Rev. David Holwick ZN Mary Did You Know, #2
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 20, 2009
Luke 2:42-51
WHAT MARY DIDN'T KNOW
I. Have you had your Christmas Cake?
A. Christmas in Japan.
Christmas is actually a big holiday there.
People decorate their houses with lights and many set up
Christmas trees. (plastic, of course)
Stores begin decorating at the end of November.
Christmas carols - in English - fill the malls.
You can get your picture taken with Santa Claus, too.
On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, gifts are given out,
especially to small children.
They also do a few things differently.
On Christmas Eve, single women have a romantic dinner with
a man they love.
The day has practically become a second Valentine's Day.
And bakeries do a huge business selling Christmas Cakes.
75% of Japanese have a Christmas Cake.
They are surprised to find out Americans have no idea what
a Christmas Cake is.
(It is sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries.)
Do you know what's really amazing?
Japanese have almost no idea what Christmas means.
Less than one percent of the population is Christian.
Some think Christmas is the day that Santa was born.
It is not a total loss, though.
Churches there make a big effort to attract visitors with
candlelight services and other Christmas festivities.
#36071
B. America has some of the same trends.
1) Secular themes are so overwhelming that many don't
understand the Christian core to the holiday.
2) I used to be like that - I never wore a bathrobe in a
Christmas pageant, I never went to a candlelight service.
3) Christmas was one thing to me - presents, and lots of them.
C. Ignorance is excusable in some situations.
1) I wouldn't expect the Japanese to be very knowledgeable
because Christmas is new to their culture.
2) People in Bethlehem two thousand years ago didn't know
much either.
a) How could they? It was something that had never
happened before.
3) Among those who were mystified was Mary.
a) Not everyone agrees with me.
Tim Jones contributes to blog for a Catholic website.
He considered the questions raised in the song "Mary
Did You Know?" and he says:
"Every time I hear this song, I want to stand up and
holler 'YES, Mary knew!
If ANYONE knew, she did!!'" [1]
b) She understood some things about Christmas because God
God revealed details of the birth to her.
c) Mary was also knowledgeable of the Jewish prophecies.
d) But I believe she didn't know everything.
II. Mary did not know all the details of her son's ministry.
A. Did she know her son would walk on water? Probably not.
1) Jews were expecting a military leader more than a miracle
worker.
2) On the other hand, she seems to have thought her son had the
ability to fix the wine situation at a wedding. John 2:3
3) The Messiah was expected to have a supernatural way with
food, which is why the multiplying of the loaves went
over so big (they tried to make him king). Jn 16:14-15
B. The healings and exorcisms seem to have unnerved her.
1) At the height of his popularity, Mary and her children
tried to rescue Jesus. Mark 3:20-21
2) He ended up rebuffing her, saying his true family was those
who knew God's Word and practiced it. Mark 3:34-35
a) That must have hurt her.
III. She did not know about his world-wide ministry.
A. She focused exclusively on his Jewish mission. Luke 1:46-55
1) Everything in Mary's Song is about God's salvation for Israel.
2) For that matter, Jesus himself emphasized reaching the Jews.
a) The Gentiles who were helped by him had to force
themselves into his presence.
b) But Jesus did teach that the Kingdom of God would
reach all the people of the world.
B. Only at Pentecost did Mary see the wider picture.
1) One writer has said she was the last at the cross and the
first in the upper room.
a) (where they received the Holy Spirit)
2) The disciples supernaturally spoke in most of the languages
of the Roman Empire and many were saved.
IV. Mary knew her son would be born, but not that he would die.
A. The prophet Zechariah gave Mary a hint of the future.
1) He told her a sword would pierce her heart.
a) How would she have understood this?
b) Every mother gets their heart broken by her kids.
2) But nothing is worse than losing a child to death.
B. Jesus' tragic death went against everything Jews expected.
1) The Old Testament even said being hanged on a tree was
proof someone was cursed by God.
2) It is no wonder that statues of Mary holding her dead son
are so poignant. (Pieta) John 19:25
V. You must understand Good Friday and Easter, to get Christmas.
A. Births aren't that big a deal.
1) OK, maybe a virgin birth deserves some attention.
B. It is what you accomplish that brings attention to your birth.
1) George Washington.
2) Martin Luther King.
3) Jesus of Nazareth.
C. What did Jesus accomplish?
1) Salvation of people, and the world.
2) Salvation of YOU.
VI. What many people don't know about Christmas.
A. They don't realize it is about personal faith.
1) Not faith in the innocence of small children, or the joys
of family get-togethers.
2) Faith in an Almighty God who can save us from our sins.
3) You must accept him or you are lost.
B. Rebirth of Christmas in Russia.
For 74 years, Russia had no official Christmas.
Under the Tsars, Christmas in Russia had always been a big deal.
Initial Communist efforts to do away with the popular holiday, in part by
banning Christmas trees, failed.
It was Stalin who fixed on the idea of co-opting the secular parts of
Christmas -- the decorated tree, the gifts, Father Frost -- and tacking
them onto New Year's.
In 1992, for the first time in more than seven decades, Christmas was
once again a state holiday.
The entire nation seemed embarked on a search for a feast, a tradition, a
heritage that had been lost to them for so long.
An American reporter observed a well-dressed woman squeezing tentatively
a church in Moscow.
She looked around, saw other worshipers buying candles and bought a handful
herself.
Once her candles were burning, the woman sidled up to an old babushka
[grandmother] whose nonstop devotions suggested she might be an authority.
The well-dressed woman quietly asked what, exactly, was happening.
Evidently up to her ears with such ignorance about Christmas, the old woman
barked out, "Don't tell me you were born yesterday!" and returned to her
bowing.
A kindlier man nearby whispered some explanations, probably not quite accurate,
but enough to give the woman at least some sense of participation.
Tradition is a living thread, and once severed never grows back quite the
same.
No whispered explanations in a crowded church can replace childhood
memories.
In his Christmas message, Patriarch Aleksy II, the spiritual head of the
Russian Orthodox Church, declared that the spiritual and moral rebirth of
the nation was "the basis for the revival of all other aspects of our life."
If that was so, then the fact that so many people were prepared to search
so earnestly for a Christmas when their lives seemed to have so little
to celebrate was in itself a promising sign.
#36060
C. Can Christmas be reborn in America? In you?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] From a blog by Tim Jones at <http://www.jimmyakin.org/mary>,
December 23, 2005. I repeated it from the previous week
because I had only preached to part of the congregation.
#36060 "The Spirit Of Christmas Calls Again To Russians," by Serge
Schmemann, The New York Times, January 8, 1992.
#36071 "Christmas In Japan," by David Holwick, adapted from articles
found at <http://www.mapsofworld.com/japan/culture/~
christmas-in-japan.html> and <http://answers.yahoo.com/~
question/index?qid=20080319080833aamvebu>
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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