Full sermon outline follows the handout version.
THE COLORS OF CHRISTMAS
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Mark 15:15-20
I. Baptists are fashion-challenged.
II. Liturgical churches have a color for everything.
A. There is a precedent for this in the Old Testament.
B. Christians assigned colors to each special season.
III. Purple is a joyful color.
A. In the Old Testament, it represents wealth and royalty.
B. Churches that use bluish purple associate it with the night sky.
IV. Purple can also be a darker color.
A. One other church season uses purple - Lent.
B. Orthodox churches still keep this emphasis.
V. Perhaps it is an emphasis that needs to return.
A. Our culture loves a positive message.
B. The first Christmas certainly had plenty of joy.
VI. You can color Christmas any way you want.
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Rev. David Holwick ZL
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 4, 2011
Mark 15:15-20
THE COLORS OF CHRISTMAS
I. Baptists are fashion-challenged.
A. My special wedding robe. [I wear it throughout this service]
1) My robe has three stoles, each with a different color on
each side.
2) I only use the purple one, at weddings, because it matches
my eyes best.
3) An Episcopalian would be horrified - the colors are
supposed to match the religious season, not my eyes.
a) All the churches that emphasize ritual and liturgy
put a lot of emphasis on things like color.
b) It is sort of a code to tell them what the focus is
supposed to be on that Sunday.
B. Christmas has colors of its own.
1) It just so happens that the purple stole is the correct
one today. [1]
2) This is also why most of the Advent candles are purple.
a) To be exact, 1 1/2 inch purple candles.
b) Ask Zillah Salmon how easy those are to find in
a local store!
c) Except for the third one, which has to be pink.
1> I used to think that was the last candle before
the white one, but I was corrected.
C. Colors mean something.
1) The esthetics of fashion are not the point.
a) The fact that I may miss which tie goes with which
shirt should not ruin my sermon.
b) But color is a form of symbolism, and symbolism can
communicate truth.
2) The truths of this season can change your life.
II. Liturgical churches have a color for everything.
A. There is a precedent for this in the Old Testament.
1) Moses was told to use specific colors for the tabernacle.
a) Purple and blue were also prominent.
b) The closer to God you came, the more gold you would see.
1> The Holy of Holies was nothing but gold.
2) Important people used color to show their status.
a) Sometimes it got turned on its head.
b) Lamentations 4:5 says, "Those who once ate delicacies
are destitute in the streets. Those nurtured in
purple now lie on ash heaps."
B. Christians assigned colors to each special season:
Advent is dark blue (or purple) and pink.
Christmas itself is white and gold.
Good Friday is black.
Easter, like Christmas, is white and gold.
Pentecost is red.
June to October, which is called Ordinary Time, is green.
Apparently Father's Day and the Fourth of July don't rate
a color in liturgical churches. [2]
III. Purple is a joyful color.
A. In the Old Testament, it represents wealth and royalty.
1) It is the same in the New Testament.
2) In Acts 16:14, one of the first Christians in the city
of Philippi was a woman named Lydia.
She was a dealer in purple cloth.
The purple dye was made from seashells and was very
expensive, worth its weight in silver.
Lydia must have been pretty well off. [3]
3) Purple fits well with Advent because we are waiting for a
king.
B. Churches that use bluish purple associate it with the night sky.
1) It is because Advent concludes with angels announcing the
birth of the Messiah in the middle of the night.
2) The emphasis of Advent has become anticipation and hope.
a) Good stuff is coming!
IV. Purple can also be a darker color.
A. One other church season uses purple - Lent.
1) Lent leads up to Good Friday and the death of Jesus.
2) It focuses on the suffering of Christ and our sorrow
over our sin, which put him on the cross.
3) By using purple for Advent, some churches treat it just
like Lent.
B. Orthodox churches still keep this emphasis. [4]
1) While you are eating sugar cookies and candy canes, they
are fasting.
2) They don't get the fancy stuff until Christmas Day.
a) Their Christmas dinner must really stand out.
V. Perhaps it is an emphasis that needs to return.
A. Our culture loves a positive message.
1) It certainly colors our Christmas season.
a) Multiple radio stations have non-stop, around-the-clock
Christmas music.
1> (at least if you define Christmas music as white
snow and jingle bells.)
b) Lights are everywhere, the food doesn't stop.
c) Even the shopping has become a deadly stampede.
2) The unremittingly positive atmosphere can be a little
deadening.
a) We beat it into the ground.
b) Notice how little spirituality there is.
B. The first Christmas certainly had plenty of joy.
1) The angels had good news to proclaim.
2) But that first Christmas was also tinged with sadness.
a) Mary was told that a sword would eventually pierce
her heart.
b) Her baby was born so he could die. For us.
c) That is worth being sober about.
1> The birth of Jesus cannot be separated from the
death of Jesus.
2> The only purple he ever wore, was placed on Jesus
by mocking soldiers.
3) Even a rabbi says we have lost something in Christmas:
Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman writes in "Cross Currents":
"There is nothing wrong with sleigh bells, Bing Crosby, and
Christmas pudding.
But I should hope Christians would want more than just that.
And as Christmas becomes more and more secularized, I am not
sure they get it.
"The real Christmas challenge belongs to Christians: how to
take Christmas out of the secularized public domain and
move it back into the religious sphere once again.
"Historians tell us that Christmas was not always the cultural
fulcrum that balances Christian life.
There was a time when Christians knew that the Easter mystery
of death and resurrection was the center of Christian faith.
It was Easter that really mattered, not Christmas.
Only in the consumer-conscious nineteenth century did
Christmas overtake Easter." #3432
VI. You can color Christmas any way you want.
A. Baptists are uncomfortable with formalism.
1) Rigid traditions can overwhelm simple Biblical truths.
B. The Bible assigns no colors to the first Christmas.
1) It just says God sent a baby to redeem the world.
2) That baby lived, and died, to redeem you.
3) Do you believe this?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] Dennis Bratcher, “The Season of Advent: Anticipation and Hope,”
Christian Resource Institute, <http://www.crivoice.org/
cyadvent.html>, December 5, 2011.
[2] Dennis Bratcher, “Colors of the Church Year and Seasonal Dates,”
Christian Resource Institute, <http://www.crivoice.org/
colorsof.html>, November 18, 2011.
[3] “Tyrian Purple,” Wikipedia.org.
[4] “The Christmas Fast” (Orthodox perspective), <http://www.pravoslavie.ru
/english/7187.htm>, November 30, 2004.
#3432 “Let The Pagans Have Christmas, We'll Take Back Easter,” by
Rodney Clapp, Christianity Today magazine, February 22, 1981,
page 31.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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