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Battle Creek Tabernacle SDA Church

Chris Holland

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Clement Clark Moore was the professor of Oriental and Greek literature, divinity, and biblical learning at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Theological Seminary in New York City.

He was the first American to publish a Hebrew and Greek lexicon.

He was a man well-esteemed in the academic community, but he had a hobby on the side.

And so 1 Christmas season, he wrote a little poem for his children and that poem would actually transform society.

A friend obtained a copy of that poem and submitted it to the New York Troy Sentinel.

And on December the 23rd, 1823, exactly 200 years ago, They published that poem.

"'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St.

It is the story of a jolly old man pulled in his sleigh with 8 reindeer pulling that sleigh.

While if you read about the history of this poem and Mr.

Moore's authorship is disputed by some, What is not disputed is the influence that this little poem had on society.

What many do not realize is that Nicholas, St.

Nicholas referred to in the poem, was actually a real man.

Nicholas of Bury as he was known before served in the little town of Myra and gained a reputation as being a gift giver.

Interestingly enough, the historical paintings of Nicholas depict him as a skinny man.

There are stories in history of him whisking away in the middle of the night with bags of gold and throwing those bags of gold through the windows of unsuspecting but poor and needy individuals." It was only after that poem that the historical individual Nicholas of Myra was transformed into the whimsical legend of Santa Claus.

Another poet by the name of Paul Marshall, writing about this transformation and real distortion of truth, wrote this poem.

Reader, surely you've surmised Saint Nick has been Germanized, Anglicanized, Americanized, modernized, publicized, commercialized, and by some now ostracized, yet by youngsters idolized.

If in him there's incongruity, legend, myth, and superfluity, With regard to Christmas truth, let me make it clear forsooth.

Mark my word, O dearest friend, that it's our fault in the end this good saint of ancient vintage has been remade in our image and we've acquiesced.

What is the point that I'm trying to make here on this Sabbath morning talking about good old Saint Nick?

Is it possible that somehow, someway, we too have created a myth?

And that somehow in this season of celebrating the birth of Christ, we have really transformed His person and mission.

And somehow we have shifted this person and mission, which was a man who came to die that we might experience the transformation in our own lives, that we have transformed Him into a legend of information.

Somehow, someway, we have created a myth that the presence of Jesus is enough.

Or we've left Him as a decoration of a painting on the wall.

Or we've kept Him in this book, which we gracefully place upon a shelf.

But we've kept him at bay far enough away that in our life He really has nothing to say.

Our Father in heaven, as we study your word today, it is our prayer that today, legend and myth would be dispelled and truth would be exposed.

Our Heavenly Father, today we desire and we ask that we would be sanctified by your truth and we know and believe that your word is truth.

So sanctify us through the power of your word we pray in Jesus name, amen.

I'd like to draw our attention today to several individuals in the Bible.

What happened during and after the birth of Christ, that it might help us to better understand the true meaning of Christmas.

The first is Joseph, the simple carpenter.

The woman that he was engaged to, that he was betrothed to, was pregnant.

The natural assumption was that she had been unfaithful to their engagement and now was bearing the child of another man.

But being a kind-hearted man, he chose to simply dismiss her privately and not make the public spectacle that he rightfully could have made.

According to Deuteronomy 2.22, he could have had her taken to the gate along with the offending male and then be stoned.

Yet the Bible records in Matthew 1, beginning in verse 20, that he did something far more than just dismissing her privately.

We've read the verse several times in this season, but let us read it again.

The Bible says this, But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying Joseph son of David do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit and she will bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins so all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophets saying behold the Virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which is translated God with us.

Then Joseph being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife." A small word tucked away in the Christmas story but a small word with profound effects.

God called upon Joseph, and he listened and followed the Lord's instructions, and he received the strength to do so.

And the only way, my dear friends, that we, because there is very little in the Bible written about Joseph, the only way that he could have done what he did was that he had a real, living, active relationship with God that led him, once he heard, to go and obey.

Then there were the wise men that came from the east.

They came in anxious anticipation to worship.

Our modern take is that there were 3 of them.

There were wise men that came from the east.

How would they have known to come from the east?

In the original Greek language, it is the Greek word magus.

It is a word rooted in the ancient word to describe Assyrian and Babylonian wise men.

How would these men from the east, Babylonian wise men, know that a Messiah was to be born?

Could it be that there was 600 years before the birth of Christ a Babylonian wise man who was not a Babylonian at all.

He was a Hebrew young man by the name of Daniel, who was faithful to the witness of God.

Could it be that Daniel placed before the Babylonian wise men, Micah 5 and Numbers 24, and that had been passed down through 600 years of history.

And now these wise men came seeking to find the promise of the Messiah that was found in these ancient books of the Bible.

The Bible says that these wise men came seeking the King.

But beyond their obedience to come and worship, beyond their obedience to follow the star, there was additional obedience.

Because you'll remember the story as they came to Herod, and Herod found out that another king was in his territory.

In verse 12 of Matthew 2, then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.

The Bible says they departed in obedience to the instructions that came from God.

The wise men obeyed the instructions from God.

Because the wise men had a real living relationship with the God of heaven and earth that they were willing for God to lead and for them to obey.

And it should stand out that their belief actually affected how they lived.

Luke 2, as was already read, records their response.

So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to 1 another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass which the Lord has made known to us.

Once again, these simple shepherds were obedient to the call, their simple faith yet profound, God called and they answered.

Because they had a real, living, active relationship with the God of Heaven.

He had been promised that before he died, he had seen the Lord's Christ.

So he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God.

An old man, obedient every day, looking forward to and anxiously anticipating that he would see the Christ.

And this old man was And this old man was obedient because he had a real living relationship with the Lord.

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Twas the Night Before Christmas

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