Christ Didn't Forget the Misfits

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins in salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. In the name of Jesus, Amen. So I learned something new this week.

I was shocked when I heard it. In fact, I didn't even know what to think of it. It's horrible when you consider the implications of what it is that I learned.

Any of you seen the Rankin Bass Claymation special, Rudolph the Red -Nosed Reindeer? I grew up on it.

Now, a little bit of a note. It first aired in December of 1964.

So I wasn't around when it first aired, just so you know. Okay, but Dwayne Clevin was,

I see. But all of that being said, the year that it first aired, there was something missing.

Get this. At the end of the very first version of Rudolph the

Red -Nosed Reindeer, the toys that were on the Isle of Misfit Toys, they were never rescued.

Rudolph never came back. Santa never came to get them. And Josh has lost it.

It's horrible if you think about it because you have Rudolph promising he would come back, but he never did.

And what ended up happening as a result of this oversight, I don't know what you call it, children from around the country and around the world who had seen this special wrote letters saying that it was terrible.

What happened to the toys on the Isle of Misfit Toys? Why didn't

Santa go and get them? And Rankin and Bass being put under this basically deluge of letters calling for some kind of justice for the

Isle of Misfit Toys, before 1965's airing of that special, added the ending that we're all familiar with, the one that I've seen since I was a kid.

But I'd like you to think of it this way. Tonight is Christmas Eve, and according to the biblical way in which days work, today is already

Christmas. It's already happened. When the sun set, Christmas began. And you'll note that when we read in the book of Genesis the days of creation, there was evening and there was morning the first day.

There was evening and there was morning the second day. Our days begin in darkness. And so it's kind of appropriate.

It's almost like God knew what he was doing, because I think he does. We begin our lives in the darkness of sin.

We begin our lives under the dominion of darkness. We begin our lives in darkness itself, under the rule of Satan, following the passions of the world and the desires that run contrary to the word of God, all because of Adam and Eve's rebellion against God in eating of the tree that they were told not to eat of it.

But when God was handing out punishments, curses, if you would, aside from the curse that we heard that you are dust and to dust you will return, and by toil in the sweat of your brow will you eat bread, that was one of the curses, and also the conflict between husband and wives that exists, that was part of the curse.

And also, well, women experience pain in childbirth, that's part of the curse.

But there was a curse in particular that was given, but it was a backhanded curse. It was a curse with a promise.

And the promise went something along the lines of that the seed of the woman, a promised seed of a woman, by the way, women don't have seeds, they're the fertile grounds that seeds are planted in, if you were to think about it.

But the seed of the woman God would raise up who would crush the head of the serpent, break his dominion, and there was the very first Christmas promise given to us in the darkness of our sin.

Is it any wonder then that John, in his gospel, he likens Christ's appearing, the incarnation, not only to a new creation, and it is, but he also, well, talks about it in terms of darkness and in light, that the light has shown in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, and that Christ the light has come to save us.

And see, that's the thing. We didn't have to send letters to God going, help, we're broken, we're stuck on the island of sinful creatures.

And if you think about it, as big as our planet seems to us, in the vastness of space, this tiny little marble that we're on is kind of like an island.

And in the, well, when you consider the vastness of the universe itself, a tiny little speck.

But here we all are, broken by sin, not just misfits, we're flat out rebels.

Not just, you know, mortally wounded, but dead in trespasses and sins. And at the very, very first of it,

God promises us one who would crush the head of the serpent, the seed of the woman.

And thousands of years passed before that promise was fulfilled.

You see, God didn't put us down as a postscript. It wasn't like Jesus was going, oh yeah,

I think we need to do something about humanity. This was the plan all along. And so we hear then in our gospel text tonight, that in human history, in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus.

We know the name of the Roman emperor that Jesus was born under. All the world should be registered for what purpose?

Tax. Yeah, taxes. We all know a thing or two about that. Don't worry you kids, you'll understand what taxes are all about soon enough.

And once you start paying, you never stop. It's just a thing that happens year after year, every time you go to the grocery store.

But Mary and Joseph, they had to go down to Bethlehem in order to be registered for a tax. This was the first registration when

Quirinius was the governor of Syria. All went to be registered, each to his own town. And so Joseph and Mary were required then by Roman law to make the trip from Nazareth all the way down to Bethlehem.

It would take a couple of days to get there. And this is the days before cars. And they always picture

Mary on a donkey. You know, you get the Christmas cards, right? And the Christmas cards always have those wonderful blue gradients of the sky that had just turned dark, with the big shining star and off in the distance,

Bethlehem. And there's Mary being led by Joseph on a donkey. But here's the issue. To have a donkey means you have money.

Mary and Joseph just don't. They don't. And we'll see this in the weeks ahead, that when it came time to present

Jesus and to offer the sacrifice necessary for Him as the firstborn child who opened the womb of the

Virgin Mary, they couldn't even afford a sheep. They went with the poverty sacrifice.

So was Mary on a donkey? Most likely not. In fact, she probably walked the whole way.

And walking from Nazareth to Bethlehem nine months pregnant just sounds no fun at all.

Is it any wonder, then, that she goes into labor first thing she gets there? So they were the house in the lineage of David.

She was betrothed, not yet consummated the marriage. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth, and she gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling cloths, laid him in a manger.

And then we hear these words, because there was no place for them in the inn. Now a little bit of a note here.

The word for inn, we translate it inn. We think of like the Holiday Inn. So they went to the local hotel.

They went to the Holiday Inn or the Howard Johnson or the Motel 6. And every time they would drive up, it said, no vacancy.

What's interesting is that the Greek word here is kataluma, and it could be translated as an upper room.

And let me explain what this means. We picture poor Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay.

But chances are that they had relatives, cousins, or maybe second cousins living in Bethlehem.

Family units were a lot tighter back then. But I mean, I would note out here, some of you kids, how close are you with your cousins?

Do you know your cousins? You know, uncle so -and -so, aunt so -and -so. I don't know which uncles or aunts you know, but the idea here is that you have extended family.

But here's the thing. Bethlehem was packed. Why? Because everyone was required there to register for their taxes.

And so back in the day in Bethlehem, the way it would work, you'd have these kind of three -storied houses.

On the bottom story, it was a dirt floor. And guess what they kept on the bottom floor?

Your cattle. They'd keep cows or goats or sheep. And the reason being is actually quite simple.

Because on the bottom level, you keep the cows down on the bottom, heat rises. So does smells, but that's a different thing altogether.

Then you have like a main floor. The main floor, on the main floor, you'd have your kitchen facility and main rooms for mom, dad, and for the kids.

But then there was this third room on the top called a catalooma. And the catalooma was for the visiting guests.

So somebody comes in from out of town, maybe that's where you store some things up there, but you clear that all out and your guests stay in their guest room.

That's how this all worked. But all the cataloomas were packed, which basically means that Mary and Joseph were down on the bottom floor where the animals were.

I always think back to when I was a kid, when I didn't clean my room properly, which was often, my mom had this thing she would say, were you born in a barn?

I often wondered how bad my beating would have been had I said yes. You know, I was always tempted to lip off backwards.

But here's the thing, Christ, in a sense, was. And consider the contrast.

Jesus is King of kings, he's Lord of lords. He is the one in Genesis who said, let there be light, and there was light.

He was there with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He saw the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters of the deep, and beginning the process of taking all of this chaos and bringing order to it.

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the scripture says. Everything was made by him.

There's not anything made that wasn't made by him, yet he came to his own, and his own did not know him.

He wasn't born in regal robes. There was no royal proclaimer out there saying, the

King has given birth to a son, the son of David, who will reign over the throne, on the throne of David, his father in Israel.

Nothing like that, nothing. King of kings, Lord of lords, God of God, light of light, very

God of very God. And what did they do? They wrapped him in swaddling cloths and put him in an animal feeding trough for a bed.

Why? Because God loves you, and he was coming to save you.

You weren't an afterthought. You didn't have to have kids write to God saying, how long, oh

Lord, are you going to do anything to fix the problem that we have? Instead, Christ was now in the world, and one of the famous hymns that we sing,

Which Child is This, in the second stanza, singing about the baby Jesus, it says that nails and spears will pierce him through the cross, be born for me, for you.

Hail hail the word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary. Christ was here to come and bleed and die.

And so here we see Jesus resting, we see Jesus sleeping, here we see Jesus, well, doing what babies do, but all of this is so that he can lay down his life so that you and I can live, so that you and I can be forgiven, so that you and I can be reconciled to God, so that our sin can be atoned for, and the darkness that we have brought into the world would give way to the light of Christ and the world to come.

And it's always in this context that you hear then about these shepherds.

Now, a little historical note. Some people have noted, and they are absolutely correct, that the shepherds of Bethlehem were generally tasked with being the ones to care for the sheep who would be sacrificed as part of the requirements of the

Mosaic Covenant. And so it's in that regard, then, you kind of consider that it almost seems like an appropriate group of people to, well, announce the good news to.

But when God shows up among us, we don't even know it, and so the angels had to step in and let us know what was going on.

So in the same region there were shepherds out in the field keeping their watch over the flock by night. And an angel of the

Lord appeared to them, we don't know his name, it's not given to us. And the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

And isn't that what we all, because of our sin, feel regarding God? Anxiety, fear, fear of judgment, fear of being cast into hell, fear of getting what we deserve.

But that's not what Christ was here. And so they were filled with great fear, and they hear these comforting words.

The angel said to them, fear not, fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.

For unto you was born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this proclamation you'll note, the angel says, it's for all people, it's for you, it's for me.

And today we got to hear the kids of Emmanuel and the kids of Kongsvinger join their voices with the angels in proclaiming to us that unto us is born a

Savior, which is exactly what we need. And this will be the sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is well pleased.

So when the angels then went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the

Lord has made known to us. And if God hadn't made it known to us, we would have never known at all.

That's how dark the darkness is of our sin. So let's go to Bethlehem.

A little bit of a note here also, Beth -lachem, you have to say it like that, by the way, if you're going to do it right, lachem, you got to get the, you know, the lachem, all right?

Lachem is bread, Beth, house. Think about this for a second.

All the way back in Genesis, we hear God saying to Adam that by the sweat of your brow you will toil, and from the sweat and toil you will eat what?

Bread. Isn't it appropriate then that Christ is born in Beth -lachem, the house of bread?

Because he not only lays down his life for us, he says in the

Gospel of John that he is the bread of life, and that whoever feeds on him will never die.

Think about it. A reference to communion, and there's a veiled reference to it here in Jesus' place of birth, the place that he chose to be born.

So let's go over to Beth -lachem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.

So they went with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger, just as they were told.

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told to them concerning this child, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart, and the shepherds then returned, glorifying and praising

God for all that they had heard and seen as it has been told to them. And brothers and sisters, tonight you have been told again the story.

Today is not a day where we celebrate in the same way we celebrate birthdays. This isn't a big blowout celebration of the birthday of Christ.

Instead, Christmas is instead the celebration, the glorifying of God, of the birth of our

Savior, regardless of the day on which it fell. Today is the day, now that the sun has set, because it is already

Christmas by Bible keeping of days. Today is the day that we remember that God never forgot us, that we were not an afterthought.

Christ says that God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but the world might be saved through Him.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and He shows up as a baby.

Whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. So let us join our voices now with the shepherds and glorify

God and praise God for all that we have heard today. Although we have not seen it with our eyes, we will see

Him with our eyes when He returns in glory. And although we have not heard His voice, we have heard the voice that He has given us to hear these words.

And these words come with His authority, and they are living and active. They give us hope in the midst of a world that seems hopeless.

And this is truly light in a world that is filled with darkness and getting darker.

And so note this, brothers and sisters, unto you is born a

Savior, exactly what we need. We are saved. We are rescued.

In the name of Jesus, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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