The Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Eve

The Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Eve

December 24, 2019

Text: Luke 2:1-20

            I have an issue with one line of that last carol.  “But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes” (LSB 364:2)?  Can that be true?  Okay, maybe it’s true of this one little snapshot in time captured by the carol, but if the author (who, by the way, is not Martin Luther, in spite of what you’ve been told)… if the author meant to say that Jesus, unlike other babies, didn’t cry… that He was somehow above that sort of thing, that He didn’t undergo that part of the experience of infancy… then really, the song robs us of our salvation.  Because it makes Jesus less than fully human.  Babies cry.  And that isn’t sin in them, by the way.  Jesus was born without sin.  That is why He was born of a Virgin, so He did not inherit a human father’s sinfulness.  All other babies do have human fathers, and so they do have sin, as is evidenced by their utter self-absorption.  But it is also true that crying is their only way to communicate that they have a need.  Jesus didn’t come forth from the womb of the Virgin Mary already walking and talking and able to take care of Himself.  As fully Man, Jesus, the Son of God, had to learn to talk.  He had to learn to feed Himself, to clothe Himself, to soothe Himself, like all babies do.  As a little Baby, He was hungry, thirsty, tired.  He needed His mother to comfort Him and feed Him and rock Him to sleep.  He needed His diapers changed.  And the way a Baby communicates that is by crying.  So also, He felt pain.  Even at such a tender age, He was already doing the work of our salvation by suffering for us.  If He was cold out there in the manger, because there was no room for Him in the inn, He cried.  If one of those shepherds lately come from the fields tried to pick Him up, take Him away from His Mommy, He cried.  Only eight days old, He was circumcised, His first precious drops of blood shed for our redemption.  And you can bet He cried.  Babies cry.  That’s part of being a baby.  What we don’t need on Christmas Eve is a Son of God that is anything less than fully human.

            Now, this little Baby is fully God, of course.  He is one Person with two natures, Divine and Human.  As God, this Baby holds the universe in his little hands.  But this makes the mystery of His crying all the more profound.  In Jesus, God Himself, cries.  As a matter of fact, I can think of a number of times when this God, the Man, the Lord Jesus, well… crying He made.  He cries for us men and for our salvation.  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” He laments, “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Luke 13:34; ESV).  He cries over those who reject His Word and His salvation. 

            He cries in the face of death.  Lazarus, His dear friend, had died, and Jesus, knowing full well what He was about to do, that He would raise Lazarus from the dead, nevertheless is deeply moved in His spirit.  Seeing the grief of Mary and Martha and the mourners, He is greatly troubled (John 11:33).  He knows your pain.  He is in it with you, and feels it with you.  And so coming to the tomb, He weeps (v. 35).  He cries.  Death was never how it was supposed to be.  God did not create us to die.  Sin did that.  And now Jesus has come to do mortal battle with sin and death, to forgive sin and unbar the gates of death, to free us from captivity.

            And, of course, Jesus cried out from the cross.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).  “I thirst” (John 19:28).  “It is finished” (v. 30).  “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).  And then, no more crying.  Having said this, He breathed His last.  He died.  In Jesus, God cries.  And in Jesus, God dies.  For you.  For your salvation. 

            God cries and God dies for all the things that make you cry.  For your sin, which separates you from God and is the cause of death and all suffering in the world.  For your grief at all that sin has wrought.  For your hurting and broken relationships.  For your guilt and shame and the sin that separates you from your loved ones and from other people.  God cries and God dies, and God rises from the dead, in the flesh, to dry your tears.  This is why He was born, a Man, for you. 

            So there He is, in the manger, because there was no room for Him in the inn.  There He is, born of the Virgin Mary, who cried out in travail, giving birth to God.  There He is among the bleating sheep and lowing cattle and the shepherds fresh from the fields.  And you know, He is so much a very human Baby in every way that these shepherds have to preach about who He is and what He has come to do, as it had been revealed to them by the angel.  They have to preach to Mary so that she doesn’t miss it in this little bundle of humanity.  And it is their preaching that Mary treasures up and ponders in her heart as she rocks and soothes her precious Baby Boy. 

            And for that same reason, shepherds are sent to you.  Christian pastors are sent to preach, so that you don’t miss it, that Jesus is wrapped up in the swaddling cloths of the Scriptures and laid on the feeding trough of the altar, for you, in your bleating and weeping, to eat.  Words and water and bread and wine.  It’s all so ordinary, so human.  Like a Baby crying, swaddled and cuddled up to His mother.  You have to be told, or you won’t recognize that this is God’s deliverance.  This is God’s salvation.  This is Jesus, Son of Mary, Son of God, for you. 

Away on the altar, as He Himself said,

“My body and blood is the wine and the bread;”

The Savior of sinners come down here to say,

Your sins are forgiven, your tears dried away.

Wrapped up in the Scriptures, the poor Baby speaks,

His faith to impart, your salvation He seeks.

He washes with water and Spirit, a flood,

Your robes to make white in the flow of His blood.

And so we pray:

“Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay

Close by me forever and love me, I pray.

Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,

And take us to heaven to live with Thee there” (LSB 364:3).

He does, and He will.  He was born for this, to be as near to you as your own flesh and blood, with His flesh and blood.  And as He is risen, He will raise you.  Bodily.  And He who cried for you and died for you, will wipe away your tears.  With those precious thumbs born of Mary.  Beloved, Merry Christmas!  Christ, the Savior, is born.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.