St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Sunday School Christmas Service – December 16^th, 2001

Luke 2:12 -- This will be sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Dear worshippers and proclaimers of the Christchild,

Today is a very special day for many young children. No, it is not Christmas time yet. No, it is not time to open up their Christmas presents, but today in the second service our Sunday School children will use their hearts and voices to proclaim the wondrous birth of God’s own Son. As we gather in this first service around God’s Word we will also take time to catch a glimpse of the Savior whose birth we will celebrate more fully in just over a week. Our attention this morning is not going to be towards some powerful and glorious sight. I want everyone to draw as close as possible to the manger where the small newborn baby is lying, as we mediate on the theme:

Have you ever had the chance to watch greyhound dog racing? Since the dogs don’t have riders to keep them going in the right direction, the dogs are trained to follow a mechanical rabbit around the track. I remember reading somewhere that during one race the dogs started out chasing the mechanical rabbit, but the mechanical rabbit malfunctioned and blew up. The dogs were so confused that many of them just laid down, while others raced in circles after their tails. Not one dog finished that race. As we worship today we are reminded that the world has us chasing after many different things, almost like the dogs chasing after the mechanical rabbit. Especially during this wonderful and special Christmas season. The problem with following the things of this world so closely is that when they are gone or fail many people self-destruct. They don’t know where to turn for help. This morning we will realize once again that we have something more solid to follow, and that is our glorious Savior.

Our theme for today is, "Come to the Manger." In order to come to the manger, we first need to be invited. On that first Christmas, we want to remember a group of men who were invited to that manger. The angels appeared to the shepherds and told them about a baby and invited them to go and see this baby. They went willingly and eagerly to see what the angels had told them. As we think of another Christmas may we realize that God has invited and welcomed us to come and see that child in the manger. May we always listen to this invitation and rejoice at the many opportunities that God has given us to see the Christchild.

On one of the late night shows, they were making fun of some odd sounding notices in the paper. This was a notice that was listed in the lost and found part of the paper. It read like this: LOST DOG -- $50.00 REWARD. Black and tan dog of poodle and German Shepherd descent. Flee-bitten, left hind leg missing, no hair on his rump, blind, and recently neutered. Answers to the name "Lucky".

If that dog was lucky I would hate to see an unlucky dog. As we are invited to come to the manger, we might at first glance think that Jesus was very unlucky. His mother and stepfather couldn’t find room in an inn so they stayed in a stable and Jesus was laid in that dirty and smelly manger or animal feedbox. What a lowly beginning for the Savior of the world. As we think about the shepherds who were invited to go and see their Savior that was born, we remember the sign that the angels gave them, "This will be sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

As we continue to draw closer to our Savior, it is my prayer that we never overlook that unlikely place where we can find the Savior of the world. And rather than thinking that Jesus’ birth was some unlucky thing that happened, let us remember that God had a plan and this also was part of the plan. God in all of his wisdom and knowledge knew exactly what it would take to send his Son into the world to take away the sins of the world. There was no luck involved at all – only God’s perfect wisdom.

During World War II an engineer named James Wright was searching for a synthetic rubber substitute. In one of his experiments he mixed boric acid and silicone oil. It formed a soft substance. Imagine his surprise when he dropped that soft substance on the ground and it bounced. With a little more investigation, they found that this substance could be flattened and rolled into many shapes and forms. While this substance never worked for engineering purposes, a man named Peter Hodgson, who worked for a toy company, thought that this would make a good toy. He packaged it into plastic eggs and within months this weird rubbery stuff became one of the hottest selling toys in American history. We know it as Silly Putty.

I’m sure there a number of people who wished that they would have thought of the idea of making Silly Putty. It sounds so simple, but it was only the ingenuity of the one man who decided to try and make use out something formed by mixing boric acid and silicone oil. For nearly thousands of years God sent prophets to his people of Israel to prophesy about the coming Savior. Prophets such as Isaiah and Micah were able to look into the future as they wrote about many details that would tell us that Jesus was truly the one promised by God. The Old Testament prophets told us where Jesus would be born and how he was to be born of a virgin. They also told us the kind of suffering he would endure to save people from their sins.

The problem is that many people didn’t want to listen. This odd sounding message just didn’t sound right, and for this reason they rejected the words of the prophets. If only those people would have realized as we realize today that Jesus came exactly as the prophets had written. We pray that will always trust and believe what God tells us about his Son who is our Savior.

I don’t know if you enjoy history, but I enjoy reading and learning more about how great people were able to accomplish great things. I really enjoy the more ancient history of the Romans and the Empires that preceded them, such as the great leader Hannibal who lived around 200 BC. Hannibal was remembered above all things for using elephants in his army. I don’t know if this story is true or not, but I found it in something I read about Hannibal. As he drew closer to Rome he had to go through a narrow pass in the Alps and he came to a section that was blocked by a huge boulder. He tried to move it and break it in many ways. Finally he told his soldiers to set it on fire. Finally after the fire got really hot, a cracking noise was heard. The boulder had split in two because of the great heat of the fire.

As we come to the manger, I hope that we realize exactly why Jesus was born from the virgin and was laid in a manger. It was part of God’s plan to get rid of the boulder of sin that was blocking people’s path to their heavenly Father. Our sin had made it impossible to see our Father or come to our Father, but that little baby lying a manger was like that scorching fire that cracked that rock in half. Jesus not only split our sin up, but he destroyed the power of the devil that was trying to block our path to God.

As we look into that manger, we see not only a small baby wrapped in cloths. We don’t just see a cuddly little baby that we would all like to hold rightly. We see through our eyes of faith a Savior who came to save all people. The familiar passage , "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." tells us that God wants us to take the simple yet powerful message of a Christ child who was born 2000 years ago to all people, because all have sinned and are in need of the Savior that was lying in that manger. May we this Christmas season take the message of God’s love to all those whose hearts need to know the message that will crack their sinful hearts – The message we see as we, "Come To the Manger." Amen.