Intro
On this most blessed of nights, the God from all eternity, whom the heavens cannot contain, comes as an infant. Jesus, the Holy One, descends from His royal throne. He has come--a dirty, animals’ feeding trough for His bed.
On this most blessed of nights, the One too holy to touch has come among us. He has come to be born that we might be reborn from above. He has come to be defiled and die by the hand of man that we might be made holy and live by the hand of God.
On this most blessed of nights, Jesus, the Exalted One, has been brought low, that He might raise us to unknown heights, we who have been brought low by our sin and the grief of death. On this most blessed of nights, already the slavery from of old, as old as the Fall into sin, has been defeated.
Main Body
This night, the devil is defeated and the satanic minions cower in fear. For Christ’s coming has destroyed the power of death, opening paradise to us, casting forever away the curse of sin. Jesus has come to unshackle us from our sin and shine forth the light of truth to all people. This night, God’s fallen creatures sing with the angels.
Yes, on this night, the One-and-Only, the Son of God Himself, humbly comes to destroy the works of Satan. Jesus, the Messiah, comes to be born. God becomes a creature to save His creatures, to restore His children, those dead in their trespasses and sins. The One, whom the universe cannot contain, comes to contain Himself in the prison-house of sin and death.
For this night, Jesus is born in Bethlehem. The One who grants us His riches becomes poor, putting on the poverty of flesh, that you may put on the richness of His divinity. He empties Himself of glory that you may have a share of His fullness.
Yes, the Word becomes flesh and lives among us. Christmas is real, not only an event of heaven. God is alive as a human infant, sleeping in a stable. Animals make noise. Dust fills the air. Musty, earthy smells assault the nostrils. The animals around the infant God are just as at home as the angelic armies. This night, the thorns are in fast retreat, while fields, rocks, hills, and plains are singing for the first time since the Fall into sin.
Why so? For this night the Word, Christ Jesus our Lord, being God, equal to the Father in His divinity, sets aside the glory of the Father. He clothes Himself in our humanity, wrapping Himself in flesh and bone. The One who is equal to the Father in His divinity becomes inferior to the Father in His humanity. On this night, it is not earth that comes to heaven, but the heavenly One Himself who comes to earth.
O great mystery beyond all telling! Why would the God of heaven and earth do this? Love and love alone. Love for you and me--wretched though we are--caused His incarnation. Love, and love alone, brings Him down to you: love deeper than the depths of sea, broader than the expanse of time, stronger than the will of man. For us men and for our salvation, He has come. It is a love where He would set aside--not only power and majesty, but life itself--to give life to us, His beloved creatures.
Jesus came among His own. But we did not recognize Him. For He had no beauty that we should adore Him, no attractiveness that we should esteem Him. The Light shone in the darkness, but we understood Him not. He was despised and rejected, and we welcomed Him not. He was a man of sorrows, familiar with grief. And we hid our faces from Him.
Yet, still Jesus comes on this most blessed of nights, overflowing with compassion on those who will kill Him. He has mercy on those who hate Him, love for those who hear not the words of the Word made flesh. Still He comes. For He sees what we once were before the Fall into sin: made in His image, formed in His likeness.
Yet, the Messiah also sees what we are: children of wrath, alienated from God, lacking true life, and languishing in the darkness of sin. Jesus sees fear strangling our hearts, helpless in the face of our fallenness, overcome by sin, enslaved by Satan, wanting what is wicked, and despising what is good.
God the Father also sees. He sees what we can be in Christ: redeemed, restored, returned to communion with our Creator. In His Son, God sees us raised to newness of life, brought into the life and love of the most Holy Trinity.
But it will not be without cost, without the spilling of blood. It will cost this Child His life. Jesus will endure the world tormenting Him, the devil tempting Him, and His closest followers forsaking Him. Even more, God the Father knows that He will have to forsake His One-and-Only, as His Son, Jesus, bears the full brunt of the wrath that you and I fully deserve.
All this Jesus fully knows as He, the Word, becomes flesh. This He knows when the Holy Spirit speaks Him into being as a man, when the Spirit speaks the Word into the ear of the blessed Virgin. God the Son becomes flesh and lives among us, full of grace and truth. Yes, Jesus takes on our human nature to bring us back to God.
That’s why we’re here this evening: because Christ has brought us to God the Father. You can hear the Christmas story at home. But to those who have received Him, Christmas is no mere story, words to be heard estranged from the community of Christ. And so you are here to drink deeply of Christ this Christmas Eve.
The eternal Word has, indeed, taken on our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He suffers the penalty we deserve in His crucifixion to give us what we could never earn--forgiveness and eternal life. He raises us in His resurrection, and lifts us to heaven in His ascension. For in Him is life, and the Life is the Light of mankind.
That life of mankind is in His flesh. Yes, the Word became flesh and lived among us that we may live and not die. He brings us into a mysterious union with God Himself, the God who made the world, who made us. He restores to us the gifts He planned for us from the foundation of the world.
Oh, the miracle of Christmas. God becomes man and is born of the Blessed Virgin. But God doesn’t stop there; He has another miracle for us. Jesus is also born in us when the Spirit gives us new birth “by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). In Baptism, God the Holy Spirit gives us authority to be children of God, those believing in Christ, who were born--not from blood, nor from a desire of the flesh, nor from the desire of a man--but from God.
To be born of God is to be born in God. And to be born in God means that, in Him, you live and move and have your being. Jesus has given you precious and glorious promises. And through His promises, you share in His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Through faith, you have all that Christ has won for you--lived now in faith, fully experienced in eternity. With Him and in Him and through Him, you live in God as you were first meant to live. For Jesus came to make right what sin has made wrong.
But Jesus’ coming among us did not stop with His ascension into heaven. He still comes to us in His Supper, giving to us a foretaste of the feast that awaits us in eternity. In every Divine Service that has the Supper--we take in not just words, but the Word made flesh. He is implanted in us that we might grow in favor with God, reflecting the light of the genuine Light, reflecting the love of incarnate Love.
That’s why the Word became flesh and lived among us. The Son of God becomes the Son of man so we children of men might become children of God. He makes a blessed exchange, taking our infirmities into Himself, and granting His goodness upon us.
Jesus gives Himself to us that we might give ourselves to Him, that we would be whole and complete again. All so we may be as God meant us to be: free, holy, and overflowing with godly praise, zealous for good works and service to our neighbor. Jesus has, indeed, redeemed us.
Jesus has rescued us from the devil’s clutches. And although we still weep in this fallen creation, we do not mourn as those who have no hope. For we know Him who is Truth. For the Word became flesh and lived among us. And we gazed upon His glory, the glory of the One-and-Only from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Conclusion
Yes, this most blessed of nights, is not only for shepherds in a field long ago or animals in a stable. It’s not simply some story. This most blessed of nights is for us, for me, for you. For in the birth of our King, Jesus, our iniquity becomes innocence, old age becomes newness of life, we strangers are adopted as His children, and we receive a heavenly inheritance.
On this most blessed of nights, the wicked becomes righteous; the adulterer, virtuous; the greedy, generous; and the gossiper, gracious. For the Son of God became flesh and lived among us on this most blessed of nights to destroy the works of the devil. For the One-and-Only who came into this dark world to live among us fallen creatures, has done so to bring you back to God. Amen.
