Matthew 1:18-21-18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[d]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet[e] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[f] because he will save his people from their sins.”
What the angel said to Joseph in the dream we read about was that Joseph and Mary were to name their baby “Jesus” because He would save His people from their sin. “Jesus” is the Greek form of Joshua, which means the Lord saves. Jesus’ very name speaks to the mission God sent Him to accomplish. Jesus was and is the Savior. There is no other hope. There is no other plan. There is no other way to God except through Jesus.
We all need saving which means we all need Jesus. We are all born with a problem that we can’t solve. We are born with a sinful nature that causes us to want the wrong things and to do the wrong things and to make our own way in this world apart from God. Sin is bondage. Sin aligns us with Satan’s agenda rather than with the will of God. Sin takes from us. Sin robs us of the joy and peace that come from being in a right relationship with God. Sin keeps us from that right relationship.
Jesus came to save us from the darkness, from the blackness, from the emptiness of sin. Salvation is the greatest gift that could be received by any of us. Why Jesus? Why Someone who was fully human but also fully God at the same time? Because only God could accomplish the work of salvation. Only God has the authority to forgive sin. Only God could create a way for sin to be forgiven. God, alone, had the perfection and power to pull it off. Jesus had to come because no person on earth could provide redemption.
Isaiah 1:18- “Come now, let us SETTLE the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as WHITE as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Come. Do you see the invitation? The gift is for us, all of us. Come, NOW! Do you hear the urgency? God is inviting you to come to the Christ of Christmas now, to come to the way of salvation, now. Our sins stand out like a sore thumb. Isaiah compares them to the colors of scarlet and crimson. Our sins cannot be hidden. They can’t be denied. They are like a stain you can’t hide. Have you ever been out to a restaurant and spilled something colorful on you only to try to dab the stain with water just to rub it in and make it more defined and clearly seen? What we do to try to cover our sins is useless and often only makes the situation worse.
But Jesus covers our sin like snow covers the earth. When snow falls, what is beneath it is unseen. All that remains is the pure, white, glistening snow. There is a newness, a beauty to the covering of snow that reflects what happens to a person who has their sins forgiven. What was is no more because of the covering.
Come now. Let us settle the matter. Settle it. Settle things with God. Stop wrestling. Stop running. Stop living bound up and choose the freedom God offers. Open the gift of Jesus. He will cover your sin. He has you covered. Have you ever been wrapping a present and you misjudged the amount of paper needed? You think you have a generous amount, more than needed but you come up short and there is a big gap? What do we often try to do when that happens? We try to piece the gap together with some extra paper. We try to patch up our mistake. We try to cover what can’t really be covered because it is obvious when we hand the gift to someone that we botched the job.
Do we try to do that with our spiritual lives? Do we try to cover our sin with good works? Do we try to patch up the distance between us and God with church attendance or community service or by putting some money in the offering plate? It can’t be done. We can’t add enough human effort to outweigh the gap, to cover our sin. That is what makes salvation a gift! We don’t do anything to earn it. Ephesians 2:8-9 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works. A gift is something someone purchases. Jesus has purchased the gift of salvation with His very blood. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left the crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Jesus completely covers our sin.
When David made terrible, sinful, selfish, immoral, and illegal decisions to sin and realized what he had done, when he confessed his sin and brought his sinful heart to God to ask for forgiveness, he said, “Wash me, and I WILL be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7 David knew the only way to be relieved of sin was to be cleansed by God.
Jesus never came to condemn us. He came to cover us. God has always made a way for His people to have their sins covered. When Adam and Eve sinned and sin came into the world, they felt shame. They immediately regretted what they had done, and they tried to cover themselves. They tried to cover their shame. They sewed some fig leaves together to try to make themselves a covering. That didn’t work, so they tried to hide from God. That didn’t work because God goes where His people are. The clothes Adam and Eve had put together weren’t going to work. They needed something durable, something lasting, something that was the result of a sacrifice. So, God, sacrificing the life of an animal, made them clothes of animal skins, Genesis 3:21. God covered Adam and Eve in the garden.
Both the Old and New Testament talk about this idea of being covered. Galatians 3:27 tells us that when we are united with Christ, we are clothed with Christ, like you would put on new clothes. I’m guessing some of you are wearing new clothes this morning. New clothes make for a great Christmas gift, but the best new outfit we could wear is to be clothed with Christ, to be covered by Him. Y’all, Jesus was wrapped in flesh so that we could be wrapped in His righteousness. He willingly became the sacrifice for sin so that our sins could be completely covered.
If our greatest need had been for information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our Greatest need was to have our sins covered, forgiven, so God sent us a Savior. (Max Lucado)
For the wages of sin (what we earn from a sinful life) is death, but the GIFT of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The miracles surrounding the Christmas story are truly incredible. (Read Matthew’s and Luke’s account.) I’ve personally witnessed a lot of miracles this year. However, greater than an angelic visitation or a virgin birth, even greater than a healing or hope restored is the miracle of salvation. You can experience it today. Make this a white Christmas because of what you will allow God to do for you on the inside. Will you unwrap the gift of Jesus this year, the gift that undoes the damage sin has done, the gift that keeps on giving, and the gift that has you covered for time and into eternity in Heaven?
