Year C
Christmas Eve, December 24, 2006
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
What could be more familiar to us than Christmas?
Ever since we first stared in childhood enchantment at the family Christmas tree, have we not thought that it was the most wonderful time of the year?
Have we not listened so often to the story of a babe lying in a manger, of angels singing and shepherds watching their flocks by night, that most of us can almost recite the story from memory?
Does anyone need to remind us that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus?
Christmas, for most of us, is a time of happiness and cheer, of joy and gladness.
No other annual celebration quite matches the magic and majesty of Christmas.
Yet, although we enjoy all of its festivities, there is a possibility that we have yet to discover for ourselves the true meaning of Christmas.
And nowhere is that meaning set forth more clearly than in the message that an angel of the Lord delivered to the shepherds.
“Be not afraid;” said the angel, “for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
What do these words tell us about the true meaning of Christmas?
To begin with, they tell us something quite obvious: Christmas is an event.
It is an event in history just as real as the day you were born.
The angel announced to the shepherds that Christ had been born in Bethlehem, and so it was.
But this event in history, unlike any other before or since, is the most pivotal event of all time.
The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 and 14 describes the birth of Jesus this way:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.”
Could any event be more monumental than that?
With the birth of the baby Jesus, God became a human being without ceasing to be God!
The Creator of all worlds, and the vast expanse of interstellar space, became a person just like you and me.
One of our favorite Christmas Carols describes the event this way:
Christ, by highest heaven adored;
Christ, the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of the Virgin’s womb,
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the Incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with us to dwell;
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
But Christmas is more than the annual celebration of an historic event.
It is also good news.
Said the angel to the shepherds:
“Behold, I bring you good news . . . for to you and to all people is born . . . a Savior.”
From the time of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden to the present, we have all been caught up in and overwhelmed by sin’s destructive nature.
We see it all around us.
And we see it within ourselves.
St. Paul describes the human condition this way in Romans, chapter 7, verses 15, 18 and 19.
“I do not understand my own actions . . . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.”
“For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do is what I do.”
Isn’t that your experience, too?
Those good things that we know we should do, the very things that we want to do, ought to do, - we do not do.
And those bad and evil things that we do not want to do, the things that we know that we should not do, - we do.
Try as we might, we cannot save ourselves from this mess.
St. Paul knows that so he asks, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
Like St. Paul, we are all strangers to that purity of heart without which, the Bible tells us, none of us shall see God and live.
Yet, in spite of all of this bad news, there is good news.
“Behold, I bring you good news,” said the angel to the shepherds.
And the Good News is this: God has provided a Savior for all people.
And isn’t that exactly what you and I and everyone else in this world of sin needs most, A Savior?
Someone who can forgive our sins, cleanse our hearts and put us right with God?
Don’t we need someone who can fill every human heart “with true love and brotherhood”?
Do we not need someone who can cast from us once and for all the fear of death?
And the answer to all of these questions is, “Of course we do!”
And that is exactly why the message of the angel is good news.
In spite of our sin and inability to save ourselves, God has acted on our behalf.
St. Paul explains God’s actions towards us in his letter to Titus.
“When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, . . . so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs . . of eternal life.”
That is the Good News.
That is the gift of Christmas.
Another one of our favorite carols describes the gift this way:
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!
Joyful, all ye nations rise;
join the triumph of the skies:
With angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem!
Born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.
Yet before we can know the true Joy of Christmas, and not some man made counterfeit, Christmas must become more to us than an event of ages past, or words out of an angel’s mouth.
Christmas must become a personal experience.
“To you, and to all people,” said the angel, “is born a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
“To you . . .”
The good news that the angel proclaimed is God’s special Christmas present to you.
The gift has your name on it and, if you have not already done so, God wants you to receive and open it this very night.
Let me close by telling you a story.
It is about a man named George Wilson, who, on December 6, 1829, robbed the U.S. mail while it was on its way from Philadelphia to Reading, Pennsylvania.
George was captured, tried, and sentenced to death by hanging.
Two weeks before the scheduled date of execution, President Andrew Jackson pardoned George.
You would have expected George to be elated by such good news, but he was not.
He refused the pardon and demanded that the sentence be carried out.
The authorities were dumbfounded.
What were they going to do?
Eventually the case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court where the following opinion was given.
“A pardon,” stated the court, “is an act of grace which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.”
The court continued, “For the pardon to be valid, it must be delivered, and delivery is not complete unless the pardon is accepted.”
“It may be rejected by the person to whom it is given; and if it is rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.”
George Wilson, the idiot, stubbornly refused the gift of grace, offered to him by the President of the United States.
And, having rejected the pardon, the sentence was carried out and George was hanged until dead.
You have probably figured out what this curious bit of historical trivia has to do with Christmas.
The gift of Christmas is the pardon that God offers to each and every one of us through faith in Jesus Christ.
It is a gift of grace.
It is something that we sinners could never earn, it is something that we could never purchase, it is something that we could never prove ourselves worthy of.
This gift of grace, this pardon, sets those who receive it free from the punishment the law inflicts upon every sinner.
As God says through the pen of St. Paul in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
It seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?
But it is true.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal.”
You see, God loves you and he is willing to do whatever it takes to save you and give you the best Christmas present that has every been given.
That’s why the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
That is why God became a man!
His name is Jesus, the one whose birth we are celebrating tonight.
And that is why he went to the Cross.
We are sinners, and it was for us and for our salvation that Jesus came down from heaven and purchased us by taking our sin into himself as he died on the Cross.
He forgives us freely and now he offers us all the blessings of his kingdom for time and for eternity as a gift of grace.
What have you done with the gift that God has given to you?
Remember, as the court noted in the case of George Wilson, a pardon has no more value than the intended recipient attaches to it.
It cannot be forced upon anyone.
And so it is with the grace of God.
Out of the abundance of his mercy he accepts us, forgives, pardons us, and gives us eternal life.
But he will not force the gift of Christmas on anyone.
It must be freely and willingly accepted.
Once accepted, however, the sentence of death is commuted and eternal life is bestowed.
Only an idiot would refuse such an incredible gift, don’t you agree?
The gift is received in the silence of the human heart, your heart.
How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessing of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him,
still the dear Christ enters in.
And so tonight, if you have not already done so, receive the gift of Christmas, open it and invite Jesus in to your heart.
Receive the gift and “be not afraid.”
God really does love you.
He is not out to punish you and send you to hell.
All he wants is for you, his beloved, to be his own forever.
That is the Good News.
It is the gift of Christmas.
O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel.
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