Intro
Christ is born! Glorify Him! Christ has come from heaven! Receive Him!
Christ is on earth! Rejoice! Give ear all you people! For God is with us!
For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given. The government will be on His
shoulder, and His name will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Vast will be His dominion and He will
bring peace without measure. He will rule on David’s throne and over David’s
kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore. The Lord’s zeal of the Heavenly Armies
will do this (Isaiah 9:6-7).
Main Body
This Christ-child is called Wonderful Counselor, who has all wisdom and so
always acts in the best way for us. He is Mighty God, who has all power,
holding together the earth and the stars, watching over us and meeting our
needs, possessing the power to do the “impossible” for our salvation.
He is even the Everlasting Father to those who believe in Him as the Savior
because they become His children through faith. He is the Prince of Peace,
for He is the reason for our reunion with God. He gave Himself into death on
Calvary’s cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world and rose
triumphantly from the dead on the third day. He purchased our peace with God
“with His holy and precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death”
(Small Catechism).
That’s why on this Christmas day we gather to do what is different! We reverse
the patterns of earthly life. We gather and worship this day despite the
commercialism of Christmas, which has all but torn away, not only the Christ,
but the mass, the worship service, of Christmas.
We cast away our culturally based routines of earthly life because the unusual
itself has taken place! We reverse the patterns of our lives because God
Himself has reversed the fabric of human existence. We refuse the routine of
Christmas and worship this day because God has clothed Himself in mortal flesh!
This day, we remember that the Virgin gave birth to God-in-the-Flesh! The One
who is before the ages God, was born a child in Bethlehem. The One who called
the universe into existence and created man suckles at the breast of His virgin
mother. The universe will never be the same; our lives will never be the same.
And so we few meet on this most holy of days. We worship this day, not only to
remember the Christ-child among us, but to proclaim to all this great news.
Sound the trumpets! Ring the bells! Christ is born to save us fallen
creatures of men!
At the dawn of time, our first parents lived in unceasing communion with the
Holy Trinity. They radiated the grace of God. They lived in an unspeakable
joy and happiness in the presence of the Lord. But they defiled and trampled
under foot this precious pearl, this angelic life, by their passions.
Succumbing to passions for food, for artificial glory, and self-importance,
they found themselves lamenting bitterly as they tasted what the devil had to
offer.
And so God cast them from His paradise, and they found themselves separated
from Him. But something much deeper than distance separated them. They had
lost their friendship, and their privilege of intimacy with God. They had
become strangers, aliens, outcasts, and even enemies of the Almighty.
But God did not do what we so often do when someone betrays us. He did not
abandon those who spat in His face. In His love, God began to work His plan to
recover man. He spoke to our fathers once again. Again we heard His voice
through the prophets.
But it was not as we had heard it in Paradise. In many portions and in many
ways, God spoke to His people of old by the prophets. God inspired the
prophets to speak as His spokesmen. They were His prophets. To these
prophets, the Lord God delivered His message of hope for His people. And over
these many centuries, God the Holy Spirit worked through the Church to preserve
these inspired writings for our salvation.
These prophets of old proclaimed that a day would one day come when the Fall of
our first parents would be undone. And bit by bit, and piece by piece, we
heard through the ages that God would somehow reverse and overcome our
separation from Him, and that God Himself would come to us.
And we waited. And we waited. We waited until the fullness of time came when
God sent forth His Son. He was “born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem
those under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).
And so Christ came to restore our intimate communion, our face-to-face
friendship, and our family relationship with God. But not only restored--but
made more solid, deep, and enduring than ever it was in the Paradise of old!
Today, dear saints of God, we receive no hinting or piece of information about
our salvation. Today, we remember that the co-eternal Son came to the earth as
man, as one of us! We recall the birth of God’s Son in the flesh!
God is with us, never to leave us again! Almighty God, in His great love for
us came down from the heights of heaven, bending down and kissing the earth!
He has cradled us in His arms and assumed our human nature! He has joined what
was thought impossible to join: divinity and humanity.
What a humble God we serve! Indeed, humility is in the interwoven fabric of
His nature! For He did not consider it beneath Himself to become like His
creatures! He did not despise us. He came to be born in poverty and laid in
an animal’s feedbox, a manger! He even embraced our sins to make us holy.
Indeed, God’s humility has saved us. His lowliness has lifted us up to heaven.
His poverty has made us rich. Christ’s willingness to become one of us has
even made us as those who share in His divine nature.
Yes, such is the humble God we worship. For us, for you, He has traversed the
heavens and bowed down to earth. How then can we not bow down to one another?
We who have been so blessed from such humility, how then can we not also be
humble? How then can we not also bow down to those whom God has placed over us
for our own good?
This day, Christ’s reveals His humility to us. And so we remember His birth
among us. If He has saved us, solving our greatest problem--even overpowering
our enemies of death, sin, and Satan--do we have any problem that Christ cannot
solve? Do we have any misery that He will despise to bear if He has already
done the unimaginable to save us for eternity?
In our life in this fallen world, our jubilation is always tempered with our
personal sorrows. Our joy is interwoven with sorrow. Our joy always is, since
it is a joy that we experience while still living in a fallen world. This is
always so and always will be until the life to come.
Woe to the one who thinks he can craft a life free of distress and sorrow!
Jesus even tells us, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Yet know this my fellow
sufferers in Christ. The Lord has come to assume these sorrows, to unite us
with them to Himself, and to redeem them. He has come to join us in our misery
to lift us up to His glory.
Conclusion
Yes, our Savior, Jesus Christ, did not despise our shame, but lowered Himself
to become man for our salvation. In this Child, whom we worship this day as
the Messiah, the Son of God and Son of Mary, we bow before Him as our King and
our Savior. This Child, who holds the stars in their places, we adore as our
gracious and loving God. This Child, who lays in a manger, “meek and mild,” we
approach with hearts filled with love. For our Savior has come as a little
Child in whom is eternal life and salvation. Yes, Christ is born! Alleluia,
amen.
--
Rich Futrell, Pastor
Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Kimberling City, MO
Where we are to receive and confess the faith of the Church (in and with the
Augsburg Confession): The faith once delivered to the saints, the faith of
Christ Jesus, His Word of the Gospel, His full forgiveness of sins, His flesh
and blood given and poured out for us, and His gracious gift of life for body,
soul, and spirit.
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