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Content type: Sermon Poem / Prayer Service / Tribute Incomplete Biography
Body: Cane Creek Friends Meeting 12/14/25. A man in Phoenix called his son in New York on Christmas Eve and says, “I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; 45 years of misery is enough – I cannot take it anymore!” The startled son replies, “Pop what are you talking about, you and mom are so in love” The father replies we simply cannot stand the sight of each other any longer. We are sick of each other, and I do not want to talk about it any longer; you call your sister in Chicago and tell her the bad news. Frantic the son calls his sister in Chicago and tells her of their parents impending divorce – she is shocked and immediately calls her parents – Her dad answers the phone, but before he can say hello, she blurts out; THERE IS NO WAY YOU & MOM ARE GETTING A DIVORCE! I will take care of this. She tells her father not to do a thing she will be in Phoenix tomorrow and her brother from Chicago will be there as well. The old man hangs up the phone and turns to his wife and says “THE KIDS ARE COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS AND PAYING THEIR OWN WAY! We often don’t think about it, but when we say a certain date, what we mean is that it is about to be 2,026 years since the birth of Christ. It was Dionysius around the year A.D. 525 who created the current dating system that we use today of starting date for all history at the birth of Christ. That’s when we started using the phrases A.D. and B.C. Did you know that when we changed from using the Julian calendar to the calendar we use today, called the Gregorian calendar, the people were told to go to bed on September 4th, and when they awoke the next morning, they were to call it September 15th. Literally, skip ahead 11 days. There are events in history that have completely caused humanity to be remolded: (1) One would be the Holocaust, the extermination of millions of Jews. (2) Another would be the Space Race. The explosion of technology in the past 60 years (from microwaves, to televisions, to GPS in your car, to the cell phone in your pocket) all have been attributed to the race to get a rocket in space. (3) The Civil War in America. For four years, nearly 620,000 Americans died; almost half of what has been killed in every other war combined. (4) How about the Renaissance? During this time, more people learned to read and write. The printing press allowed for the Bible to be placed into everyone's hands. This period gave rise to some greatest creations in human history (the Mona Lisa, the Statue of David, and the King James Version in English). (5) Or how has 9/11 shaped our Country over the past 25 years? However, there is one event that not only completely shaped human history, but the event changed the calendar. On our calendar, we date a certain event with the letters A.D. or B.C. Today, for instance, is December 14, A.D. 2025. Those letters “A.D.” in Latin say “anno domini,” and means “In the Year of Our Lord.” Before the Julian and later, the Gregorian calendar, there never was a specific date for anything. In the Bible, periods of time were noted by who was the emperor or a specific event. That’s why the Bible says, “In the second year off ___.” However, the birth of Christ literally changed human history. The first Christmas is our starting point on the calendar. Because of Jesus’ birth the world was forever changed. Scripture Text: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 10He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 16And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. It was almost as if someone had dragged a stick though the sand drawing a line that said that was then and this is now. There has never been an event in the history of man that has so defined human history as the birth of Jesus. That first Christmas, the birth of a child born to an unknown couple in an obscure village over 2000 years ago literally drew a line in time. That single event has shaped the world like no other event. It has shaped how the world is viewed and how people are viewed. This month, in most countries in the world, literally billions of people will gather to celebrate, to various degrees, the symbolic birth date of a child who was born to an unknown couple in an obscure village over 2000 years ago. Even the most disinterested and antagonist will in some way acknowledge Christmas as something special, even if it’s only as a paid day off. When folks replace Merry Christmas with Happy Holiday, they acknowledge that it is something special. If it’s a holiday, then what are we celebrating? When we use phrases like “the prodigal son” “turn the other cheek” and “The blind leading the blind” we are quoting the one who was born on that day two thousand years ago. When we teach our children values like “Do unto others” and speak of the “Golden Rule” we are sharing the teaching of the Christ Child. And every time we write the date, even without adding the AD, Anno Domini, we are saying this happened this number of years since Jesus was born. The world, as we know it, exists with hospitals named after Saints because the child that was born 2000 years ago taught his followers to care for the sick. Relief agencies such as the Salvation Army, World Hope and Compassion touch the least of these in the world they do it in the name of Jesus because he taught his followers that we had an obligation to the poor. Most of the atheists who attack the church will even acknowledge that many of them received their education in universities that were started by followers of the God they deny. The world today is what it is because of the birth of a child over 2000 years ago in a stable located in an obscure village considered insignificant by most of the known world. But Jesus didn’t come to change the world, he came to change people, the line that was drawn on that first Christmas would radically change the lives of people. Of course, the first people who were changed were those who were the closest. Christmas changed Mary and Joseph’s World. How could their lives not be changed? The entire story is summed up in **Matthew 1:18** This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. The couple was engaged, that’s normal. From the very foundation of time men and women have been choosing to spend their lives together in a socially and legally recognized union that we call marriage, and Mary and Joseph were no different. We don’t know how they met, and we don’t know how old they were. What we do know is that they were engaged to be married, they weren’t yet married and Mary was a virgin. Everything is going well, just the way it was supposed to be going. They were probably planning for the big day and dreaming of their lives together. And then an angel shows up with an announcement that changes everything. Just imagine what the news meant to Mary and Joseph. People would never view them the same, to some they would always be that couple who had to get married. And they would always feel the weight of the responsibility that God had entrusted them with. This is my son, he’s going to save the world, and I want you to take care of him, make sure that he stays safe and healthy, and bring him up to know about Me. And for thirty-three years Mary marveled at the son she called Jesus and the responsibility that was hers. And to be truthful she probably couldn’t comprehend the plan when she held her son before he was laid in a borrowed manger and still couldn’t comprehend the plan when she held her son before he was laid in a borrowed grave. But her words were words of trust in **Luke 1:38** Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” Because of the First Christmas the largest church in the world, a city in Russia and a four-hundred-year-old village in Cape Breton all share the name of a Jewish Fisherman. Christmas changed Simon Peter’s world. How could Peter know that a chance encounter would change **his** world and change **the** world? It was very early in Christ’s ministry that we discover Peter doing what he had probably done every day of his adult life, he was fishing. Peter and his brother Andrew were fishermen. They probably weren’t poor, and they probably weren’t rich, they were just ordinary men working for a living to provide for their family. And we pick the story up in **Matthew 4:18-20** One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers—Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew—throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him. And if you know the story you know that over the next three years that Peter would become one of Jesus’ closest friends. It was Peter who first clued into the fact that Jesus was more than just a teacher or prophet. It was Peter who walked on the water with Jesus the night of the storm, it was Peter who said he would die for Jesus before he ever deserted Him, and it was Peter who denied Jesus the night Jesus needed him most. It was then he discovered the truth that Jesus isn’t looking for people who will die for him, he’s looking for people who will live for him. And Jesus told Peter in **Matthew 16:18**, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” And He did. Because Jesus was born, Peter went from being a fisherman to the very foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ. He wasn’t rich and he wasn’t perfect, but he was willing. And because he was willing the church that would change the world had its beginning. From that unlikely beginning hospitals, orphanages, universities and relief agencies have changed how the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged are viewed. We don’t even know her name, but you can be sure that she would never forget the name of Jesus. She had done what she had never thought she would be capable of doing, she broke her marriage vows and she got caught. The best that she could hope for would be a public divorce and humiliation. The worst-case scenario would be that her husband would insist on her death, which he would be entitled to according to the laws of the day. But most of you know the story, it is told in John’s gospel and it’s where we get the phrase: Cast the first stone. And so symbolically the woman caught in adultery represents all of us. Christmas Changes Our World. Jesus didn’t come so we could have Christmas and Jesus didn’t come so we could have a religion. When Joseph was struggling with what Mary had told him about the Angel’s message to her, he too was visited by an angel who had this message for him in **Matthew 1:20-21** As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” And when Jesus defined his purpose and his mission, he states in **Luke 19:10** Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” And that’s us, those who are lost. Each of us is born with a longing for more, we know that there is something out there, even if we can’t name it or describe it. King Solomon wrote in **Ecclesiastes 3:11** Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. God has planted eternity in the human heart. A desire to connect with our creator, to have a relationship with God, and that happens because he came as a child to bridge the gap that exists between sinful man and a holy God. Let’s go back to the story of the woman caught in adultery. She is brought to Jesus by the religious leaders of the day for judgement. There didn’t seem to be any doubt concerning her guilt, the story says she was caught in the very act of adultery. And on that day when her guilt was beyond question Jesus offered her two gifts. You might remember the part where Jesus stooped down and began drawing in the dirt and then he looks at them and says in **John 8:7** “All right but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” And they all walked away. And if we pick up the story in **John 8:10-11** Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I.” Because there was a Christmas there was a Jesus to save this woman from the consequences of her actions. And so, the first gift Jesus offered the woman was forgiveness from her past. And that is a gift we all long for, whatever our past holds. But that wasn’t the greatest gift that was offered that day, because Jesus doesn’t stop there, he continues to say “. . . Go and sin no more.” You see the greatest gift that Jesus offered the woman was the gift of a new future. And that is the gift that is still offered to us today. The biggest mistake we can make is to see Christmas as a celebration of an isolated incident that happened over 2000 years ago. The challenge isn’t to keep Christ in Christmas, it’s to get Christ out of Christmas and to allow him to change our lives and to change the world. And when we realize that the child who was born to an unknown couple in an obscure village over two thousand years ago truly is the son of God who, when we embrace the message that he taught and recognize that he died for us and rose from the dead, then we are understanding the difference that Christmas made, not just then but also right now. When we allow his grace to become a part of our life, it will be almost as if someone had dragged a stick through the sand drawing a line that said that was then and this is now. Because Christmas truly can be a line in time for you and me!
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