This tape is a fifth in a series of six called The Characters of Christmas given by the Reverend John W. Howe of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. This tape contains two different sermons given on Christmas Eve, both entitled Jesus. The Sermon on Site One was given at the 7.30 service for families and children. The Sermon on Site Two was given at the 11 o'clock service. The scripture reference is Luke chapter 2, verses 1 through 20. I want to tell you a story about Christmas. And I think some of you are going to understand it, and some of you might not understand it completely, and you're going to need to ask your moms and dads to explain it to you. This is a story, okay?

This isn't what happened at Christmas, but this is kind of like Christmas. And so if you don't understand it, you ask your moms and dads, and you'll find out whether or not they were listening, okay? And if they didn't understand it, you tell them to come see me, okay?

Right? This is a story about the most wonderful king who ever lived. He was the most handsome king, the wisest king, and the best king. He was a good king.

His name was King Adonai. Can you say that with me? King Adonai.

He was a wonderful, wonderful king. And he lived in a beautiful golden palace way up on the top of Majesty Mountain. And all surrounding him up on the top of his mountain in his golden palace were beautiful birds.

And they would sing his praises. They would just sing wonderful songs all day long, every day. And down at the bottom of Majesty Mountain, down in the valley, were all the people of King Adonai's kingdom.

and they loved him very much but they were just a little bit afraid of him because he was so smart so wise such a mighty king and such a good king and they knew that he wanted them to be good people and to obey all of his laws and to be like he was and sometimes they weren't and so they were just a little bit afraid of King Adonai even though they loved him very much Of course, he knew when his people did the wrong thing, and sometimes it made him very sad to see them breaking his laws and being mean to each other. But he would forgive them when they did that because he loved them. And most of the time, people got along pretty well, and they had a good time together, and the kingdom was safe.

Now, one night, a terrible thing happened. Can you guess what happened? They died.

They didn't die. but something like that happened King Adonai's arch enemy that means the mean guy who was against the king and wanted to ruin the kingdom his arch enemy was named Prince Cockatrice when you hear Prince Cockatrice you go okay can you do that Prince Cockatrice moms and dads can do it too One night, when everybody was asleep, Prince Cockatrice snuck into the kingdom and came and planted magic seeds right in the middle of the royal garden. And these were not good magic seeds.

You know, there are good magic seeds and there are bad magic seeds. Prince Cockatrice came in and planted bad magic seeds right in the middle of the royal garden. And by morning, they had sprung up into a beautiful fruit tree.

That might surprise you. You might think that bad seeds would produce a bad tree, but this one looked good. It smelled good.

If you walked by the garden, you'd go... can you smell it? Beautiful.

Oh, makes my mouth water. I want some of that. And I look at it, and it's the most luscious, beautiful fruit I ever saw.

The only trouble is, it's poison. It was deadly poison. It didn't kill you right away.

But if you ate any of the fruit off of that tree, something terrible would begin to happen inside your body. and you'd begin to die. You'd begin to die.

Only you wanted more and more and more of the fruit. You wanted more of the very thing that was killing you. And word spread throughout the whole kingdom that there was this wonderful fruit and everybody wanted to eat some of it and they didn't know what it was going to do to them.

It seemed like by afternoon everybody in the whole kingdom had had some of that fruit and they were lining up to get more and in fact they were beginning to fight with each other To have even more of it. Well word got to King Adonai pretty quick. And he called in all of his counselors.

And he said what am I going to do. For my people that are dying. What would you do?

Does anybody have an idea? What would you do? Chop down the tree.

That's what one of them said. Go down and chop down that tree. Well somebody tried.

And you know what happened? The more they tried to chop down the tree. The more it grew.

It just sent out more branches and more branches and more fruit and more fruit. And it didn't seem like they could chop it down. What else might you do?

What do you think? What would you do? Burn it.

They tried to burn it and the same thing happened. It just got stronger and stronger. One of the counselors had an idea.

He said, let's build a great big wall right around the garden and then nobody can get at it. The only trouble with that was, that would cut people off from the good food that was in the garden and they'd die anyway. another one of the counselors had this idea he said if your people are so ungrateful and so disobedient and so foolish as to eat the fruit that would kill them why don't you just wipe everybody out the king said no I love my people what can I do and finally a very old man stepped forward and he said King Adonai I think I know the answer he said you have to do one of two things either you have to get people to stop eating that poison fruit which is killing them or you've got to find somebody who has not eaten any of the fruit who would be willing to die for all those who have and the king said I don't understand how would that help would somebody who hasn't eaten any of the poison fruit dying, why would that help?

And the old man said, well, I think it works this way. I think that what happens is the poison gets into people's blood. And if somebody came along who didn't have any poison in his blood and his blood was spilled on the tree, I think his blood would kill the poison.

I think it works like this. I think that the poison kills our blood, but good blood will kill the poison. You ask your mom and dad to explain that.

The poison will kill our blood, but if somebody can come along whose blood doesn't have any poison in it, his blood can kill the poison. The king said, where am I going to find somebody like that? Somebody who hasn't tasted any of the fruit, who'd be willing to die for all the people who have.

And just then, the king's little son, over in the corner, spoke up and he said, Father, I'll go. And the king said, what can you do? You're just a little boy.

And his little son said, I know I'm just a little boy, But I'll go down into the valley and I'll live with all those people and maybe I can convince them not to eat any more of the bad fruit. The king said, but what if you can't? What if you can't convince them not to eat any more of that poison fruit?

What if they get so angry when you try to stop them eating it that they kill you? And the little boy said, well, if they kill me, then my blood will kill the poison. And the king stood up and he gave his son a great big hug.

And both of them had tears in their eyes because they didn't want to say goodbye to each other that night. But they realized that if they loved those people who were dying down in the valley, the little boy had to go and had to be willing to give his life that others might live. And so as King Adonai stood on the top of the mountain, he watched his little son make his way down to the valley where the people needed him.

I think that's the story of Christmas. Because God, who is our Father and who loves us, sent his son to come all the way down from heaven, not just to live in our midst, Not just to show us what God is like, as important as that is, but to die for us. Because something terrible has happened to us.

And his blood needs to make it right. That's why Jesus came. He came as a little boy.

But he grew up to be a man who gave his life for all of us. For you, and for you, and for you, and for me. That's the best Christmas present I know of.

Jesus Christ came and gave himself to us that we might live forever in God's family. But you know what? Just like every other present, you've got to accept him.

You've got to say, yes, I'll take that present. Thank you for that present. How many want that present?

Your sins forgiven and life eternal. Any of you out there want it? it's yours for the taking Merry Christmas to you all