Christmas – What Does This Mean?

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen!

I love the service of Lessons and Carols because of how many readings we are able to hear. The story of God’s love for his fallen creation is evident all the way through the readings. I would recommend you to read your Bible with this in the back of your mind. Because really, that is what this is all about: How God loves His fallen sinful creation so much that He would dare to send His Son into the world to save it.

What joy and peace one has when that is known and believed! Adam and Eve had fallen from paradise. They had been kicked out. Yet, God’s love for them did not change. His demeanor did not change. They were the ones who changed. They were the ones who tried to hide and cover their shame with fig leaves. It was God who called out to them, found them, and had them come clean about what took place. Yes, they sinned against God and had fallen into and under the curse of the Law, yet God promised that He would act by giving the woman an offspring who would vanquish the serpent by crushing his head. And in this promise did Adam and Eve hope. They hoped and longed for that child to come.

Even in the midst of sin, God was loving his fallen creation, working to bring it back to Himself. But it was not going to come to right away. He was going to show throughout the rest of the Old Testament how He was going to work to bring about His people’s redemption. We learn from Abraham and Isaac that the Lord God would send the Son to be a substitute, like the ram was for Isaac in the end.

When the Son would come, He would show love to those sitting in the darkness of their own sins and sufferings, by shining His light upon them that they be saved. And this for all peoples. And the zeal of the Lord of hosts would make this occur. And his rule would bring peace which only the Lord could bring. This child would bring about peace only known in Eden. Why does God do this? Because He loves us, and desires us to be reconciled to Him. His Son would be the one through whom they would come. So, he sends His Son for you and your salvation.

And with Matthew 1 and Luke 2, we learn who this child is, and how God will continue to show us His Love for us. For He is none other than God in the Flesh, Emmanuel, God with Us. And the God who is us is also the God who saves from sins: Jesus. And we with the Heavenly Host should rejoice and sing Glory to God in the Highest! For by sending us His Son, God and man are reconciled. Sins of all kinds will be taken care by Him because of His great love for his creation.

God is love says John the apostle in his 1^st letter. It is His nature to love. And We know his love in this way: He did what He promised! The love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The birth of Christ is indeed joyful, God is with us! But that is not the end of God’s love in action. No, not by a long shot. God’s love comes to full manifestation a few decades later on a cross outside the city of Jerusalem where the Son given would give himself up for you and for the world. There He would die, and speak words of love: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

And what His love still shines. For Christ overcame death by his resurrection. And we live in His Resurrection. You have been brought into the resurrected life by the waters of Holy Baptism, where you are an heir of everlasting. You now live by the light of Christ! So, live in that light. This is the light that is the true life of men. The Light has come and the darkness cannot overcome it. Live in Christ, who loves you to death, and love one another just as Christ has loved you.

That means speaking to one another and asking for forgiveness and given forgiveness to one another because that is the living in the Light of Christ. Act as children of God, for that is what you are, you are his baptized children. Show mercy to one another for you have been shown mercy and love by God.

The Christ Candle is aptly called the Christ candle for it is lit and prominently displayed during the Christmas season and then again in the season of Easter. You would not be celebrating Christmas if Easter didn’t happen. For why would we celebrate and remember the birth of a God-Man who died but did not rise triumphantly over the grave? And also, we would not be celebrating Easter if the miracle of God becoming Man did not happen, for only the blood of God would suffice to pay our ransom from sin and death. There would be no salvation given to all humanity without the death and resurrection of the Word made flesh.

Remember the loving work of Christ as you look at the Christ candle. Know the Lord’s great love for you, promising to come and save you, and fulfilling His promise by being born of the virgin. And remember that this day is just the beginning of the acts of love that our Lord does for us in His flesh. For He goes to the cross for you. He rises for you in His flesh. He ascends in His Flesh to the right hand of God, and still in love for you now gives you His body and blood in the blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Look at the Christ Candle and know Christ is here in love for you and for your salvation from sin and death. Rejoice with the angels of the heavenly host. Glory to God in the Highest and Peace to His People on Earth! For the Light has shined on us who were in darkness. The very light of the only begotten. And by Him we have everlasting life!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior born to you this night Jesus Christ. Amen.

The People who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The first people to see that light were the people to ever live: Adam and Eve. With their sin, they had plunged both themselves into the darkness of sin and death. But God came to them with a light of hope. A promise. He would fix what they had done. He would restore creation. He would restore them. He would give them a Savior.

How was this to be done? The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this.

And tonight, we rejoice that the Lord has done it. Promise kept. In the city of David, the sleepy little Bethlehem, the child Isaiah prophesied would be born, the Wonderful, the Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. That child was born.

And then it was the shepherds turn to see the light. Go to Bethlehem and see, the angel told them, for there is the Christ, the Lord. Don’t let the swaddling clothese or the manger fool you. It really is Him, the prince of peace. Your savior.

For God always keeps his promises. Always.

I don’t. You don’t. Sometimes because I am a sinner and I fail. Sometimes because something happens and I no longer want to keep my promise, so I take it back instead. Sometimes I promise something I can’t do. But even when I want to keep a promise, and try mightily to do so, sometimes I just can’t. Maybe you got promised that someone would be here for Christmas, but they got stuck in bad weather. The Friends Song, I’ll be there for you, is a perfect example of how we wish we could be there for someone but really can’t always fulfill the promise.

But God… He always delivers. Because if He kept this promise, this promise of all promises, which other one would He not keep?

To us a child is born, to us a son is given because of his great zeal and love for you.

God sends His son into our sinful world, our world of sin and death, a world of broken promises. And He sends Him here to take our sin and our shames upon himself and He suffers our sins penalty. This babe which we adore this night, will be rejected by the very ones He is saving as He is condemned and crucified, and then even forsake by His Father. Doing it all for you out of his zeal and love for you and your salvation.

Many years before this God tested Abraham, we heard a little bit of that story in the Lessons and Carols service tonight, where God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice His Son Isaac. God eventually did not make Abraham go through the actual process of slaughtering his son. But the Son of God? That Son would not be spared. He died to save you. Just as the heavenly Father promised. And the Son did it willingly out of his love and zeal for you.

And if God did that and kept that promise for you, everything is else is easy, don’t you think? That’s how much God loves you. A love He doesn’t just speak, but a love that He acts upon. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. Or in other words if you ever doubt whether God loves you, swaddling clothes a manger shows just how much he truly does. And it shows what He will do for you. He humbled Himself when He was born of a Virgin. And He humbled himself to the point of suffering death, death on a cross.

God had done a lot through the many years of waiting for this night. Wonderful works, great miracles, awesome power on display. Splitting seas apart, sending the bread from heaven for 40 years, defeating all kinds of armies. But nothing so great this; as a baby lying is swaddling cloths in a manger. This is his greatest work. His greatest miracle for you.

Sometimes He gets overshadowed by the lights of the world, or by the darkness in our hearts and lives – the struggles, the pains, cares, worries, broken promises that seem to come rolling in one after another.

And so it is exactly to us that Isaiah speaks tonight. Whether you’re in the darkness of the world’s lights, or the darkness of sin and sorrow and death, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. Or as Paul puts it, the grace of God has appeared.

God has continued to give a lot. To people of old and to even to us. But no gift greater than this Son. The gift of a promise kept. The promise of life and salvation in this Son, Jesus our Lord.

Some gifts we receive get broken and thrown away. Some change the present and some change the future. But this gift of the Son born to the Virgin, changes us. It changes us from rebels to Sons, from sinners to saints, from being dead to being alive. For when the forgiveness of sins and love of God come to you and abides in you, how can that not change you?

Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. As do we.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God. As do we.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. And the Lord of hosts has. His zeal for you, His strong desire to love you and save you.

A zeal which now also lives in you, as we are the people of which Paul speaks, a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Because this Son now lives in you. His love and forgiveness live in you. And so too his zeal and good works.

So tonight we see again this great light. The grace of God, the glory of God, the Son of God, wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. The promise kept.

Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Tag: Christmas

The Thread of God’s Love

The Lord Kept and Continues to Keep His Promise