Kerry Shook - Miracles of Christmas
Kerry Shook: Merry Christmas, Woodland Church. How are you?
Chris Shook: Yeah, Merry Christmas.
Kerry Shook: Yeah.
Chris Shook: Wow, we are so excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus with you. You can be seated. And this year we're calling the Christmas Eve services "The Miracle Of Christmas". Because Christmas is all about miracles. From the miracle of the virgin birth, to the miracle of angels appearing, to the miracle of shepherds, to the miracle of the moving magical star, to guide the Magi and of course the greatest miracle of all, our creator coming to a cradle on that very first Christmas.
Kerry Shook: Maybe your idea of a Christmas miracle would be for no arguments to break out in your family over Christmas dinner, I know that would be a Christmas miracle for most of us. But I believe with all my heart, God wants to give you a real Christmas miracle this year. You know the Greek word for miracle in the Bible is the word "Semeias," and it means sign. Miracles like signs are designed to get our attention. You know, miracles are signs directing us to God himself. And the Magi experienced one of those miracle signs on the first Christmas, in Matthew chapter 2.
"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where's the one who's been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.'" Now, the magi was a term used for someone who was sort of a mix between an astronomer, a scientist, and a philosopher. They were very well educated, very wealthy kings from Persia, probably Persia. We know they were from the East, and we know they had to cross the Middle Eastern desert, which probably took them four to six months.
Now we don't know a lot about them, what we do know is no matter how wealthy they were, no matter how well respected they were, they were still searching for something. They were searching for something to feel the emptiness that was in their lives. They were searching for the miracle of Christmas. They were serious searchers for the truth, and they saw the sign that God sent. Are you a serious searcher of the truth? Are you a serious searcher of true meaning? I mean, I can't think of anything more tragic than to go through your entire life without ever knowing your purpose in life. What on earth you're here for? You see, if you're a serious searcher, I've got good news for you. While you're searching for God, he's already found you.
In Jeremiah 29:13, God says to you, "You will search for Me, and when you search for me with all your heart, you will find Me". God wants you to find him, God wants you to know him. So he gives you signs. In the Magi's case, it was a star. And God's always trying to break through to our hearts, trying to give us a sign that points us directly to himself. Now, we don't have any indication from scripture that anyone other than the Magi saw that star. God gave them the sign because their eyes were opened, they were searching for the truth. And God let them see the miracle, the sign that directed them to himself. And folks, there are miracles all around us, signs all around you, all the time that God is sending to direct you to himself. If you'll just stop and open your eyes and truly see.
Chris Shook: We're surrounded by signs in creation, and they all point to the reality of our creator's existence. In Romans chapter 1 it says, "But the basic reality of God is plain enough, Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thankful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see; eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. That really hits me, 'cause that means I don't have a good excuse. But I can look at creation all around me and clearly see someone created this, this is not by chance. There's countless miracles surrounding us from the infinite expansive universe that's filled with stars, to the infinitely minute details in every single cell of every organism on the planet.
Our God is so creative that every detail has been created with a perfect, magnificent, awesome design. Consider snowflakes, untold trillions of them fall in a single snowstorm, yet no two snowflakes on the planet will ever be alike. Every single one is a wonder, it's a masterpiece of perfect design. And even though nearly every snowflake will fall and melt, and no one will ever appreciate the beauty and artistry in that snowflake, God still makes them beautiful. He still creates his design, it's in every single thing he's created. Everyone's a miracle, and that's how it is with all miracles really. I mean, we encounter miracles every single day, but like snowflakes, it's just like we're walking through a snowstorm and we don't appreciate the design in every snowflake.
And we are walking through life surrounded by miracles, but we rarely notice or appreciate the intricate way that God has revealed himself to us through them. We've become blind to the miracles that surround us. But Christmas shows us that God will do whatever it takes to break through our spiritual blindness so that we can see. Most of you have heard of Helen Keller. She was born in 1880, and when she was 19 months old, she got sick, and as a result of that illness, she lost the ability to see and to hear and to speak. And unable to do any of those things to really interpret her world, she was locked in this dark, silent, lonely place. She was unable to communicate with her parents, with her family. She couldn't communicate her feeling, she couldn't communicate her needs.
The only way she knew to express her increasing frustration, was through tantrums and tears. And her parents were in an equally heartbreaking situation because Helen misunderstood all of their attempts to protect her and provide for her. You know, she would just react in anger and get mad and they decided they were going to do whatever it took to find a way to break through Helen's darkness, to help their precious daughter. And their quest eventually led them to hiring a teacher named Anne Sullivan. And they invited Anne Sullivan to come and live with them, to help Helen learn to function in a world of sight and of sound.
And so what Anne Sullivan did is so interesting because day after day, she would press the letters of sign language, she would create the letters of sign language with her hands, and then she would press that into Helen's palm as she gave her an object. She wanted Helen to learn that this is what you're holding, and there's communication going on. So she would hand Helen a doll and press, DOLL into her hand. Well, Helen didn't understand, she'd just get mad and throw the doll down. And then Anne would press the letters MUG into her hand as she handed her a mug of milk. And Helen would take that milk and throw it across the room and it would just crash. She didn't understand. I can't even imagine how frustrating that would've been for both of them.
You see, it was a battle of the wills, because Helen simply couldn't make the connection between the objects she was handed and the letters that were spelled out in her hand. And Anne Sullivan was equally stubborn because she just kept trying, and kept trying, and kept trying, kept spelling letters into Helen's palm and she wouldn't give up. But one day there was a sudden dramatic breakthrough, because Anne took Helen outside to the water pump, and as that water poured over Helen's hand, Anne spelled the letters WATER into her palm. And in that moment, the door to communication was thrown wide open, and light flooded in to Helen.
And in her autobiography, Helen Keller described this moment, she said, "I stood still my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought. And somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that WATER meant the cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul gave it light, hope, set it free". Well Christmas, celebrates the same kind of breakthrough moment for us. God breaking through to our world. Maybe you think there might have been a time in your life where things were dark and nothing made sense, and maybe for some of you that time is right now. You're in a dark place, you're in a place where you feel confused and misunderstood.
Matthew 4:16 tells us that Jesus is a fulfillment of God's promise to rescue us from darkness. It says, "The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned". You see just like Helen, we're the ones living in darkness, not understanding what's going on. What is this world we've been thrown into? It seems to make no sense. Now over the last couple of years, I think a lot of us have come to points when we have thought that nothing makes sense, we feel like we're in the dark, but you see God won't leave us in the dark. He stubbornly keeps pursuing us, he keeps teaching us, he keeps entering our world and sending messages to us and signs that he is for us.
Kerry Shook: God gave the Magi their miracle, their sign in the darkness of the night. And it's in the darkness of the night that God gives us our greatest miracles, those signs that point us to true joy in him. God gives his greatest signs in our darkest nights. The first four words of the most sung Christmas carol of all time are: silent night, holy night. There's something holy and significant about the silent nights in our lives. But when we go through the silent night of difficulty and pain, they seem anything but holy as we're going through them. But the truth is, it's easier for God to get my attention in the silent nights of my life, and when everything in my life is bright and sunny, you know, I tend to forget about how much I need God and his miracles in my life.
Some of you have gone through a really tough year this last year. There's been some big problems and difficulties, maybe it's marriage problems, or maybe you've gone through the pain of divorce, or maybe it's health issues, or loss of a loved one, or maybe it's a child who's going the wrong direction, or a problem that you just can't seem to fix or to solve. Have you considered that the stress might be your star, guiding you to the Savior? God wants to give you a miracle in the darkest night, and the Magi were experiencing a dark night of restlessness. They had everything they could have ever wanted, except real happiness. They had a restlessness in their soul that sent them on a search for meaning and fulfillment, that all their money and all their power could never bring them. And they followed the bright star in their silent night, and their search for meaning ended at the manger.
In Matthew chapter 1, the angel Gabriel says this, "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said to the prophet: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel". There are two names here that describe the miracle of Christmas. The first is Immanuel, which means God with us. God knew the only way to truly break through to us so that we could understand what he is like, is that he had to become one of us to communicate with us. He had to become one of us so that we could understand what God is like and how much he cares about us.
Creation shows us that there is a God, Christmas shows us that he cares. He cares about everything you go through. He cared so much, he came to be with us and became one of us, so that he could experience all the pain and the problems that we go through. And when you receive the miracle of Christmas, you can know that in your silent night, when nothing seems to make sense, and the darkness closes in, he'll still be there putting his hand on your shoulder and whispering to you, "You are not alone. I will never leave you and never forsake you. You are going to make it through. It's going to be okay, I am with you".
Because he's Immanuel God with us. Well the other name is Jesus, which means Savior. The miracle of Christmas is that God not only came to be with us, but he came to save us. And because we needed a Savior, and because we've all as sinned, we need forgiveness because we're all spiritually broken, we need spiritual healing. You see, Jesus came at Christmas to go to the cross. We needed a Savior. And so God sent a Savior to save us and to heal us. I'm so thankful that we have a God who came to be with us, but he didn't leave us where we are, he came to save us, to do something that we couldn't do for ourselves.
Chris Shook: In Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, it says this about Jesus, "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". Jesus, the very first name listed for him in this passage is called our counselor. Why? Well, when you go through a hard time, the most comforting person to talk to is always someone who has walked the very same path, and personally understands what you're going through. My mom died when I was fairly young. And occasionally this still comes up in conversation, just daily conversations. Someone might say, "Oh, I just got my mom's Christmas present. What did you get for your mom"? And I'll simply let them know that she's in heaven and they invariably say, "Oh, I'm so sorry". Which is a really kind response, and I say, you know, "It's okay, it was a long time ago".
There's nothing wrong with these conversations, it's just that, let's face it, in the raw spots of our heart, the places that just feel the most of bare, it's really hard in a just casual conversation to go there. And so we get by and that's okay. You know, just an everyday conversation by just saying, "Oh, this happened". And we say, "Sorry". And they say, "Okay". And you can move on. But I remember a time when this conversation took a completely different turn. I had just graduated from college, I was 21, started my first job and I was talking to a coworker and we got talking about just life in general. And at the point of the conversation when I said, "It was a long time ago". She put her hand on my arm, she reached out to me and gently asked, "How old were you? I lost my mom early too".
And just like that, I was in the company of a soul sister. I mean, we got each other, without me having to explain, I didn't have to use words to explain just how this had impacted my life, she got it, she understood, she understood that my mom's absence was an integral part of my story. She understood that part of me, the compassionate, nurturing part, I'd learned from my mom's example. But the independent strong part of me, I'd learned since her death. My coworker understood just innately without me having to use words that the life moves on, a daughter who has lost her mom never stops missing her. Even decades later, never stops wanting her, never gets over it in a sense, and never gets over wishing she was still here. That part never ends, and because she truly understood that, I'd finally found a safe person to cry with.
And most of you can relate. At the place of your deepest hurt, the place where your heart is raw, you can only let down your guard completely with someone who has experienced the same pain. Somehow when you're talking to someone else who has gone through the heartbreaking experience of divorce, you get each other. Someone else who has walked the path of going through chemo, and radiation and you get each other. Someone else who has lost a child and you get each other. All the deep things that your heart doesn't even have the words to say, there's no words to express that emotion, they understand.
And as Christ followers, we have something that no other religion claims to have. We have a God who can relate to us from the inside of our experience. But once you grasp this one truth, all the other questions fade. Because if there is a God and he has become human, why would we think it's incredible that he would do miracles, or pay for the sins of the world or rise from the dead? You see all the other miracles rest on the one big one, God incarnate, born in a stable, confined to a helpless body of a human baby. Christmas is of course just the beginning of the story of how God came to save us. Jesus still will have to go to the cross.
Kerry Shook: The prophet Isaiah foretold of this miracle in the manger that would be the king of the cross that would bring us healing in Isaiah 53 verse 5. "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed". Jesus died on a cross so we could be healed. Now there's several kinds of healing that the miracle of Christmas gives us. First, there's physical healing. I still believe that God heals physically today. Sometimes he uses good doctors and medicine and new technologies, but he heals however he wants because Jesus is the one who heals. We've prayed so many times for people to be healed physically and we've seen so many miracles of God.
But then there's emotional healing. Christ was wounded on the cross so our deepest emotional wounds can be healed. And then there's relational healing. We've seen so many marriages restored, families that were fractured, brought back together by Christ. There's relational healing. But the greatest healing is spiritual healing. The healing we need most is spiritual healing. Where he heals and forgives us of our sins and brokenness. And there are three ways that God heals. First is immediate healing. There've been so many times where we prayed here at Woodlands Church for someone to be healed and God just heals immediately. And the only way it can be explained is just God. But then sometimes it's delayed healing.
Sometimes God allows that process to go on the healing process, where we keep praying and seeking God and continue to follow him and we experience healing, maybe it's in a marriage that is being restored, and it takes time and trusting God and working on the marriage, and praying and seeking God and counsel and God brings healing. Sometimes God brings us through delayed healing, 'cause he wants to teach us something so valuable in our lives. But then there's what I call ultimate healing. That's heaven one day. You see, everyone who gets sick on this earth and gets healed on this earth still will eventually die. Every one of us will die unless the Lord comes back first, I checked the death rate recently, it's a 100%. Some of you still didn't get it, but you can go check it yourself.
You know, all these statistics are flying around. It's like, "Oh a 100%"? Yep, we're all gonna die one day. Your heart will stop beating, but you won't stop, you'll keep living in eternity. And because of Christ, we have heaven one day, eternal life. Romans 4:4 says, "You don't earn the right to Heaven, no. Being saved is a gift. If a person could earn it by being good, then it wouldn't be free, but it is". Jesus Christ went to the cross, he took all of our sins on himself, and he purchased a place in perfect heaven for you and me. And it's a free gift, we can't earn it or deserve it, none of us are good enough to earn perfect heaven, it's a miracle, but you have to receive the miracle.
The miracle of Christmas is for you, and it's our prayer that you'll believe in the possibility of miracles just enough to believe, to take that little bit of imperfect faith and place it in the miracle of Christmas, Jesus Christ. Because if you believe in just that one miracle, it will open up for you, the world of miracles itself. You will see the signs that God in his love has been putting in your path all along your journey. Your eyes will finally be opened to the goodness of God and his love for you.