My sister serves as a missionary in southeast Asia. We both grew up at the First Baptist Church of Harrah, Oklahoma — a church much like FBC Angleton in a lot of ways. When we were young, our church was having our annual Christmas program, just like we had last week, and it featured some of the children from our church doing a live Nativity scene. I don’t remember being in it myself, but my sister was in it — she was an angel, hovering over the manger scene. That can be a tough spot, in a heavy costume, with all the lights, and all the pressure and so on. And it was for her too, I guess, because right in the middle of the nativity, she fainted, and crashed down right on top of the manger scene — at the very moment they were singing, “And the angel of the Lord came down …”!  Depending on how you look at it, it was either “perfect timing,” or the worst nativity ever! 

We try so hard to make things like our Christmas nativities “perfect” — we want just the right picture; just the right look on the stage, or on our mantle, or under our tree, or wherever it is — and I thought our group did a fantastic job last week!  But as our kids were marching in Sunday I thought, you know, if they do mess up, that’s just real life; and that very much reflects what happened at the first Christmas. When Jesus was born, it was not some “perfect model” scenario. It was what we might call a “messy” situation with a lot difficulties and “real life” problems. 

There’s a message for us there. Many of us work hard to achieve that “perfect,” “normal” life (whatever we deem that to be!).  But C.S. Lewis wrote in his Screwtape Letters, “What humans call a ‘normal life’ is the exception.” (p.  157)  Actually the real “normal” life is not the neat situation we might hope for. “Real life” is often pretty messy. 

If we see anything here in Luke 2, which is for many of us the most familiar Christmas story, we see that what happened there was not a “neat and packaged” production, but a “Real Life Christmas,” that came in a real place, in the midst of real life difficulties — but in it, God gave us a real Savior who would change our real lives.  

I. The First Christmas was a REAL LIFE Story.

:1 “Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus …”

This verse tells us that this is reality. This is history. This is not some myth or fairy story. This really happened. I say that because a lot of people think that religions are just all myths, stories that people made up to make people feel good, or to explain things they can’t understand.

For example, when I was in India on a mission trip about 15 years ago, I was in a boat on the Ganges River, and the man who was guiding our boat was telling us a traditional Hindu story about how the Ganges River originated. He said one day, the gods were in heaven, and a female goddess stubbed her toe, and she fell down from heaven, and when she hit the earth, the place where she landed, the Ganges River sprung up, and that is why it is such mystical, religious river today. After he shared that story, I said to him: “Do you really believe that happened; that that is REALLY how this river began?” He acted at first like he didn’t hear me, so I repeated it again: “Do you believe this REALLY happened?” — but he never would answer me! I think the answer is obvious: nobody believes that’s really what happened; that some “goddess” “fell from heaven” and went “splat,” and that’s how that river started? That’s ludicrous. It’s obviously just a myth; a story. There’s no real scientific, historical, or factual basis for it.

But that is not so of Christianity. Some people accuse Christianity of being a “myth” — but only people who are not aware of the facts. Christianity is NOT a myth, but is very firmly grounded in history.Notice all of the historical elements that are mentioned here in the first part of Luke 2:  

— :1 says Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that there would be a census. Augustus was a real Caesar of Rome from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14, who presided over what historians call the “Pax Romana,” or era or Roman Peace. He was a real, historic figure.

— :2 says this happened while Quirinius was governor of Syria. This was a specific, real governor. Historians tell us “Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (or Cyrenius in Greek) was a well-known Roman official who lived from 51 B.C. to A.D. 21.  He is mentioned by numerous ancient authors, including Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny the Elder, Cassius Dio, Tacitus, Strabo, and Caesar Augustus himself. This was a real man, in real history.

— :4 says Joseph left Galilee, a real area of Northern Palestine, which still exists in Israel today, left the city of Nazareth, a real city there, and went to Judea, a real Roman province, to the city of Bethlehem, another real city which still exists today, to register for that census. 

All of this emphasizes: this is REAL stuff; these are REAL people; this is REAL life. The story of Jesus is not just some “religious myth” that people invented to create some kind of “morality story.” These things really happened, in real places, in real history. This has been verified time and again:

— William Mitchell Ramsey was a professor at Oxford the last century. He went to modern Turkey to write a book demonstrating how the Book of Acts could not possibly have taken place the way the Bible outlined it. When he had finished following Acts through Turkey he wrote a book, “St. Paul The Traveler and Roman Citizen,” which was now a book which demonstrates the historical and geographical accuracy of the Book of Acts!

— Frank Morison was another man who set out to disprove the Bible, this time the Resurrection of Jesus, by historical and forensic evidence. But HE ended up writing a book, called Who Moved the Stone?, on how the Resurrection is actually the BEST explanation for what happened to Jesus! 

— We just saw in our Sunday School study in Genesis last week how Andrew Parker, a British scientist, was lecturing on bioluminescence, and someone told him, that sounds like Genesis. He wasn’t familiar with Genesis, so he bought himself a Bible and began to read it, and he said these Hebrew authors had no way of knowing that what is described in Genesis 1 accurately follows his scientific understanding of how the universe began! And HE wrote yet another book: The Genesis Enigma: How the First Book of the Bible Is Scientifically Accurate. 

All of this gives us confidence that the things which are written in the Bible really happened. These things happened to real people, in real history — and they will make a difference in real human lives today! And it will make a difference in YOUR real life today, if you’ll let it!

II.  The First Christmas came in the Midst of REAL LIFE Events

:5 “ … Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child.”

One of the very striking things to me about this story as we read it here in Luke 2 is how God worked His heavenly plan out in the midst of what you could pretty much describe as earthly CHAOS!  This was not some “neat, uncluttered” event that unfolded amidst earthly calm. Think of the chaos in the lives of Mary & Joseph in Luke 2:

— Mary is with child, and she and Joseph are not married yet. They know the truth that this is God’s child, but I promise you nobody else believes that; this had to be an extraordinarily awkward and difficult time for them.

— And then why does Joseph have to go to Bethlehem anyway? As we saw, he was summoned there by Caesar Augustus’ decree, for the census, which also involved paying taxes. Nothing better than having to make a several days long trip, to pay taxes, right? So they have to make this long trip, to pay taxes, she’s pregnant, they aren’t married, no one understands that, travel in those days was long, on the road, dangerous — like we see in the story of the Good Samaritan, there were robbers on the way. It was difficult, it was dangerous, it was inconvenient, it was hard — it was messy — it was chaos, from an earthly perspective. 

Reading that got me thinking: last Christmas we had almost all of our kids and grandkids together: almost 20 of us in a 3 bedroom house. Yeah, we managed to put up some cute pictures for Facebook, but you know what it was really like; it was CHAOS! Kids everywhere, wrapping paper everywhere, toys everywhere, food everywhere, diapers everywhere, disease and sickness rampant everywhere — it was chaos. And sometimes in the middle of all that chaos, you wonder, is this what Christmas is really all about? 

Well, when you really stop to read the Christmas story in Luke, you see: it really IS. Our “family chaos” may not be that far off from the “real spirit of Christmas” after all!  God worked out His plan for Mary and Joseph and Jesus in the midst of a multitude of difficult, “real-life” events — and it reminds us that He can do the same thing in our lives today too! 

God is working out His plan for our lives, even when our lives are full and busy and sometimes even chaotic. 

— Sometimes we may be tempted to think something like, “You know, when things settle down, I am going to get back in church; I am going to get right with God then.” But the catch is, things never settle down! They didn’t for Joseph and Mary here. But God was working, IN and THROUGH all those “real life events” and that “earthly chaos”: her pregnancy, his taxes, their travel, the difficulty, the danger, the inconvenience — everything — in all that, GOD WAS WORKING to bring the Savior to the world. He didn’t do it in the ABSENCE of the tumult real-life chaos; He did it in the MIDST of it. Through it. And if you are going to come to the Lord, or come back to Him, it’s probably not going to be be when you somehow get a break from all the “real world” stuff that’s going on in your life; it is going to be right in the MIDDLE of all that stuff — because like Mary & Joseph and everyone else, that is where your life really IS! And that is where God will meet you — in the midst of your “real-life chaos” — if you’ll turn to Him. 

— Maybe others of us are thinking, Man, my life is so chaotic right now; God can’t use ME to do anything. Think again. God didn’t use Joseph and Mary here in Luke 2 because their lives were so “calm”! He used them despite all their “real-life” problems and chaos. God brought His salvation to the world through these two people, right in the midst of all their chaos. 

And He can and will use YOU too, even if your life is not as settled, or as ordered, or as calm as you’d like for it to be. Maybe you’re thinking, you know, one of these days, when things settle down, I am going to start teaching, or serving God, or get involved in the church. That may never happen! You need to understand how important it is to serve God and make it a priority to do it, even if things are a little messier than you’d like them to be. God can use you, even in your “real life problems.”

I think one of the lessons of Luke 2 (and really the whole Bible) is that life is messy. Things are messy. But God can work in those “real-life” situations, and through “real-life” people like you and me — if we will let Him.  

III. The First Christmas Brought Us a REAL LIFE Savior! 

Verse 6 says, “While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. (:7) And she gave birth to her first-born son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for Him in the inn.” And in the next verses (which we plan to look at next Sunday), angels appear and tell the shepherds, “For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (:11)

In this real life time and place, with with real people, in the midst of a bunch of “real life” problems, God sent us a “Real Life” Savior, Christ the Lord! 

The people, places, and events of Luke 2 are not made up; they are real. And this baby who was born that day in Bethlehem was also real. This is not a myth; this is not fiction. Jesus was really born that day. 

We can read about some very interesting characters in literature. One of my favorites is Ebenezer Scrooge. Every year on a free December weeknight evening when I have nothing else going, I set aside about three hours to read Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. It’s always one of the highlights of my Christmas season. I love how Dickens describes Scrooge: “he carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his own office, and it didn’t thaw one degree at Christmas”! Just a great description! But how his heart gets touched, and he changes at the end, saying: “I am not the man I was! Why show me this, if I am past all hope!” Scrooge gives hope for repentance, and for a changed life, to all of us who have fallen short.

Of course, one problem with all that, is that Scrooge wasn’t real. He was a figment of Charles Dickens’ imagination. Dickens would look through newspapers and on gravestones to find interesting names for the characters in his books. We can, by turns, laugh, and then weep at Scrooge, but in reality, there WAS no “Ebenezer Scrooge.” He is a myth. 

But Jesus is not a myth. He was born in the real-life town of Bethlehem that still stands in Israel today, to a real human mother, Mary, who would go on to marry Joseph, and have other children. He was a real man, who really lived. He is one of the best-attested figures in all of history.

But the thing is, Jesus was not “just” a man; He was and is GOD. The Bible says before all things came into being, He was. In fact it says that “all things came into being by Him” — He created everything. He made you, and me, and the whole world. And He came into this world because not only did He make us, He loved us. Because He didn’t want to create us as “robots,” He gave us a choice to do either right or wrong; to obey Him or not. Unfortunately, we chose to do wrong. That’s what we call “sin.” And the Bible says we have all sinned: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This is why Jesus came: because He saw that we had sinned, and disobeyed, and there had to be punishment for our sin, punishment which would have separated us from God forever in hell. But there was ONE WAY we could escape that punishment: if a Perfect Man took our punishment for us. The problem was, there was no perfect man — until He came. Jesus came to earth; God Himself, to live the perfect life we couldn’t live, and He died on the cross, and paid for our sins, so that we could be forgiven, and live with Him forever in Heaven.  Jesus took our punishment on the cross.

Another famous character of Charles Dickens’ is from A Tale of Two Cities. It tells the story of Sydney Carton, a lawyer, who looked just like Charles Darnay, a good wealthy gentleman who was engaged to Lucie Manette, whom both men were in love with. Near the end of the story, the French arrested Charles Darnay, and he is scheduled to go the guillotine, but Sidney Carton goes to visit him, and drugs him unconscious, then switches places with him and calls the jailers to take him away. Carton then goes to the guillotine, taking the place of his rival, saying, “It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done.” He died in that other man’s place.

Only he didn’t. Because it never really happened. Because neither Charles Darnay, nor Sidney Carton, or Lucie Manette, ever really lived. They were all figments of Charles Dickens’ great literary mind. 

BUT WHAT WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND IS THAT THIS IS WHAT JESUS REALLY DID DO! He really did see our need. He really did love us. And He really did come here to Earth, to be born as a real baby, by a real mother. He really did live life, the same “real life,” with all the same “real life” problems that you and I have. Hebrews 4 says “He was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” He’s not some fictitious character. 

Jesus knows what “real life” is all about; He lived “real life”:

— “real life” growing up poor

— “real life” when His own family didn’t believe Him

— “real life” when one of His best friends betrays Him

— “real life” when they mocked Him and spit on Him and beat Him up

— “real life” when they nailed Him to a real wooden cross, and He died a “real life death.” The Apostle John, another “real life” man, stood at the foot of that cross in John 19, and watched them ram a spear into His side, and said, “immediately blood and water came out.” He wrote in :35, “And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.” By those words John was saying, “I SAW THIS!” This isn’t some “myth”; this isn’t some elaborate character from a great literary mind. John said, I saw this happen, in “real life.” Jesus died on the cross; He paid for us our sins. But not only that, on the third day, He came back alive again, and this same John saw Him alive — along with 500 other people who went to their deaths, many of them under torture, testifying that they had seen Jesus alive. Jesus died, and rose again, in “real life,” so that if we believe in Him, we can be forgiven and have real, eternal life forever with God in heaven.

And if you do give your life to Him, He’ll give you an eternal life that will impact your real life, right now.  He’ll lead you, He’ll direct you, He’ll speak to you through His word. He’ll give you joy and peace in real-life situations. And He’ll give you confidence, even as you face death, that you have eternal life.

John Newton is the former slave trader who got saved, and wrote the great hymn, “Amazing Grace.” He shared the story of a conversation he had with a young lady in England who was daying. He said: 

“She was a sober, prudent person, of plain sense, could read her Bible, but had read little besides. Her knowledge of the world was nearly confined to the parish; for I suppose she was seldom, if ever, twelve miles from home in her life. She had known the gospel about seven years before the Lord visited her with a lingering consumption, which at length removed her to a better world. A few days before her death, I had been praying by her bed-side, and in my prayer I thanked the Lord that he gave her now to see that she had not followed cunningly-devised fables (which is a quote from II Peter 1:16 in the Bible). 

When I had finished, she repeated that word, ‘No,’ she said, ‘not cunningly-devised fables; these are REALITIES indeed; I feel their truth, I feel their comfort. O! Tell my friends, tell my acquaintances, tell inquiring souls, tell poor sinners, what Jesus has done for my soul. Tell them, that now in the time of need I find him my beloved and my friend, and as such I commend him to them.’ 

She then fixed her eyes steadfastly upon me, and proceeded, as well as I can recollect, as follows: ‘Sir, you are highly favored in being called to preach the gospel. I have often heard you with pleasure; but give me leave to tell you, that I now see all you have said, or can say, is comparatively but little. Nor, till you come into my situation, and have death and eternity full in your view, will it be possible for you to conceive the vast weight and importance of the truths you declare. Oh! Sir, it is a serious thing to die; no words can express what is needful to support the soul in the solemnity of a dying hour.’” (John Newton to Lord Dartmouth, The Letters of John Newton, Josiah Bull, ed., pp. 100-101)

There in her last hours, dying of consumption, that young lady could say, NO; these are NOT “cunningly devised fables;” she said “I feel their truth” — and the truth of Jesus carried her through her last hours, to eternity. THAT is what the Gospel is all about. That’s really what Christmas is all about. That is why Jesus came: a real-life God, came to a real-life Earth, as a real-life Man, to save real-life people like you and me, and help us in our real-life needs. THAT is what Christmas is all about. That is a “real-life Christmas”!

INVITATION

How you need to respond to God’s word today in Luke 2? How does this affect YOUR “real life”?

— Maybe you’ve been questioning whether all this is real, and God is showing you today that this is as real as it gets, and you need to take it seriously.

— Maybe you’ve gotten all caught up in the “busy-ness” of life — maybe even too busy to serve God! And God is saying, you need to get back to serving ME, in the busy, “chaos” of your life.

— Maybe you have given your life to Christ, but you haven’t been letting Him impact your everyday, real life. You need to start the day with Him in His word & prayer, and invite Him to help you with your every day decisions, and problems. He will!

— Or maybe you have never really asked Him to be your own, real, Lord & God & Savior. If you haven’t, you should do that right now …