The Paradox of Christmas (Selected Scriptures)

• We come now to our time for the study of the Word  of God this morning on this Christmas Sunday. Our   attention, of course, is drawn to Christmas. As  I was thinking about what I might share with you,   I was struck again with the dichotomy between  Christmas for the Christian and Christmas for   the world sitting in my office, and  I was looking at two Christmas cards.
• One of them had a fat man with a white beard on  it and a couple of little elves, and it said,   “Ho, ho, ho.” The other one had a manger, with  a star and a baby, and it said, “Thou shalt call   His name Emmanuel.” And I began to think about  the paradox of Christmas. What is Christmas? For some, it is peace toward men of goodwill.
• For the world, it is mass confusion, furious  rushing around, and a rising suicide rate.   That lovely night 2,000 years ago, one star lit  the heaven and marked the spot where the Christ   was born, where God was made flesh. And today a  million neon signs mark the spot where the sale   begins, or where you can throw away your money  buying what isn’t needed and doesn’t fit anyway.
• The first Christmas was a poor one: a manger, a  stable. Our Christmas is a dazzling display of   wealth beyond belief as millions of people spend  millions of dollars to ignore the true meaning of   Christmas. Once wise men came to worship Jesus,  and today fools have parties of wickedness,   ignoring all that Jesus came to accomplish.
• The babe of Bethlehem was born a Savior to   give men all they need. He has been replaced by  a huckster named Santa Claus, who takes what’s   valuable and gives tinsel in return. That’s the  paradox to Christmas. Who does it belong to? And as I thought further about the paradox of  Christmas, I thought about the great paradox of   Christmas who is Jesus Christ.
• And I begin to look  at some of the prophecies and I begin to say now,   “I wonder what prophecies might be exciting for  us to study and look at the birth of Christ?”   And I came across the idea of the paradoxical  prophecies. Did you know that the Old Testament   is loaded with apparently contradictory  prophecies about Christ? Did you know that? Did you know there is no way that Old Testament  prophets could ever have understood the fullness   of the coming Messiah just on the virtue of the  apparent contradiction in their own prophecies?   For example, a prophet would sit down,  and the Holy Spirit would inspire him,
• and he would write that there was coming  a conqueror who would rule the world,   who would be the Savior and Deliverer  of men. The same prophet would sit   down later and write about a Man of  Sorrow, who was lonely and rejected. The prophet would write a King of glory, a King  of heaven, the eternal Savior, the desire of all   nations.