For most of us, the story from Luke, chapter2, is known by heart. The tax census. Mary and Joseph making the difficult trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register. No room at the local inn, so Mary delivered her Child in a cave alongside the animals, wrapping him in strips of cloth, and laying Him down in a manger. The fields of Bethlehem brilliant with the glory of God. Angelic hosts appearing to shepherds announcing the good news of great joy, praising God who brought peace to the earth in this tiny infant who is Savior and Lord. The shepherds leaving their flocks and going to Bethlehem to see this baby in a manger. They worshipped him and told others about him—and Mary pondered everything in her heart.
This wonderful chronicle is retold year after year in the Christmas carols and pageants and displays. And yet, as familiar as the story is to us, it isn’t always central to the Christmas celebrated by many people. A survey taken years ago found that only 37 percent of people who identified themselves as Christians considered the birth of Jesus to be the most important aspect of Christmas; that’s a little more than a third! And 44 percent (nearly half!) said that it was the “family time” that made Christmas special. If Christians fall short in glorifying Christ at Christmas, how will the world ever come and kneel before him?
So we do well this evening, the eve of our Lord’s nativity, to hear again the words of the angel to the shepherds in Bethlehem’s fields and to ponder them in our hearts: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” These words are spoken “for all the people,” not only for the shepherds of Bethlehem but for all of us. The words of St. Leo the Great that Pastor Weedon posted on his web log says this so clearly, “All men have an equal part in the great reason why we are joyful, for our Lord, who is the destroyer of sin and death, finding that all are bound under condemnation, is come to make all free. Rejoice if you are a saint, for you are drawing nearer your crown! Rejoice if you are a sinner, for your Savior offers you pardon! And if you are a pagan, rejoice, for God calls you to life!”
Here, lying in the manger is God’s absolute love for you, His will to save, and His desire for you to be His own. Before you knew to ask for a Savior, God sent One. Before you knew to ask for a Lord, He came and made Himself your Lord, a Child conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. Here, wrapped in swaddling cloths, is God’s gift to you. It is a gift that will outlast all the others. Talk about a “gift that keeps on giving!” This little Child in the manger will give to you when you need most to be given to: when you are browbeaten with guilt, when you are burdened by your past, when you are perplexed about who you are and why you exist, when you fear for your life, and in the hour of your death.
This little One, whose birth we remember this night, is a Savior born to you, to save you from your sins, to deliver you from your death, to redeem you from the Law and the wrath of God. We deserve hell, yet God brings down heaven. We deserve fire and brimstone, yet God sends a baby. Look on this child’s face, and see the face of God come down to save you. This Child would grow up. He would open the eyes of the blind and open the ears of the deaf. He would still the storm and raise the dead. He would preach the kingdom of God, and He would hang on a cross and die. Yes, the coarse wood of the manger foretells the cruelty of the cross. See the lengths to which God will go to rescue us! He strips Himself of His glory. He hides His power and His majesty under the weakness of the infant in the manger, the man on the cross.
That seeming weakness is in reality God’s power. This is the Christ, God’s Messiah, the right hand of God reaching down to us. He is the Lord, God assuming our flesh, come to be with us as God had never been with us before.
Tonight Bethlehem comes to us and we behold the Christmas story unfold before our eyes and ears. The Church is our Lord’s stable, the place where He makes His dwelling in a world that has no place for Him. The Word is His manger. The One who once slumbered in a manger, who hung on a cross, who rose from the dead is nestled for us in the mouth of His preacher, in the water of His Baptism, in the bread and wine of His Supper. There you will find Him, wrapped in the swaddling cloths of humility—a Savior born to you, who is Christ the Lord. Every Divine Service, every Mass where Jesus is proclaimed Savior and Lord is Christ’s Mass, Christmas.
Hear again the words of the angel, and receive through faith this gift from God, which has your name on it: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.”
Amen.
