Christmas Eve Sermon

Merry Christmas, everyone!

This is the sermon I preached last night at our church's Christmas Eve service. I was happy with how it turned out.

The readings were Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1:1-12, and John 1:1-14.

Today, God has done a new thing.

In the past, He revealed Himself to a select group of chosen people. He revealed Himself through prophets, who brought His word to unlistening and hostile men. To a lucky few, He sent his messengers, flames of fire, the burning seraphim and quick-winged archangels. He accepted the mediation of priests, all descendants of one weak and wavering man. He set up a line of kings to reveal His glorious majesty, and with few exceptions, those kings revealed instead the frailty of unredeemed mankind.

Because we live in a fallen world. A world that is wracked by war. An earth that is deeply entrenched in sin. A culture that despises life, while at the same time clutches desperately to faded youth.

And this world cries out for good news. We long to hear the shout of the watchman, the messengers who tell of hope and the coming restoration of all things.

Today, God has done a new thing.

God lies in a manger, in a dirty cave used as a stable, in an obscure little town in a hicktown province of the Roman Empire.

This little baby, only minutes old, set all Time into place. No longer is the revelation of God confined to one lone race. All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

This infant is The Prophet. Not only does He bring the word of God to man, but He is the Word. The eternal Word. The Divine Word. The Word spoken at the beginning of creation, through which all things were made, now cries with tiny lungs.

Today, God has done a new thing.

This baby is The Priest. Before, the priests of the line of Aaron were men – fallible and frail, yet mediators between God and man, standing as a thin and imperfect bulwark between sinners and the loving might of a holy God. Now, God Himself is the mediator. Perfect man, immortal God, offering Himself as the one sacrifice sufficient to purge us from our sins – and not ours only, but the sins of the whole world.

This baby is The King. Born of David’s line, He who is David’s Lord now rules the universe from his straw-lined bed. The representation of the majesty of God no longer is limited to human potentates, because He who contains the brightness of the glory of God and is the express image of God, Who upholds all things by the word of His power, is now among us.

Today, God has done a new thing.

The Virgin has been with child and has been delivered of a boy. Our elder brothers, the angels, now bow to worship Him who first set them alight with the fire of His presence. The creatures committed to our care, who have served so long with so little thanks, are among the first to lay eyes upon the Creator, as ox, ass, and sheep surround His cradle.

Today, God has done a new thing.

The judge of the world has now become its advocate. He who by right could cast the first stone, instead reaches out to us with hands of forgiveness and grace. He who is the sinned-against of every one of our petty meannesses, rather than responding in kind, has become our redeemer.

Because the wood of the manger trough that holds a baby is the wood that will hold a dying man 33 years later. The hands that now clench into tiny fists will one day clench around cruel iron spikes. The infant Yeshua bar-Joseph will be rejected in favor of a murderer Joseph Barabbas. And all for love of a world that refuses to receive Him.

Today, God is doing a new thing.

He has made a way for us to become as little children, to become sons and daughters of the heavenly King. We can be born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

This is the message of Christmas. Because of the baby in a manger, we can be washed as clean as a newborn baby, to be accepted as an innocent and holy child of God. On this Christmas, as we kneel at the altar to receive in our mouths the Incarnate Word, let us remember that we have come together in the presence of Almighty God our heavenly Father, to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear His holy Word, and to ask, for ourselves and on behalf of others, those things that are necessary for our life and our salvation. And so that we may prepare ourselves in heart and mind to worship him, let us kneel in silence, and with penitent and obedient hearts confess our sins, that we may obtain forgiveness by his infinite goodness and mercy.

Today, God can do a new thing in your life, if you but ask.

He will forgive you, He will pardon you, and He will give you the power to become a child of God, living a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of His holy Name.

And so, on the Eve of this great Feast of the Incarnation, the night we celebrate new birth, let this Holy Communion be for you a new start. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Merry Christmas!