We have all heard the Christmas story before.

The Christmas story is the story of a baby born miraculously and mysteriously to a virgin mother.

About a nobody girl named Mary, who saw the announcement that she would be the mother of the messiah to be the greatest privilege of her life, despite its meaning she would be ostracized perhaps the rest of her life, since she was not married

It is the story about a good and merciful man, named joseph, who when he heard that his fiancé was pregnant and he was not the father, he could have subjected her to disgrace and even had her stoned in the culture, but moved with compassion, simple was going to dissolve the marriage quietly.

A man that was reassured by an angel to marry the woman, and that he would be the legal father of the savior of the world.

It is a story set to the back drop of God’s people conquered and oppressed by a massive empire, ruled a tyranny Emperor who claimed himself to be the Son of God.

It about this little unlikely family having to travel miles through storm and sand to the town of Bethlehem to be counted by order of the Emperor Augustus.

It is a story about this family who upon returning to their own hometown found that no one wanted to give them shelter for the night. No family wanted them.

It is a story about the king of heaven being born in the muck and mire of a barn.

It is a story about good news announced by angelic hosts to lowly shepherds, forgotten in the wilderness, tending their sheep.

It is a story about wisemen following stars, fooling a local corrupt ruler and coming to worship the messiah child with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

It is a story about an escape in the night as Herod sent out guards to kill the children of Jesus’ age, trying to stop the potential usurper.

And so, this is a story about miracles and the messiah, about faithful servants and faithful spouses, unplanned pregnancies and ancient prophecies; it is about shepherds and tyrants, about journey and escape, about humility and royalty, oppression and hope.

This story is the first Christmas. It is the story. It is the most important story. It is the story of all our salvation. Our salvation began to be accomplished in history on that day, in that stable, in that dirty manger, to that poor Middle-eastern couple, two thousand years ago.

It is the truth that God is now with us: the incarnation. The infinite God dwelling with us mortals.

It is the truth about God’s rule. The messiah Jesus shows how God rules: he chooses the lowly; he chooses the poor; he chooses the unworthy, the forgotten, the unlikely. He prefers them to the powerful, the rich, the proud, and the oppressor.

It is the truth about forgiveness. Jesus wasn’t just the king of the righteous. He didn’t just love the deserving. He also loved sinners. In fact, he died for the people trying to kill him. He died for Emperor just as much as the shepherds. He died for King Herod just as much as the wise men. He died for the criminal and the terrorist just as much as he died for you and me.

The Christmas story is the truth about God’s fundamental character of love and compassion, about God being born in our form, identifying with our plight, binding himself to our fate, all to say that nothing can separate us from his love.

Immanuel: God is with us. He is not against us, he is for us. He gave us his son. He gave us himself.

It is also a difficult story to believe, too isn’t it? We live in a world of skepticism. It seems that usually about this time every year someone publishes an article, proclaiming their modern brilliance at just how unbelievable the Christmas story is.

Angels don’t exist. Miracles don’t happen. Virgins don’t have babies. Stars don’t give travelers directions. Gods don’t reveal themselves. It is simply an unbelievable story.

It’s preposterous; it’s impractical; it’s too spectacular; it’s too amazing. Things like this just don’t happen.

But our culture’s skepticism over the things of God – whether it is the possibly of miracles or the fact that God could indeed reveal himself – pays a high price.

Skepticism against the Christmas story is skepticism against hope itself.

We live in an apathetic age.

Wars can’t be stopped. Poverty can’t be solved. Politicians always lie. Life is always unfair. Marriages never work. Churches never help. God isn’t there.

There is no life after death, and ultimate no reason for life before it.

Right and wrong, good and evil, hope and tragedy, these are just creations of the human imagination with no real anchor in reality.

The world is not getting better. In fact, it is getting worse and to be honest, most people would think we are not worth saving.

Forgiveness? Hope? Love? Goodness? It’s preposterous; it’s impractical; it’s too spectacular; it’s too amazing.

It is unbelievable.

Perhaps the Apostles passed along this story not because they were primitive, but because they were just like us.

They lived in a skeptical age. Tyrants stayed powerful; peasants stayed poor; lepers stayed sick; women and slaves stayed property; the dead stayed in the grave; and there is nothing new under the sun.

…Until Jesus showed up. Perhaps the reason the Apostles passed along this Christmas story is precisely because it was unbelievable. Unbelievable yet true.

This is a watershed moment in history, a game-changer, a paradigm-shifter, an epiphany, an event.

God showed up. Hope showed up. Goodness and mercy and forgiveness showed up. Nothing like this had ever happened in their time. Nothing like it before or after. Prophets had foretold this, but who could expect it happening in this way?

Perhaps this story is true in all its remarkable, exceptional, unbelievable, beauty.

We can ask, just like Mary, “How is this possible?” And the angel’s words are just as true today as they were two thousand years ago: With God all things are possible.

With God all things are possible.

If we grant that, this story starts making sense.

Good does triumph over evil. Love does triumph over hate. Forgiveness does triumph over hurt. Peace does triumph over violence. Faith does triumph over idolatry. Hope does triumph over despair.

These truths are not the delusions of us human bi-pedal ape-species with an overgrown neo-cortex.

The deepest longings of the human heart, the groaning of the soul for a world without hunger, sickness, sin, death, and despair – as unrealistic as that sounds – that yearning knows this story is true the same way our thirsty tongues know that water exists.

Its real. Its possible. It is out there. It is here: in Jesus.

The only left to do with this story, when we are done pondering it and puzzling is to trust it.

Can you tonight trust this unbelievable story? Can you trust that with God all things are possible?

Can you trust that your life is not just there without value, but it is a gift, it was planned and made by a God that sees you as his child?

Can you trust that the wrong in your life, the sins we have committed that no excuse can defend has been forgiven by a God that knows you better than you know yourself and sees with eyes of perfect mercy?

Can you trust that God has come into history, has shown us the way, has died for our sins, and conquered the grave?

Can you trust that God can set right all that has gone wrong as we invite him to renew our hearts, our minds, our souls and strength, our relationships, our job and family, our past and future, our communities and our country?

Can you trust that this Christmas story about God’s miraculous power, his unlimited compassion, his surprising solidarity, can be shown to be true this night just as much as it did then? In you, in the person next to you, in this church, in this town.

We give gifts at Christmas time as a sign of God’s generosity, but do we look forward to God’s gifts to us each Christmas?

Do we look for the gift of renewed spirits?

Do we look for the gift of transformed hearts?

Do we look for the gift of forgiveness of past hurts?

Do we look for the gift of reconciled relationships?

Of new freedom from guilt and shame, from hurt and hatred, from addiction and despair, from materialism and apathy.

What gifts are we going to see given from God’s spirit this Christmas.

Perhaps it will be like what happened to Nelson Mandela (just one story I read about this week about how the truth of Christmas changed someone in remarkable ways). In South Africa where Blacks were segregated off from the privileged of White society, Mandela as a young man advocated armed uprising and was imprisoned for life in 1962.

In prison he faced all the things that would, by any worldly standard, destroy hope, love, joy and peace in any man’s soul. He was beaten by the guards. He recount one day being forced to dig a pit that the guards taunted him saying it would be his own grave. As he dug, they peed on him and spat on him. The prison was so dirty he contracted tuberculosis.

Conditions like that fester the heart not just the body, but the miracle of Christmas reached him. Mandela recovered his Christian faith in prison, and was moved with hope towards a better tomorrow, with love and forgiveness towards even his guards that beat him.

In a sermon he gave later in life, he spoke about the hope he gained knowing that the messiah was born an outcast like him. This unbelievable Christmas story, the story that we recite and remember till it we often take it for granted, restored a man’s heart in one of the darkest of places.

Christ’s name is Immanuel: God with us. God was with the shepherd, with Mary, with Joseph, with the oppressed Israeli people, and so, also with Nelson Mendela.

After 26 years in prison, campaigns to have him pardoned succeeded, and Mandela went from prison to the presidential campaign, running to become president and end apartheid, not through violence but through reconciliation.

He won and he even had the guard that beat him from prison, whom he reconnected with and forgave, at his inauguration, a guest of honor.

Its an unbelievable story isn’t it?

How will God work something unbelievable in you tonight?

We could say that our lives aren’t as fantastic as Mendel’s, but then again, if we say that, we would be selling ourselves and our God short.

You see, a story about angels and a virgin giving birth and about a God found in the form of a baby might be unbelievable, but we Christians take that as part and parcel of what our unbelievable God does.

There is a saying that goes if you are in for a pound, you might as well put in a penny.

If we know that God has done the miraculous, can we trust him now with the mundane?

If we know that God has given us life, can we trust him with our finances and family?

If we know that God has atoned for all sin, can we trust him with our fears and failures?

If we know that God has conquered the grave, can we trust him with the worries of tomorrow?

If we know our God is a God that can do all things, that he has already accomplished everything, perhaps can you trust him with something small now. Let’s do something small right now. Something small but still significant.

Let’s have a moment of silence and stillness. We don’t get enough of those in this busy season. Have a moment right now to say to God whatever you need to say or to listen to God and hear whatever he as been trying to tell you, then we will pray together…

*Pause*

Living God, Father of our lord Jesus Christ.

May the worship we have shared this Christmas lead ro acts of service which transform people’s lives

May the carols we have sung this Christmas help others to sing, even in times of sadness.

May the gifts we exchange this Christmas deepen our spirit of giving throughout the year.

May the candles we have lit this Christmas remind us that you intend no one to live in darkness.

May the new people we have met this Christmas remind us that we meet you in our neighbors.

May the gathering together of family and friends this Christmas make us appreciate anew the gift of love.

May these unbelievable stories we have told again this Christmas be good news of great joy to us and all people, proclaimed on our lips and embodied in our lives.

May the ways you have come close to us this Christmas not be forgotten.

May we remember your unbelievable love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness – that you are our life, our light, and our salvation, this season and always, because of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

[End prayer modified from Gathering for Worship: Patterns and Prayers for a Community of Disciples by the Baptist Union of Great Britain]