Rev. David Holwick ZP All I Want For Christmas
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 19, 2010
John 12:16-21
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS ... JESUS
I. Do you have a "Do Not Gift" list?
A. Amazon's new idea.
Lots of people now do their Christmas shopping on the internet.
One of the biggest companies is Amazon.com.
They used to focus on books but now you can buy just about
anything through them.
You can also have gifts shipped directly to your loved ones.
That's where Amazon's new idea kicks in.
People will be sending you gifts through Amazon.
What if you don't like the gifts they send you?
In the ancient past, you would receive the gift, send a thank
you card, then exchange it on your own.
The new-improved system lets you intercept the lousy gift
before it ever gets dropped at your door.
Here is how it works:
You set up a profile for yourself on Amazon.com.
You can list your size, color preferences, etc.
That makes sense - they may not know how to get your clothes
that fit.
But then it gets interesting.
You can list people who consistently send you lousy gifts on
a "Do Not Gift" list.
Uncle Bob would send you a gift, Amazon would send him a thank
you note, and his gift would be converted into something
you like.
Think of it as automatic gift exchange with less hassle.
There is even a "nuclear option" - you can tell Amazon that you
want all gifts, purchased by anyone, to be converted into
Amazon dollars.
So when you send your grandmother that sweater, it's not really
going to get to her.
She going to get the "Call of Duty: Black Ops special edition"
video game that she really wants.
#62932
B. Giving good gifts has always been tough.
1) We exchange gifts at Christmas, of course, because of the
gifts that the Wise Men brought Jesus.
2) It's a tradition that goes way back, and the way the media
presents it, our economy utterly depends on it.
3) But maybe our gift-giving misses the main point.
II. Our society focuses on stuff.
A. We expect wages, investments, and wealth to always increase.
1) Consumerism is one of the foundations.
2) We make more so we can buy more so we can make more...
B. Christians are consumers, too.
1) Consumerism in the Sermon on the Mount. Luke 12:29-31
In his famous sermon about the lilies of the field,
Jesus says God wants to take care of us,
His conclusion is this:
"Do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink;
do not worry about it.
For the pagan world runs after all such things, and
your Father knows that you need them.
But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given
to you as well."
2) So we need stuff, but we need something else even more.
III. Could the antidote be simplicity?
A. The 100 Thing Challenge by a guy named Dave.
Dave Bruno felt that his stuff was overwhelming him so
he gave himself a challenge.
He would whittle his personal possessions down to 100
things, and use nothing else for one year.
He actually got down to 94 essential items.
53 are clothes - 9 regular shirts, 7 T-shirts, 3 pants,
3 jeans, two pairs of shoes, one tie.
He cheated a little - 10 underwear count as one item
because he didn't want to be gross.
He also had a wallet, a wedding ring (he has a wife and
kid) and a computer, iPad and iPhone.
One car.
I liked the fact that he included a complete camping outfit
with sleeping bag, tent, stove and trekking poles.
He had a surfboard too, as well as a skateboard.
And at the top of his list: two Bibles.
#62916
This kind of lifestyle would certainly make Christmas
easier for your family.
They wouldn't be able to get you anything.
Maybe an apple or orange, like people got in the old days.
1) If you had to simplify, what would you get rid of?
2) What would you absolutely keep?
3) You would like the Holwick's Christmas.
a) I got Celeste one gift, which she already opened.
b) She has gotten me -- nothing.
B. Perhaps it is not so cut-and-dried.
1) Jesus also preached abundance.
a) God wants to give us good stuff, just like a parent
at Christmas. Luke 11:13
He says in Luke 6:38 --
"Give, and it will be given to you.
A good measure, pressed down,
shaken together and running over,
will be poured into your lap.
For with the measure you use,
it will be measured to you."
This reflects someone at a food market, sitting on
the ground with a basket or blanket in your lap.
Grain is poured in, pressed down, and overflows.
God can give like that.
b) An even better promise: The meek inherit the earth!
2) Jesus wasn't an ascetic like John the Baptist.
a) He was not opposed to having a good time and was
criticized for this.
b) But he was not a hedonist - "Man does not live by
bread alone, but by the Word of God."
IV. Maybe Jesus doesn't need Christmas.
A. Has consumerism tarnished the holiday?
1) The advertising starts in October.
2) It galls me when news reports focus on whether holiday
shopping is up 2% or lags the previous year by 3%.
3) And that annual assessment of how much the Twelve Days of
Christmas costs...
Six geese-a-laying are up 20%
And those five gold rings would really set you back
right now.
Is this what Christmas is about?
I don't think so.
B. Some Christians are fighting to "keep Christ in Christmas."
They want store clerks to greet them with "Merry Christmas."
They want trees to be called Christmas trees.
John Boykin thinks we should take another approach.
The first local store to bring out the Christmas doodads,
he boycotts for the rest of the season.
As a Christian, John believes Jesus was God's way of walking
the earth.
If that is anywhere close to true, Jesus is really the wrong
person to trivialize.
But he says he's not fighting the commercialization of
Christmas.
That fight was lost ages ago.
John wants something more radical - disentangling Jesus
entirely from this blight on his good name.
He's out to change the bumper sticker from "Keep Christ In
Christmas" to "Free Christ FROM Christmas."
If you think this would be heretical, compare Christmas with
Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
On King's birthday, no one pays any attention to his birth.
Instead, it's "I have a dream..." and his impact on society.
We mark Dr. King's birth by focusing on what he said and did
as an adult.
Christmas, by contrast, has no time for what the adult Jesus
said and did.
Christmas keeps him safely shut up as a baby in the manger
where he can't make his usual noise about people repenting
and turning their lives over to God.
Jesus himself didn't emphasize his birth, but his death and
resurrection.
John says he would trade a month of Christmases for one
meaningful Easter.
Mr. Boykin is not proposing that we cancel Christmas.
He knows the economy would collapse without it.
He just wants to subtract the remaining Jesus-element from
it and move that over into Easter.
Call December 25 Retail Day, call it Holiday #9.
Just leave Christ out of it.
Jesus was not born to be the patron saint of Fourth Quarter
Earnings. #28720
V. All you really need is Jesus.
A. The Greeks had it right.
1) John's passage begins with a note that the disciples
were clueless about the real mission of Jesus. 12:16
a) It wasn't until he was resurrected, and then ascended
into heaven, that they got the big picture.
b) Until that point, they couldn't get past the miracles.
1> Those were awesome!
2> And one of the best ones was the raising of Lazarus.
3> As a result, Jesus was mobbed.
A> Without a doubt, he would have made the cover
of "People" magazine.
2) Some Greek-speaking Jews seem to have cut through the
celebrity haze.
a) Their simple request was to see Jesus.
b) His message to them is, you must follow me, serve
me, and go where I want you to go. 12:26
B. Do you see him?
1) Can you see past all the hoopla of the holiday to
appreciate the Savior?
2) Not just that you know it originated with Jesus and it
is supposed to celebrate his birth.
a) Do you personally know him as your Savior?
b) Does the thought of being saved matter more to you
than any present you might get six days from now?
3) Knowing Jesus makes all the difference.
In the days of the Depression, Clarence Darrow, the
brilliant lawyer, was addressing the members of a black
church in Chicago.
Most of these people were desperately poor.
They didn't have jobs and had little in which to place
their hope.
As Darrow came to the pulpit he listed their troubles and
then noted how joyfully they had sung.
Then he asked this pointed question: "What do you have to
sing about?"
A lady in the congregation jumped to her feet and said,
"We've got Jesus to sing about!"
#1722
Do you?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
# 1722 “We've Got Jesus To Sing About!” Dynamic Preaching, Fall 1991;
Original source is Donald F. Ackland, et. al., Broadman
Comments 1991-1992, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1991).
#28720 “Title: Should Christ Be Kept In Christmas?” by John Boykin,
“All Things Considered, Opinion: Can the 'Christ' Be Kept in
Christmas?” <http://www.npr.org>, December 2, 2004.
John Boykin is the author of the book Cursed Is the Peacemaker.
He lives in Belmont, California.
#62916 “Could You Limit Yourself To Only 100 Things?” by John Reed,
Illustration Exchange. Bruno’s website is
<http://guynameddave.com>.
#62932 “Gift Conversion System,” by Rev. David Holwick, adapting an
article by David Zax, <http://www.fastcompany.com/1706301/~
amazons-gift-conversion-system-to-transform-bad-gifts-to-gift~
-certificates>, November 30, 2010.
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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