The Meaning Of Away In A Manger Song

TRANSCRIPT

Yes, my carol is a way in a manger and we're looking at what they paid, what it portrays. And we're looking at, uh, the surrounding circumstances, uh, of what it portrays. So, uh, it's a carol that's been around since the late 19th century and some say its origins with Martin Luther. And, uh, that's been contested now and scholars are saying that it could have come from America, authored by a man named Charles Hutcheson Gabriel.

But wherever it came from, it's one of the most popular carols. Uh, it's always a hit with every Christmas carol program. Um, if you're a little bit snoozy, it could even lull you to sleep, you know, because it's got that little lovely lullaby tune to it. Uh, and, uh, just, uh, You know, it has a lot of reference to children.

But in my view, uh, I think if we examine the words closely, I believe it speaks to three things at least. Number one is the poverty of his birth. Joseph and Mary were clearly not wealthy people. Number two was the humility of his birth. There was no fanfare. There was nothing on earth that was indicating a king was coming.

Uh, and number three was that. Jesus turns up in the messiness of your life. Jesus turns up in the messiness of your life. That's where we're going today. Is that okay? We're doing it? All right. Let's look at poverty. If we look at the whole situation of Jesus birth, Here we have the King of the Universe, the King of Eternity, from Eternity past through to Eternity in the future, coming down to visit Earth.

Um, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is coming. Would you not, um, Imagine there might be a little bit of fanfare about this, you know, a little bit of action. Uh, could this be a palace situation? Could it be royal robes? Could it be something palatial? I mean, even Moses got a start in a palace, you know, the, the guru of the old Testament got a start in a palace, but no, the birth of Jesus is a very poor and a very humble affair.

Now, all of you lovely parents know it costs money to raise a child, eh? It costs money to have a birth and get everything ready, right? Um, you know, but it looks like Mary and Joseph were seriously underprepared for this event. Uh, they had to travel late in the pregnancy to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem, because there was a census on.

The Roman government wanted a few more taxes. You know, they weren't wealthy enough. So we'll have a census and get some more taxes. That's, that's what we need. And so they found themselves with the arrival of the baby coming to when they actually got to Bethlehem. And as we know the story, there was no room at the inn.

There was no room. They didn't have enough money for any sort of upgrade. So they found themselves in a dirty stable with animals. a shelter. It was just a very humble birth. They didn't have any equipment. They didn't have any nappies. They didn't have a crib or a cot. They didn't have a car seat. They didn't have any of the essentials that you need to have a baby.

And later, It's recorded that it was time for them to sacrifice an animal after the birth of a child. That's what they did at a certain time after the birth. They had to sacrifice an animal. They didn't have one. And they had to substitute two birds. Which is a sign of pretty extreme poverty in those days.

So, It begs the question, why would God, who owns all things and controls all the wealth of the universe and of the earth, bring his Son into the world under these conditions? Hold that thought. So, now let's look at the humility of the birth of Jesus. I mean, most of us would know when a king or a head of state comes to town, comes to, uh, another country, uh, there is a lot of preparation that goes on, right?

It's huge. I mean, there would be a, uh, a threat assessment. There would be coordination with security agencies. There would be close protection. There would be, uh, en route security. There would be venue security. Emergency response security, there would be travel and AI was really helpful with all that for me on this in the sermon.

And, uh, so there would be so much preparation that would have had to take place. And yet here we have the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the King of the universe, God's only son coming down to earth to be born to teenage parents in the poverty and the squalor. And the humility of a stable. Doesn't that blow your mind?

I mean, it kind of just blows your mind that the King would come like that. You see that Jesus was purposely born into the messiness of Joseph and Mary's life. They were the chosen ones. Joseph and Mary were just living their best lives. You know, they were, they were doing life together in Nazareth, you know, uh, well, not together at that stage, but everybody knew everybody's business.

There was no secrets, pretty small town, Nazareth. Um, they were going to be married. And in those days, the parents are married, arranged the marriage. Everything seemed great until one day Mary turned up at the kitchen table and announced something major. Uh, I'm actually pregnant. I mean, I mean, what was mom going to say?

I mean, no one really bought the story that she was bringing, you know, that, you know, there was an angel and stuff. And, you know, and, and, uh, you know, like, man, Joseph just didn't get it. And so Mary had had a visit from an angel who gave her a massive assignment from God. Mary was young. She was poor. She was female.

All characteristics that would appear to make her fairly unusable by God. Not having a shot at any ladies here today. We know all of your capabilities, but we're just talking about culture and time. Probably not really that usable, but God chose Mary for one of the most important acts of obedience ever demanded of anyone.

We know the story. The angel said, you will be with child and give birth to a son and you're going to give him the name Jesus. And he made all sorts of other promises. But Mary's mind went immediately to the natural and said, uh, how could this happen? Um, I am a virgin. I've had no relations. Um, but, but the angel assured her that this was going to happen.

And Mary, uh, so, so the difference with that birth and this birth was that the Holy Spirit Was going to generate life in Mary's womb God the Holy Spirit We have God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit was going to generate Life in Mary's womb now if you're a student of the Bible today there is a massive parallel here between the beginning of the Old Testament and And the beginning of the New Testament, beginning of the Old Testament starts with Genesis.

And if you remember, one of the first verses in the Bible says the Holy Spirit brooded over The waters, and after that occurred, life was generated on earth. Life began to be generated because the Holy Spirit brooded over the waters. And if we look at the beginning of Matthew, the Bible says the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary.

And the life that was generated was the life of God, the son in her coming down to earth, Jesus, the son of God, God, the Holy Spirit generating life. That was why he was called the son of God and the son of man, the son of God, Holy Spirit generation of life, the son of man. Coming through Mary.

Now, we know that Joseph was having, uh, major troubles getting his head around this situation, so he needed a visit from an angel as well. And I thought, well, you know, Mary got one, so why not Joseph? You know, let's, let's have another visit from an angel. Phew! Uh, anyway, so the angel told him what was going on.

And Joseph got on board with the situation and started to support Mary in every way. But part of the promise was that Jesus would be called Emanuel, which means God with us. Correct? Emanuel, God with us. And the name Jesus actually means the Lord saves, the Lord saves. That was where we were going here with this virgin birth.

The Holy Spirit generating life in Mary's womb, Jesus becoming human.

But you see, there was a reason for this. And as humans, what we have is a sin problem. We have a sin problem. And no matter how hard we try to address the sin problem, We can't fix it. We cannot stop sinning. It's, it's part of our Adamic nature. It just comes out in us. And so what do we need? We need a savior.

We need a savior. And the name Jesus means the Lord saves. And Jesus birth was God's plan to save us from our sin. Amen. Because our sin separates us from God. Adam chose to go his own way. And he was separated from God and every succeeding generation also separated from God. So Jesus then turned up in the messiness of Joseph and Mary's life.

And that was the start of a whole new chapter. For Mary and Joseph, and it could be for you today. I don't know about you, but I've had more chaos and messiness in my life than you can actually poke a stick at. And I would say that nearly all of us could say the same, right? We've all had chaos and messiness in our life.

Before I met Jesus, I was young. Yeah. Relatively handsome. Jenny thought so. Relatively clueless as well. And I found myself getting into increasingly larger amounts of messiness. Or mess. And my pattern was when it got too messy, I would simply pack up and run away. Just like Adam did. Shamefully. That's what Adam did.

what the pattern was, but eventually your mess always catches up with you. And a lot of people think they need to clean up their lives before they find God. You know, we've always, we've heard many people say, Oh, you know what the, the roof will fall in when I walk into a church, you know, well, it didn't fall in for me and it probably didn't fall in for you, but you know, they feel like they've got to clean right up before they find God.

But the deal is. God finds us in the messiness of our life. God finds us in the messiness of our life and he wants to come to us right in the middle of our mess. In fact, we're kind of incapable of cleaning up our mess without his help. He comes to us in the middle of our mess and at that stage we we need to recognize that we are We need help.

We need divine help. We need his help to help us get through the stickiness of the mess. He doesn't always make the mess disappear, but he takes away the burden of our sin, which causes us to be free to start to clean up. Jesus takes away the burden of our sin so that we can start to clean up. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Most likely we'll have some cleanup to do. We may need to ask for some forgiveness. We need, we may need to spend some time renewing our mind, change some destructive habit patterns, which is all part of the journey of getting to know Him and getting to follow Him. And the Bible is our best friend with that.

As we begin to read our devotions and start to learn how to follow Him and how to be obedient. To him.

Sometimes we just need to be humble and say, God, I need you to help sort this out. Sometimes we just need to be honest with God and invite him into the situation. You know, I love that story about. The disciples that are in the boat on the Sea of Galilee and there's massive storms raging and there is massive waves Pounding the boat and there's stuff going on and they're getting more and more freaked out and they think they're gonna die And who's having a beautiful snooze on the back of the boat?

It's Jesus and They they don't know what to do. But what are they gonna do? They've got to call out Jesus I Need your help help up here You And wake up. And sometimes we've got to be humble enough to do that. Jesus, I need your help. I'm struggling right now. I need it.

So this morning, I want to share with you some scriptures on the humility of Jesus. And you know what, um, If I could just be honest, humility is a pretty tough sell, you know, if I was a humility salesman, I'd be better off, uh, selling encyclopedias. You know what I mean? Uh, I think I'd do better, you know, but, uh, humility is something that's very strong in Jesus vocabulary.

And I want to show you the difference between perhaps the way we may view humility. and the strength of what Jesus talks about humility this morning. So let's have a look at Matthew chapter 18 verses one to four.

We got that. Yeah. It says, at that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? There was a bit of chest thumping going on here. You know, there was a bit of, you know, I'm, I'm going to be closest to Jesus when we get to heaven. You know, cause he really likes me.

Oh no, I spent a lot more time with Jesus than you did. Oh no, no. I did some miracles. You know, Jesus, you know, Jesus loves me. There's a bit of fist pumping, bit of, bit of high fiving, chest pumping. And so they were bickering about who is going to be the greatest here. What did Jesus do? He called a little child to him and he had him stand among them.

And he said. I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Is that not strong language? Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. That's how much Jesus values humility and so should we.

And I'm glad that we have a church that values humility. And I've, I look across the elders and the pastoral team. They are filled with it. Just want to serve people, love people. And I see that. And I'm sure we all see that. Humility is a value that is very strong with Jesus. They were looking for power and position.

Jesus just cuts right through that. And he comes back to the humility. We're not talking about a childish faith. We're talking about a child like faith. Yes, I know you young moms, you know that your child comes to you and they know they're gonna get a feed. They know they're gonna get love. They know they're gonna get everything that they need to be, and, and they don't even question it.

They don't even, they don't even ask. It's just, mom, I'm getting that. I'm having that. And you know what? That's the childlike faith that we need to have. Say, Hey, Jesus, come and help me in the midst of my mess. I'm struggling here. And we get that childlike faith by continuing to call and continuing to ask.

Let's go to another passage that talks about Jesus humility. He said an example for us, and this is in Philippians two, verse five to eight. It says, your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature God. did not consider equality of God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, and taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient even to death on a cross.

Can you imagine? The amount of humility that took from being the king of heaven, being the ruler and coming down and being found as a man, and then humbly going to the cross. One definition of humility is perfect power under perfect control.

Power. under control. And Jesus displayed that throughout all of his earthly ministry. He had the power. He said on the cross, I could call down legions of angels and we could sort this out. But he didn't. He stayed. The course completed his mission. Perfect power under perfect control in obedience to a perfect father who had the plan.

for our salvation, that we might be able to come to him and remove the separation that we had with him before. That's the good news. That is the good news. Let's look at one more scripture. 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 9. It says, for you know, the grace of a Lord Jesus Christ, that you were rich, and yet for your sake, he became poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become rich.

You know, when we talk about being rich here, it's not talking about dollars and cents or gold or anything like that. The richness is the fact that he became poor, that we might become rich in knowing him. Rich in knowing who Jesus is and who he is in our lives. That's the richness that this is talking about.

He became poor so that we might be, have, might become rich in knowing him.

Here we have a Saviour named Jesus the Lord who's been through the mess of human's life. And he showed us how to live with humility and love one another. He sacrificed his life. A sacrifice had to be perfect. And he was perfect and sinless in every way. And his sacrifice was not for himself, but it was for us.

And that's why we should share this with others. That's why we should share this with others because it's for everyone. Do you know, in his life, on earth,

he chose shepherds who were fishermen and tax collectors, could have even chosen concreters, you know, um, he chose, he chose women. Um, he chose women and they were his disciples too, who had been prostitutes and had five husbands. He chose, he chose this, the poor, the common. He just chose those people. I think it just shows that everyone has an opportunity.

There is no class. There is no distinction. It's available for everyone.

And that is what he's done for us. That is why we should share his love with others. The last line of the Carol says, fit us for heaven to live with thee there. What does that mean? Fit us for heaven. You see, we're on earth. We're learning stuff. We're learning stuff about Jesus. We're learning how to live.

And he wants us to be humble. He wants us to understand that it's not by any of our works that we have this opportunity to get back to God the Father. It's about It's about humility. It's about knowing that he has given us this opportunity because the father was good enough to send his son so that he could die to be that purpose, perfect sacrifice for us.

You know what? Sometimes the mess of life, it just gets so sticky that we really feel like we ought to give up. But I want to tell you here this morning, if you're in that situation, Maybe you have had a relationship breakdown. Maybe you have a loved one who's sick and struggling. You, you may have all sorts of different things that are, that are causing the mess in your life to feel like it's sticky, but you know what?

We need to be able to understand that we can call on his name. And He will come to us right in the middle of the mess. And He will help us, raise us up, move us forward. He never leaves us or forsakes us. He loves us. He loves us. And I think that is the nature of this hymn. Fit us for heaven to live with this thee there.

I'm just going to pray for some people this morning. And then Sienna's gonna hit us with this beautiful Carol, heavenly Father, I just thank you today that you are a God who loves us. You are a God who has given everything We hear often that you bankrupted heaven, so that we might have life, so that we could have the richness of what you offered us in Jesus.

And God, I just thank you today. That we've had the opportunity to say yes. And I pray that we would have the courage to help others hear this good news, that others may have the opportunity to say yes. And Lord, we can see your kingdom multiply. And Father, we just thank you today that you're such a good God that you love us and care for us.

Amen.