the object of sovereign divine action in this event.
God himself and God alone is master and lord.
This cannot be stated strongly enough, exclusively enough, negatively enough, against all synergism or even monism, grace is always despite and not because of the human condition.
God's gracious action is never consequently, but always nevertheless.
It is life from the dead and the justification of the ungodly, not the reward of the righteous.
That's the good news.
And if you're worn down or broken or just not holding it all together, or just extremely tired of trying to be good enough, it's good news to hear that Jesus loves you where you're at, forgives you of all your sins, and wants to walk with you.
That he could love us like that.
A few months ago I watched a documentary called I Like Me about John Candy.
Anybody else grow up watching John Candy?
I grew up in the 1980s.
I grew up watching John Candy movies.
He started out on Silent Live.
He went on to make about 20 movies.
My childhood was filled with laughter because of John Candy.
And then at the age of 43, Candy died in his sleep.
And when he died, the Los Angeles City shut down the freeway for his processional.
The 405 freeway had only been shut down for the president and the pope, and then they shut it down for John Candy.
I mean, he made silly sweet movies.
The president, the pope, John Candy?
I mean, why did this actor who makes silly movies receive this honor?
And the answer is because everybody loved him.
And they loved him because he had so much love for them.
Co-actor and friend Dan Aykroyd, he explains in a eulogy at Candy's funeral.
We'll watch about two minutes of it.
I'm going to give it out today in the manner in which he would have wanted it.
You have been accorded a great honor.
You stand up, walk to the front of the room.
And without grief or weeping, deliver loudly, clearly, short, and straight to the salient points.
The best tribute and oratory possible from the heart of an allied professional.
Like we have the same point.
Joy reverse vampire.
We don't hear much anymore.
The word is grand.
It was a grand man.
John Franklin Candy.
And I will never stop.
I'll admit I have a soft spot for Candy because I probably watched The Great Outdoors twice a week for like five years straight.
I loved that movie.
That last line brought me to tears.
The sweetest, most generous person ever known to me.
And then Accord says, I loved him ever since I laid eyes on him.
And I will never stop.
See, John Candy's love is an image of what generous love does to somebody.
Generous love transforms us.
Because Candy's love or any person that loves you generously, perhaps your mom, your dad, a friend, a brother, sister.
Generous love transforms.
But it's only a taste.
All that human love, all that generous love, that's only a taste.
See, in this Jesus, generous love shows up for you, pursues you, fully knows you, and fully loves you.
And you may have a lot of questions in this life.
I do.
I have a lot of questions for God.
But we don't have to question whether he loves us.
Christmas is about God moving toward us in the gift of Christ.
And this Jesus is lavish in love and profound truth.
He is enough.
He is generous and he is kind.
He is born into his own creation to pursue his children, to fulfill the law, to become sin on the cross of sinners like you and I can become forgiven and righteous, accepted.
Church, the gift of Christ happens to you, is put upon you.
Let's pray together as I pray the historic prayer for Christmas that will be on the screens.
Heavenly Father, O God, you make us glad by the yearly festival of the birth of your only Son Jesus Christ.
Grant that we who joyfully receive him as our Redeemer may with sure confidence behold him when he comes to be our judge, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.