(December 22, 2002) I’m Dennis Finnan, host and speaker on the World, the Word & You! Broadcast and in a moment we’ll talk about it what Christmas was meant to be…

…How is it we get so wrapped up in the trappings of Christmas each year? How is it that year after year we become less and less responsive to the “Reason for this Season?” It’s unbelievable that we celebrate and recognize a birthday that 2000 years ago, was also largely ignored. How strange that is. But then, how awesome and marvelous is the reason. You see, it all began in the dark and dreary days of the Roman Empire, in a little place called Bethlehem, where an insignificant family, sought a shelter to allow a most blessed event to occur, the birth of a firstborn baby. The couple? Well they were a poor Jewish man and woman, who were about to become the instruments of the greatest historical event in human history. Even today, we acknowledge that this birth of the One called Jesus of Nazareth, carried profound significance, as it would henceforth mark the dividing point of all history forever, separating B.C. from A.D.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was no mere human birth, for Jesus Himself was no mere human being. The Bible tells us, and thousands of years of prophecy and history acquaints us, and human need tells us, this one born in that lowly stable, to that humble Jewish woman, was none other than the Creator God, come in human flesh.

Yes, this baby born that day was and is God the Son, who was sent on a divine mission of mercy to planet earth. Christmas is therefore the celebration of life, the coming of the God/man for a very significant purpose. In moment after another musical pause for the season I’ll share with you the glory and wonder of that miraculous birth…

… According to the Bible, the real message of Christmas is found in the words of the prophet Isaiah who wrote long ago:

Isa 9:6-7 (NIV)  "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this."

This is truly one of the most amazing prophecies ever given, no doubt referring back to the promised virgin-born Messiah the prophet spoke about in Isaiah 7:14. The Christmas child born that we celebrate, is of course the human Jesus, born as a babe, while the “Son” given in this text, is the eternally begotten Second Person of the Godhead, united together in a glorious hypostatic union  called “GOD IS WITH US.”

Did you know that the writings of the Old Testament were completed 400 years before this very first Christmas occurred? Why even before that, upwards of almost 2000 years, God began prophesying of this coming birth. Moreover in the Bible, already more than 2000 clear and precise predictions known as prophecies have already been fulfilled, and every one of them literally as spoken and written down. Perhaps the greatest of them all was the prediction that one day, the seed of a woman would give birth (Gen. 3:15)

Gen 3:15 (NKJV)  “And I will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman [Eve], And between your seed and her Seed; He [her child]  shall bruise your head, And you [Satan]  shall bruise His heel.”

Yes imagine that, God speaks of a woman’s “seed.” But humanly speaking, no woman can give birth without the “seed” of a man. However, here God’ s Word promised and predicted even from the Garden of Eden, that one of Eve’s children would stun the world and give birth to a child formed from a woman’s seed alone.

But perhaps the most amazing and comforting truth the Bible records about the birth of Jesus Christ, is the purpose for which He came. To understand this, we go to the New Testament, Book of John, and look in on a ministry of a strange man named John the Baptist. While he was at the river Jordan, He was calling Israel to repentance and faith in the promised coming of their Messiah. John didn’t know who the Messiah was at this time, but John knew that when he came, God would make Him known to him. Now it wasn’t an unusual day when this happened. Many Israelites were listening to John’s fiery messages on the need of Israel. The Pharisees came to hear John speak too, and watch the spectacle of him performing “baptism” on the Jewish people. But then all of a sudden, in the distance, a figure was coming closer, a figure that began to cause every muscle and nerve in John the Baptist’s body to quiver. Unexpectedly, the face became clear and this special figure walked up to John.

 It was at this point, the eyes of John the Baptist were opened and the Lord God said to the heart and mind of John. “This is the One who was spoken of long ago, this is the One on whom you must put your approval.” It is here the Scriptures takes over and John stops his message and work, and “shouts aloud,” to all around the words recorded in John’s Gospel in,

John 1:29 (NKJV)  “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

John’ s prophetic utterance then galvanized the nation and revealed the true meaning of Christmas.

Yes, my friends, Christmas even to this day is a gift from almighty God, and that gift was given and described throughout Scripture as the gift of a “LAMB.” Mary, that obedient young Jewish believer, was the instrument who received and brought forth the LAMB OF GOD. Now uncanny and amazing as it is, that old nursery rhyme, MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB, beautifully describes the true meaning of Christmas. Indeed, Mary had a little lamb…

… Did you know that the Bible’s teaching that God’s Son, Jesus Christ is the “lamb,” is very significant? You see, the arrival of God the Son in human flesh, signaled all creation that God’s promise and love, was indeed in action. John witnessed the arrival of the Messiah, for he saw him and he declared it, and he was faithful to tell the nation the purpose of his birth when he cried out,  “BEHOLD, THE LAMB OF GOD…” Now this phrase is very significant too. John the Baptist, did not introduce Jesus to the nation as the Son of God, nor as the holy One of God, nor as the Christ of God, nor as the Word of God. No, he went right to the heart of the nation’s need, in fact the same need of our world today!

John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus Christ as “the LAMB” come from God! Now in the Bible, this is a special title. The Lord Jesus is called the lamb only twice in the 0ld Testament, only twice in the Gospels, only once in the Book of Acts, and only once in the epistles. However, in the book of the future, the Book of the REVELATION, the Lord Jesus is mentioned more than 28 times as “the Lamb!”

Now, going back thousands of years, a young teenage boy asked the question “WHERE IS THE LAMB?” As his father Abraham journeyed up Mount Moriah, to make a sacrifice to the one true God, Isaac asked his father, “WHERE IS THE LAMB? He knew, they had the wood, but no animal to sacrifice. Abraham answers “ GOD WILL PROVIDE HIMSELF A LAMB.” We read of this in,

Gen 22:7-8 (NKJV)  “But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” Then he said, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” 8 And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.”

And so my friends, that is what Christmas really means! God has provided Himself a lamb for sacrifice. Now to the Jews of Jesus’ day, this statement had tremendous meaning. A lamb for sacrifice meant a number of things. First of all, it was provision for a way sinful humanity could cover their sins in meeting with the God they worshipped. “Behold the Lamb,” in a sentence, is the essence of the Christmas story and the Christian message. Isaiah wrote years before,

Isa 53:6-7 (NKJV)  “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.”

Moreover, John the Baptist declared that Jesus’ coming, was for this very purpose  ¾ to take away, to clear the account of sin for all humanity, before God our Maker. So, our message and our celebration of Christmas should then be the same. As William Cowper wrote in his famous hymn,

There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins; and,
sinner’s plunged that beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stain.”

Indeed, a growing portion of professing Christianity now rejects this truth, but none the less, the reality of atonement for sin is bound up in Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection. The

 message then of Christmas is ¾ God sent His Son to take away the sins of the world, that in Him and through Him, a gateway back to God would be opened. Christ came as our sin-bearer, and “the Lamb” of God Himself, provided for us, to die for mankind’s sins.

Now it’s interesting that in the Old Testament, the sheep died for the shepherd, but in the New Testament, we are told the Shepherd is to die for the sheep. That shepherd is God’s lamb, who alone provided Himself, to satisfy the penalty of mankind’s sin and our coming judgment.

Christ “the Lamb,” is the eternal message that every human being must believe in  and embrace, to be rightly related to God.

No church, no religion, no ritual or act within such faith, can ever bring a soul guiltless before God, except the blood shed on Calvary’s cross, when the GOD/MAN Jesus Christ died as the Lamb of God, that alone can cleanse every one of our sins. Just think, Abraham prophesied of “the Lamb” to come. The Jewish Passover celebration applied this principle of His sacrifice too. Isaiah personified His sacrifice. John the Baptist identified the sacrificial Lamb as Jesus, and the Book of Revelation, magnifies the “Lamb of God,” chosen before the foundation of the world, who died upon a cross to save his people from their sins.

Now many people, this Christmas season, will miss knowing Christ and His forgiveness, simply because they have not heard the “Good News” of Christmas, the very heart of Christmas, the real message which I repeat is, God took upon Himself human flesh, and became one of us that we might one day become part of Him.

Now, why would God leave all His glory to become a lowly man? The answer is found in,

John 3:16 (NIV)  “”For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Oh yes, Christmas is therefore a celebration of God’s gift of a “Lamb.” A very special lamb sent as a sacrifice, and given as a gift to the one for whom it dies. Has Christ’s death been applied to your sin? Have you received this Christmas Lamb?

Someone has written a poem entitled: Mary had a little Lamb. Let me read it for you now,