Christmas Perspective: When you anticipate the glory of our Christmas celebrations each year, remember, it is only glorious now because suffering came first. When I remember this annually, I will be able to persevere through each year’s necessary trials and suffering as I await the future glory.
3 necessary and surprising aspects of suffering that Jesus fulfilled on the first Christmas for His people
I. Grief Because of the Status of Exile (Matthew 2:18 - “weeping”)
Matthew 2:17-18 - Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.”
II. Ridicule Because of the World’s Rejection (Matthew 2:23 - “Nazarene”)
Matthew 2:23 - …and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
“About 100 B.C., a small clan of newly returned Jews from Babylon settled there and gave it their family name, Natsara. These were the Natsoreans, a Judean family that proudly identified its Davidic lineage and spoke of itself as “the Branch Clan,” apparently in strong identification with prophecy. The people in this town had the idea that Messiah, the Branch, would be born from among them. Meanwhile, those who knew them often scoffed. To other Jewish people in larger, older cities, the Natsoreans must have seemed silly in their assumed self-importance. Their little town could not have seemed more distant from the glories of the Davidic Kingdom in ancient days. Nathanael, upon hearing from his brother that he had found the Christ (John 1:46), asked, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ (Ronald B. Allen, Does Anything Good Come from Nazareth? Kindred Spirit, 23/4 (Winter 1999), p.11)
Isaiah 53:2-4 - For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried…
Hebrews 2:17-18 - Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. (cf. Mark 9:12)
III. Hope Because the Path of Suffering Is Not the End
A. God turns exile into restoration (context of Jeremiah 31)
Jeremiah 31:15-17 - Thus says the Lord, “A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Thus says the Lord, “Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for your work will be rewarded,” declares the Lord, “And they will return from the land of the enemy. “There is hope for your future,” declares the Lord…
B. God turns the ridiculed one into the one in whom we find refuge (“Natser,” “Nazerene,” cf. Isaiah 11:1)
Isaiah 11:1-2 - Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch (“Natser”) from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
I’m once again thankful to the worship team for putting together a beautiful array of Christmas melody for our hearts on this Lord’s day. How providentially fitting it is for Christmas to fall on the Lord day for this year.
Well, I don’t want to keep you guessing as to what kind of sermon you will hearing this morning, but it has something to do with Christmas – but I’m sure most of you didn’t know that! 😊
I want to start off by saying that I had no idea what I wanted to say to you this morning – I can’t speak for anyone else, but there are times in which writing your thoughts down from pen to paper can, at times, be quite an tormenting exercise. Some of you may have experienced this a time or two where you just sit there and…nothing comes – but then something comes.
It starts as a thought, then a thought turns into a sentence, and a sentence a paragraph, and so forth and so forth. But the goal is that you started with something and you ended with something.
So for the Christian life – there was a providential point of reference for all of us. We came into this world and we will leave this world. But before our pilgrimage is complete, we have days of commemoration by which we traditionally set aside a day and time to celebrate and to honor the person(s) who came into this world – we call them birthdays.
It’s typical to receive gifts on one’s birthday as well. Now, these gifts vary from person to person, but the heart behind the gift is to express to the person receiving the gift that you honor them.
Christmas is a day of commemoration. We want to remember the Christ of our redemption. We want to commemorate the undeniable truth to the world that our Lord has come. Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room and Heaven and nature sing.”
Our celebration of Christmas drips with an elegance of feasting, and stunningly decorated trees, and gift giving and the receiving of gifts, ad-infinitum...a small portrait of the bigger reality that the birth of Christ would one day culminate with His Second Coming and the renewal of all things. His beginning is glorious, even so his return will be.
So for this morning, I want us to view Christmas from perhaps a different angle.
Christmas Perspective: When you anticipate the glory of our Christmas celebrations each year, remember, it is only glorious now because suffering came first. When I remember this annually, I will be able to persevere through each year’s necessary trials and suffering as I await the future glory
With that in mind, let us understand. We come to the end of our series on the
5 Fulfillments of Christ’s birth that bring Joy.
We come to this one on Christmas day…
The Surprising Fulfillment of Hope through Suffering on the First Christmas
It seems appropriate to share a portrait of grace from one of our own members from Faith church who have walked through a crucible of affliction together concerning a Christmas. Here’s the video…
(watch video)
When saints of light share that kind of affliction, we would do well to listen, because they point to someone greater than themselves who underwent affliction during a day and age in which one would never think of Christmas as a time of commemoration – but a time of deep affliction surrounding Israel and the coming of the Christ.
In fact, some of our Christmas hymns and songs, as beautiful as they are the ear, don’t skirt away from that reality, but embrace it with a spiritual silver lining for all of us on the way to the Celestial City.
“Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees
Oh hear the angel voices
Oh night divine
Oh night when Christ was born…
He is the silver lining for us. I don’t know what your Christmas looks like today, but I think I could say that whatever your Christmas looks like for today, please know that Christ is your silver lining that you can embrace in the midst of your circumstances
So then, on this Christmas morning 2000 years later let’s explore Matthew 2:16-23.
Three necessary and surprising aspects of suffering that Jesus fulfilled on the first Christmas for His people
The first necessary and surprising aspect of suffering Christ fulfilled on the first Christmas for His people is…
I. Grief because of the status of exile (Matt 2:18 – “weeping”)
Perhaps you may be interested in knowing that Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31:15 in this text of His Gospel.
17 Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; And she refused to be comforted, Because they were no more.” (stop)
It may seem to be a Christmas peculiarity as to why Matthew would have quoted from Jeremiah the prophet. So perhaps it’s necessary to color that in for you today. 600 years prior to the writing of Matthew’s Gospel, Israel was in captivity. They were refugees in a foreign Babylonian land.
Ramah was a small town 5 miles north of Jerusalem. The Babylonians gathered the young Jewish men, chained them up using large fish hooks, and dragged them away to Babylon from their home land.
Rachel, became a metaphor for Israel who is seen as weeping over her children. She sees her young being dragged away into exile…most likely never to be seen again.— “they are no more”
But here you see Matthew quoting from Jeremiah – how then is this a prophetic fulfillment? Have you ever wondered that?
I mean, the Babylonians took Israel’s children into captivity, they didn’t kill them. But in Matthew’s context, Herod slaughtered the children in his attempt to murder Christ. And he murdered all but one – the Messiah.
He went into…exile – to Egypt. Israel is in a state of mourning – yes, but specifically – the prophecy points to Israel mourning for their Messiah who had to flee and go into exile. The reason for his exile was a threat which came by the hand of his own people.
“10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” (John 1:10-11)
Why..?...why did the first Christmas have to be that way? The first necessary and surprising aspect of suffering that Jesus fulfilled on the first Christmas for His people is…grief.
The second one is not any better…
II. Ridicule because of the world’s rejection (Matt 2:23-“Nazarene”)
Matt 2:23 “and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: “He shall be called a Nazarene.” (stop)
What I’m about to say may not make sense now, but Lord willing it should if you bear with me. There’s a scene from the Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe where Mr. Tumnus, had a peculiar perspective about Christmas: “It’s always winter and never Christmas”, he said.
That sentence ought to bring a provocative realization for us that the first Christmas and all others that the Lord will providentially allow will have sentiments of sorrow and joy – but there’s always the silver lining. For we have the sure promises of heaven, saying…
“No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.” Christ victory over sin is a sure thing – the reality to which we experienced at the Cross, where the burdens of our hearts rolled away, because it was there by faith that I have received my sight and I will be happy all the day in the hope of the renewal of all things to which we will all come back to the planet to experience and enjoy.
One writer said that “I know that I have staked my life on something more: that this wounded world, this very broken world, is not the last word. Simply said, I believe in Christmas, and in a Christmas that has moral meaning. Cursed as we are, cursed as this life so often seems, it will not always be winter. Christmas has come, and is coming… and I am longing for its blessings to flow far as the curse is found.”[1]
I don’t suspect at all that Joseph and Mary were thinking so much concerning the details the prophetic details and circumstances surrounding Nazareth, Joseph and Mary’s home village – but the place was known among the Jews as a place of derision – a place of scorn. You could say that Nazareth was the armpit of Israel. For whatever reason, Nazareth had a dark reputation, and anyone coming out of that place was seen in that light as well.
About 100 B.C., a small clan of newly returned Jews from Babylon settled there and gave it their family name, Natsara. These were the Natsoreans, a Judean family that proudly identified its Davidic lineage and spoke of itself as “the Branch Clan,” apparently in strong identification with prophecy. The people in this town had the idea that Messiah, the Branch, would be born from among them. Meanwhile, those who knew them often scoffed. To other Jewish people in larger, older cities, the Natsoreans must have seemed silly in their assumed self-importance. Their little town could not have seemed more distant from the glories of the Davidic Kingdom in ancient days. Nathanael, upon hearing from his brother that he had found the Christ (John 1:46), asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” - Ronald B. Allen “Does Anything Good Come from Nazareth?” Kindred Spirit, 23/4 (Winter 1999), p.11
One would not at all expect the Messiah to come out of that place – can anything good come out of Nazareth”, Nathaniel said of that place – he couldn’t conceive of anything good coming out of that despised place, let alone the Messiah…
So the place was a pariah of a place – and many a religious Jew would not look to keenly on Christ because of where he grew up. “we know where this man is from…” (John 7:27).
Do you sense the derision upon Christ? Now, compound that derision from the religious people in his own town.
“and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55 Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” – Matthew 13:55-56
This is consistent with the anticipation of the OT in passages Isaiah the prophet who said 53:2–4
2For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
3He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
The point being here is that, “Nazareth” was a place that was despised. Jesus grew up in the most despised town of the most despise region of his people and homeland.
So then, it gives us pause once again to ask the question of Why? Why did the first Christmas have to be filled with this kind of suffering of grief in exile and ridicule? Why was the first Christmas indeed always winter?
Friends, Christmas for Jesus had to be one of “suffering.” The answer is right there in Isaiah 53:4—Surely our griefs, our sorrows he carried. In order to be truly the Savior of His people, he had to become like us in every way, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15-16)
It was necessary for the Christ to not just to die for our sins, but to live for our righteousness.[2] But in order to do that, Christ had to walk the path of alienation – the path of ridicule/derision
Hebrews 2:17” He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.18For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” (cf. Mark 9:12)
Jesus knows well the path of suffering of David and Becky’s lost Christmas. Christ intimately understands the sorrow of death in the loss of your loved ones. He intimately knows the pain of alienation from his own people. He intimately knows the hurt of trying to help others only to be met by vitriol, mocking, ridicule.
The first Christmas always being winter and never Christmas had to be this way for Jesus to walk for the many – for his people. Friends, I do not know exactly what you have gone through this last year, but I know who does know. I know the Christ who does know.
It was necessary for the first Christmas to surprisingly be characterized by the suffering of grief and ridicule. Christmas gives it back with more than you could ever imagine….
III. Hope because the path of suffering is not the end
Matthew intentionally selected his suffering prophecy fulfillment to indicate that the path of suffering is not the end – there’s the silver lining. There may be weeping in the evening but joy comes in the morning.
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
Oh, our Lord make known to us the path of life; in His presence there is fullness of joy; at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. – Psalm 16:11
God turns exile into restoration (context of Jer 31)
Jeremiah the prophet understood this – he saw it – he reminded his people to see, and by way of application for us to remember God’s promises to His people.
Jer 31: 15 Thus says the Lord, “A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.” 16Thus says the Lord, “Restrain your voice from weeping
And your eyes from tears; For your work will be rewarded,” declares the Lord, “And they will return from the land of the enemy. 17“There is hope for your future,” declares the Lord.”
Matthew is trying to prepare all of us for something greater.
There will be a time in Jesus’ life in the future where the suffering would become so bad that all hope would be lost.
Jesus would not just be exiled to a distant land but he would be exiled to the grave…..
But if your remember this…friends, suffering is not the end of the path….remember…Jesus would return from the exile….three days later he rose again…
There is the Christmas we know….there is the hope,…there is the joy…!!!
Furthermore….
God turns the ridiculed one into the one in whom we find refuge (“Natser,” “Nazerene,” cf. Isaiah 11:1)
In the popular conception Nazareth, was the backwoods, fly over, despised country….but at the same time…that clan that had settled there that resulted in Mary and Joseph, was indeed from the clan of Judah, from the lineage of David.
And what had God promised in the OT?
Isaiah 11:
1Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,
And a branch (“Natser”) from his roots will bear fruit.
2The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
The ridiculed one that all despised, would become the branch, the stem of Jesse, that God could cause to grow into a tree under which all people would find their refuge.
The path of suffering though filled with grief and ridicule does not end there for Jesus or for his followers..
God turns the grief into Joy
God turns the ridicule into Glory
The stone whom the builders rejected became the stone on which God’s house is built—the chief corner stone
The most sorrowful of all men, has become the most joyous.
The least has become the greatest….
The ultimate example of this is Jesus and because of Him going through the first Christmas of all winters our Christmas’ are turned into the beautiful ones we know today….
And the annual glory of Christmas is nothing compared to what God has instore for you….
Gospel Appeal:
Believer Appeal:
Conclusion.
Christmas Perspective: When you anticipate the glory of our Christmas celebrations each year, remember, it is only glorious now because suffering came first. When I remember this, through the Spirit’s power, I am able to persevere through each year’s providential trials and suffering as I await the future glory – from graves to glory, we sing.
'Cause the God of the mountain
Is the God of the valley
There's not a place
His mercy and grace
Won't find us again
[1] https://washingtoninst.org/always-winter-never-christmas/
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