Poverty hurts.
Oh, how it hurts.
Physical poverty - to feel the knaw of an empty stomach, knowing there is no hope of filling it.
Seeing your children run around in second-hand jackets, the edges rubbed raw, the buttons scuffed and worn, bought from the discount rack at Amity.
        Struggling every month to find the rent money.

Poverty - Emotional poverty:
Longing for the touch of a loved one, but feeling only the bare walls of your own life.
Wanting to be able to laugh a deep belly laugh, but feeling only the lead weight of depression.
Hoping for friends, but just that..... hoping.
        Restless, seeking..... but not finding.

Poverty - it hurts.
        Physical poverty.
        Emotional poverty.
        Spiritual poverty.
When you feel worth dirt. When you look to the stars and beyond, but find heaven out of reach.
When it feels as though a giant soundproof curtain has been drawn across the sky between God and you.
When you have the sense of living in this world of sun and rain, wind and calm, snow and heat, morning and night – alone. Alone with God being far, distant.
        He the One.
        We the insignificant other - without Hi, without hope, without an eternity.

That is poverty.
        And, OH how it hurts.

Today’s celebration marks the end of poverty.
Today’s celebration marks the end of our being alone.
We gather to welcome the birth of Jesus - Immanuel, God is with us.

The angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
        The God who resides in the highest realms of heavenly glory and power has now made himself completely known to the world and become a lowly, helpless baby.
        The God who dwells in eternity has come to live in time.
        The God of all mercies [Fredrick Buechner] has put himself at the mercy of people.

Today in the city of David, Bethlehem, a Saviour has been born to you;
        He is Christ the Lord.

Prepared, delegated and empowered to perform the awesome task of bringing a rebellious humanity back to God across the yawning chasm of sin.
 
 

Understand it well, dear people - how huge this miracle is:
        The One who lay kicking helplessly in a manger, who experienced teething pains, who had to learn how to use his fingers, how to crawl and walk, and run and talk;
        This One is the very Son of God, the Master of the Universe, the Controller of eternal destiny.

He has come to touch us at our core:
        To call us to redress physical poverty in this world
        To heal our emotional poverty
        To touch our hopelessness and carry us from spiritual poverty to riches as children of God.

Perhaps times come when we wonder whether God pays attention to little, insignificant people like us. Then let us remember the little, weak baby gasping for his first breath with the amniotic fluid still in his nostrils.
        Remember that the One gasping was and is the Son of God who lovingly, and deliberately, laid aside all of His power and divine magnificence to join us on the bottom of the heap.

We may have questions about many things,
        large "why’s"  and "How come, God?"  that scream at us.
We may have many confusing ideas and thoughts running around in our mind.
        But let one thing be perfectly clear this morning -
                Unto us a child is born.
                Unto us a Son is given,
                And the government will be upon His shoulders.
                And He will be called -
                        Wonderful Counselor
                        Mighty God
                        Everlasting Father
                        Prince of Peace.

This Jesus, whose birth we celebrate, is YOUR Counselor, YOUR God, YOUR Father-figure, YOUR Peace-giver.
        Christmas is the day for you to reaffirm that truth;
                to lay hold again of that incredible richness;
                to come and experience the reality of this life-giving, poverty-dashing wonder.

Christmas is the time to come.
Come and bend your knee, submit your life, surrender your heart to the One who has taken the first step and come to us.... to you.

Today is the day to reaffirm your faith, your belief that the events of which we speak are true, that the story of which the Christmas carols ring is historical,
that Jesus has really come,
that He, the True Son of God, has come to be your Saviour, the Giver of true riches.

Today is the day to say, "I cannot live without that baby. I need Him in my life. He was born for me. He lived for me. Died for me. Rose for me."

Come to Him.
Come, alongside the rough, plain shepherds and the pompous upper-crust scholar-astronomer wise men.
Come to Him, who alone can remove your poverty and replace with riches that last.
Come to Him, who alone can quiet the inner storms and grant you peace - whatever the outer circumstances may bring.
Come to Him, who alone can give meaning to your work and play - wherever they bring you.

Come to Jesus - and know that He will accept you.
        With open arms, and love-filled eyes.
        With full forgiveness.
        Without hesitation.

Maybe you were here for our series through Advent - the season of preparation.
Maybe you remember what we learned from Scripture; how Jesus has come -
        - to serve as the lowest servant; the servant of all
        - to seek and save what everyone else gave up on as a lost cause
        - to give us true life, rich, meaningful, lasting

There are times in our lives when we are deeply disappointed; maybe even deeply wounded:
        - when a parent speaks condescendingly to us
        - when a spouse seems disinterested in our affection
        - when children stomp out in anger
        - when a best friend hangs up on us
They are the times when we come to another person and they slam the door in our face.
We seek to approach them, and are left on the far side of a dark, cold canyon.
The hurt that brings can cut deep and last an incredibly long time. Scars for a lifetime.

Let Christmas be your guarantee that this will never, never, NEVER be so between you and Jesus Christ.
        Jesus said -
        "Anyone who comes to me I will NEVER drive away."  [John 6:37]

These words were backed up, made good, shown for what they were, by His actions.
No one forced Him to leave heaven.
No one forced Him into human skin.

That was His free choice – to come. To come for me.... and you.
 
 
 

One bible book that is virtually NEVER considered on Christmas day is the book of Mark.
        The second of the bible’s four stories about Jesus.
        If you leave here this morning, and still hesitate, wondering what God’s reaction would be to your coming, then may I invite you to flip a bible open to Mark, the first 3 chapters of his story.
        We see Jesus, now grown, coming into his first phase of ministry.
        And we see people coming to Him.
        What I’d invite you to consider is who came, and what Jesus’ reaction to them was.

A crazy man, demonized, comes whipping and tearing at Jesus.... who doesn’t run. Doesn’t ignore him. Doesn’t laugh.
        But sets him free with full healing.
People in the village bring all their sick to the place where Jesus was staying.... and he doesn’t hang up on them, or bolt the door.
        He steps out. And heals.
A man with leprosy, chased away by everyone else, having not felt a gentle caressing hand for years because of peoples’ fear of his deadly, hideous sickness falls on his knees.
        And Jesus stretches out a hand of compassion and cleansing.
Friends carry a sick man to Jesus, up on the roof, dig a hole and lower him down.
        Jesus frees the man from past regrets, past wrongs, and paralysis.
Levi - tax cheat, fraud, and Benedict Arnold of the worst sort, goes about his dirty business.
        Till Jesus comes by, and beckons him to follow into a new life.
        Goes home with him. Eats with him, dining as with a good friend.
A man with a shriveled hand, deformed, laughing stock of the town, unable to work
        Jesus calls him to come, and in spite of incredible social pressures to push this man back into the gutter - he exerts heavenly power and restores the hand to wholeness.

Fact is - the only ones whom Jesus has a stern, harsh word for;
        the only ones he pulls up short are those who stand back with arms folded across their chest in arrogant disbelief; who want Jesus to play by their rules in their space.

But anyone, everyone who comes with hands open, seeking –
        they are welcomed by the Christ;
                by Immanuel.
        They are restored by the Prince of Peace.

There was no room for Jesus. Humanity relegated him to a back corner of a dingy cave where animals slept. People were too busy with the stuff of life – census stuff in their case.
        Many missed out on the wonder of that first Christmas night.
        Christmas has come again.
                Christ is here. His Spirit is here. He has come.
                Please, dear people - don’t miss Him because of being too busy with the stuff of life: work stuff, school stuff, party stuff.