If Jesus Had Never Been Born

If Jesus had never been born, this would not be 2009 AD because AD means the year of our Lord.

If Jesus had never been born, towns would never have been named St. Albans, St. Petersburg, San Francisco, Christchurch, Corpus Christi or Santa Cruz.

If Jesus had never been born everybody you know called Chris, Christine, Christian, Christie or Christopher would be called something else.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have had a national anthem which addresses God and asks him to save; we would be a pagan nation worshipping the sun and the moon as fertility symbols.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have heard of Santa Claus, who is based on a real generous Christian bishop from Turkey who presented impoverished girls with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have heard a single Christmas carol or Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

If Jesus had never been born, we would have never heard of Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa. Blacks in America would still be second class citizens and the poor of Calcutta would have no one to love them.

If Jesus had never been born, organizations such as the Samaritans, Christian Aid, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army would never have been founded. Life for the suicidal, the sick, the hungry and the world’s poor would be much, much worse.

If Jesus had never been born the first free hospital would never have been built in the 4th Century – and nor would tens of thousands after it.

If Jesus had never been born, the slave trade would probably still be here, since it was opposed almost single-handedly on Christian principles by a Christian politician - William Wilberforce.

If Jesus had never been born, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris Sorbonne, Princeton, Harvard and Yale Universities would not have been founded.

If Jesus had never been born, we would have no Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, no Dickens’s Christmas Carol, and no The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

If Jesus had never been born, we would have no films such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Ben Hur, Chariots of Fire, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and scores of others.

If Jesus had never been born, we would never have heard “Amazing Grace” or “Joy to the World.”

If Jesus had never been born, everyone here who was married in a beautiful church would have been married in a functional registry office.

If Jesus had never been born, many idioms would never have entered our every day speech such as Good Samaritan, prodigal son, lost sheep, love your neighbour, going the second mile, doing unto others as you would have them do to you, turning the other cheek and salt of the earth; all of which were coined by Jesus.

If Jesus had never been born the net flow of immigration in the world today would not be from non Christian countries to Christian ones – because they’d be no different.

If Jesus had never been born we would never swear on the Bible in court or say that anything is gospel truth.

If Jesus had never been born, the Auca Indians of Ecuador would still be spearing white men to death instead of baptizing their children.

If Jesus had never been born, the Arawakan natives of the Caribbean would still be cannibals.

If Jesus had never been born, descendents of the Maya in Mexico would still sacrifice their children instead of teaching them to praise their Creator.

If Jesus had never been born, hundreds of Old Testament prophecies would have remained unfulfilled. Death would not be conquered. God would be a liar.

If Jesus had never been born, three wise men would have just been three wise guys.

If Jesus had never been born, there would be no mediator between God and man, for the only one able to bring God and man together, Christ Jesus, would have been as fictitious as the tooth fairy. We would still be dead in our sins with no hope of eternal life.

What a difference!

Happy Christmas. And thank God for Jesus!


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 8th December 2009