Christmas Eve

Perhaps no service comes with so many built in memories as the Christmas Eve service. The candles, the trees, the family coming from far and near. Memories of youth, of loved ones long gone, memories happy, and bittersweet. The readings become familiar over the years. Memorized in our youth, then heard for decades after, ah yes, Cirenius was governor of Syria. In a few more seconds, the shepherds will be sore afraid. We sing beloved hymns, we hold the candles, we sing our Silent Nights. The Christmas Eve service fills our minds and our hearts.

But the readings tonight are not in themselves emotional ones. God cursing Adam and Eve in the Garden should bring not joy, but fear, the curse of the serpent and the promise of salvation, gives hope. Luke sets the scene not with poignant descriptions of the cows and sheep, but by giving a roll call of local and national government officials. It’s about as dry a description of things as you’ll hear. Most of the emotional impact comes from later pen of the poets, set to music and now sung each year. But the scriptural record is not an emotional one.

Instead, the readings tonight would teach us a new way of looking at reality. From our first parents in the garden, across the millennia through the prophets, to Joseph and Mary hearing the voice of the angel about the Savior, and the shepherds hearing the angelic choir. The readings this evening deal with cosmic questions of existence. “What is it all about?” And the answer brings us to realize the truth of the Psalm, “he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh the Lord holds them in derision.” All of the things we think are true about reality turn out to be nothing more than vapor, mist, like the grass or the flowers of the field that today are, and tomorrow fade away.

We have God the Father – creator of the heavens and the earth, sending his Son into our world, as one of us, to redeem us from our sin under the law. Sin we chased after and insisted on. The Christmas story isn’t just a bit part of things in the middle of a lot of more important stuff. This isn’t just a side-quest in our lives. All of history is nothing more than the history of God saving us from eternal damnation. God becoming man defines our existence, gives it meaning, brings us to the brink of eternity and shows us a new reality.

There’s a lot going on in our readings this evening. Too much to take in all at once.

Our human ambitions, our search for meaning, are placed into existential crisis by the word of the Lord God to Adam and Eve, by the words of the prophets, the announcement of the angel to that young virgin from Nazareth. The world says we can work and achieve and become. “You can be anything you want to be…” say the inspirational speakers. God places the curse of death on our parents, and by inheritance of sin, on us as well. The kingdoms of this world, the boasts of the wealthy, the pomp of power, all that beauty, all that wealth can give, are a chasing after the wind. A race from dust to dust, and nothing more.

But the Word of the Lord endures forever. The promise, given to Adam and Eve already in the garden, continues from generation to generation. “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise your head and you shall bruise his heal”: This word has power to save. And the promise, repeated over the centuries, begins its fulfillment as the angel appears to the Blessed Virgin Mary and announces to her that she will be the Mother of God. She is the one highly favored, chosen to bear the Savior of the world.

And in the readings, especially as we see the angels and shepherds at the birth of Jesus, the true purpose of our life is unfolded for us: We are created to give glory to God, to praise and give thanks to him for all his many mercies which he has shown us. On this night, we celebrate and give thanks to God, we sing with the angels our “Gloria in excelsis deo!” (Glory be to God on high!) because he has delivered us from our own foolish disobedience, our own mad insanity, as we chase after the lie of the serpent that we can be like god without god. That we can find happiness outside of the communion with God that we were created to share.

God shows the lie by sending his Son to be one of us. We could not be like God. We were created in his image, but that image was broken by sin. We wanted to be like god on our own terms, but instead found only alienation, despair, and death. Now, God has come in fashion as a man. We are now blessed by him, given new hope, as the life of God comes into this world. In all the universe, God visited our home to bring us life. And this life he gives is uncorrupted by sin. He came to bear the sin and remove it from us, and give us the life which God is in Jesus Christ.

And so every part of our life is blessed by our heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Mary is blessed, having found favor in the Lord’s eyes. And by the grace of God - given to her in appointing her as the God-bearer - all mothers who bear children into the world are now blessed. And by His coming into a family, all families, all children are blessed. And all parents. And in the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night, we see that all those carrying out their vocations, their callings are blessed, no matter how simple or common they may be. But most importantly, by becoming human, by being born into this world, all humanity is blessed by our Lord Jesus. All are raised up by him. All are given new hope in Jesus, and all can now look up from the dust to which we were condemned, and see the heavenly realms, the glories which await all those who worship and receive from the Lord God the blessing of salvation given through Jesus Christ.

May the Lord grant us a truly blessed Christmas, marked by an increase in faith toward him, and devotion toward his Holy Word of Promise. A promise fulfilled by the baby in the manger. Glory be to God on high!

Amen.