The greatest gift

John 3: 10 – 18

Rev. Peter R Green, Christmas morning, 25 Dec, 2008

I WAS discussing Santa Claus with a friend, and told her that they had done a facial reconstruction on the skull of the original St Nicholas of Myra. It was real CSI stuff.

Of course, they don’t know if he wore a beard or if he was clean shaven, but it is likely that he didn’t wear a beard. They provided the facial reconstruction with short, grey stubbly hair, much like Romans of his time, because Myra was a Roman city.

He had a broken nose, and the story is that he was a sailor before he was converted, and, like a lot of sailors, quite a brawler, He's probably lucky he wasn’t knifed. Maybe he was a couple of times. It was a tough world he lived in.

And he was a tough man. He wasn’t that cheery old chap dishing out presents to children who had been good. He was a bishop who cared for his flock, who fought against rich and powerful people and gave to the poor.

He first became famous because there were poor women in his diocese. They were Christian believers, their father wasn’t. Because he was poor, their father couldn’t afford their dowry to get them married. And he couldn’t afford to support them as old maids. There wasn’t much work for single women, but he could find them one job — prostitution. The girls’ father intended to sell them into prostitution.

Nicholas was horrified, and secretly came by at night to toss the money they needed into their bedrooms.

The next morning, those happy sisters knew they could afford to get married.

And no one was going to cross the battling bishop to take away money he had given to rescue someone!

The Bible speaks about Christians as being the Bride of Christ. What that means is that anyone who has saving faith in Jesus is bound to him as closely and as permanently as a wife and husband are bound to one another.

In the Book of Revelation, we read,

REV 19:7 Let us rejoice and be glad
  and give him glory!
 For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
  and his bride has made herself ready.

 19:8 Fine linen, bright and clean,
  was given her to wear.”
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

  19:9 Then the angel said to me, “Write: `Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ “ And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

This is about Christians, about the Church made up of all Christian believers. God gives us what we need to be suitable as the bride of Christ. They were given bright, clean, fine linen to wear.

Christmas and the story of Santa Claus is supposed to remind us of how much God has given to make us his own.

It’s as though, when we are united with Jesus, we also come into God’s family, where we belong to him forever.

And it is ultimately God who has paid the bride price, it is God who left the dowry in our room when we thought there was no hope.

I became a Christian on 8 July 1962, at a Christian meeting on the footpath of Goulburn Street in Sydney.

I heard the gospel message that Jesus had died for me. I heard that God gave his only Son so that I could have eternal life. I didn’t need to do anything to earn his favour. The price was already paid, and I wasn’t asked to top it up in any way.

I knew I was a sinner. I was only 16, and maybe I didn’t know as much about what a sinner is back then as I do now. I didn’t know that even most of the good that I do I do for myself, to make myself look good, to feel happy about myself.

I knew I was a sinner, and that I had nothing much to give God. I was bankrupt. I had no money for that marriage. I was poor, wretched and blind in God’s sight.

Until you and I know we are helpless, until you and I know that we are sold out to the spirit that uses and abuses us, sold out already to Satan, then there is no hope.

But Christmas is a time of hope. It is filled with all the hope that we have in a baby, hope for what that child may become. It is a time filled with all the hope that we have in God’s promises, the hope of a coming age when all swords are beaten into ploughshares, and lions will lie down with lambs. Christmas is a time filled with all the hope we have for an eternity in God’s presence, because Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and if he is with us here, we have hope of being with him at his return.

We might have no resources, but we are people with hope because of Christmas.

As Jesus himself said,

How blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

When you know you have nothing, then you can receive something beyond your wildest dreams.

And Christmas is a time of promise, that the payment we need to be released from slavery is already given.

Sometimes we sing the hymn

The price is paid,
Come, let us enter in
To all that Jesus died to make our own.

Jesus paid the price, the full price, when he died on Calvary.

You can’t detach Christmas from Easter; you can’t separate the crib from the cross.

The Bible says,

God commends his love to us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

When we were without hope and without resources, a loving God sent his only son.

Don’t ever think of this as though a cruel Father sent a helpless Son as an unwilling victim.

Think of this as a loving Father, working in close consultation with an equally loving Son. Think of the discussions in heaven, the Father saying,

“There is no other way. Money can’t do it. The wealth in every mine isn’t enough. Their own sacrifices are so inadequate. Only a human life can pay the price of human sin.”

And the Son says,

“But you are the heavenly Father, you can’t leave heaven and become human and die. I am the only one who can!”

And the Father still looks around for any other way, because even the thought of sending his beloved Son is agony for him. But there is no other way, and the Son says,

“I will willingly go. I share your love for the world. I will be the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.”

When we sing that Jesus was born to die, this is the literal truth. Christmas leads inexorably to Easter. Once the ball is rolling, nothing can stop it, nothing can turn it from its path.

I deserve death: he came to die in my place. I am the debtor who is beyond all hope of paying: he paid the full price.

I want you to think about this.

Let’s go back to Saint Nicholas and those gifts of money that rescued the girls from abuse and shame. Those gifts were unconditional. The morning those girls woke up and found that their dowries were paid, that they had the money to afford marriage, they were set free.

Saint Nicholas didn’t send an IOU which said, “I will pay this once you have been married and show you are successful at staying married for a year.” He didn’t make it conditional. He didn’t say, “I want to make sure that you perform well as married women. When you show you know how to cook and clean, when you have a couple of children, when we get a good report on you, they I will pay.” Not at all!

The bags of money were on their bedroom floor, and they could even have run away and opened a delicatessen with the money if they had preferred.

And it is the same with Jesus.

He came into the world before we made any steps to change our own situation. He came before we even understood that we needed change.

He came into the world as a gift without any preconditions.

As the Bible says,

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

If you trust in Jesus, if you trust in all that he has done, if you accept his coming into the world, his life of miracles, his death and his resurrection as being for you, then you are already outside condemnation. St Paul puts it slightly differently:

Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.

Once you have faith, God says you no longer have a case to answer, and the old enmity between you and God is ended forever, ended from that very moment you believe!

The morning you wake up and find your price is paid, the moment you discover you have what you need to afford eternal life with Jesus in heaven, you are set free.

Jesus doesn’t send an IOU which says, “I will pay this once you are mine and show you are successful at staying mine for all your life.” He didn’t make it conditional. He didn’t say, “I want to make sure that you perform well as my follower. When you show you know how to pray and show Christian care, when you have spiritual children through preaching the gospel, when I get a good report on you, they I will pay.” Not at all!

The blood money is on your floor. You can choose to use it and have eternal life from the moment you trust, or you can walk past it and refuse even to believe it is for you.

That is your choice.

So it’s Christmas today, the day we think of gifts, the day we think of Saint Nicholas, the day we think of a Saviour who came among us to die, the just person for all us unjust people, to bring us to God.

Why not make this your best Christmas ever? Come to Jesus right now, because he will save you right now.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2008. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)