A sermon reflecting on why Jesus came, what hope is contained in celebrating this day and an exhortation to endure joyfully in thanskgiving as God’s adopted sons and daughters.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

There are many creatures in the cornucopia of creation that are wonderful and marvelous to our eyes. Creatures that delight and wonder and terrify with awe. But more wonderful to God’s eyes was man. Sometimes when I look at my daughter I wonder to see a creature who bears a family resemblance to me. My eyes, my sister’s smile, my uncle’s ears. God made us according to his image. He, looking at us, saw his likeness, in wisdom, in holiness, in sovereignty, in creativity. Yet our ancestor Adam tasted of a fruit not for him, and where before we revealed God’s image, after we could by our nature only mock it.

You are dead. Dickens might say dead as a doornail. This is what the bible teaches us about human nature. We are deader than a teenager’s cell phone battery when they need it. Deader than the beef in my freezer. As dead as the graves in the graveyard next door. If anything good or wonderful is to come from this story at all you must understand this first. You are dead, born into a war with an enemy you cannot prevail against, unable to sue for peace. Humanity is not born innocent, we are not born neutral, we are born into a rebellion against God. We cannot love what we ought to love. The good we do is pointless and earns us no merit in his eyes for it is for our own glory. We are dead. And dead things bear no fruit. We are a fig tree that produces no fruit, stoney ground that gives forth no hay, we are dead. We are ghosts, breathing, walking, toiling. We are tools that can not do what it is made for, a dog that cannot hunt, an oven that cannot bake, a knife that cannot cut. Dead as the dust we were made from.

But from the moment of our race’s first rebellion the God we turned against cried out to us in promise. He promised that a child would be born to us that would crush the Devil’s head. He promised Abraham that through his family every cursed family of the earth would find blessing. He gave the same promise to Isaac and to Jacob. And so we would not fall into despair, he never ceased to publish, repeat, confirm and continue the promise of a coming child who would restore us from exile and return us to the pleasure of God. Through the prophets we were told where this birth would take place, the manner and circumstance of his birth, the afflictions he would suffer, the kind of death he would die.

Isaiah prophesied that he should be born of a virgin, and called Emmanuel. Micah prophesied that he should be borne in Bethlehem, in a stable. Ezekiel prophesied that he should be born to a family descended from King David. Daniel prophesied that all Nations and languages should serve him. Zechariah prophesied that he should come in poverty, riding upon a Donkey. Malachi prophesied that he should send an Elijah figure before him, who was John the Baptist. Jeremiah prophesied that he should be sold for thirty pieces of silver.

All this was told to us that we might trust that this Messiah who was coming was the same who was promised from the beginning, the one who would deliver us from death and bring us to life. Now the fullness of time has come. Now the perfection of the years appointed from the beginning have borne fruit. And according to his former promises God has sent for you and for me a Messiah, a Mediator into the world. Nor one like Moses or Joshua or Saul or David. Not a priest who offers a temporary sacrifice. Not a hero who saves us from a temporary oppressor. He has sent one who can deliver humanity from the bitter curse of the Law, make satisfaction by his death for the sins of all people. Namely he sent his dear and only Son Jesus Christ, born of a woman that he might redeem sons and daughters from the bondage of hell and take us as his children by adoption and grace.

Do not doubt but believe. We are compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses. An angel from heaven bore witness to Zechariah and to Mary. A dream came to Joseph. A whole army came to certain shepherds. A star guided strange kings from the east to worship him. Another king, Herod, was afraid enough to kill a whole generation of children to evade his coming. John the Baptist leapt in his own mother’s womb at first encountering him in Mary’s womb. The same infant as a man proclaimed: “Behold the Lamb of God who is come into the world” and that this Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with a refining fire. When at Jesus’s request John baptized him a voice thundered from heaven “this is my Son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” Others received him as the Messiah, Simon Peter had this revealed to him not by flesh or blood, Nicodemus and Mary Magdalene worshiped him. This Messiah was God himself come to save us who were his enemies.

For three chief reasons did God come to us as a man, fully God and fully man. First he came as a man to pay our penalty and die as we die. Humanity offended and it was in human flesh that Jesus made amends. In addition, He came as a man to give us certainty that humanity has gone to heaven ahead of us and it is a man, our captain, who prepares a place for us. Finally he came as a man to comfort us as we suffer and are tempted that we have in heaven a Mediator who is like us, he knows our frailty and the temptations we endure. But no creature, given its only a creature, has the power to destroy death and to give life, to overcome hell, and purchase heaven, to remit sins, and give righteousness. Jesus did.

In a stable on a winter’s night he became a pilgrim on earth to make us citizens in heaven. He became a son of a woman, to make us the sons and daughters of God. He became poor, to make us rich. He became vile, to make us precious again. He made himself subject to death, to make us live forever. What greater love could we desire or wish to have at God’s hands?

In light of this love let me finish, as I always want to finish Christmas sermons, with a longer paragraph from John Jewel, who was once the Bishop of Salisbury:
Therefore dearly beloved, let us not forget this exceeding love of our Lord and Saviour. Let us not show ourselves unmindful or unthankful toward him. Let us love him, fear him, obey him, and serve him. Let us confess him with our mouths, praise him with our tongues, believe on him with our hearts, and glorify him with our good works. Christ is the light, let us receive the light. Christ is the truth, let us believe the truth. Christ is the way, let us follow the way. And because he is our only master, our only teacher, our only shepherd and chief captain: therefore let us become his servants, his students, his sheep, and his soldiers. As for sin, the flesh, the world, and the Devil, whose slaves we were before Christ’s coming, let us utterly cast them off, and defy them, as the enemies of our soul. And seeing we are once delivered from their cruell tyranny by Christ, let vs never fall into their hands again, lest we chance to be in a worse case then ever we were before. Happy are they that continue to the end. Be faithful until death, and God will give you a crown of life. He that putteth his hand to this plough, and looks back, is not meet for the kingdom of GOD. Therefore let us be strong, steadfast, and unmovable, abounding always in the works of the Lord. Let us receive Christ, not for a time, but forever, let vs believe his word, not for a time, but forever, let us become his servants, not for a time, but forever, in consideration that he has redeemed and saved us, not for a time, but for ever, and will receive us into his heavenly kingdom, there to reign with him, not for a time, but forever.

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. – Luke 2:18