It Came to Pass

 Jesu Juva

St. Luke 2:1-20                                          

December 24, 2024

Christmas Eve

 Dear saints of our Savior,

        It’s more mellifluous.  It’s got gravitas.  It’s the King James translation of the Bible.  To hear this translation on Christmas Eve is like listening to the language of angels. Sure, we could say that the shepherds got scared; but to say that they were “sore afraid” conveys a deeper sense of frightfulness.  And to say that Mary was pregnant sounds so pedestrian.  Isn’t “great with child” a more stately way to express the marvel of Mary’s condition?

        But it’s the first words of the Christmas Gospel that I’d like to focus on for just a few minutes:  And it came to pass.  “It came to pass” certainly sounds auspicious. But what it really means can be expressed in two words:  “It happened.”  “It happened” is so matter-of-fact that most modern translations omit it, regarding it as redundant.  Why bother saying “it happened” when the next several paragraphs will report in great detail exactly what it was that happened?

        But when you stop and consider all the “bad news of great sadness” which fills so many of our days, perhaps we would do well tonight to re-state this redundant, repetitive truth:  It happened—it came to pass. . . .Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

        The story of what “came to pass” is well known and rather simple.  For starters, the government wanted more taxes.  Nothing new there.  Nothing is as certain as death and taxes.  But before taxes could be assessed, people and property had to be counted up in a census.  Thus Caesar Augustus, the most powerful man in the world, was instrumental in bringing about the Savior’s birth in Bethlehem—the ancestral hometown of a poor carpenter named Joseph.

        And while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.  Once again the King James Version makes it sound so wonderfully magnificent.  But essentially what happened was that a poor teenage girl had a baby.  That’s what happened, more or less.  It came to pass.  It happens all the time, really.  Even today in Milwaukee a poor, teenage girl will probably have a baby. 

        Just by looking, you would never know that Mary’s baby was the Son of God, let alone a Savior which is Christ the Lord.  In order to know that kind of thing you have to be told.  And if God has a message like that to tell, then surely He should tell those who are well-versed in the things of God—theologians or pastors or other church bureaucrats.  But our God aims the good news of great joy at a distinctly different crowd:  At shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 

        Not a logical choice, those shepherds.  Not only did they lack the proper seminary training, but most of them had a rather lackluster record as far as church attendance was concerned.  We have rather pious and romantic notions about these shepherds; but the truth is that they were probably into things like drinking and swearing and gambling.  (Which is information we generally don’t share with the first-grade boys when we dress them up at Christmas and say, “Here, be a shepherd.”)  Yet it was to such as these that the Angel of the Lord revealed the wonderful truth about the baby born to the teenage girl in Bethlehem:  He is the Savior, Christ the Lord.

        Perhaps the most important words to make their way into the shepherds’ ears were these:  “Unto you.”  Unto you is born a Savior.  Jesus is the Savior of Shepherds.  And if He is a Savior of Shepherds, then He’s your Savior too.  If God sends His Son for lowly shepherds, then absolutely no one is omitted from His Christmas list.  It happened.  It came to pass.  It came to pass—unto you.

        All of that gets ruined for us when we buy into the notion that this good news is really only for others—that God’s heart of love can’t quite reach the likes of me—with my bad choices . . . and the bridges I’ve burned. . . and the bed I’ve made. Sometimes people mistake that attitude for humility; but it’s not humility.  It’s unbelief—the refusal of God’s love. 

        The other way we refuse God’s love is to believe that we’ve earned it—that we’ve scored pretty high in the religion department.  We will not stand in solidarity with shepherds because, frankly, we’re better than them.  Some people mistake this attitude for pride; but it’s not pride.  It is unbelief—a refusal of God’s love in Christ—an exchanging of God’s gift of righteousness for something of our own making.  And that never ends well.

        The Christmas gospel plainly states that the birth of Jesus came to pass—it happened.  It happened as God Himself scaled the walls of our hell-bound humanity to dwell among us as one of us.  It happened.  And yet we spend most of our days living as if it didn’t happen.  We consign and confine Christmas to one fraction of one day.  We “get our Christmas on;” and then we pack up every trace of peace and good will, and live our days in a maze of anxiety, comforting ourselves with idols of our own making.

        This is now the 29^th consecutive Christmas Eve for me to stand in front of a full church and declare what came to pass all those years ago in Bethlehem.  Is there anything more repetitive and redundant than this?  The readings, the carols, the traditions don’t deviate much from year to year.  But all this is because we poor sinners need to hear:  It happened.  It really happened!  It came to pass. 

        God has located His love among us.  God’s forgiving love has sought us and found us.  No one gets left behind, not even lowly shepherds. They said to one another: Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us.  And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.  The good news proclaimed by angels was believed by shepherds.  God said it; they believed it.  What angels sang, the shepherds took to heart.  They trusted that this birth was for them, the birth of a Savior who is Christ the Lord.  For them and also for you.  That is how much God loves you.  And now you have been told, just like the shepherds were told.  It happened.

        The shepherds made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child; but they also eventually went back to their sheep.  They returned to the calling God had given them.  In fact, all the figures of the Christmas account eventually went back to work.  Joseph went back to his carpentry and Mary to caring for her child and home.

        Each of us will soon head back out into a world of death and taxes.  We too will return to the callings God has given us—whether tending sheep or studying or writing sermons.  Speaking of sermons, a lot of them I write this time of year could be summarized with phrases such as, “Be like Joseph.”  Or “Be like Mary.”  Or “Be like the shepherds.”  But the Christmas Gospel really calls you to be simply the person God has called you to be—shepherd or scholar, pastor or parent.  You have a Savior who has saved you from sin and death—who stretched out His arms of love on a Roman tool of torture to embrace the whole world, including you.  So whatever you do, “Do it all in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col. 3:17).

        And whoever you are and whatever you do—unto you is born a Savior.  What God had promised for centuries—what patriarchs and prophets had longed to see—it happened.  In the fullness of time, it came to pass.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man.

        One day you will see the glory of the Lord shining round about you.  But you will not be “sore afraid,” for you have already been told of what Jesus has in store for you—the sure and certain hope of eternal life, together with those you love who have already departed this life in faith.

        On this Christmas Eve remember: it happened.  It came to pass.  And because it came to pass, the diverse days of your life can all be lived out in the same way you live out this holy night:  in faith toward God and in fervent love for one another.  Merry Christmas.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.