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Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve



Luke 2:11-12 - Christmas Eve - December 24, 2012
Word & Sign: Finding God’s Glory


There is something very peaceful about the image of the shepherds watching their flocks by night.  How relaxing.  What opportunity for contemplation.  What time for staring at the stars and considering those words of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”  Ah, the glory of God.  So gentle.  So sweet.  There’s something kind of romantic about the scene.  Peaceful. Uneventful. But then the sky cracked.  An angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around him.  And they were greatly afraid.  And they should have been.  The glory of God, the thing of thoughts and musings turned out to be terrifying.  But what did the angel say to them?  “Do not be afraid.”  
They needed to hear that word.  The glory of God seems to be synonymous in our minds with, maybe beauty, or amazingness.  But the glory of God reveals man’s unworthiness.  The glory of God causes fear in man, because it reveals how far we have fallen.  Only when God assures us that His glory is present for a peaceful purpose can the heart take courage.  The Gospel tells us not to be afraid. 
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Then a great multitude of angelic armies joined in.  See what mercy God shows.  This would have killed them.  But first God sends one angel to allay their fear, and only then does the night sky fully light up to announce what has since been immortalized in the songs and hymns of the Church: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”  “Do not fear,” the angel said.  “For God’s glory now resides in a manger in order to take your sins away.  Do not fear, for we teach you now how to glorify God in the highest: by singing of Him who establishes peace on earth.”  And then they learned to sing.  At least, you might imagine that’s what they did when “the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.” 
As it was told them.  In the short sermon they heard, the angels joined two things together: God’s glory and peace on earth.  This is the content of every truly Christian sermon that has since been preached.  God’s glory consists in the fact that Christ has made peace between God and man.  He did this by becoming a little baby so that He might take upon Himself our sin.  The little Baby grew up, and lived a perfect life in the place of every sinner who ever fell short of the glory of God.  The little baby was born to die – not as the fates would have it – but as God the Father demanded – in order to make satisfaction for the sins of the whole world on the cross.  God is most glorified when our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake.  This is God’s goodwill toward us. 
It’s the great paradox of the Gospel.  It flies in the face of human reason.  God’s glory is seen in that the Son of God hid His glory in a lowly stable.  God’s power is seen in that He hid his strength as a little Baby.  And here lies the greatest paradox: God’s justice is seen in that “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  God’s justice is revealed when God justifies sinners. 
The mystery of the Incarnation offends people because it insults their reason.  And we must admit that we cannot understand it ourselves.  God became man.  The creator and sustainer of the whole universe relied for a time on His mother for sustenance.  This blessed contradiction is expressed very well in these words by Martin Luther:
He whom the world cannot enclose
In Mary’s bosom doth repose;
To be a little Child he deigns
Who all things by Himself sustains.  Alleluia. 
This most certainly does offend human reason.  But what offends human reason is the good news that God has united Himself to us forever.  The shepherds didn’t pause and try to figure it out.  No.  They were too afraid to worry about that.  And we must be too.  Because what offends our reason obtains for us sinners the forgiveness of our sins and life everlasting in heaven.  What offends your reason is “Peace on earth and mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled.”  Let reason be offended!  The eternal Son of God has assumed human flesh and blood, not changing it, but making our nature His very own, in order that He might come to serve us in meekness as our Brother.  It is in this humility that God brings peace on earth because it is in this humility that He comes to bear our sin. 
He whom the sea
And wind obey
Doth come to serve the sinner in great meekness.
Thou, God's own Son,
With us art one,
Dost join us and our children in our weakness.
What does reason have to say to that?  This is peace with God.  God is most glorified when He forgives us our sins for Jesus’ sake. 
When we insist that that little Baby in the manger so long ago is God almighty, the greatest offense, however, is not against man’s reason.  It is against man’s righteousness.  People are willing to look past all sorts of inconsistencies, especially today in this so-called postmodern world where it is said that truth cannot even be known.  Even very intelligent people, in the name of spirituality, are willing to accept things that don’t strictly conform to the rules of logic.  But despite all this, a sinner is not willing to admit that he is a lost and condemned creature who is powerless to affect his own salvation.  God must convince us of that. 
Sin is war against God.  God reveals this to us in His holy law against which we have sinned.  But we don’t want to admit it.  We like ourselves, and among all the pleasures that sift through our hands in life, the least we can hold onto is what we guard with jealousy: our pride.  We would rather be enemies with God than let this imagination of our own goodness and glory go.  Our sin is a deep delusion.  It is enmity with God.  It is war. 
But the angels preached about peace.  They pointed the shepherds to a stable where there lay a little Baby Boy who was born to be the Savior.  What looked as lowly as can be to their eyes, they knew to be the greatest glory in heaven and on earth, because there lay the King of Glory who had come to make peace between God and man.  And in His humility, God shows sinners still tonight where true glory lies.  But we need a sign. 
That’s how the shepherds knew where to find this glory.  They knew it because of what the angels had told them: “You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”  They couldn’t have known it otherwise.  Apart from the word that God teaches us, we will naturally look for peace with God in our own negotiations and promises.  But the angel of the Lord gave the shepherds a sign.  There were no negotiations there.  There was only something to behold. 
There was no light shining forth.  There was no star above the stable.  There was nothing but the signs that the angel had told them about.  Totally unintimidating.  Totally harmless and unimpressive, like the countless nights keeping watch over their flocks.  But here, according to what they had been told by the Lord, contained more glory than the sky could hold. 
God gives us signs.  He directs us to our Baptism where we are joined with that little Christ Child, where His birth is ours.  Our birth is lowly.  It seems to do nothing, but just as the sign of the angels pointed to what the eyes of man would have never guessed, so the sign of our Baptism points to eternal peace we have with God and the goodwill of a Father.  I need not go through a list of the Lord's Supper and Absolution, and the faithful preaching of the Gospel.  Hopefully  you know what they are; and doubtlessly you know how lowly they are as well.  But God points you to them.  God, whose glory should terrify you, directs your heart and conscience to where His glory is hidden and reserved for the eyes of faith, and where goodness and mercy are revealed. 
Hark! a voice from yonder manger,
Soft and sweet, Doth entreat:
"Flee from woe and danger.
Brethren, from all ills that grieve you
You are freed; All you need
I will surely give you."
The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.  Their lives went back to normal, filled with all the troubles and humdrum that our lives tend to get filled with.  They no doubt often looked back on that night when they were so honored to be visited by angels, when they saw with their own eyes their infant Savior come to serve them.  But they could not go back.  The experience was long gone.  All that was left was the memory. 
The shepherds had to go back to their fields.  But the joy of Christmas remained.  This is because the peace of Christmas remained.  And so it is for us.  We return home.  From a pleasant evening at church, from a relaxing visit with family, back to work, back to school, back to whatever seems to fill our lives.   And Christmas will be over soon.  Our troubles will commence and all the joys of Christmases past will seem more and more out of reach as the time flies by, although every new celebration has its joys.  Yes, life will continue.  Our children will grow, our loved ones will die.  And we will continue to see the sin in our lives rising up against us.  How we often wish that we could return to more pleasant times, fewer temptations, fewer regrets, to more glorious days.  Such is life.   But listen now to these words by Paul Gerhardt as he tells us what we are to remember about Christmas,
Thou Christian heart
Whoe’er thou art
Be of good cheer and let no sorrow move thee
For God’s own Child
In mercy mild
Joins thee to Him. How greatly God must love thee! 
Remember thou
What glory now
The Lord prepared thee for all earthly sadness.
The angel host
Can never boast
Of greater glory, greater bliss or gladness.
We know how to glorify our God.  That is Christmas.  We know how to glorify and praise God for all the things that we have heard because God has shown His glory by forgiving us our sins.  And so when we cannot return to more pleasant times, we can return to where we see the true glory of God – when through word and sacrament He gives to us the righteousness that the little Baby Jesus of Bethlehem has won for us. 
To the world this Gospel lacks the glory that they expect from God.  But to us who are being saved, it is the greatest power and strength unto eternal life. 
In Jesus’ name, Amen.



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