By Pastor Kevin Barnhart
Spring Grove Evangelical Free
If your Christmas is different this year … the words caught my attention as I sat staring into the frost on the windowpane. I don’t know why my heart grabbed hold of this song; music had been playing all day long. Each tune a bliss filled sonnet of God’s great wonder, melodies saturated with the joy of the coming of Christ, the Glory of the King. Sadness is not allowed on Christmas. Tears are not welcome; Christmas is love, laughter and happily ever after. Families gather, presents are shared, feasts and festivities, songs and gladness … everything is happy on Christmas …
But the Christmas letter that sat on the counter began by saying: this year is different for us. And like a flood I was reminded of all empty chairs that would sit at tables this year. I was reminded of the myriads of goodbyes, the mountains of tears, the numbness of loss, and the hard filled valleys that we have all walked. If your Christmas is different this year … these words had stirred something in my soul and without notice I began to take stock of the weight of all humanity reeling from sin seducing, intruding, and invading our own joyful stories … not everything about Christmas is happy.
Over 2,000 years ago, and I would argue since the very beginning of time, Jesus knew that he would need to leave His Heavenly throne to save us. He knew that sin would seduce, intrude, and invade His happy story – our happy story … and so it was on that first Christmas day Jesus would leave an empty chair at His Father’s table …
The parting of Father and Son- of the Trinity would not seem awful in some respects. Jesus was going to be born as a baby, He would live among men, He would have some time before things went from bad to worse … but remember the beginning of our Salvation left the empty throne in Heaven. Something was different that first Christmas …
Here, for us, we remember the manger, we remember the birth, we celebrate the gift, and we search for joy; but on that very first Christmas Day what must have heaven felt? What must the Father have felt? His one and only Son would leave behind His heavenly throne for a wooden manger, leave a host of heaven singing praises and bowing before him only to find a people who would not accept Him, Christ would leave behind sheer reverence for hate, betrayal, and sorrow, He would leave power for pounding nails, a Crown of Life for the crown of thorns. And so it was that on the first Christmas there at the Father’s table sat an empty throne …
There is not time for the whole story of course. For more – come and see. Because as another well put song once said, “It’s about the cross.” The end informs the beginning. This story, this Jesus, He is not just some ordinary king, not some ordinary baby….and though our hearts may reel in the sadness of sin now…we must remember that the only thing that was and one day will be empty – is the tomb … the cradle must take us to the cross, and the cross to the empty tomb … that is what Christmas is all about. He came to save you. He gave it all up for YOU for US. “And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away …” Revelation 21:4
The empty throne meant the hope for all humanity had come — and in HIM there will be no empty chairs … He came, He died, and He has RISEN! The throne is empty no more!
“He who is seated on the throne said, “Behold I AM making all things new.” Revelation 21:5
Merry Christmas.
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