This last week before Christmas has not gone according to plan. Since Wednesday I’ve been laying on my back in bed or on the floor for 22+ hours a day, unable to tie my own shoes. I hurt my back again somehow on Monday and it got worse and worse, and between pain meds and muscle relaxers I’ve made it this far. Last night’s Christmas Eve service was the longest I’ve been on my feet, and thankfully it won’t be that much longer before I can lay down again today.

Mo has had a puke-inducing level migraine for the last few days, and in the middle of that has taken Hallie to the doctor for another antibiotics-requiring-sickness and Cal to the walk-in for an infection near his eye, while trying to navigate the snow and ice and attempt some Christmas shopping we’d put off due to all the other December events. Our house still looks like an advent war zone, and we’ll be doing Christmas into the week. It’s not been according to our plan.

How about you? Maybe one family out of fifty among us isn’t sick, or recovering from recent surgery, or in the middle of chemotherapy. Or you’ve got family that doesn’t understand your life, in-laws or parents or siblings that don’t want to understand, who prefer to give you grief about it. Relationships are out of sorts; dinner later today will be awkward, agitated. It’s not according to plan.

Maybe you are trying to move, maybe you are sad someone else is moving/has moved. Maybe you are wishing to be married, maybe you are struggling in your marriage. Maybe you can’t have kids, maybe you’ve lost a child, maybe a kid has rejected Jesus, maybe you can’t figure out how to help your kid. Nothing seems like a good, certain plan.

Our own government just voted yes on a 1.7 trillion dollar spending package for what seems like everything but our nation. If someone wanted to destroy our economy, would there be a better plan?

Wars around the world continue, woke businesses continue to virtue signal, police in Britain arrested a lady outside an abortion clinic for praying silently in her head. Some are without power after the brutal storms and cold, some are without hope in their own brutal suffering and pain. Lord, what is Your plan?

His plan, actually, was to have a virgin get pregnant, and to explain to her fiancé in a dream that he should marry her anyway even though it would be righteous to break up with her, then arrange a regional registration requiring a trip while she was nine months pregnant to a place where there were no rooms to stay, and have this teenage girl give birth to God in flesh and lay Him in a manger. Some plan!

The plan was glory wrapped in inconvenience, majesty wrapped in difficulty, divinity wrapped in flesh, eternality wrapped in swaddling cloths. The plan for Christmas problems was Christmas.

Over these last few Lord’s Days we’ve considered everything that’s wrong with Christmas, which is also everything that’s wrong with the human race on earth: sin and the spiritual battle with the serpent and his offspring. We’ve considered everything that is wrong with men’s domination over other men, which is everything that’s wrong with and between nations. We’ve considered everything that’s wrong with the flock, initially a problem for Israel but with application for the church. And now we come closest in these concentric circles: everything that’s wrong with our hearts.

God sent a Man. God sent a King. God sent a Shepherd. God sent a Savior. That was, and is, the plan.

The most famous story of the Savior’s birth is in Luke 2; we’ll include part of it. The first story of Christ’s birth is in Matthew 1. A couple years ago we considered the genealogy that opens the good news of the New Testament, “the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Then in verse 18, Matthew says “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.”

Mary was pregnant but there was no earthly father. She was betrothed, promised in marriage to Joseph, but they hadn’t consummated their covenant yet. Joseph was a righteous, yet gentle, man, and this wasn’t how he had planned it, so he prepared to divorce her without making a big public deal about it. What disappointment; as far as he knew, she had been unfaithful to him. In light of Deuteronomy 22:22-29, they could have brought Mary to trial to determine how she got pregnant and if she needed to be put to death. That would have been hard, but also a much more convenient route…for Joseph.

As Joseph was sorting things out in his head, behold, an angel revealed that Mary’s child was of supernatural origin, that the child would be a boy, and that that boy should have a given name related to the reason for His birth.

”She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

The meaning of the name is given by the angel. Jesus is a form of “Joshua,” a common name in Israel, referring to “salvation.” God sent a Savior. “God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised” (Paul, in Acts 13:23). This saving wasn’t just from political tyranny, it was from their sins. Saving is atonement, justification, forgiveness. “Comfort, comfort my people…cry to her…that her iniquity is pardoned” (Isaiah 40:2).

This was the plan. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet (Matthew 1:22), and though we didn’t study this prophetic passage in context, we have mentioned it a few times.

”Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.” (Matthew 1:23)

The prophet is Isaiah, and this prophecy is found in Isaiah 7:14. It clarifies that Mary was the virgin, but the virgin birth is the lesser of two miracles. Matthew also explains what Immanuel means: “God with us.” The name is only found in Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 8:8, and the quotation of Matthew 7:14 in Matthew 1:23. We don’t have record of anyone calling Jesus “Immanuel.” Yet He is the God-Man. This is the incarnation, the enfleshing of the Second Person of the Trinity. In Christ “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9, see also John 1:14). That is the greater miracle.

Joseph obeyed the word of the angel, and “he called his name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25).

On the night of Jesus’ birth, a host of angels found the shepherds outside Bethlehem, and one angel said to them,

“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11).

God sent a Savior. God saves sinners.

Conclusion

The joy is not only that men could have a Shepherd who would give them physical security and prosperity, not only that men could have a King who would give them justice and peace, not only that men would have a dragon-slayer who would crush their great enemy, but with all that, and before all that, a Savior who would deal with everything that is wrong in their hearts.

There are problems. The food being cold, your house being cold, yet worse is your heart being lukewarm. The budget being too small, the government having no budget, yet worse is your heart having no self-control. Lack of righteous works, a list of heart lusts that would shame the naughty. A heart that is dull to true excellence, a heart that knows its own guilt before God. A heart that suppresses God’s truth, the truth of God, the glory of His power and righteousness. For these sins God sent a Savior.

Have you been saved?

From depths of hell thy people save And give them victory o’er the grave

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to you, O Israel. —“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

---

Charge

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns, let men get their resources in order. Your songs, lights, gifts, candy, turkey, egg nog, and wine have jobs to do; don’t let them slack off. Do not bury your Christmas talents, employ them for praising the Savior. Christians, your charge is: have a merry Christmas!

Benediction:

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, 28 ESV)