Christmas Day
Prayer: O Dearest Jesus, holy Child, make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled. Within my heart, that it may be a quiet chamber kept for Thee. Amen.
Fellow Christians. In our day and age many have not been taught the holy Christian faith. That’s why in our conversations, it may not be stating the obvious to say that: at Christmas we celebrate birth of Jesus. Looking over the past few weeks with all its hustle and bustle, with all its emphasis on spending money, with all of its sentimentality, it is not really obvious that we are today and for 12 days celebrating a birth—the birth of God who became also true man.
Although they may seem like they are worlds apart, the situation today and how it was with the shepherds is very similar. They were out in their fields, busily doing the work of their calling, when an angel of the Lord announces: Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. After the flurry of activity of the past few weeks, we, too, desperately need to hear the same word: Today… a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. This is the most joyous news we could ever hear.
That Savior is Jesus. He was born. This means that Jesus is a true man, one of us, a true human being conceived and born just like we all were. Jesus didn’t just drop out of the sky or suddenly appear walking the dusty roads of Palestine; instead He was born.
Because He was born, He is true man and that means that He is also our brother. As a true human being, one of us who lived on this sinful world, He knows exactly what we go through, what we suffer, our hurts and pains, our sorrows and mournings, even enduring the temptations to sin. He was in every way just like us—except He did not sin. He can sympathize with us in our weaknesses and He knows the best way to help us in our times of sorrow and temptation.
Not only was Jesus born, but His birth was a special, miraculous conception and birth. He was born of a virgin, the Blessed Virgin Mary, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The angel, St. Gabriel, announced to St. Mary [Luke 1.35]: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
Jesus’ birth is no myth or shrouded in the dark mysterious past. Instead it is verifiable historical truth. He was born, as the angel said to the shepherds: in the town of David, that is Bethlehem, the city from which King David came. Not only was Bethlehem, the town of David, a certain/ definite place, but the very fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, was the fulfillment of a prophecy that God spoke through the prophet Micah about 800 years before [Micah 5.2]. Not only can we locate Bethlehem, but we know from St. Luke that it was when from Caesar Augustus [decreed] that all the world should be registered. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governing Syria. Jesus’ birth is grounded in a definite time and place in human history.
2. Not only was it important that Jesus was born, but why He was born is vital. The angel told the shepherds in our text: Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. That’s why God became man. That’s why the Word became flesh [John 1.14]. That’s why Jesus was born of the virgin in Bethlehem. A Savior was born for you. The whole point behind our Christmas celebration is ultimately the cross and the empty tomb. Jesus’ coming wasn’t an aimless/ pointless coming just because “it was something to do” or even because it was something “nice” to do. There’s a reason why Jesus was born—to be our Savior.
So what does this mean? It boils down to us saying that at Christmas we are remembering and confessing our sin. At Christmas, as we hear Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you, and take it to heart, we are saying: I am a lost sinner, separated from God because of my sin and there is no way I can save myself. Heaven is shut to me. I need a Savior.
But that’s why in His great love, as St. Paul writes [Gal. 4.4]: God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law. By celebrating Christmas, Jesus’ birth, we are celebrating the fact that the Savior—the One who saves us since we cannot save ourselves—has come. A Savior saves! Jesus saves us as He came and took our sins upon Himself, laid down His life as the sacrifice for our sins and rose again from the dead. We, then, are because of Jesus and his work forgiven our sins and restored to a new and right relationship with God. Christmas, then is the recognition that we are sinners who need a Savior, and that Savior has come. Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you.
3. This Savior who was born for us that first Christmas was no ordinary man—as His birth from a virgin clearly shows. Yes, is truly a true 100% man and He is also true 100% God. This is what the angel announced to the Shepherds: Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. Christ is the Greek word for “Messiah” and Lord was used in the Old Testament for God’s personal name. So what does this mean? It means that what the shepherds heard the angel say that night was that the Savior, who is the Messiah, the true God, was born! That Baby lying in a manger is none other than the true God, the God of the Old Testament.
And what is most wonderful of all is that He, the true God, didn’t come to judge and condemn but, as the long awaited Savior, to save [John 3.17]. The Lord, the God of the Old Testament people had come to save His people. This is exactly what the faithful had been waiting for. This is the fulfillment of the prophecy [Is 9.6]: For to us a child is born. To us a son is given. The authority to rule will rest on his shoulders. This means that even as a Child, a Baby, Jesus is ruling all things; the rule of the entire universe is still on His shoulders. And the prophecy continues: His name will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. That Baby is the very God Himself, one Substance with the Father—as we confess in the Creed.
This is a tremendous comfort to us. It means that His work for our salvation would be done and would be done right and perfectly. We are certain of that because Jesus is true God. He is incapable of sin because God cannot sin. This means that we can be certain that He kept the Law of God perfectly for us in our place. This means that He was the one, perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for sin. That Jesus is indeed the sinless Son of God who, as our Savior, offered Himself up for us as that one perfect sacrifice for sin, is so wondrously shown by His resurrection on Easter. Never doubt your salvation. It is as certain as God Himself—because He Himself is our Savior, the long awaited Messiah. What He does, He does right and perfectly! And it was He who came and was born that first Christmas.
4. It would be all well and good that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, born our Savior, that He is the very God Himself, but all of this would be of no use to us if it weren’t for the two simple words that the angel says to the Shepherds: for you. Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. This announcement of the angel to the shepherds still rings true in our ears today. Jesus was born for you. This is what gives Christmas its meaning. All of these wonderful things of Christmas would be of no use unless they were for you, for our benefit, our good. Christmas has become commercialized, empty and meaningless to people because they have forgotten or never heard or reject these two little words: for you. Without these words there is no Christmas. These two little words for you connect us with these events of over 2000 years ago.
Dear friend, these words call for faith from our hearts. They call on us to believe and to say in Spirit worked faith, “Jesus, true God and true man, was born for me! He was born to be my Savior from sin, death, devil and hell.” In short, if Jesus were born a thousand times in Bethlehem but not in me, I would still be eternally lost. These words, for you, not only demand faith, but the Holy Spirit works through them and works that very faith in our heart that clings to these words: for you. In that faith we cling to them and in full assurance say, “Jesus was born for me, to be my Savior.” Through the work of the Holy Spirit in the word, Jesus is in us and we are in Him. Come what may, each of us can be certain and say, “Jesus has come to be my Savior; He has dealt with my sin, suffered and died for my sin, defeated sin, death, devil and hell for me; covers me with His righteousness, and will bring me into heaven.”
5. Although we will still daily sin much, we can still be assured that our Savior God, Jesus Christ, was born for us and His work was for us, precisely on account of our sin. If there is any doubt that He was born for us, we can follow the angel’s word in the following verse: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. The point—we go and see for ourselves that He was born for us. We go to the pages of Holy Scripture and there see that He was born for us, to be our Savior. In the humble swaddling cloths of Old and New Testament we will find our Savior, newly born for us. We go to His holy altar, to the sacrament of Holy Communion, and see that, yes, He was born to be My Savior. For there He: His true Body and true Blood, which was given and poured out for my sins. In fact, He actually gives us that forgiveness as He gives us His body and blood in the Blessed Sacrament.
What a glorious Christmas message from the angel. Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord.
Let us pray: Gracious Child, we pray Thee, hear us, from thy lowly manger cheer us, Gently lead us and be near us till we join the angelic choir. Amen.
In Jesus’ holy name. Amen.
Silence for meditation.