{"id":8512,"date":"2022-12-12T10:07:13","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T17:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?page_id=8512"},"modified":"2022-12-12T10:07:13","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T17:07:13","slug":"jesus-means-yahweh-saves","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?page_id=8512","title":{"rendered":"
\u201cJesus\u201d means \u201dYahweh saves\u201d<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke 2:8-14<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent and\/or Christmas<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the TV movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/em>,Charlie Brown struggles with Christmas being so commercialized. He goes to a Nativity Scene. Then Lucy sends him off to find a Christmas tree, and he finds the smallest one. Along the way they talk about what Christmas is. Linus says something and then there\u2019s Snoopy\u2019s Doghouse and finally the tree is decorated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When this Christmas Special was produced, there was a big battle about including Linus reading the Christmas Gospel. The author, Charles Schulz, and the producer, Bill Melendez, fought with the advertisers who said you can\u2019t put the Gospel in there. That\u2019s not what we want. And Schulz said, \u201cIf we\u2019re going to make a Christmas Special, this is what it\u2019s really about.\u201d Schulz and Melendez won the battle, and that\u2019s the way it remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We run the danger of turning Christmas into something fanciful. It\u2019s good to have fun, humor, and use our imaginations. What if a tiger were there? Bethlehem didn\u2019t have snow, but let\u2019s add snow. Parts of the world have no pine trees. What do we do then? We import various items and are diverted from the main thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dispute about Linus is what he read. If you go back and look at what he read, he did not read the first seven verses of Luke 2 about going to Nazareth and being in a manger. He also didn\u2019t read the last part, Luke 2:15-20 about the shepherds going to see the child. He read only Luke 2:8-14. It\u2019s important for us to recognize what was happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke 2:14: \u201cGlory to God in the Highest!\u201d It says: \u201cThere was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host.\u201d How many is a \u201cmultitude\u201d? It\u2019s not billions, or trillions, or quadrillions, or quintillions, or sextillions. The heavens are filled, as it says in Luke 2:10, with \u201cgreat joy!\u201d What was the \u201cgreat joy\u201d? The text goes on: The angels are looking down at the earth and saying, \u201cWOW!\u201d This is the big \u201cWOW!\u201d The angels exclaim: \u201cThis is how God is solving the problem of sin and death!\u201d Nobody could imagine that he would solve it this way. That he would come himself, truly himself as a little baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are singing \u201cGlory,\u201d and then it goes back to what the real message is. This is what Linus read: \u201cBe not afraid: for behold I bring you good news (\u201cGospel\u201d) of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Savior is one who saves from something as well as for something. In the traditional Old Testament lesson for Christmas from Isaiah 9:2: \u201cThose who were in great darkness.\u201d What it means is: \u201cInto our darkness,\u201d whatever darkness there may be in your life or mine, past, present, or future, he comes to take care of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are familiar with the word, \u201cHallelujah.\u201d It\u2019s a Hebrew sentence that says: \u201cLet us praise.\u201d It\u2019s not: \u201cLet us praise God.\u201d It\u2019s not: \u201cLet us praise the Lord.\u201d It is: \u201cLet us praise Yah.\u201d \u201cHallelujah.\u201d \u201cLet us praise Yahweh.\u201d This is that name for the God who acts and who keeps his promises. When it says in Luke 2:11, \u201ca Savior,\u201d it\u2019s referring to the name \u201cJesus.\u201d If we look back to Matthew 1:21, it says: \u201cYou shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people.\u201d The name \u201cJesus\u201d is a sentence which means, \u201cYahweh saves.\u201d The God who is faithful from the beginning and has acted and is acting again to save. The Christmas hymn, \u201cGood Christian Friends, Rejoice and Sing!\u201d, says in the third verse: \u201cNow you need not fear the grave, Jesus Christ was born to save.\u201d He saves us from the grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It goes on in Luke 2:11: \u201cFor to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.\u201d It\u2019s not only the \u201cwhat\u201d but the \u201chow.\u201d The \u201chow\u201d that Christ, the Anointed One who is anointed in in the sense that kings are anointed and also in the sense of being anointed to a task, to doing something. In the Gospel of John it says that \u201cthe glory\u201d is the cross (John 1:14, 12:23, and 12:28). That\u2019s what he is doing. That\u2019s the \u201chow.\u201d It\u2019s not an idea. It\u2019s not a feeling. It\u2019s that he comes and does. The Gospel is lifted up again in our singing of \u201cHark! The Herald Angels Sing\u201d in the third verse: \u201cMild he lays his glory by, Born that we no more may die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christmas is about Good Friday and Easter. It\u2019s about the whole \u201cWOW\u201d of what God is doing. We celebrate that he has worked from eternity, has accomplished salvation, and that he is now coming to each one of us personally and comes to give us life now and forever in Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 2:8-14 A sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent and\/or Christmas In the TV movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas,Charlie Brown struggles with Christmas being so commercialized. He goes to a Nativity Scene. Then Lucy sends him off to find a Christmas tree, and he finds the smallest one. Along the way they talk about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8512","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8512"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8903,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8512\/revisions\/8903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}