The Gift of Jesus

Aiden Welch hadn’t started school yet so when his mom came in for our Thursday morning women’s Bible Study a week before Christmas they asked if I would watch him. Aiden and I went to the children’s department at our church so I could get a video for him to watch and when we got there he immediately noticed that we had put up the Nativity scene since he was last there. Aiden asked if he could touch the pieces and since that is the fun of having a nativity scene I said sure go ahead. I went to get a video and when I returned Aiden had moved every single piece of that nativity scene into one big crowd around the baby Jesus. When I asked why they were all bunched together like that he told me with great seriousness, they all just wanted to get close to Jesus.


Sometimes there can be profound wisdom in little boys. They all just wanted to get close to Jesus. I’m sure on that night Mary & Joseph just wanted to be close to Jesus, what parent doesn’t want to be close to their new born child. They wanted to be close to him so they could care for him, watch over him, protect him and simply love him, but I also wonder if they wanted to be close to him because they knew who this child was. For 9 months they had contemplated the message of the angels, they had been told that the child to be born was holy, the son of God. Joseph was told that this child was going to save people from their sin. I’m sure Mary & Joseph had no idea what all of that meant, but it must have added to their anticipation and excitement at his birth. How much more would they want to hold him and care for him and be close to him knowing this was the son of God. How much closer they must have wanted to be to him, not just to love him, but to receive his love as well.

When the shepherds heard that the savior of the world had been born as a child in Bethlehem they just wanted to be close to him. We heard from Luke that they went with haste to see this thing that had taken place. They ran to be close to Jesus. They wanted to see and experience this amazing event. Like Mary & Joseph, they didn’t know what to expect – a king born in a stable, the son of God wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger? They didn’t know what they would find, all that they knew was that they wanted to be close to him.

When the Wisemen in the east saw the star in the sky announcing the birth of a king, they didn’t know the child’s name was or his place of birth, but what they did know was that they wanted to be close to him, so they began their journey, a journey that many believe took a few months, maybe even several years, but a journey they continued until their search lead them to the Christ child. Like all the rest, they just wanted to be close to Jesus. Aiden had it right; they all just wanted to be close to Jesus.

I don’t think it is any different for us tonight. We are here because in some way, we want to be close to Jesus. We may not know exactly what that means for us, we may not even know why we feel the way we do, but we are here not just out of tradition, not just to be with family, and not just because it’s a quiet place to be before the hectic pace of Christmas Day, we are here because there is something deep inside of us that wants to be and needs to be close to Jesus. There is a longing in all of us to be closer to God and it keeps us searching until we find him. The philosopher Blaise Paschal talks about a God shaped hole in our lives and we will try to fill that hole with many things, but nothing will fill it except God. We just want to be close to Jesus because that is where we find fulfillment and life. They all just wanted to be close to Jesus, sometimes there is profound wisdom in little boys.

There was another little boy who lived in NYC and he would often hang around the Church of the Holy Trinity. The pastor, Clark Oler, said that the little boy often came around the church and he always wore a red stocking hat pulled over his ears, torn sneakers, and a ragged jacket. Several times Pastor Oler would speak to the boy and try to find out who he was and where he came from, but each time the boy would just looked at him with great big eyes and without a word, run away.

It was Christmas Eve and the snow had been falling all day. Pastor Oler looked out the church window and the only light he saw was the one that came from their own nativity scene set up in church courtyard. Life-sized figures of Joseph, Shepherds, Kings and Angels surrounded the baby Jesus and on the ground was a thick covering of straw with Mary kneeling by the manger. It was in the glow of that nativity scene that the pastor saw him again, wearing that unmistakable red hat. He was peering through the fence looking at the nativity. As he watched, the little boy ventured timidly into the courtyard and for a long time just stood before the manger and then suddenly, the he climbed inside and curled up in the straw with Jesus, sometime there this profound wisdom in little boys.

How many of us, if we could, would climb into the manger to be close to Jesus? How many of us tonight want to feel the touch of the holy child and experience the love and power of that most holy night? We come seeking to be close to God because we want to experience the touch of forgiveness and the hope of being able to start over with a clean slate. We come because we want to touch the power of heaven and tap into a peace that will last no matter what we are going through. We come because we want to know in our own hearts and lives the love that brings life.

We come because we just want to be close to Jesus, but what the gift of Jesus tells us is that God just wanted to be close to us. The good news of great joy which the angels sang out over the hills of Bethlehem was not that the shepherds could run off to be close to God it was that God had come in the gift of Jesus to be close to them, and that is really what this moment is all about. That is what this celebration is all about. That is what this gift of Jesus is all about. For unto you is born this night, a savior who is Christ the Lord. In the gift of Jesus, God has come to be close to you and me.

The amazing truth of this night isn’t that we come to be close to God but that God in Jesus has come to be close to us and he has come to be close to all of us. My theory of why Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a manger on the night he was born was because God wanted to make it clear that he comes to be with all of us and he comes right into the full mess of our lives. While our nativity scenes are sanitized and attractive, a stable is not a clean environment and a manger, a feeding trough for animals is not a nice place to lay your child – but think about this, is was the best option they had.

This past summer on our mission trip a few of us worked on a horse farm and we spent several hours cleaning out water troughs. These troughs were rubber tubs that held 100 gallons of water and they had not been cleaned out for quite some time. During the heat of the summer, algae grows in those tubs and it was our job to get the algae out. I don’t know if you know this or not, but Algae does not come off of rubber easily and you can’t use any bleach or detergent because it will harm the animals, so we spent hours scraping that black goo out of the water troughs and not only was it hard work, it was smelly work. When I read the nativity story this year I thought about those water troughs and I wondered if the manger smelled any better or if the community stable that housed Mary & Joseph was any cleaner. My guess is that it wasn’t.

I believe that God first entered this world in a messy place to let us know that God is willing to enter into the mess of our lives. If your heart is broken tonight, if your life is not what you thought it would be, if your dreams are shattered, your health uncertain or you are struggling financially – then receive this gift - God is here for you. If you are lonely, hurting or living with doubt, fear or guilt – receive this gift - God is here for you. In the mess of our lives – God is here for us, but you know what… in the joy of our lives God is here for us. When we can see the hand of God’s blessing like Mary must have when she held her first child and like Joseph must have when he heard the shepherds confirm that this was indeed the son of God – in the midst of their joy and blessing - God was there.

So it doesn’t matter who we are or what we are going through, or where you have been, God is here for us and God loves us so much that he wanted to be close to us and he wanted us to be with him forever and that is why he offers us this gift of Jesus, the one who saves us from our sin and the one whose death and resurrection brings us life.

If you just want to be close to Jesus, if you are needing and wanting to feel the touch of God’s power and love then take heart, because the gift of Jesus has been given to you. God so loved the world that he gave us the gift of Jesus so that all who receive him, all who believe in him shall perish but have everlasting life, a life with God forever. When we accept this gift of Jesus and when we allow his love to hold us, we will be changed. When we receive the gift of Jesus and trust in God’s love for us our lives will be changed. Despair can be overcome with a flicker of hope, guilt removed by the assurance of forgiveness; doubt wiped away by the power of faith and when we accept the gift of Jesus our joy and peace is increased beyond measure. Receive this gift of Jesus and allow God to come close to you.

They all just want to be close to Jesus.

There is profound wisdom in little boys.

But the greater truth and the greater love by far is that God has come to be close to us. In a little boy, God climbed into the flesh and blood and the mess and the joy of our lives in order to give us the gift of salvation, the gift of forgiveness, hope, joy, love, and life eternal. We are here tonight because we all just want to be close to Jesus and God is here tonight in the gift of Jesus because he wants to be close to us. There is profound wisdom and there is life changing love found in little boys.