Christmas Eve – 24 December 2015 – Year C

Christmas Eve – 24 December 2015 – Year C

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 2^nd Chapter of the Gospel according to St Luke: Verses 1 - 20

The Birth of Jesus Christ

 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ And all went to be registered, each to his own town. ⁴ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be registered with Mary, his betrothed,² who was with child. ⁶ And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

The Shepherds and the Angels

⁸ And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. ¹⁰ And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹ For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel ^ha multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

¹⁴ⁱ“Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”³

¹⁵ When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. ¹⁷ And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰ And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Merry Christmas!  What joyful good news: Christ our Saviour is born.  This evening’s Gospel relates the account of God the Son taking the next step in His mission to make it possible for God to be with us in joy instead of terror.  By the power of the Holy Spirit the Son of God had taken up His humanity and spent nine months gestating in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  He took no short cuts.  He has indeed experienced everything that all humans experience including a time of maturing within His mother.

This evening’s Gospel tells us that after the normal human period of growth within His mother, He was born just like any other human being.  Indeed, He is fully human.  Already we see the great love that God has for us, for Jesus is the almighty Son of God, who reigns in heaven along with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Never the less, He endured the beginning of life just as we do in spite of His exalted position.

Most of us have heard this account many times before.  God worked through the rulers of the earth to move the holy family from Nazareth to Bethlehem and so fulfilled the prophecies that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  When the time was right, Mary gave birth and laid the baby in a manger.  In learning about the culture of the day, we have learned about swaddling cloths.  By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke does a masterful job of pulling us into the story.

Then there are the shepherds.  How wonderful that God does not notify the king or the High Priest, but lowly shepherds.  From the shepherds, we learn that God has not taken on human flesh just for the rich and powerful, but also for the poor and lowly.  God calls all people to worship this child who will save them from their sins.

This evening, I want to call your attention to the sensory verbs that Luke was inspired to use in this narrative – the senses of seeing and hearing.

It begins with the angel giving them a sign.  “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”  A sign, by its very nature, is something that works with one or more of our senses.  As the angel said, it is something that we can find.  The whole point of a sign is to draw our attention and so it was for the shepherds.

The shepherds responded to the angel’s message.  The shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”  They expected to see the sign.  And they were not disappointed.  They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.  They became witnesses along with Mary and Joseph of the birth of the Christ.

The Holy Spirit, once again inspired Luke to reinforce the idea that the shepherds saw the child.  When they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.  Luke reinforces the idea that the shepherds are witnesses of the new born Christ.  They saw Him.

Then, as if we have not already heard the faithful witness of the shepherds, the inspired words of Luke tell us once again that the shepherds really did see the Christ.  The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.  One of the many, many marvellous details in this inspired story is the emphasis on the witness, the seeing and hearing of those involved in these events.

The Holy Spirit is working through Luke to tell us that this birth is not a fairy tale.  It is not a once-upon-a-time bedtime story.  This is real history.  The Holy Spirit inspired Luke to include witnesses and details that forever prevent us from taking this narrative as anything other than fact.  God really did take on human flesh.  Nine months later, He was really born.  He was born in Bethlehem, a village that you can still find today.  There were witnesses: Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and who knows how many other people.  Luke gives historical detail.  Caesar Augustus was the emperor.  Quirinius was governor of Syria.  There was a special enrolment for tax purposes.  All these things are the kind of detail that put into an account if you want people to check out the facts and you want people to check out the facts so that you know that the account is reliable and accurate.

There are many false teachers in this world who want you to believe that the Bible is just an imaginative work of fiction – an epic fairy tale.  They hope to attack your faith by attacking the book that informs your faith, the Bible.  They attempt to tell you that the Bible is just a collection of myths and fables.  They want the Bible to lose credibility in your eyes.

One of the ways in which they attack the Bible is to point at all the other myths and fables that seem to have a resemblance to the accounts of the Bible.  Most of the ancient mythologies have stories of miraculous births, miracles, resurrections, and so forth.  There are myths that agree with the creation account, the flood account, the giving of the law on Sinai, and so forth.  The enemies of the Gospel use these mythical accounts to attack the truth of God’s Word.

The account of Christ’s birth in Luke shows us how to overcome these enemies.  The Gospel account fits into the world.  We have historical and archaeological records that tell us when Augustus was emperor, when Quirinius was governor of Syria, and when there was an order for a census during their reigns.  We can book a trip to Bethlehem with a travel agent.  We can go to the places where this all happened.

You can’t do that with any of the ancient myths.  There is no corroborating evidence in the historical or archaeological records.  You would expect this since most of the myths take place in the realm of the pagan gods and not on this earth – places like Olympus, Valhalla, and so forth.  Even the ancient accounts of these myths tell them as other worldly stories that only have an indirect affect upon the reality of this world.

The Holy Spirit inspired Luke and the other Evangelists to make it very clear that the story of Jesus’ love is not an unseen thing above, but a very real thing that many people saw and that really happened down here, on this planet.

Why is it so important that we know that the account of Jesus’ birth is real, historical, and accurate?  The words of the angel tell us the importance of these facts.  “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”  These words make us aware that the whole point of this birth is our salvation.  The title Christ the Lord tells us that this baby really is God in human flesh.  This baby is the Christ Who will suffer, die, and rise from the dead on the third day.  This child is God come into the flesh to do the gritty, bloody, sacrificial work that we cannot do – the work of taking away our sin.

The devil, the world, and our own sinful nature are content to let us dwell on the story of the baby in the manger when it is only a quaint, little, fairy tale.  On the other hand, they do not want us to know that this baby is real.  A real baby grows to become an adult.  The baby in the manger grew to be a man – a man who lived a perfect life and suffered a sacrificial death on a cross – a man who not only died, but also rose from the dead – a man who freed us from the power of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature – a man who now brings the Kingdom of God to us in peace and joy instead of terror and punishment.  This baby, even as it lies in the manger, is already doing the work that gives us peace with God.

Luke’s inspired account of the history of Jesus’ birth is there to remind us that at a real time, in a real Bethlehem, there was a real birth of a real human being, and that human being is your real saviour Who rescued you from sin, death, and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.  This is the real saviour whose birth we celebrate tonight.  Amen