The Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Day

The Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Day

December 25, 2024

Text: John 1:1-18

 

The arch-fiend, Satan, would do anything to keep your ears from hearing the Good News afresh.

 

Anything to prevent your mind, heart, and soul, from knowing it is true.

 

Anything, if only the Spirit would not blow upon the dying embers of your faith, the Christmas Gospel fanning it into flame once again.

 

He would distract you, the old serpent.  He would draw your attention away.  The hustle.  The bustle.  The tinsel on the tree.  The parties.  The preparations.  All the obligations.  The glamor and the glut.  The liberal libations.  Things that could be beautiful and good, now twisted, turning you from the substance toward the trappings, the mere sentimental seasonal sap.

 

He would tempt you, the dragon, and prey upon your hurts.  Discouragement and alarm.  Deceiving you and misleading you into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.  Your sins.  Your guilt.  Your self-loathing.  Your shame.  He would throw these in your face, and rob you of all hope.  The sins of others?  He would throw those in your face, too, to harden your heart against those who bear God’s Image, and so, harden your heart against God Himself.

 

He would drown out the preaching with noise, and annoyances.  The constant cacophonous clamor of media, mainstream and social, the modern madness of a screen in every pocket.  The meaningless flow of endless information.  Hollow interaction in self-imposed isolation.

 

Because he hates it… he hates this Word sounding in your ears.  Still, the herald’s voice rings out, with all the power of God unto salvation.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  And we have seen His glory… glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

That message, that truth, blasts the fallen angel into the cavernous depths of hell, frozen and afire all at once with the wrath of God, the wrath appeased, now, for all who will receive the appeasement.

 

How humiliating it must be for the enemy of all mankind, to know he is defeated by a little Child, a mere Babe, born in a stable, in Bethlehem.  How humiliating… his forked tongue still flailing forth his lies, while his fangless skull lies crushed under a pierced heel.

 

Christ is born, God in human flesh, to save you from Satan, sin, and death.  Word of our Father, now in flesh appearing.  Let nothing hinder you from hearing this preaching.  From believing it, living it, and singing it forth in praise.

 

If you really want to set the demon’s rump ablaze… if you really want to kick the devil in the teeth… sing a Christmas carol.  Sing forth our Lord’s Incarnation.  Rejoice.  Proclaim.  Believe that it is true.  God rest ye merry, Christian ladies and gentlemen.  The devil is defeated.  The curse is now, for once, and forever, at an end.  Your warfare is over.  Your bondage done.  God and sinners are reconciled.  Repeat the sounding joy.  And let every ear, despite the devil and the whole world, hear.  Merry Christmas!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.