Christmas Day 2012 Sermon

Christmas Day 2012


Christmas is a feast that inspires a lot of hope. Once God has taken on human form it must make a difference to the human race, we would think.

Yet we see that humanity has not improved much from one generation to the next; even after Christ has come. Yes, there has been a lot of good fruit but the world has not been transformed as much as we would have hoped.

The first Christians would have expected a lot better result than this. When are those swords going to be converted into ploughshares? When are the lion and lamb to lie down together?

The world gets worse, if anything.

Can we still celebrate? Certainly, yes. For two reasons.

One, the mere fact that Jesus has come is something to celebrate. To have Him on our team must be a good thing. Just the fact that He is here. We may not see how it is going to work but we have to be on the winning side if He is on it.

Two, we are not just talking theoretically when we ask, Can the world get better. We are able to cause it to get better, or at least influence things in that direction. We don’t just think about these things - we actually get in there and do them. We change the course of events by the way we act.

At the individual level it may not look like we can achieve much, but what we do can make a difference. Remember the widow’s mite, or the boy with just five loaves and two fish.

We hope for a flow-on effect so that whatever we do as individuals will then be picked up by others and generally things change for the better.

People would get on board if they could see His miracles again.

It is hard to get people motivated at present because they don't believe that things can get better. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If everyone sits around saying it can't improve they will not pray and, of course, things will not change.

But if we pitch in and say, Let’s change this - it will change. It takes a little daring, a little foolishness for Christ’s sake to do this.

We go against the tide if necessary. We call on the power of Christ to change the way we think, act, and speak. We believe we can change ourselves, especially if we seek it. If we can get that far, why not the rest of the world? That can change too.

So it comes to this: Believe in the change and you will get it. Wish it and you will get it. This is not like the fairytales- where you make a wish and it comes true - but very real. Faith, where our desires meet the will of God, can indeed make things come true.

So we start praying with greater fervour, and we keep praying, even if there are no visible results. We claim the power of Christ and let it go to work for us.

We overcome any tendency to cynicism, doubt, or inertia.

We kneel before Christ in humility, in faith, in expectation; not just once but constantly, always keeping alive the expectation.

We have never seen the fulness of salvation yet, but the only reason for this is that not enough people have asked for it.

It is not that it can not be done; it just has not been done.

In economic jargon they talk of consumer confidence. If everybody spends then we have more production, more jobs, more wealth. If the consumers do not spend we have depression.

We can have spiritual depression too. If not enough people ‘believe’, then there is not enough prayer, not enough change. So we have to ‘spend’ up big. Spend some time praying!

Jesus Christ has come among us; helping us to finish what He has started.