Tonight is the perfect opportunity to receive Jesus.  Oh, not that!  If experience is trustworthy, there are some here this evening for whom church is not exactly a habit.  I don’t say this to single out or embarrass anybody!  I say it to let you, particularly, know that tonight, right now, God is offering you a gift, the best gift you could ever have.  Just because you expect a pastor to say such things doesn’t mean what I’m saying isn’t true.  Jesus is worth receiving.  I don’t say that only as a pastor.  I grew up in a Christian home; I regarded myself as a Christian, even though until age thirty or so church was never a habit.  I would have been slightly offended if anyone had told me that I was, for all intents and purposes, no Christian.  No man or woman can tell you that, but God can.

Jesus came, Jesus called; he taught, healed, and did works of staggering power.  People rejected him.  They weren’t impressed, weren’t interested.  They didn’t feel like having Jesus and didn’t feel bad about it.  If you asked them why, they couldn’t really tell you.  They didn’t think about such things: that stuff didn’t mean much to them.  Oh, it was alright for the grandmas and the babies, of course, but Jesus wasn’t for a man—or an independent, strong woman.  It’s all so ludicrous, contradictory, and implausible.  Besides, other things were far more interesting and useful: machines, animals, building, working, getting, playing, eating, drinking, sleeping.  Life is full of many rewarding pursuits.  Then you get old, or sick, or hurt; then you die.  And then?  Why would it matter at that point?  Who knows?  Who cares?

God knows.  But what if you don’t know God?  He wants to introduce Himself here, tonight.  That’s what Christmas is all about: God coming among us, coming near, to speak to us directly, to call to us by name, to heal, to bless, to give.  Are these foolish things to want to do?  God cares.  That’s what Christmas means.  But what if you don’t care about God?  I’m serious.  I may be a fool, but I’m not fool enough to believe that God is the very most important thing to every soul here this evening.  I can stand here and tell you God cares about you, and He does.  I know it’s true.  What harm is there in giving God a try?  A real try, not just some half-hearted try, like taking that bite of sushi, or taking a sip of some drink when you don’t really want to: eggnog, for instance.  “There.  I did it.  Happy now?!”  Please, don’t let tonight be like that for you.

It’s not really enough just to live for this life, pursuing this and that to get your mind off of things.  Christmas can be just that, so easily: one big diversion, but the 26^th comes; January first comes.  Purpose, hope, courage—these are foundations of character.  If you think Jesus was some long-haired dude walking around in a nightgown, doing things and saying stuff, you’ve got it all wrong—who told you that?  Jesus is purpose.  Jesus is hope.  Jesus is courage.  Jesus is strength.  Jesus is peace.  Those are big claims, I know!

You’re not going to get there, not going to get to those, not going to know those things, truly, apart from Jesus.  Jesus is all of that and the way to all of that.  I tell you as one who tried the Jesus-on-my-terms way: Jesus when and as much, or as little, as I wanted.  There are many here tonight who tried that life until Jesus came to them and they came to him.  What they can share with you is the same story, in different versions: truly fulfilling, truly abundant life comes only through Jesus.  Any supposed life apart from Jesus is a sham, a lie, as you already suspect in that part of your heart, your mind, that part of your soul that somehow knows the truth, and whispers it to you.  There has got to be something more!  What am I missing?  You can’t work it away, can’t sleep it away or drug it away.  You can’t get away from it by carousing with friends or out there communing with nature.  Peace isn’t out there.

I have purpose, you say.  What is it?  I have hope, you say.  Hope for what?  I have courage!  You’ll need it—without real purpose and true hope, you’ll need courage, but what good will it do you?  Life is going to put a real load on that foundation.  Have you ever walked on a badly cracked slab?  I have strength!  You may be able to press 250, but you know life can press back, harder.  I have peace, you tell me.  Do you?  The absence of active conflict is not peace.  The quiet of the tree stand or the lake is not the same as peace.  The neglect of God in your life is not peace.

“[T]o all who did receive [Jesus], to those who trusted in his name, he gave the [power] to become children of God” (1:12).  Trust in his name.  What could that mean?  Trust him; trust his word; trust what he says because you see his character, his truth, his courage, his strength.  Take some time to look into what he says about his purpose, and think about it.  Why did he come among us?  To get to a hill far away, to a cross, where he willingly goes for us, to take our sin upon himself so that we might receive life from him.

Sin.  Ugh.  There’s that word, that word that keeps us away, keeps us away from church (like we needed a reason), keeps us away from the Bible, keeps us away from God.  It does all that, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t messing you up, messing up your courage, messing up your hope, messing up your peace.  It’s in me, trying to do all that.  It’s in all of us.  A life lived in these bodies for these bodies gets you where all bodies go.  Go to the graveyard tonight and see for yourself.  Is that too morbid, tonight of all nights?  A wise man once said we learn truths by strong contrasts.  There’s still time.

Jesus Christ came to offer you life with him, life in and through him.  That way of talking is mysterious, confusing, I know.  But the gist of it is clear enough: life lived shoulder to shoulder with Jesus, life lived for him as your highest and best gets us to him, gets us into the family of God.

If we’re all already God’s children, and we’re all already going home for the big reunion, I really don’t see why Jesus needed to come at all.  I don’t see why he needed to suffer at all—how foolish, to suffer for the sake of something that isn’t true: that only those joined to Christ will have life.  If we’re all already God’s children, I really don’t see why Jesus needed to die: he talks many times about coming into the world to die, and to live again—even weirder.  If that death wasn’t necessary, then he truly was a fool, or crazy, or a crazy fool.  Even worse, he would then be a liar, and God would be a liar, because God in Christ says that only His children will have life, but if we’re all already His children, all already headed to the big homecoming, why say that?  What distinction is being made?

But it’s easier not to think about such things, and certainly more fun not to.  And this is indeed a season for diversion, fun, celebration, eating and drinking, before January arrives, as it must.

You and I were born by natural means; created physically, developed in the womb physically, delivered physically: of the earth, of the will, the desire, of a man.  We are born into confinement.  We have the world for our prison; we are here for a life sentence.  Well, it’s not such a bad prison.  Yet something in us wants freedom, just isn’t happy without it, feels all imprisoned without it.  Is there freedom, really?  Can you or I have it, really?  That’s what John is telling us tonight, here in the Bible.  That’s what God showed him.  This is what the Spirit is singing to us, tonight.  We were born into confinement.  We live in chains, even if we don’t see or feel them—though we can, often enough.  We see those chains with every twinge of guilt.  We feel those chains in the tears of those we hurt.

Tonight, you can be born again, not of any physical body, not of any man’s momentary desire, order, or act.  Jesus is offering you an opportunity for life, tonight, to be born, tonight, of God.  You can have God for your Father, tonight; tonight, you truly can become a child of God, received, blessed, nurtured, encouraged, fed, guided, loved, saved: friends, here is true courage, true hope, true life.

Christmas is for giving.  Christmas is for receiving.  May God make it possible for you to receive His gift.  There’s no better gift: just ask those here tonight who have received Jesus Christ.  Ask God for His gift.  He wants to give it to you, but He won’t, if you don’t want it.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  Who can explain His decisions?  Who can understand His ways?  For all things were created by Him, and all things exist through Him and for Him.  To God be the glory forever!