Christmas Day – Luke 2:15-20

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Living God, on this Christmas morning, remember that your son was born into a dangerous and troubled world. We hold in prayer before you those regions of the world where diversity of faith or political division become an hindrance to peaceful coexistence, where borders and barriers seek to hide injustice, terror and torture. Jesus, just as you were brought gifts by the wise men, help our leaders to use wisely the gifts of forgiveness and reconciliation which you have given us for the good of all nations. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. We give thanks to you, God, that in Jesus early childhood you entrusted him to the care of human families.

We are grateful for our own families, some of whom will gather around the table with us today. But we also remember those who cannot be with us this time. For those who may live far away or from whom we are estranged. And we lift before you those whom Christmas is not a happy family time, those who live in poverty under the threat of war or oppressive regimes, and for those in abusive relationships. In our gratitude we remember you humble birth and prayer for those who without enough to eat or have nowhere to call home.

We remember the stable in which you were born and pray for those who have no place to live. We remember your challenging message of caring and giving and prayer for the lonely and those who are close to despair. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for those who are sick or in need of your help at this time and for all who minister to their needs. In particular, we are thankful and pray for those who will work this Christmas Day in the service of others. We pray for those who have died and for those whose hearts have been saddened by the death of someone close to them. Give to them comfort sure in the knowledge that they will meet you again face to face in heaven. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Lord, in the midst of the presence, the carols, the food and the fun, help us to remember why you came. To change us, to save us and to restore our relationship with you. Help us again to remember that the baby in the manger is the man on the cross. The man on the cross is the Lord of the empty tomb. And the Lord of the empty tomb is the one who is the Lord of all eternity.

We ask all these prayers in the name of Jesus, our Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.

The reading today is Luke, chapter 2, verse 8:20 can be found on page 10:27 in the church Bibles. And then there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, King keeping watch over their flocks. At night an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause you great joy for all the people Today in the town of David, a saviour has been born to you.

He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared and with the angel praising God and saying glory to God in the highest heaven and on peace and on earth peace to those who his favour rests. When the angels had left them and gone to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about.

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him they spread the word concerning what they had been told about this child. And all who had heard were amazed at what the shepherds had said to them. But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying, praising God for all the things they had heard and seen and which they had just been told.

This is the word of the Lord.

Fantastic. Well, let me just cheque that this is switched. It is switched on. So that is good. It's lovely to be with you.

Let me add my welcome to that of Claire and it's great. It's Christmas morning. I don't know how many of you a bit like me and it's been a busy, busy few weeks and so you've kind of ploughed into Christmas morning and it feels like everything's still up in the air. So I'm going to need your help this morning and to start off with if you are one of our younger people who would like a better view, there's a little space here that you can come on out to. I sort of say that to the camera.

It's kind of down here, so do feel free to come on forwards. Do feel free to grab a grown up and come and sit up here and that will give you a good view and that's wonderful as you do that, I'm going to lead us in a prayer that God might speak to us through his word, the Bible this morning. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for what the shepherds saw. Thank you that they told people like Luke all about it. I pray that now as they tell us about it, we too might share in the joy of the Angels, as we see the wonder of Jesus today.

Amen. Fantastic. Now, I said you're going to have to help me. Actually, I'm going to need you to help me write and deliver the sermon today because it's been a busy one, it's been our centenary, we've had a lot on, so you're going to have to help me. And to start off with, I need two grownups to help me.

So if you think that you could volunteer one of your grown ups to be involved, that would be brilliant. Fantastic. Go on then. Who would you like to volunteer? You'd like to volunteer your mummy, who I think is called Jennifer.

Oh, come on out, Jennifer. That's brilliant. Excellent. Now I see some hands of people whose grown ups have already been involved. Go on then, I'd like to volunteer my grandma.

You'd like to volunteer your grandma? Fantastic. What's your grandma called? Josephine. Josephine, yeah.

Brilliant. Josephine. Are you happy to come out and be involved? Brilliant. Fantastic.

So I'll ask Josephine and Jennifer to come on out. That's good. And I'm going to. Now this is where I get into hot water very quickly. I need to make one of you a shepherd and one of you an angel.

So, Jennifer, give me a number between 1 and 2. 2. 2. You are a shepherd. That is great.

Let me get you some props. You see, we used most of our good props for the Christmas experience. So you're left with a dressing gown which is totally what they would have worn back then, and of course the mandatory tea towel on the head. So that is you. So I'll let you pop that on in a moment.

That's good. All those years at rada, not wasted. And here you are with your angel costume. So there we go. Head goes through the small holes, arm goes through the big ones.

Weird. I know. Take it up with the Church of England. There we go. That is fantastic.

Brilliant. Okay, and now we're going to work out a little bit about what happened that first. That first Christmas. Oh, sorry. No, you need that, don't you?

That is good. To some shepherds and some angels. Now, the next thing that you do, we've already prayed and we've begun to think ourselves into the story. Next thing that you do is you look out for repeated themes in the Bible text. This is what you do when you're planning a sermon.

So I'm going to read a little bit and I want you to think of either repeated words or things that kind of seem like the same sort of thing. Like Christmas dinner and turkey seem like the same sort of thing with me. That's great. Okay, so let me read a little bit. When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about.

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby in the manger. And when they'd seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. And when they heard, they were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. Mary treasured up these things in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying, praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as they were told.

Okay, any repeated stuff there? Help me out here. Anything that seemed to come up a few times. Told. Brilliant.

Yes, Told. That's good. We've got a hand back there. Go on, buddy. Seeing.

Absolutely. You guys should totally preach this instead of me. Go on. Then buddy. Went, yes.

So going. That's good. One more. I think somebody who hasn't said anything yet. Ezra, go on.

Heard. Brilliant. So heard, seen, told and went. So what we then do is we think, well, they're probably fairly key things in our Bible passage. And so what we need to do is we need to think of a way of getting everyone to remember them.

And some people say you should do it with actions. So whenever I say heard, I want us to do this like you're hearing something. That is very good. And whenever I say seen, I want us to do this like we're seeing something. And told or telling or said like this.

That's great. My microphone doesn't work if I do it with both my hands, but that's fine. And went like this. Excellent. Let's practise.

Heard. Seen. Went. Heard. Oh, you're good.

You're good. Told. Oh, great. You guys, quick learners. Jennifer, for somebody who is as skilled an actress as yourself, I've got you some props to help you here.

So what I've got here is this is going to help you and you can lead us. So for heard, you put the ears by your ears.

Oh, no, no, no. Other way around. Really? Yeah, because ears kind of go round like that. No, other way around.

You're right, I'm wrong. Like I say, you should plan the sermon. That's good. And then scene. What you can do is you can twizzle.

How good's that? So when it's heard and seen. Jennifer. Sorry, shepherd here is going to help us out now. So what happens is we've got some angels.

And the angels turn up to the shepherds. Very good. And they announce good news of great joy.

Wonderful. So they heard good news of great joy. But what would that good news of great joy be now? It grown up. So if you've got your Bible in front of you, there are a bunch of them out on the seats.

Do look up Luke 2. And it says, do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy. That's what they heard. Good.

Today in the town of David, a saviour has been born to you. He's the Messiah. And this will be a sign to you. You'll find a baby wrapped in cloths in a manger. What did they hear?

That there would be a baby and a saviour. That's good. A baby and a saviour. Where would he be?

In Bethlehem. And who would he be?

Some of you know the answer. But the angels. What they heard was, they heard it would be the Lord. So the shepherds have heard of a baby. Let me get myself a baby.

Thank you. I'm loving this. A baby who would be in a feeding trough or a manger, like so. And it's not a real baby. Okay.

Baby in a manger in a feeding trough. And it would be in Bethlehem, the town of David. Okay, now what did the shepherds do next? They've heard. Oh, I've got some participation from the audience.

The. That's right. They went. They went. So come on, come on.

Wenting. That's good. That's wonderful. Wenting. They went.

And do you know what they saw? I tricked you out there. Come on this side of the room. Do you know what they saw? They saw a baby in a manger.

A baby in a manger in Bethlehem. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? Okay, you don't think that's amazing? I think it's amazing that some shepherds saw supernatural creatures in the middle of the night who told them that a prophecy had been fulfilled in another town. But maybe you don't think that that's amazing.

I think that's pretty amazing. But do you know what? It gets more amazing than that because sometimes when you're reading the Bible, you don't just imagine it. You don't just read for the things where you're seeing repeated things, but you think of questions. Here's a question for you.

What did the shepherds hear?

Good job. Well done, Jennifer. They heard good news of great joy. But the angels said to them, this will be a sign to. To you.

That's A bit weird, isn't it? Why do they need a sign? They've just been told what's going to happen. Why do they need a sign? It'd be a bit like me saying to you, hey, do you know what?

This lunchtime, you're going to have turkey for dinner and this will be a sign for you. There'll be a turkey on the plate in the middle of your table. Like I've just told you that. Why would they use that phrase? This will be a sign for you.

Now, when you're writing a. Oh, go on. Do you have an idea?

Because there's a star that they should follow. That is true, but that's to do more with the wise men thing. Is that what Luke's been doing? If you've been with us over the last few weeks, Luke's been doing something really interesting. He's been thinking about promises that have come true.

Now, does anybody know a time in the Bible, in the Old Testament? Well, there's a promise about a baby and a sign. And a baby and a sign. Any verses that spring to mind about babies? There's somebody at the back.

Go on. Isaiah 7.

Look behind me. It's up there. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and refer to the Son. Let's give them Emmanuel.

Oh, brilliant. Give him a round of applause. Fantastic. And he even gave us the Bible reference, which isn't up there. So you know that he knows his Bible.

Yeah. Fantastic. Do you know what this was? A promise from the Old Testament. In fact, angel, somewhere here I've got a sheet with some promises from the Old Testament.

Ah, yes, I put it up here. Angel, can you read that for us? About 700 years before Jesus birth, the prophet Isaiah wrote, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel. Fantastic.

You can have that one for the next one. Yeah. 700 years before this happened, this was promised. It's not just angels telling people in a field something. That's new information.

In fact, the shepherds have heard this already. They've already heard this. You see, the Bible so far, if you've been reading it, has made a promise. It's promised that there was going to be someone called God who would come and be with us. Emmanuel means God with us.

It's promised that a virgin would conceive and have a child. That's a pretty amazing thing to happen 700 years before it. But there's more, you see not much that the angels say is new information. So let's listen to what else they would have already heard. Around the same time as Isaiah, the prophet Micah wrote.

Around the same time as Isaiah, the prophet Micah wrote. But you, Bethlehem Ephatha, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times. You see, what's going on here is the things that they've heard, even where this is going to happen and who it's going to be has been promised 700 years beforehand, they'd already heard it. And so what we can do is we can see with them what has happened. We can't go to Bethlehem, it would be very dangerous.

But we can see through, see, see through their eyes what has happened. Do you know what? I think we can follow in the shepherd's footsteps. You see, this Christmas, we can not only hear what they have heard, but we can see what they have seen as we come to the Bible. And that means we can do what they do.

Do you know what they do? Let me read it really quickly. It says this. If I get the right chapter of my Bible, it says this that when they had seen him, they spread the word, they spoke to other people. You see, if you think it's incredible that angels are turning up in fields, how much more incredible that 700 years beforehand, the time, the place the person was all predicted.

That's pretty amazing, isn't it? That's something that we can tell other people about. Oh, and they do one more thing and that is that they Praise God. Verse 20. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that heard, seen just as they were told.

Fantastic. We're going to do that in a few moments time, I'm going to lead us in a prayer and then I'm going to tell us some ways in which we can do that. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for Christmas. Thank you for the baby that was born where you said he would be born, when you said he would be born and was who you said he would be. Help us to hear that today.

Help us to see through the eyes of the shepherds. Help us to tell others. And help us, I pray, to be those who rejoice with Jesus. Amen. Well, if you want to rejoice with Jesus as well, thank you so much.

I'll take your props back. Do give them a round of applause.

And let me just tell you, if you want to rejoice with Jesus, there's some great ways in which you can do that. Roger, my friend, is going to press right on my laptop at the end of the service, or indeed at an interlude. Why not scan the QR code about to pop up on the ceiling behind me? You can scan that with your phone, and that will allow you to sign up and let us know if you want to find out a bit more about Jesus. There are a couple of courses coming up in the new year, and you can do that, or take a biography of Jesus life, which is coming, which is free for you to take at the end of the service.

But now I think we're going to sing. We're going to sing oh, Come All Ye Faithful. So why don't we stand and sing together?