Happy Birthday Jesus

 December 20 2020

Luke 1:46-56, 2:1-14

         Last week the Ratchford’s blessed our church with two outside signs that said “Happy Birthday Jesus”.  Whenever I think about those words, “Happy Birthday Jesus” I remember going Christmas caroling when I was a kid. Our family belonged to Grange and our Grange had a Junior Grange, which was all of  the kids of the regular Grange members. The lady who kept us in line was named Lucille. Now every year around Christmastime all of the Junior Grange members and their parents would meet at Lucilles house to carpool to go out to sing Christmas Carols to the Grange members who were house bound or in the nursing home. After we finished up with the singing we would head back to Lucilles house to eat and fellowship. But before we did anything though we would gather around her kitchen table where there was a cake with a candle placed upon it and we would sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. It always struck me kind of funny, I mean this was the only place where I sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, but you know, it was so very right to do so because after all that is what Christmas is all about, the birth of Jesus.

         Our scripture today from Luke’s gospel is perhaps the best known story of the birth of Jesus. It is the same story that Charles Schultz insisted be a part of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. It is the story we know all so well, the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, their finding no place to lodge for the night having to spend the night in the stable. There in that most lowly of places the Christ child was born and Mary wrapped him in swaddling clothes and made a bed for him out of the feeding trough. Now this is not the only version of this story for as we know there is another version of the birth of Jesus that is found in the gospel of Matthew which has the account of the wise men instead of angels and shepherds. The gospel of Mark doesn’t have the story of the birth of Jesus which is kind of interesting all things considered. Finally, as we come to the gospel of John what we discover is that what John has done is to give us the story behind the story. John has included the story of Jesus birth but what John has done in his account is to strip away all the elements of the story to leave just the bare meaning of the birth of Jesus. It is John who makes us ask just what is it about this birth of Jesus that is so important for us to hang on to? What should catch our attention, the willingness of Mary to be the handmaiden of the Lord, or that there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the overcrowded Bethlehem or is it rather the humble setting of the stable which to us should be what we take away from the birth story of Jesus? Or is there something else that we should really be concerned with, perhaps it is the birth of Jesus itself while seemingly much like every other birth was actually nothing like any other birth before or since? This is what John wants to remind us of, the unusual nature of the birth of Jesus. This is why John begins his gospel account by telling us that the birth of Jesus had its beginnings not on earth but rather in heaven. John writes that Jesus the Christ was in the beginning and he is the Word, the Word that was with God and the Word that is God. It was this Word, John tells us, that became flesh and dwelt among us which I guess tells us something about the birth of Jesus but not much. What is more helpful is what John writes before he tells us that the Word became flesh. There he writes that the children of God are those who were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man but of God. Here I believe that John is not just talking about those of us who consider ourselves children of God but he is more importantly speaking to us about Jesus, the firstborn child of God.The birth of Jesus was solely an act of God. His existence in our world came about through the work of the Holy Spirit. Much like the Spirit hovered over the chaos in the first chapter of Genesis to form creation, so also the Holy Spirit hovered over Mary, the moment of new creation. The first Adam as we are told in the second chapter of Genesis came into existence from the Earth. His origins we might say were earthly. But Jesus our deliverer, the last Adam, came into existence from heaven. Jesus was the Word that came forth from God, sent from God. While he came to existence through Mary we must not forget that what made the birth of Jesus so different from every other birth was that his birth was an act of God. This is what was the “new” in the good news of Jesus.

         This is why we speak of this time of Advent, Advent the word for coming. Jesus, the Son of God, came to us from beyond our earthly existence. Through a special creative act of the Holy Spirit the Son of God became one of us. Jesus, Son of God clothed himself in our fallen nature, our broken humanity in order to demonstrate the way that we might find deliverance out of the sin that  enslaves humanity. What may have not been apparent at his birth became so incredibly evident at his resurrection. There when Jesus walked out of the grave three days after his brutal death, the power of a life that was born from above was witnessed  by the followers of Jesus. The resurrection revealed the power of a life where God and man are united as one. It is the resurrection that shone a light back to the birth of Jesus to help us understand that it was the birth of Jesus that redefined life forever. No longer would life be thought of in merely flesh bound terms but now life would be known as its ability to bear the Holy Spirit and in that Spirit find a life set free by power from above.

         This is how Paul understood the birth of Jesus.  Paul wrote about the birth of Jesus but what he writes about is not the details of that birth but rather the impact that birth had for all people. In his letter that he wrote to the Galatians, Paul writes some rather odd ways about something that is pretty common, our faith. He tells us that before faith came we were held captive under the law imprisoned until the coming faith could be revealed. Here is this idea of Advent, but what was coming was faith. Hearing this we have to wonder what Paul means because it is quite evident that faith can be found throughout the Old Testament. This coming of faith that Paul speaks of thus can only be understood as being a way of speaking of Christ coming into the world, Christ being born as one of us. So it is very interesting that Paul uses this term “faith” as a way of speaking about Jesus and what Paul is telling us is that faith is Jesus and Jesus is faith. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?  If we weren’t certain that this is how Paul thought of it all we have to do is to continue reading and Paul goes on to say that the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come we are no longer under a guardian. So to Paul what was born that night in Bethlehem was not just Jesus but faith. We often say that love came down at Christmas but here Paul is making it quite clear that not only love but faith as well arrived in the birth of Jesus. To understand this we have to remember that faith for Paul, as he defines it in the fourth chapter of Romans, is the belief that God is the one who gives life to the dead and the one who calls into existence the the things that did not exist. So for Paul, Jesus is the embodiment of this faith, the embodiment of God calling into existence through his word that which did not exist. What came into existence with the birth of Jesus was a human life that was born from above. Why this is so important for Paul is that he knew that the Spirit that caused Jesus to be born from above is the same Spirit that can cause us to be born from above. In other words, the Spirit that brought Christ into existence can make Christ exist in us. This is what Paul writes in the fourth chapter of Galatians, that when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters.And because you are sons and daughters of God he has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” . So, this is what Paul understood that in a way, when Jesus was born we were born. 

This is the hope that John wrote about in the first chapter of his gospel that to all who did receive Jesus, to all who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God. John is saying, like Paul, that when we believe, when Jesus is our faith we too can be born of God.  So, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem was not just a one and done kind of deal. No, it was just the beginning. There the Son of God came into the world so that through him those who placed their faith in him might become sons and daughters of God. So, again his birthday is in a way, our birthday. When he was born our hope of being born from above became a reality, a reality that becomes real for us by faith. The same Spirit that brought Jesus into existence brings Jesus to exist in us.

         It is important for us to understand that the significance of the birth of Jesus was that he was born from above, that because he was born from above we can be born from above. The reason why we being born from above is so important is that as Jesus tells us in the third chapter of John’s gospel, unless we are born from above we will not see the kingdom of God. In other words, without being born from above we cannot be a part of the new creation God is bringing about, a new creation that began that night in Bethlehem so long ago. So, when we are born from above, life in Gods kingdom is opened up to us. What this means for us to have life in God’s kingdom as Paul explains in the fourteenth chapter of Romans is righteousness, peace and joy, all of this is ours through the Holy Spirit. The life of righteousness  secures our future because now we have no fear of judgment but instead we know we have passed from death to life. This is why we can live with a living hope. The joy we experience living in Gods kingdom is the joy of knowing we are able to enter into the joy of our Master whom we serve. And the peace we have is a life secured by bonds of love, the love we have because God first loved us.This is the life we receive when the Holy Spirit comes upon the chaos of our life and through the power of God makes us a new creation, a person born from above.

         So we rightly sing, Happy Birthday Jesus! He was born from above through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was our frail humanity that Christ was clothed with but his life was different because of his oneness with his Heavenly Father. Through this unity with his Heavenly Father,  Christ overcame every temptation to sin, and was willing to offer himself through the Holy Spirit, a perfect sacrifice to God.  Jesus lived this life so that we too might have the chance to experience unity with our Heavenly Father and discover a life that can overcome the world . This is what happens when we too are born from above through the action of the Holy Spirit. So, this is why we celebrate the birth of Jesus because his being born through an act of God opened the way for all of us to be born from above. When we are united to Christ by faith then the Holy Spirit creates a new life in us. This life is one where we know God as our Heavenly Father and through the Spirit we cry Abba, Father. When we know God as our Father then at long last we know each other as sisters and brothers in the family of God.  And because our life has come to us from heaven we have the blessed assurance that in the end we will be welcomed home into the heavenly mansions of God all because of Jesus born in Bethlehem so long ago. Praise be to God!Amen.