Christmas 2022
Call to worship:
pastor andrew Loginow
Luke 2.1-21
song:
Hark the herald
Historical reading:
pastor michael champoux
Nicene Creed
song:
Joy to the world
Confession & pardon:
pastor Brett eckel
Song:
Doxology
song:
What child is this?
Homily:
dr alex loginow
Christmas 2022
Ruth 4.18-22
Introduction
I’ve never been more surprised in my life. We were in the ultrasound room and as we stared at the screen the ultrasound tech said, “it’s a girl.” You’re probably thinking, “How can you be that surprised? Whenever a woman is pregnant there’s only two options – it’s either a boy or girl.” That’s fair, but this was our fourth child and the first three are boys so we had just accepted that we were an all boy family. But all that changed that day and obviously God had two more girls to give us but as I think back on learning of little Sophia in her mother’s womb, I still remember being surprised by a baby.
As we come to the end of the book of Ruth on this Christmas morning, the story ends with a surprise about a baby. Any first time reader of the book of Ruth would assume that this is a simple love story of a man and a woman in ancient Israel. But the twist at the end of Ruth is that Boaz and Ruth have a son, who has a son, who has a son named King David. This simple love story is actually part of a much grander story. Years later YHWH would make a covenant with King David that his true son would sit on David’s throne and the New Testament reveals that that covenant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the son of David.
You see the New Testament also opens with a surprise about a baby. Matthew’s Gospel begins with a genealogy much like how Ruth ends. In fact, the genealogy in Ruth fits in Matthew’s almost word-for-word. And even though we may not recognize it at first, the genealogies in Ruth and in Matthew actually teach us a lot about Christmas. After all, Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation of the Son of God. Through the genealogies Scripture teaches us: Christmas is good news for sinners about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Let’s break this sermon summary down piece by piece so that we may come adore Christ the Lord and find that this baby may just surprise us.
Christmas is Good News
The first piece of our sermon summary we want to notice is that Christmas is good news. Tim Keller notes that the story of Jesus does not start with “once upon a time.” It starts with a genealogy. Luke also has a genealogy near the beginning of his Gospel. The story of Jesus doesn’t start with “once upon a time” because that’s how fairy tales start and the story of Jesus is not a fairy tale. No the story of Jesus begins with a genealogy because it is history.
The person and work of Jesus of Nazareth is history. Matthew’s genealogy takes us back to Abraham. Luke’s genealogy takes us all the way back to Adam. And even though to us these genealogies just look like a boring list of Hebrew names, in the ancient Near East and in the first century genealogies were not viewed this way. Genealogies were actual family lines; documented history. Much like you might go to ancestory.com to search your family history, the genealogies in Scripture are giving us the family history of Jesus Christ.
And so the genealogies show us that the gospel is good news not good advice. Some people might say it doesn’t really matter whether Jesus actually lived or not, all that matters is that we follow his moral example. Some of you will react, “well, I don’t believe that. I believe that Jesus actually lived,” and yet you live as if Jesus is a functional fairy tale. You may assent to the facts about Jesus but you don’t actually trust him enough to live like he’s real.
When you say you believe in Jesus but live in perpetual unrepentant sin, you’re treating Jesus like a fairy tale. When you don’t make church a priority for you and your family, you’re treating Jesus like a fairy tale. When you don’t give, you’re treating Jesus like a fairy tale. While you may reject progressive Christianity on paper, when you live in disobedience to Scripture, you are functioning as if it doesn’t really matter whether Jesus actually lived or not.
But the genealogies won’t allow that. No, the genealogies reveal to us that Christmas is good news. Christmas is the good news that the Son of God, the eternal second person of the Holy Trinity was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He is truly God and truly man. Jesus is God incarnate. He is Emmanuel – God with us.
The genealogies reveal that we cannot save ourselves. God got down in the mud with us to lift us up from Adam’s fall. If the story of Jesus is treated like a fairy tale then you’re going to end up in one of two places: either you’re going to be self-righteous because you believe that you are righteous enough on your own before God, in which case your heart becomes even more dragon-ish with each passing day. Or you’re going to keenly understand that you’re not righteous enough and you’re going to wallow in despair. But the incarnation eviscerates both dangerous ditches by showing us that we are so sinful that God had to step in and save us himself but also that God loves us so much that he was willing to step in himself to save us.
And by the way these genealogies are good news that we can trust. Some look at Matthew and Luke’s genealogies and see discrepancies and their response is, “see! Scripture is untrustworthy because the genealogies are different.” This is a misunderstanding.
First of all, Matthew and Luke are writing their genealogies with two different goals. Luke’s genealogy goes all the way back to Adam because Luke’s thrust is that Jesus of Nazareth is the savior of the whole world, not just Israel. Matthew’s genealogy goes back to Abraham because Matthew’s point is that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament promises. Second, ancient genealogies were always selective. Because we have inherited an enlightenment hermeneutic we’re prone to thinking the Scripture must always be read literalistically. But that’s not how ancient readers saw the Bible.
For example, in Ruth’s genealogy where it says the word “fathered,” (Perez fathered Hezron) it’s the Hebrew word יָלַד. It means, “to bear, bring forth, beget, to engender.” In the LXX and the New Testament this word is translated as γεννάω, which is where we get our English word “generation.” The point is this word doesn’t necessarily mean literal father. It can mean grandfather or great grandfather.
It simply means that one came from this person’s line. For example, I am the son of Randy Loginow and he is the son of Al Loginow. So it is not inaccurate to say that I am from Al Loginow. The discrepancies in the genealogies are not historical inaccuracies. The ancient cultures just didn’t read and think the way we do.
This is a healthy reminder for us not to fall into what CS Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” People today are no smarter than ancient people just because we have modern technology. If you find something in the Bible that doesn’t make sense to you or seems like an error, consider that maybe someone else in the last 2,000 years has noticed it as well and thought about it. Church history must be our companion as we study God’s Word. The creeds, confessions, and catechisms shed light on Scripture for us as godly men have contemplated and meditated on the Bible for multiple millennia.
If you find something in Scripture that you don’t agree with it’s you who needs to change, not Scripture. We cannot bend the Word of God to fit our modern sensibilities. The Bible is the eternal inerrant inspired Word of God. You don’t even think the same way you did 5 years ago.
So trust God’s Word. Trust it primarily because it reveals the good news of Jesus. Like these genealogies, the whole Bible is about the good news of Jesus. It’s not a fairy tale; it’s history. It’s not good advice; it’s good news.
Christmas is Good News for Sinners
Not only is Christmas good news but also Christmas is good news for sinners. Jesus’ family tree is full of some dirty rotten scoundrels. This is not limited to, but is typified by the five women named in Matthew’s genealogy: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah, and Mary. Tamar pretended to be a prostitute in order to get pregnant by her father-in-law. Rahab was a prostitute.
Ruth was a Moabite; she was from a people of God who were cursed because they were born out of incest. Bathsheba is called the wife of Uriah because King David took her from Uriah and impregnated her before murdering Uriah. Mary was pregnant before she was married and while this was not sin because the Holy Spirit conceived in the virgin, she would have been viewed as a cultural dissident. This list would have been shocking to a first century audience. It would have been shocking because women were rarely, if ever, included in genealogies.
But it also would have been shocking because these women were of ill report. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the sin committed by the men on this list. The point is that Jesus’ family is full of sinners. That is really good news for you and me.
Christmas is good news for sinners because Jesus came in the incarnation, as the Nicene Creed proclaims, for us and for our salvation. We need salvation because we have sinned against the one true holy God. The just condemnation for our sin is eternal conscious punishment in hell. Salvation through Jesus is inaugurated by his birth but it is continued as he lived without sin. And then Jesus died on the cross bearing God’s wrath for our sin.
This is the true surprise of Christmas. This is the reason Jesus was born: to die. Christmas does not end with the manger; it must lead us to the cross. The goal of the incarnation was the substitutionary death of the Son of God in the place of the elect.
This is good news for sinners because our sin must be atoned for. God is holy so he cannot leave sin unpunished. God would be unjust if he swept sin under the rug and if he were unjust, he would not be God. So everyone’s sins will be paid for in one of two places: either in hell for eternity or on the cross of Jesus Christ.
This is good news for sinners like you and me because that means even we can be in Jesus’ family. No sin is too small to keep you from deserving hell. Yet no sin is too great to keep you from the grace of Jesus. That’s what grace means; it means unmerited favor. It means we get what we don’t deserve. Christmas is good news for sinners.
Christmas is Good News for Sinners about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ
We have seen that Christmas is good news and we have seen that Christmas is good news for sinners. Finally, Christmas is good news for sinners about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. This is the surprise that changes everything in the book of Ruth: Boaz and Ruth get married and their baby has a baby who has a baby and in a stroke of literary and theological genius the final verse in the book of Ruth exclaims and Jesse fathered David. This love story is actually a royal love story. And like The Sixth Sense once you learn the ending, you can never read the story the same way again.
King David was the greatest king Israel ever had and ruled over the greatest time in Israel’s history. King David was given a covenant with YHWH, who promised that one of David’s sons would sit on the throne forever. Matthew’s genealogy reveals to us that that son was Jesus of Nazareth. And God proved that Jesus is the true and final King when he raised Jesus from the dead. After Jesus resurrected he ascended to heaven where he has since ruled the church and the world at the right hand of God the Father almighty. In his second advent Jesus Christ will return to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new.
Because Jesus is God’s King all people are responsible to repent and believe the gospel. To repent means to turn from your sin; to acknowledge that you are a sinner and that there’s nothing you can do to save yourself. To repent means to agree with what God says about you – that you are dead in your sins (Eph 2.1); to agree that there are none righteous, no not one (Rom 3.10), and that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3.23). But repentance is only one side of the coin. You must also place your faith in Christ alone.
Faith in Christ has three facets: knowledge, assent, and trust. First, you must know who Jesus is and what Jesus did. Next you must assent to the validity of these truth claims. You have to actually think the facts about Jesus are true.
But even assent is not enough to save you. You must finally transfer your trust to Jesus Christ alone. That means if you were to stand before God and he were to ask you, “why should I forgive your sins and give you eternal life?” Your only answer must be “because Jesus died for my sins and my faith is in him alone.”
If you repent and believe you will be brought into the Kingdom of Christ. This is the only perfect kingdom the world has ever seen. Matthew hints at that by noting that there were 14 generations from Abraham to David and 14 generations from David to the Exile and 14 generations from the Exile to the birth of Christ. Again, this does not mean there were literally 14 generations between these people and events. This genealogy may be collapsed to make a theological point.
The point is that this number is seven sevens, the number of perfection. Jesus’ Kingdom is perfection. It is also the number of the Sabbath. In Jesus’ Kingdom alone do we find the true and final Sabbath rest.
That’s why we gather for worship as a church every Sunday. Jesus Christ resurrected on a Sunday morning shifting the New Covenant Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. We gather every Sunday as an outpost of the Kingdom of Christ. Christ Community Church is an embassy of Jesus’ Kingdom here at 14/Van Dyke.
This Kingdom takes root in our hearts when the Holy Spirit works regeneration through the gospel. This Kingdom is lived out in the church as we administer the Word and the sacraments together, as we love and serve each other. This Kingdom will be consummated when Jesus Christ returns, judges the living and the dead, and ushers in the new creation. Tim Keller said, “Easter proves that Christmas is real.” The manger leads us to the cross and the empty tomb, which lead us to a new city in a new world where we will live with Jesus forever and sin and death will be no more.
Conclusion
The surprise ending of the book of Ruth is that this love story results in the birth of a baby who is king. The surprise of Christmas is that the baby in the manger is king. May we be surprised by Christmas this year. Christmas is good news for sinners about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas!