Christmas Eve/Christmas Day
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Theme For The Day
Jesus Christ is God incarnate.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 9:2-7
A Great Light
This passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light," begins this passage, which is well-suited to the purpose the Christian church has given it: voicing a joyful proclamation of the good news of the Incarnation. This text does have an often-neglected contemporary historical context in the birth of Hezekiah, son of King Ahaz of Judah. In young Prince Hezekiah, the people of Judah can see God's future incarnate, living in flesh and blood in their midst. With the birth of this royal child, Judah's fortunes change for a time. The threat of Assyrian invasion evaporates. Prince Hezekiah grows, and one day becomes king himself: one of the best kings his nation ever had. When he finally dies, the Assyrian threat is past, and Judah, miraculously, still survives. It was with good reason that Isaiah placed such hope in him. While the prophet's prediction of universal peace (symbolized by the burning of warriors' boots and "garments rolled in blood" in v. 5, by the extravagant title "Prince of Peace" in v. 6 and by the "endless peace" of v. 7) was overblown for its own time, God's people carry this prophecy into the future with continued hope.
New Testament Lesson
Titus 2:11-14
Grace Has Appeared In Christ
This passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. It is likely that these words were adapted from an ancient baptismal liturgy. The Greek word translated "appearing" (a form of epiphaino) is the source of the word "epiphany." Christ has suddenly and gracefully appeared in the world, setting off a chain of events that culminates in his disciples' renunciation of their former lives of "impiety and worldly passions." They seek to live, instead, "lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly" (v. 12). There is an eschatological element here as well. Christians "wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory" of Christ at his return. Verse 14 is a capsule summary of the process of redemption in Christ: He gave himself for our redemption, that we might be "purified ... and zealous for good deeds." The sudden appearance, or epiphany, of Christ in the world is meant to lead not merely to pious yuletide reflection, but to complete transformation of the human person.
The Gospel
Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)
The Birth Of Jesus
This passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. This passage is, for many, the Christmas narrative surpassing all others. In relating the parallel story of Elizabeth and John the Baptist in chapter 1, Luke has masterfully set us up for the even greater wonder of Mary giving birth to Jesus. He places his birth-narrative in the context of a decree from Augustus, the first Roman emperor to declare himself a god. The contrast is plain: Luke is telling us the real action is not in the marble courts of a corrupt and autocratic ruler, but rather in an out-of-the way village at the far corner of Augustus' vast empire. The only ones who take notice of this world-changing event at the time are a rambling band of shepherds: though in fact they are not the only ones who notice. There are other eyes that witness the miraculous birth. The heavens above the shepherds' heads abruptly open, revealing for a few moments the heavenly host -- God's fearsome angelic army -- singing songs of victory. Toward the end of the first century, as Luke is writing these words, the Roman legions have just sacked Jerusalem and razed the temple. Luke his reminding his troubled readers that, in Christ, there is hope for an ultimate, spiritual victory that will reveal once and for all that the glittering panoply of Rome is but a tawdry display of human hubris.
Preaching Possibilities
Many of us have memories of long hours spent reading comic books when we were younger. It didn't seem to matter which comic we picked up -- Batman, Superman, the Fantastic Four -- always inside the back cover there was the same advertisement. There, in all his black-and-white photographic glory, was a musclebound guy in a skimpy bathing suit, flexing.
Next to him, there was a line drawing -- not even a photo, but more of a cartoonish image -- of a scrawny-looking guy in oversize bathing trunks, sitting on a beach towel. A couple of cartoon hunks are kicking sand in his face. Nearby, a girl in a bathing suit looks like she thinks this little drama is the height of entertainment.
There's no mistaking the message of that ad. "Don't be the scrawny guy in the oversize trunks. Send away for our fitness regimen, and we'll transform You from a 98-pound weakling into a Real Man!" Back then, many of us thought being a Real Man had to do with becoming physically big and strong. Those of us who are truly mature have learned, since then, that it has a lot more to do with being the person you truly are.
Another name for Christmas is "the Feast of the Incarnation." By that word -- Incarnation -- we mean the church's celebration of how Jesus became a Real Man. Now Jesus' becoming a Real Man has nothing to do with the circumference of his biceps, or whether or not he ever allowed anybody to kick sand in his face. It has everything to do with the miracle that happened one day long ago, as Mary learned she was expecting a baby.
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God." That's what the angel Gabriel predicts will happen. Nine months later, in a stable in Bethlehem, it does....
"And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger...." Except for the manger part -- which is, by all accounts, a bit unusual -- this could be the description of the birth of any other child that took place that same year. Yet this child, the child of Mary, is unique. This child is the Son of God.
The fact that Jesus is Son of God sounds commonplace to us today. The church has taught this truth for nearly two thousand years. Most of us have been brought up to believe it, or at least to admit the possibility. What we, along with most people of our culture, have a good bit more trouble believing is that Jesus Christ is truly human; that he's a Real Man.
Think about it ... if all this talk about a babe in a manger is nothing more than a sweet children's story, then God has been efficiently transformed into some kind of abstract spiritual principle. As abstract principle, rather than flesh and blood, God is at our beck and call. That means we can "work on our spirituality" whenever we're in the mood, and choose to ignore God whenever we're not. Jesus may dwell in our hearts (or so we say), but if he never truly lived in this world, in a material sense -- if that body he occupied for 33 years was merely some superficial disguise -- then you and I can conveniently ignore any obligation to make the world a better place. If, it's true, eventually, that "all things shall pass" -- then what's the point of feeding hungry people?
Our one spiritual goal then becomes a kind of inner quest, a spiritual self-help program. If we can only claw our way far enough up the spiritual-improvement scale before we die, then we win the prize: escape from materiality, forever and ever.
This philosophy is very ancient and it's one the church rejected, centuries ago. It's called "gnosticism," and it's still alive and well -- enjoying a resurgence, as a matter of fact, in some parts of today's "New Age" movement. There are only two things that get in the way of gnosticism: the rough wood of the manger, and the rough wood of the cross. Jesus wasn't born to smooth out the world's rough edges; he was born to redeem the world just as it is.
Sometimes we forget that Jesus, Son of God, was also the son of Mary. He was born. He grew up. As a youngster, he skinned his knees. He roughhoused with friends. He loved a good meal, and he told good jokes. Because Jesus, son of Mary, was human, he rejoiced at a wedding feast. He wept at the death of a friend. He experienced mental and physical pain. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he even felt abandoned by God. On Calvary, this man who once was a baby, "wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger," died an agonizing death.
The wonder of the Christmas story -- and of the doctrine at its heart, the Incarnation -- is that the Most High God not only knows, but has experienced everything that we experience. Jesus is a Real Man. Because God raised Jesus from the dead, and has carried him over from this life to the next, we can also live in hope that the same journey will be open to us, when our time comes.
At Bethlehem, the whole complex drama of creation, and the resounding saga of salvation history, narrows to a single point in space and time. Upon that single point, God exerts the infinite pressure of divine love. Before that relentless assault, the wall of separation between earth and heaven suddenly collapses, into dust and rubble. Through the jagged breach, we can see shining the star of Bethlehem, like the light of eternity, and can hear the angel-choirs singing, "Glory to God in the highest!"
Prayer For The Day
Great God,
amongst all the many distractions of this season,
help us to keep our focus on the one, true thing,
that is the truest thing in all the world:
that, in Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem,
you were reconciling the world to yourself.
As we look to the Bethlehem stable,
may we see his face,
may we hear his cry,
may we sense his nearness,
and may we know the nearness of your love.
Amen.
To Illustrate
Eugene Peterson admits how strange this doctrine sounds to our ears, as he writes:
God having a baby? It's far easier to accept God as creator of the majestic mountains, the rolling sea.... As it turned out, the ink was barely dry in the stories telling the birth of Jesus, before people were busy putting out alternate stories. A rash of apocryphal stories flooded the early church, Jesus smoothed out and universalized. They were immensely popular. They still are. And people are still writing them....
In these accounts of the Christian life, the ... hard, historical factuality of the incarnation, the word made flesh as God's full and complete revelation ... is dismissed as crude. Something finer and more palatable to sensitive souls is put in its place. Jesus is not truly flesh and blood, but entered a human body temporarily in order to give us the inside story on God and initiate us into the secrets of the spiritual life. And of course he didn't die on the cross, but made his exit at the last minute. The body that was taken from the cross for burial wasn't Jesus at all, but a kind of costume he used for a few years and then discarded....
The attractions of this kind of thing are considerable. The feature attraction is that we no longer have to take seriously, that is with eternal seriousness, God-seriousness, either things or people. Anything you can touch, smell, or see is not of God in any direct or immediate way. We save ourselves an enormous amount of inconvenience and aggravation by putting materiality of every kind at the edge of our lives....
-- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005)
***
It might be suggested, in a somewhat violent image, that nothing had happened in that fold or crack in the great grey hills except that the whole universe had been turned inside out. I mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing were now turned inward to the smallest.... God who had been only a circumference was seen as a centre; and a centre is infinitely small.
-- G. K. Chesterton, "The God in the Cave," The Everlasting Men (Ignatius Press, 1993)
***
Several years ago, a documentary film was made about a group of Belgian Christians who resisted the Nazi Holocaust. These courageous believers risked their lives to save four thousand Jewish children from the death camps.
Among other stories, the movie tells of one little six-year-old Jewish boy, who was placed with a Christian family. Things did not go smoothly. A short time after the boy came to them, the parents contacted the agency that had placed him, saying they could no longer keep him. When asked the reason, they said, "Because he's a thief."
This was distressing to the leaders of the organization, but because this could be a matter of life or death, one of the leaders went to visit the family, to see what could be worked out.
"How can a six-year-old boy be a thief?" the visitor asked. "Why, it's impossible...."
"Yes, he's a thief, all right," insisted the parents. "Our little girl got a crêche for Christmas. This boy stole the little Jesus out of the crêche. Our daughter is very upset. She won't eat."
So the placement worker took the boy aside. "Listen," he said, "you know the Nazis want to kill us all. And here you are, with good people trying to save you. Why did you steal?"
"Sir, I didn't steal."
"Well, you'd better tell me what really happened, then. Nothing will happen to you if you tell the truth."
"I have taken Jesus to hide him."
"What do you mean?"
"I know the baby Jesus is a Jew. The Germans could come and take him. I hid him to save him."
That six-year-old Jewish boy understood better than many Christian adults this wonder we call the Incarnation: that the Lord of heaven and earth came to dwell in the pale and pasty flesh of a newborn infant, that Eternal Love made itself so frail and vulnerable as to enter into a transitory human life.
***
You will not find it in Luke's Gospel. The angel speaks to Mary with simpler, more direct words. However, the church, in its attempt to make sense out of the mystery of Mary's pregnancy, has come up with the doctrine of the incarnation which is the gift of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.... Incarnation means the God who stands outside of time enters into time, the God who is infinite becomes finite, the God who is all-powerful becomes all-vulnerable. The God whose womb bore the world now is born of Mary's womb to bear the good news of peace on earth.
-- William Willimon, Pulpit Digest
***
The Son
The God of curved space, the dry
God is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood spattered
the hem of his mother's robe.
-- Jane Kenyon, cited in Your Daily Dig, the e-newsletter of www.bruderhof.com
***
How much more wonderful the work of redemption is, in comparison with creation! It is more marvelous that God was made man than that He created the angels; that He wailed in a stable than that He reigns in the heavens. The creation of the world was a work of power, but the redemption of the world was a work of mercy.
-- Erasmus
Jesus Christ is God incarnate.
Old Testament Lesson
Isaiah 9:2-7
A Great Light
This passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light," begins this passage, which is well-suited to the purpose the Christian church has given it: voicing a joyful proclamation of the good news of the Incarnation. This text does have an often-neglected contemporary historical context in the birth of Hezekiah, son of King Ahaz of Judah. In young Prince Hezekiah, the people of Judah can see God's future incarnate, living in flesh and blood in their midst. With the birth of this royal child, Judah's fortunes change for a time. The threat of Assyrian invasion evaporates. Prince Hezekiah grows, and one day becomes king himself: one of the best kings his nation ever had. When he finally dies, the Assyrian threat is past, and Judah, miraculously, still survives. It was with good reason that Isaiah placed such hope in him. While the prophet's prediction of universal peace (symbolized by the burning of warriors' boots and "garments rolled in blood" in v. 5, by the extravagant title "Prince of Peace" in v. 6 and by the "endless peace" of v. 7) was overblown for its own time, God's people carry this prophecy into the future with continued hope.
New Testament Lesson
Titus 2:11-14
Grace Has Appeared In Christ
This passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. It is likely that these words were adapted from an ancient baptismal liturgy. The Greek word translated "appearing" (a form of epiphaino) is the source of the word "epiphany." Christ has suddenly and gracefully appeared in the world, setting off a chain of events that culminates in his disciples' renunciation of their former lives of "impiety and worldly passions." They seek to live, instead, "lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly" (v. 12). There is an eschatological element here as well. Christians "wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory" of Christ at his return. Verse 14 is a capsule summary of the process of redemption in Christ: He gave himself for our redemption, that we might be "purified ... and zealous for good deeds." The sudden appearance, or epiphany, of Christ in the world is meant to lead not merely to pious yuletide reflection, but to complete transformation of the human person.
The Gospel
Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)
The Birth Of Jesus
This passage occurs in all three annual cycles of the lectionary for this day. This passage is, for many, the Christmas narrative surpassing all others. In relating the parallel story of Elizabeth and John the Baptist in chapter 1, Luke has masterfully set us up for the even greater wonder of Mary giving birth to Jesus. He places his birth-narrative in the context of a decree from Augustus, the first Roman emperor to declare himself a god. The contrast is plain: Luke is telling us the real action is not in the marble courts of a corrupt and autocratic ruler, but rather in an out-of-the way village at the far corner of Augustus' vast empire. The only ones who take notice of this world-changing event at the time are a rambling band of shepherds: though in fact they are not the only ones who notice. There are other eyes that witness the miraculous birth. The heavens above the shepherds' heads abruptly open, revealing for a few moments the heavenly host -- God's fearsome angelic army -- singing songs of victory. Toward the end of the first century, as Luke is writing these words, the Roman legions have just sacked Jerusalem and razed the temple. Luke his reminding his troubled readers that, in Christ, there is hope for an ultimate, spiritual victory that will reveal once and for all that the glittering panoply of Rome is but a tawdry display of human hubris.
Preaching Possibilities
Many of us have memories of long hours spent reading comic books when we were younger. It didn't seem to matter which comic we picked up -- Batman, Superman, the Fantastic Four -- always inside the back cover there was the same advertisement. There, in all his black-and-white photographic glory, was a musclebound guy in a skimpy bathing suit, flexing.
Next to him, there was a line drawing -- not even a photo, but more of a cartoonish image -- of a scrawny-looking guy in oversize bathing trunks, sitting on a beach towel. A couple of cartoon hunks are kicking sand in his face. Nearby, a girl in a bathing suit looks like she thinks this little drama is the height of entertainment.
There's no mistaking the message of that ad. "Don't be the scrawny guy in the oversize trunks. Send away for our fitness regimen, and we'll transform You from a 98-pound weakling into a Real Man!" Back then, many of us thought being a Real Man had to do with becoming physically big and strong. Those of us who are truly mature have learned, since then, that it has a lot more to do with being the person you truly are.
Another name for Christmas is "the Feast of the Incarnation." By that word -- Incarnation -- we mean the church's celebration of how Jesus became a Real Man. Now Jesus' becoming a Real Man has nothing to do with the circumference of his biceps, or whether or not he ever allowed anybody to kick sand in his face. It has everything to do with the miracle that happened one day long ago, as Mary learned she was expecting a baby.
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God." That's what the angel Gabriel predicts will happen. Nine months later, in a stable in Bethlehem, it does....
"And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger...." Except for the manger part -- which is, by all accounts, a bit unusual -- this could be the description of the birth of any other child that took place that same year. Yet this child, the child of Mary, is unique. This child is the Son of God.
The fact that Jesus is Son of God sounds commonplace to us today. The church has taught this truth for nearly two thousand years. Most of us have been brought up to believe it, or at least to admit the possibility. What we, along with most people of our culture, have a good bit more trouble believing is that Jesus Christ is truly human; that he's a Real Man.
Think about it ... if all this talk about a babe in a manger is nothing more than a sweet children's story, then God has been efficiently transformed into some kind of abstract spiritual principle. As abstract principle, rather than flesh and blood, God is at our beck and call. That means we can "work on our spirituality" whenever we're in the mood, and choose to ignore God whenever we're not. Jesus may dwell in our hearts (or so we say), but if he never truly lived in this world, in a material sense -- if that body he occupied for 33 years was merely some superficial disguise -- then you and I can conveniently ignore any obligation to make the world a better place. If, it's true, eventually, that "all things shall pass" -- then what's the point of feeding hungry people?
Our one spiritual goal then becomes a kind of inner quest, a spiritual self-help program. If we can only claw our way far enough up the spiritual-improvement scale before we die, then we win the prize: escape from materiality, forever and ever.
This philosophy is very ancient and it's one the church rejected, centuries ago. It's called "gnosticism," and it's still alive and well -- enjoying a resurgence, as a matter of fact, in some parts of today's "New Age" movement. There are only two things that get in the way of gnosticism: the rough wood of the manger, and the rough wood of the cross. Jesus wasn't born to smooth out the world's rough edges; he was born to redeem the world just as it is.
Sometimes we forget that Jesus, Son of God, was also the son of Mary. He was born. He grew up. As a youngster, he skinned his knees. He roughhoused with friends. He loved a good meal, and he told good jokes. Because Jesus, son of Mary, was human, he rejoiced at a wedding feast. He wept at the death of a friend. He experienced mental and physical pain. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he even felt abandoned by God. On Calvary, this man who once was a baby, "wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger," died an agonizing death.
The wonder of the Christmas story -- and of the doctrine at its heart, the Incarnation -- is that the Most High God not only knows, but has experienced everything that we experience. Jesus is a Real Man. Because God raised Jesus from the dead, and has carried him over from this life to the next, we can also live in hope that the same journey will be open to us, when our time comes.
At Bethlehem, the whole complex drama of creation, and the resounding saga of salvation history, narrows to a single point in space and time. Upon that single point, God exerts the infinite pressure of divine love. Before that relentless assault, the wall of separation between earth and heaven suddenly collapses, into dust and rubble. Through the jagged breach, we can see shining the star of Bethlehem, like the light of eternity, and can hear the angel-choirs singing, "Glory to God in the highest!"
Prayer For The Day
Great God,
amongst all the many distractions of this season,
help us to keep our focus on the one, true thing,
that is the truest thing in all the world:
that, in Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem,
you were reconciling the world to yourself.
As we look to the Bethlehem stable,
may we see his face,
may we hear his cry,
may we sense his nearness,
and may we know the nearness of your love.
Amen.
To Illustrate
Eugene Peterson admits how strange this doctrine sounds to our ears, as he writes:
God having a baby? It's far easier to accept God as creator of the majestic mountains, the rolling sea.... As it turned out, the ink was barely dry in the stories telling the birth of Jesus, before people were busy putting out alternate stories. A rash of apocryphal stories flooded the early church, Jesus smoothed out and universalized. They were immensely popular. They still are. And people are still writing them....
In these accounts of the Christian life, the ... hard, historical factuality of the incarnation, the word made flesh as God's full and complete revelation ... is dismissed as crude. Something finer and more palatable to sensitive souls is put in its place. Jesus is not truly flesh and blood, but entered a human body temporarily in order to give us the inside story on God and initiate us into the secrets of the spiritual life. And of course he didn't die on the cross, but made his exit at the last minute. The body that was taken from the cross for burial wasn't Jesus at all, but a kind of costume he used for a few years and then discarded....
The attractions of this kind of thing are considerable. The feature attraction is that we no longer have to take seriously, that is with eternal seriousness, God-seriousness, either things or people. Anything you can touch, smell, or see is not of God in any direct or immediate way. We save ourselves an enormous amount of inconvenience and aggravation by putting materiality of every kind at the edge of our lives....
-- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005)
***
It might be suggested, in a somewhat violent image, that nothing had happened in that fold or crack in the great grey hills except that the whole universe had been turned inside out. I mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing were now turned inward to the smallest.... God who had been only a circumference was seen as a centre; and a centre is infinitely small.
-- G. K. Chesterton, "The God in the Cave," The Everlasting Men (Ignatius Press, 1993)
***
Several years ago, a documentary film was made about a group of Belgian Christians who resisted the Nazi Holocaust. These courageous believers risked their lives to save four thousand Jewish children from the death camps.
Among other stories, the movie tells of one little six-year-old Jewish boy, who was placed with a Christian family. Things did not go smoothly. A short time after the boy came to them, the parents contacted the agency that had placed him, saying they could no longer keep him. When asked the reason, they said, "Because he's a thief."
This was distressing to the leaders of the organization, but because this could be a matter of life or death, one of the leaders went to visit the family, to see what could be worked out.
"How can a six-year-old boy be a thief?" the visitor asked. "Why, it's impossible...."
"Yes, he's a thief, all right," insisted the parents. "Our little girl got a crêche for Christmas. This boy stole the little Jesus out of the crêche. Our daughter is very upset. She won't eat."
So the placement worker took the boy aside. "Listen," he said, "you know the Nazis want to kill us all. And here you are, with good people trying to save you. Why did you steal?"
"Sir, I didn't steal."
"Well, you'd better tell me what really happened, then. Nothing will happen to you if you tell the truth."
"I have taken Jesus to hide him."
"What do you mean?"
"I know the baby Jesus is a Jew. The Germans could come and take him. I hid him to save him."
That six-year-old Jewish boy understood better than many Christian adults this wonder we call the Incarnation: that the Lord of heaven and earth came to dwell in the pale and pasty flesh of a newborn infant, that Eternal Love made itself so frail and vulnerable as to enter into a transitory human life.
***
You will not find it in Luke's Gospel. The angel speaks to Mary with simpler, more direct words. However, the church, in its attempt to make sense out of the mystery of Mary's pregnancy, has come up with the doctrine of the incarnation which is the gift of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.... Incarnation means the God who stands outside of time enters into time, the God who is infinite becomes finite, the God who is all-powerful becomes all-vulnerable. The God whose womb bore the world now is born of Mary's womb to bear the good news of peace on earth.
-- William Willimon, Pulpit Digest
***
The Son
The God of curved space, the dry
God is not going to help us, but the son
whose blood spattered
the hem of his mother's robe.
-- Jane Kenyon, cited in Your Daily Dig, the e-newsletter of www.bruderhof.com
***
How much more wonderful the work of redemption is, in comparison with creation! It is more marvelous that God was made man than that He created the angels; that He wailed in a stable than that He reigns in the heavens. The creation of the world was a work of power, but the redemption of the world was a work of mercy.
-- Erasmus
