I’m sure that your Christmas so far has been like our usual image of that first Christmas night as the hymn Silent Night put it, all is calm.  Right?  I think I just heard some groans, and some of you are thinking, “Preacher, did you fall off the turnip truck last night?”  No, most of our Christmas’s are anything but calm.  I think that’s why the Spirit led me to this particular part of the First Christmas Story found in Matthew 2:9-12

After this interview the wise men went their way.  And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they were filled with joy!  They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.  Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod.

I wish someone could get Doc Brown’s flux capacitor and the time traveling DeLorean really working.  I would love to go back in time and watch Matthew as he writes this Gospel, in particular this part of the Christmas Story.  The Holy Spirit is inspiring him and he starts at the beginning.  Matthew is inspired to write the story about the Wise Men, and then he is prompted by the Spirit, “Hey, put that part in there about them going home by a different route.  There’s going to be this guy Randy who sees things a little differently.  Help him out a little.”  So Matthew writes that they went home by another route, a different way.  I believe there is more going on that just an escape route from Herod.  There is another message, another truth about God’s marvelous gift of Messiah.

The very first Christmas was about change.  The incarnation, the birth of God’s Son, THE Word that became flesh, changed everything—in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and the entire world.  It was not a gradual change that occurred—but an abrupt upheaval that set in motion the transformation of people, communities, empires and the world.  Here is the point about that single line about going home a different way:  Anyone Who Encounters Jesus And Opens Their Heart To Him, Cannot Go Back To Living Their Life The Same Way Because We Are Different People.  And this very evening on the day we remember that radical and powerful event, there are many people who will end this day tired, exhausted, worn, frazzled, and many other such emotions, but they will not be changed by the Message that filled the hillsides outside Bethlehem.  Think about all the people who were changed by the first Christmas Story.

1.  It Changed Mary

Mary grew up in Nazareth, and at the time it was just a small village.  Nothing was notable about it in that day.  When Philip became a disciple of Jesus, he rushes to find his friend Nathanael with the news:  “I have found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth!”  And Nathanael’s response?  “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Nathanael wasn’t putting Jesus down, like calling him a Yankee.  Nazareth wasn’t known for producing great leaders.  Mary was just an ordinary young lady from a poor and dusty village.  Her social status, her family’s prominence are never mentioned. 

Yet it is Mary that God chooses as the vessel to bring Messiah into the world.  Her life was no longer ordinary.  Not just the way it came about—she and Joseph weren’t living together yet in marriage—it changed her heart for God.  Think about it.  All her life she had been taught that God was too holy, too awesome to draw near.  That’s why they needed priests and the priests needed the High Priest.  But now, now she knows that God is close enough to hold in her arms, close enough to kiss. It changed her because she found that God wanted to be in her heart!  This peasant young lady, nothing remarkable or extraordinary, became an instrument for God.

2.  It Changed Joseph

Joseph, a son of royalty, the lineage of David, wasn’t living as a prince.  He was just an ordinary carpenter.  His mind and his hands worked with a part of God’s wonderful creation:  wood and through archeology we now know he probably also worked with stone.  He was a good man because his heart was for the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.  When Mary told him about the pregnancy, Joseph could have shamed her publicly, but he didn’t.  He looked for a way to avoid the disgrace of a divorce.  Though he must have had so many emotions running through his head, his heart was still open to God.  Side-stepping their traditions, he took Mary, and this baby into his home and into his heart!  Joseph was changed because now he was a part of something bigger than himself:  He had a God-sized task.

He became the earthly father to the Son of the Eternal Father.  His whole life he had worked with a part of God’s creation, now he worked with the Creator, himself.  Would he ever look at a piece of wood the same?  Can you imagine what thoughts went through his mind as he was teaching Jesus, the One present when the trees were spoken into existence, how to work with that wood?  This good and just man found that life offers us the opportunity to become part of something much bigger than we ever imagined.  He was changed from being just a good man into a man who was entrusted with the Son of God—from an ordinary life as a carpenter into the extraordinary life of living within God’s plan and purpose.

3.  It Changed The Shepherds

Thanks to western movies out of Hollywood, we see shepherds as meek and mild, even weak.  But shepherds in biblical times were rugged and tough.  They had to be, living under the conditions most of them had.  It was a life of long days in the hot sun, leading sheep from area to area, and then protecting the sheep from predators and thieves.  When David stood before Saul to accept the challenge of facing Goliath, he said, “I have fought bears and lions and won, and I will fight Goliath and win!”  Shepherds were not the kind of men you would want at a tea party, or cocktail party.  They would have been more at home at a honky tonk.  Much of their life was lived in isolation from the rest of the world.

But their life was changed when they became the audience that was the first on earth to hear that cantata the angel choir had been practicing since time began.  They were given a once in all time performance.  The angels sang, not to Herod in his palace, or the priests in the Temple, but to rough and rugged shepherds out in the countryside.  They were moved from the fringes of society, rough and rugged, and moved into the story of God’s redemptive love.  Now they had something to tell others that wasn’t about sheep and thieves and wild animals.  It changed them when God gave them a new song, a song of the heart, and it is the song that is still being sung today.  It said that the people they shared their song with were amazed.  They went back to the sheep and the campfires, praising God!  It changed them!

4.  It Changed The Wise Men

It all started with the star.  The night it appeared, they recognized it for what it was:  a heavenly announcement.  They knew God was about to do something remarkable.  Rather that sit on the sidelines admiring the beauty of that star, they were moved and driven, to find the Prince of Peace.  They gathered the best gifts they could find—gifts that were a reflection of who He really is.  They brought gold—because He is the King of Kings.  They brought frankincense—an aromatic resin that was used in worship because He alone is worthy of our worship.  And they brought myrrh—an aromatic resin that was used in burial.  These men were scholars—they loved the study and learn new things.  But nothing compared with the knowledge that God’s Only Son was here on earth.

So they sat out on a journey, a long and difficult journey.  I can just see them each night as they make camp, talking with great excitement, and the expectation that they would not be disappointed.  And oh, how they rejoiced when they came into that house and saw Jesus.    They were changed because nothing else in all the world, could ever compare with their joy of worshipping Jesus!  And we read that they went home a different way.  Yes, part of it was to avoid telling Herod, but mainly because they had been in the very presence of God in the most unexpected places.

What an exciting event for all these people to have experienced.  They were changed by all that happened, all they saw, and all they felt in their hearts.  But for many, maybe some of you this morning, another Christmas often leaves an empty feeling and a sense that you could never experience the change that transformed Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds, and those Wise Men.  Maybe it’s because you believe you could never offer the kind of gifts, the kind of life that fits the Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords and King of Kings.  It would be nice and great if we too, could come to Jesus like these Wise Men, with gifts that were worthy of more than royalty—gifts worthy of God’s Only Son.  And the truth is we would love to give a Tiffany’s, a Neiman Marcus or a Macy’s kind of gift to Jesus.  But it’s hard to offer Jesus those kinds of gifts on a Dollar General budget. 

But the real meaning of Christmas doesn’t depend on our budget.  It comes from our Heavenly Father who is so rich in love, grace and mercy, that He has more than enough for anyone, everyone, even us.

The Gift Of Jesus Can Change Us!

What changed Joseph and Mary, what changed the Shepherds, what changed those Wise Men wasn’t that they were all worthy of such an encounter, but that God offered them the encounter—and they accepted God’s gift into their hearts!  And God is offering all of us this transforming encounter with Jesus.  It will not be found in a stable outside Bethlehem, lying in a manger—but it is found when we listen to and follow God’s heart, all the way to the Cross!

Don’t worry that you’ve run out of gold or maxed out the credit cards.  Don’t panic that Dollar General has sold out of frankincense and myrrh.  All He asks is that you give Him your heart, just as it is.  You heart can be pure like Mary’s; good like Joseph’s; gifted like the Wise Men, rough and rugged like the Shepherds, or it may be as dirty as that stable.  You can go home this morning the same way you came here.  Or—or you can go home a different way, because you have become a different person—different, not because of the gift you bring to Jesus—but because of the Gift that Jesus has come to bring you.  Please, don’t go home the same way.