(Christmas Eve, 2002 Sermon Transcript)

John 1:1-4

        Dear people of Christ, Christmastime almost overcomes us with it’s lights. It seems that every store festoons itself in such fashion as to catch our attention and our interest. Homes are decorated inside and out with all kinds of lights, lights of every description and color.

        In fact, I would suggest that many of you are here this evening, in part at least, because you really like the idea of having candle-light while you sing your Christmas carols. Lights add a great deal to our celebration.

        Indeed, that is especially true since the days are short, and the nights are long, and as many of you mentioned when you came in, it’s cold. So lights warm us up! Unless we object to the glare, or to the electricity bill, every one of us enjoys the good cheer and warm welcome that lights bring to us.

        Might I ask? What is it that drove you to be here on this most sacred evening? Was it merely the lights, or is it the Light of men? I pray that you are drawn, not only to the glow of candles, but also to the Light which is Jesus Christ our Lord, who is, and who is to come, the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

        I would suggest that I hope, indeed, that you are drawn by the Light of Jesus Christ. We know the scene, this Christmas scene. We really have it committed to memory, both in our minds and in our hearts. You know the scene. It’s on all your Christmas cards, hopefully. And although some come with secular messages, we know that Christmas is about a stable, and a manger, and a child.

        We know it. We see the mother there, holding her child, struck with the awe of knowing that if she kisses the face of that child, she kisses the very face of God Himself. For this is God who becomes human flesh and dwells among us, according to the scriptures. This is the One who comes, to take on humanity’s curse, to finally, and at last, deal with humanity’s estrangement from the Father.

        Dear friends in Christ, in that dimly lit stable by lantern-light, or that of a small campfire, we see Mary and Joseph, and the baby. A simple, simple picture. The problem is, it will take us the rest of our lives to uncover, and to unfold, the incredible meaning of what it means to have God with us in human flesh. This is God who has a human face. This is God with whom we can speak and converse. This is God who we can touch, with whom we might debate. This is God, who comes to us in a form that we understand, and which we can know. And yet, this is God who is infinite and measureless.

        This is God in whom we see the scriptures saying, without any batting of the eye, that in Him dwelt the fullness of the deity in bodily form, that the one that was held in Mary’s arms is the One who is omnipotent, the One who is omniscient, the One who is all-powerful, the One who sees and know all things.

        This is God. And He has come.

        And then we know about the visitors to the manger. Is it royalty? No! Not, yet. They don’t come for another couple of years, actually. (The Christmas cards got it wrong!) They show up two years later in the hometown of Nazareth.

        And yet we find out, there are visitors. Simple shepherds who, just a few moments before, I suppose, were out in a meaningless, descriptive-less, non-particularly-important field outside of Bethlehem. And suddenly there appears to them a holy angel. And the scriptures get it absolutely right. He comes and he shows them all of God’s glory.

        And they are scared to death. Who wouldn’t be, in the presence of honest to goodness holiness? We sinful human beings stand there in our shortcomings and failures, confronted with holiness, and the only appropriate response is terror. But the angel says, Don’t be afraid. For today we bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. A savior who is Christ the Lord.

        And, I guess, the shepherds could have asked, "Really! What important house will He be in? Where will we find Him? Down the road in Jerusalem in Herod’s palace?" No. You will find Him in a stable, lying in a manger, wrapped in rags for swaddling clothes.

        This is God’s son. He is the Light of the World. Listen again to the text. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And then let me add verse five. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

        It seems that at times this is a Light that people don’t care to see or recognize. Indeed, it’s almost like a surgeon removing unwanted tissue, or a photographer cropping a picture to get some image or other out of it. And as much as we see the symbols of Christmas (we see angels, and stars virtually everywhere), we oftentimes do not see the Christ they have come to announce.

        Indeed, we see Jesus as the Light of the world, but it is a light that some would rather look away from. Because you see, if you see Him as He is, if you understand who this child in the manager is, well, you’re left with a bit of a quandary. For here is One who you must either embrace or reject. And we only embrace Him because God, in His graciousness, opens our eyes through his word and sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s supper to understand and to know who it is that Mary holds in her arms.

        I suppose there is another reason that people would choose to look away. Because if we recognize who He is, we will also recognize that without Him, there is no hope. And there is no Light. And there is only the darkness of sin and death, the grave, and then hell.

        That’s why He came, so we wouldn’t have to know that. You see, man’s estrangement from God is marked in our own rebellion. We know the truth of it in our own personal lives. Try as we might, try as hard as you like, strive as long as you wish to strive, to be a better person. Go ahead. I dare you.

        May I see the hands of all the perfect people? Let me put mine down. Let me assure you, it can’t be done. I assure you that never in a thousand years will it be done, even if you had a thousand years, and not one of us does.

        And so, we begin to play games with God. We begin to invent ways that we might be OK with Him. "Well, if we just try harder, if we work better, if somehow we just level the ledger books and get fifty-one percent as opposed to forty-nine percent, maybe we’ll slide into heaven under the gate and just make it safe!"

        No way.

        God does not compare us in that way. Others would say, "Well, just look around at other people! There a lots of people who are worse than I am. Bill over there, he’s much worse than I am!" (No, Bill, I know better!)

        But let me tell you. God doesn’t play those comparison games either. The problem is that God doesn’t compare us with our own performance. Nor does He compare us with each other. He compares us with His own holiness. Jesus put it clearly enough. Just be perfect, like your Father in heaven is perfect.

        And those of us with broken lives, and broken promises, hang our heads. And we realize there’s not a prayer.

        But God has given us more than a prayer. Into the darkness of our sin and condemnation, into the darkness of our rebellion, into the darkness of our turning away and refusing to look at the light, He sends His Son. God with a human face. God who touches us, so deeply and so profoundly, that He does what we could never possibly do.

        You say our problem is sin? It is. Then let me tell you what God has chosen to do. Yes, we have come to kneel at the manger, to have all the great feelings, to sing the Christmas carols and to enjoy the candlelight.

        But remember this. This child has come not to make us feel good. But He comes to forgive us our sins. He comes to walk a path that will carry Him unwaveringly toward that cross of Roman execution. He comes so that He will be the bearer of our sins. He will be the One who, as our substitute, is nailed to a cross. And on that cross with Him we find affixed our own lawlessness, our own sin.

        Let me explain that this is a free gift that God gives to us. If our lives are unrighteous, imperfect, flawed, and any other words you’d like to describe it with, know that this man, who is fully man and fully God is born as a man under the law, so that He will keep the law in every detail.

        This is the one whom the scripture calls the "second Adam". The source of all humanity’s salvation. Unlike the first Adam, He does all things well. And He grants to us as a free gift the absolutely resplendent righteousness of Himself. As a gift.

        And having done that, He pays the penalty for sins we have committed. And that He gives to us also freely. There is nothing left for you to do. No checklist of things you have to accomplish before you die. No to-do lists that have to be done to the satisfaction of some God who is measuring you out in the books. Or on the scales.

        Rather God’s grace comes to us, truly as grace. And He offers to us hope, and life, and yes, Light.

        There are those who would find false lights out there to follow. Those who don’t like the Light that they see in Christ. Those that offer the good works that they so treasure, and that they think will get them into heaven, but cannot.

         Again, there are those who look for inner enlightenment. For those things which look within. And if you look within, I assure you, you will only find fear and doubt.

        Rather let us look outwardly. Let us look to the child in the manger. And let us understand that this is the One on whom the hope of the world rests.

        That’s why we celebrate. That’s why we’re here! That’s why this is a joyous occasion. Our salvation is at hand! The promise of a thousand years has been fulfilled, and the Messiah has been born. And the solution is His Light, not ours. And His solution is His righteousness, not ours. And the solution is His suffering and death for our sins, which we couldn’t pay for. And the solution is His resurrection from the dead to assure us that we too shall live again.

        Christ banishes the darkness in our lives. He tosses it away. He sends it away so that God will never even know our sins on the day of His coming, and on the day of the judgment of the world. For they are gone and they no longer belong to us. They have been possessed rather by the One alone who can carry them, and his name is Christ.

        And so, Christmas you see, is God’s act of grace. God’s act of compassion. God’s act of mercy. God’s act of sacrifice. We know it. We experience it.

        We have experienced at the fount of holy baptism in those sparkling waters washing us clean of the stain of our sins and applying to us all the merits of Christ and his righteousness.

        In a few moments we shall gather here, at the altar, side by side as the body of Christ, and receive there, not a picture, not a symbol of the body of Christ, but the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for us, for our sins on Calvary’s cross. The very same. And knowing that, we know, we know that our sins are forgiven. For this is the purchase price which was paid.

        Dear friends, what drove you to come here this evening? Was it the pretty lights on the trees? The ones on the tree outside (that don’t light!)? The ones at your house that you can’t get quite lit because there’s one that out somewhere?

        Let me assure you. We are here to see the Light of the world. And his name is Jesus. And in whose name we conclude. Amen.