The Nativity of Our
Lord: Christmas Eve
December 24, 2018
Text: Luke 2:1-20
Why
did you come tonight? Maybe it’s just
because it’s Christmas Eve, and that’s the thing to do. Perhaps some nostalgia brought you here. On this night we wear our hearts on our
sleeves as we sing the old songs about angels and shepherds and silent, holy
nights. The lights are dimmed and we
worship by candlelight. There is a
romance about the whole thing. Maybe
you’re here because your parents dragged you here. Your spouse told you the least you could do
is make an appearance. Or maybe you’re
here for all the right reasons, because you know that here you’ll find the Baby
announced by the angels, your Savior from sin and death, Jesus Christ. But if I’m being honest, I have to say, I
really don’t care why you’re here. I
just thank God you’re here. Because
there is incredibly Good News for you to hear tonight. But I have to warn you up front. You’ll probably be disappointed if you’re
expecting a trite story about glowing stars and a serene birth and a little
Lord Jesus no crying He makes. Oh, we have
the old traditional hymns, and we’ll have the candlelight. But the real circumstances of Christmas are
nothing like your Christmas cards or nativity sets. Mary’s face is probably anything but
serene. She just gave birth in a stable. There is no such thing as the Motel 6 in the
New Testament, and it’s not an “inn” in the sense we think of where Mary and
Joseph tried to stay. Probably what
happened is Joseph came knocking at the old family home, but there just wasn’t
room for his fiancée who got pregnant out of wedlock. If you want to stay here, you’ll have to stay
with the animals. She gives birth there,
with no one to help, with the hay and the dung and the lowing cattle and
bah-ing sheep. She wraps her Baby in
scraps of old cloth and lays Him in the feeding trough. A beautiful scene, indeed. Fitting for the birth of a King. And the shepherds out keeping watch over
their flocks by night? Can you imagine
the smell? And it’s dangerous out
there. Robbers and wolves and mountain
lions. It’s dark. It’s cold.
It’s probably wet. These
particular shepherds have to work the graveyard shift. They probably haven’t had a bath in weeks. Blue collar workers who don’t make much money
to speak of. This is the last place
you’d expect angels to show up.
It’s
not very nostalgic, is it? But that’s
the point. Christ wasn’t born into a
beautiful manger scene. God came down
into the stench and poverty and scandal of the real world. To redeem it.
God came down, in real flesh and blood, for shepherds and for unwed
mothers and for sons turned out by their own families. God came down, in real flesh and blood, for
you. So you stink like a stable or a
field full of sheep. Maybe you can fool
others, but you know you’re full of sin.
You put on a smile and try to ignore it, but that tape of your failures
plays over and over and keeps you up at night.
God comes for beautiful people in serene manger scenes, you think, but
not for me. I’m too dirty, too smelly,
too guilty. My sin is just too big. Brother… sister… you couldn’t be more
wrong. Maybe we’d do better to craft
more realistic manger scenes with apparent heartache and poverty, though they’d
probably never sell. You have to
understand, this Baby is born, not for the righteous, but for sinners… for tax
collectors and prostitutes, for murderers and adulterers and thieves and
scoundrels. Which is to say, for
you. Unto you is born this day in the
City of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord (Luke 2:11). Yes, unto you. In all your sin and sadness. In all your mess of a life, your guilt, and
your death. He was born for you. And that is Good News of great joy,
indeed.
That
also takes all the pressure off of Christmas.
You’ve been running around frantically since Thanksgiving, skipping
right over Advent, trying to make this the perfect Christmas, just like the
ones you think you used to know. Like Clark W. Griswold, you just want to
deliver a “fun, old-fashioned family Christmas.” But your sister isn’t speaking to your
mother. Uncle Bob is drinking too much
and getting loud. Your son is whining
because, despite your best efforts, he didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas,
and truth be told, you didn’t either.
Now your head hurts, your stomach aches (that second slice of pie wasn’t
such a good idea), and reality slaps you in the face. You
can’t make Christmas. But pass the
aspirin and take a deep breath. Of course you can’t make Christmas! Christmas is made for you. God comes down, to you, for you, in the
middle of the messiness of this world and your life to redeem this world and
your life.
To you the angels sing. Good News of great joy for you and for all the people.
Unto you is born this day a
Savior, who is Christ, the Lord. He makes Christmas, the
Christ-Mass. He is the real gift,
wrapped up in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger… wrapped up in the
Scriptures and lying on the altar to feed the beasts, to feed sinners and
forgive sins, to feed you with the Bread of Life that is His Body, born of the
Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, the House of Bread.
If you came here for nostalgia, perhaps that’s disappointing to
you. But then again, perhaps it’s finally
beginning to make some sense. The reason
we give presents and eat candy canes and gather together to laugh and sing is
that this Baby was born for us. And He
gives Himself to us, to make all that is wrong right. To take away sin and pay for it in His flesh. To be mocked and accused and humiliated. To be nailed to the accursed tree. The cross looms large over the Christmas
story. This Baby is born to die. But that doesn’t make the story morbid. That is what makes it Good News for
sinners. No sin is too big that the
death of God, born of the Virgin, cannot cover it. This Baby is born, that by His death you be
released from all that binds you. You
are free. Hell has no claim on you. Jesus took your place in it. Satan cannot harm you. Jesus crushed the serpent’s head by His own
death. Sin is undone. The Law no longer accuses you. Because this Baby was born under the Law to
take your transgression of it into Himself and put it to death in His
Body.
So
you live. He dies, and you do not
die. And He is risen. Death could not hold Him. Because He was innocent. It is not His own sin for which He died. It is yours.
But now it is done. And He is
risen. He lives. And He’s still in the same flesh and blood,
born of the Virgin Mary. He’s still a
man, this God who came down. He is a man
for you. He is Emmanuel, God with
you. And He gives Himself to you now,
with all of His forgiveness, life, and salvation. I don’t know why you came here tonight. But don’t leave here without this Gift. If there are no other presents for you this
Christmas, this Gift makes the holiday, the Holy Day. Jesus is born for you. Your sins are forgiven. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth,
peace. God is pleased with you for
Jesus’ sake. You have a Father in
heaven. You have a Savior who loves
you. You have a family, the Church, to
sing and feast with you. Tidings of
comfort and joy. Merry Christmas. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Nativity of Our
Lord: Christmas Day
December 25, 2018
Text: John 1:1-18
There
is great wisdom in the preaching of our Fathers, and this Christmas morning I
delight to unwrap for you the gift of one Alexander of Alexandria’s Christmas
preaching. But be warned. As I said to you last night, true Christmas
preaching is anything but nostalgic. The
manger always points us to the cross.
This Baby was born to die.
Because of us. Because of our
sin. For us. For the forgiveness of our sins. Christmas is infused with joy inexorable
precisely because of Good Friday. And
because on Good Friday, death swallowed up Righteousness and Life, death has
come to its own end. Jesus Christ is
risen from the dead in the flesh born of the Virgin Mary. He will raise you. You live in Him. Hear now Pastor Alexander, who died in the
late 320s AD (326 or 328), thus only several generations removed from the
Apostles, and who served as a mentor to St. Athanasius, for whom the Athanasian
Creed is named:
Alexander of Alexandria
|
"Why did
Christ, who was vested with glory, clothe Himself in flesh? And although He
was God, why did He become man? And although He reigned in heaven, why did He
come down to earth, and become incarnate in the virgin's womb? What drove God
to come down to earth, to assume flesh, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes in
a manger cradle, to be nourished with milk from the breast, to receive
baptism from a servant, to be lifted up upon the cross, to be interred in an
earthly sepulcher, to rise again the third day from the dead? What drove Him
to this?
 "It is
sufficiently clear that He suffered shame for man's sake, to set him free
from death; and that He exclaimed, as in the words of the prophet, 'I have
endured as a woman in labor' (Is 42:14). Truly, He endured for our
sakes sorrow, ignominy, torment, even death itself, and burial. For thus He
says Himself by the prophet: 'I went down into the deep' (Jonah 2:5). Who made Him thus to go down?
The impious people.
"Behold,
sons of men, behold what recompense Israel made unto Him! Israel killed her
Benefactor, returning evil for good, affliction for joy, death for life. They
killed by nailing to the tree Him who had brought to life their dead, had
healed their maimed, had made their lepers clean, had given light to their
blind. Behold, sons of men! Behold, all you people these new wonders! They
suspended Him on the tree, who stretches out the earth. They transfixed Him
with nails who laid firm the foundation of the world. They confined Him who confined
the heavens; they bound Him who absolves sinners; they gave Him vinegar to
drink who hath made them to drink of righteousness. They fed Him with gall
who offered to them the Bread of Life. They wounded His hands and feet who
healed their hands and feet. They violently closed His eyes who restored
sight to them. They gave Him over to the tomb, who raised their dead to life
both in the time before His suffering and also while He was hanging on the
tree."
Alexander, On
the Passion of the Lord, 5.5[1]
|
Thus far Alexander.
How
blessed we are this Christmas that our Lord willingly became flesh and blood
for us and for our salvation. God was
born a man. The Author of the Law placed
Himself under the Law to fulfill it for us transgressors. Flesh and blood God suffered and shed His
blood on the cross to pay the penalty for our iniquity. The body of God was laid into a tomb, but the
tomb could not hold it. He is risen,
flesh and blood. He has ascended into
heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father in human flesh and blood. But He is not gone from us. He is not a God removed from His
creation. He is Emmanuel, God with us,
and that means in the flesh. It is so in
Baptism. It is so in the Word as it is
proclaimed. It is so under bread and
wine, which is His body and blood, the very body and blood born of Mary, dead
and risen for you, because that is what He says. He lays Himself on the altar for you, to feed
you with Himself. Why? For your forgiveness, life, and
salvation. There is no greater gift. Merry Christmas! In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Quoted from Rev. Dr. Scott
R. Murray, “For Us,” Memorial Moment for
December 5, 2018, http://www.mlchouston.org/filerequest/3460.html
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