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Sermon Illustrations: Christmas

My wife had queued at the shopping centre for thirty minutes. Parents were arguing, kids were bickering, and a lady turned to her, sighed, and said, "Joy to the world."

WW1 …in those days warfare was not high tech but hand-to-hand trench warfare. Soldiers lived, fought, and died in trenches full of mud and blood and vermin. In those trenches, dug in the fields of France, enemies could actually hear each other talking. They didn't need satellites to locate the enemy. The enemy was just over there. This old gentleman told me how on one cold, moonlit Christmas Eve, he huddled in the bottom of the trench. Because of the annual Christmas truce, the fighting had stopped. Suddenly, from the British trenches a loud, sweet tenor voice began to sing "The Lord Is My Shepherd," and the sound floated up into the clear, moonlit air. Then he said something surprising: from the German trenches, a rich baritone voice tuned in, singing "Der Herr Ist Mein Heiter auf Deutsche." For a few moments, everybody in both trenches concentrated on the sound of these two invisible singers and the beautiful music and the harmony. The British soldier and the German soldier sang praise to the Lord who was their shepherd. The singing stopped, and the sound slowly died away. "We huddled in the bottom of our trenches and tried to keep warm until Christmas Day dawned," he said. "Early on Christmas morning, some of the British soldiers climbed out of their trenches into the no man's land, carrying a football." One soldier carried a round football (a real football where the foot is applied to the ball!). (You need to understand that whenever the British go anywhere, they always take two things with them: their teapots and their footballs.) These English soldiers started kicking around a football, in a pickup game in no man's land, between the trenches. Then the old man said, "Some of the German soldiers climbed out, and England played Germany at football in no man's land on Christmas Day in the middle of the battlefield in France in the first World War." (England won.) Then he said, "The next morning, the carnage began again, with machine guns and bayonet fighting. Everything was back to normal." Stuart Briscoe, "Christmas 365 Days a Year," Preaching Today, Tape No. 135

Christmas is a time of surprises. There was a lady who was preparing her Christmas cookies. There was a knock at the door. She went to find a man, his clothes poor, obviously looking for some Christmas odd jobs. He asked her if there was anything he could do. She said, "Can you paint?" "Yes," he said. "I'm a rather good painter." "Well," she said, "there are two gallons of green paint there and a brush, and there's a porch out back that needs to be painted. Please do a good job. I'll pay you what the job is worth." He said, "Fine. I'll be done quickly." She went back to her cookie making and didn't think much more about it until there was a knock at the door. She went, and the obviousness of his painting was evident: he had it on his clothes. She said, "Did you finish the job?" He said, "Yes." She said, "Did you do a good job?" He said, "Yes. But lady, there's one thing I'd like to point out to you. That's not a Porsche back there. That's a Mercedes." Bruce Thielemann, "Glory to God in the Lowest," Preaching Today, Tape No. 75

Christmas letters from children to Santa: "Dear Santa, you did not bring me anything good last year. You did not bring me anything good the year before that. This is your last chance. Signed, Alfred." Another said: "Dear Santa, there are three little boys who live at our house. There is Jeffrey; he is two. There is David; he is four. And there is Norman; he is seven. Jeffrey is good some of the time. David is good some of the time. But Norman is good all of the time. I am Norman.

Incarnation: John Howard Griffin was a white man who believed he could never understand the plight of African-Americans unless he became like one. In 1959, he darkened his skin with medication, sun lamps, and stains, then travelled throughout the South. His book, Black Like Me, helped whites better understand the humiliation and discrimination faced daily by people of colour. Jesus Christ became like us; the Incarnation is evidence that God understands our plight. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering" (Is. 53:3). Tom Moorhouse, Roy, Utah. Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 2

Playing Christmas carols in shops during the festive season is tantamount to "psychological terror" for store workers, according to a study by an Austrian trade union. By the time the big day arrives, the study says, hours of listening to piped carols such as Jingle Bells and Silent Night will have made many store workers aggressive and confrontational. The union wants shops to limit the number of hours per day the music is played, and restrict it to areas where Christmas gifts are being sold. Time Magazine, 15-12-03, p12

So why is Christmas just like a normal day in the office? You do all the work and that fat bloke in the suit gets all the credit. Readers Digest, December 2005 p 103

If the three wise men had been three wise women, they would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the Baby, cleaned the stable, and made a casserole.

Merry Mas - it's just not the same without Christ.