Luke 2:1-20
December 24, 2018
Christmas Eve
Dear Saints of Our Savior,
It’s Christmas Eve and you are exactly where you should be. You’ve aligned yourselves with the shepherds. Like them, you have heard the message of the angels. And with haste you have come here to Bethlehem to see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord has made
Many of you are aware that on this Christmas Eve 2018 there are two significant anniversaries. Two hundred years ago tonight in a little village near Salzburg, Austria, a new Christmas hymn was sung for the very first time: Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht. A broken pipe organ led Father Joseph Mohr and organist Franz Gruber to quickly collaborate on the lullaby hymn we know as Silent Night. It’s so simple, so profound, and so comforting. In a few minutes our choir will sing a stanza auf Deutsch—with a guitar accompaniment—just like it was done for the first time two hundred years ago tonight.
One hundred years ago marked a different kind of Christmas anniversary. Most of you know that World War One ended in 1918. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the “Great War,” as it was called, ended. But it was “great” only in the sense of the staggering death toll. Seventeen million men died in the most horrific ways imaginable. Across the Christian world, almost an entire generation of young men had disappeared from the face of the earth. And as the Christian world gathered to celebrate the birth of Christ one hundred years ago tonight, in every town and village, in every home and family, and around every Christmas table and Christmas tree, there was an empty place. A brother, a son, a husband was gone. The collective pain that must have been felt by so many families one hundred years ago tonight—it’s almost too much to fathom.
But something else happened on Christmas Eve 1918. In Cambridge, England, at the King’s College Chapel, a so-called “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” was held for the very first time. Eric Milner-White, the newly appointed dean of King’s College, had also served as an army chaplain in the Great War. He knew what a significant moment Christmas Eve would be that year. He knew how people were hurting. He knew the pain they carried.
Our Lessons and Carols service tonight mirrors that first service a century ago. I doubt that there was a dry eye in the chapel one hundred years ago tonight when these words were prayed: Lastly let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we forevermore are one.
So far this sermon has centered on death and warfare. It’s probably not what you were expecting on Christmas Eve. After all, the Nativity account we heard from Luke chapter two is so placid and peaceful: Quaking shepherds, wooly sheep, mother and child, love’s pure light. But it’s this contrast that makes Christmas so profound and meaningful. It’s why we can talk about death and warfare in one sentence, and in the next sentence hear Peace on earth, goodwill to men. This Christmas contrast is what helps us to see in the darkness of this night the dawn of redeeming grace. A fitting title for this this sermon might have been, “War and Peace.” That highlights the contrast of Christmas, but I think someone else has already used that title.
War and Peace is the story of our lives. Not many of us have served in the armed forces. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t veterans of combat. Christmas Eve is the time to remember that none of us are pure and innocent victims. Our first parents were the first ones to engage in combat, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We are tactical wizards when it comes to warfare. We’ve weaponized our words to inflict mass casualties and maximum pain. We’ve detonated bombs of rage and anger. We’ve dug down deep into our trenches, stubbornly refusing to repent of our sins and be reconciled with our enemies. We’ve poisoned the air with our passive-aggressive mind games and our daily attempts to make everybody else surrender to our tyranny. This is our sin. It runs death deep. And there isn’t an army on earth that can save you from the horror and hell that you have orchestrated for yourself.
But on this Christmas Eve, in the year of our Lord 2018, you can go home tonight, and climb into your bed and you—you can sleep in heavenly peace. For an army of One has saved you from your sins. Jesus was born to do battle for you. This holy infant, so tender and mild, He grew up with one strategic goal—to save you from the power of sin and death. And so, He led a perfect life in your place. From His mother’s womb to His borrowed tomb, Jesus lived a sinless life. Where the first Adam faltered, fled, and surrendered, this Second Adam took the fight directly to the enemy. He did not quit. He did not waver. He did not surrender. Jesus carried His cross right into that no-man’s land called Golgotha—the place of the skull. Into no-man’s land staggered the God-man—wearing a barbed-wired crown of thorns, bearing your sin and its wages. Our Lord Jesus surrendered His life for yours. Greater love has no man than this, that He lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13).
Friends of Jesus—that’s what you are. For you He lived. For you He died. For you He rose again and shares with you His resurrection victory. Death is defeated. Your sin is atoned for. You are loved by the Lord Jesus. To look to Him in faith is to see love’s pure light. He is your Lord—your Brother—who will never die again. And one day before long, certainly before another century of Christmases come and go, He will lead you onward to that place of rejoicing, where every day is Armistice Day—upon another shore and in a greater light.
It’s Christmas Eve. And you are exactly where you should be. All is calm. All is bright. And right here where two or three are gathered together, the Lord comes among us. In the preaching of His promises, in the splash of our baptism, and in the Holy Supper of His body and blood, He comes. He comes to wipe away your tears, to forgive you, to breathe into your sad life the thrill of hope. He is Emmanuel—God with us. Pleased as man with man to dwell.
It’s Christmas Eve. And you are exactly where you should be. And if this Christmas there is an empty place at your home and in your heart, fear not. For behold I bring you good tidings of great joy. Those who depart this life in Christ—they are with Christ. They are with that multitude which no one can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh. They are exactly where they should be. They are there . . . and we are here. But in the Lord Jesus, we forevermore are one.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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