Christmas Eve The Nativity of Our Lord Luke 2:1-20 2020-12-24

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

The Holy Family traveled to Bethlehem from Nazareth Joseph’s “home of record” by the political logic of Caesar Augustus.  We gather this year under the political logic of the Governor’s COVID-19 Executive Order 59.

In the 1830’s,  Carl Von Clausewitza Prussian General of the Napoleonic Era who famously applied political logic to warfare stated: “War is not merely a political act, but a real political instrument, a continuation of the political process, an application [of politics] by other means.”^[13]   

An extension of Clausewitz’ use of such supposed logic is Biological warfare, the deliberate use of disease-causing biological agents to obtain a political end.   By the 1925 Geneva Protocol, to benefit politically when a population suffers from a biological corruption is listed as a war crime. An understanding that has become painfully obvious in our day as COVID-19 has severely affected our Christmas celebrations.

That being said, Our celebrations of Christmas are always full of disappointments, but now we won’t complain if; The turkey was dry, the food was cold. We won’t complain if; the gifts we received were lackluster or the ones to whom we gave gifts accidently showed their disappointment in what we had given. We won’t complain if; we open the box to discover that the gift is incomplete, that all the required screws or fasteners or even the batteries are missing.

But what if missing also is that special someone because of divorce, death, sickness, the need to work to fend off poverty or just plain stubbornness?  And now we can add “Quarantined” to the list.

Yes, to be honest our celebrations of Christmas are always full of disappointments

It should not be this way, but no matter how hard we try we can never make Christmas perfect. We can’t live up to Hallmark or the state run media’s ideals. Our lives are messy and complicated.

It has always been so, Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge. Then they knew the pain and toil and hurt, sorrow. Then they ushered in death, not just into the human equation. They handed creation over to the devil. They chose evil. They brought evil’s death and misery, evil’s hardship and heartbreaks, upon themselves and upon all their children. And we, their descendants and successors, bear their guilt by right of inheritance. It is ours. That would be enough by itself, to vindicate damnation. But that is not all the guilt we have. We are also guilty of our individual way of sinning, of hatred and jealousy, of pride and stubborn stupidity, of greed and gluttony. Hosanna, God save us! All this guilt, all our transgressions, presses death UPON US. There is no way out. Everybody has to suffer annihilation it seems. That is the result of the all consuming knowledge that divides Good from Evil, and leaves us on the evil side.

Now you few pilgrims who come to church this night might be tempted to think that the pastor has given in to modern spirit of despair. But he has not. It is Christmas. Repent

It is Christmas, God became Man; became incarnate.. It is Christmas, He was born of the Virgin, became one of us, joined Himself to the lineage of Adam, so that He could die. He became Man so that He could inherit Adam’s guilt for us. He was Incarnate to be a Sacrifice, born to be forsaken, to be mutilated, desecrated, defiled by the hateful hands of violent men, nailed to a crossbeam of torture and shame. And that gory death, that lonesome cross, is the source of the peace of which the angels sing. It causes the shepherds to rejoice. For that brutal killing of the Mary’s innocent Son is God’s good will toward men. It is our only hope and comfort. Because Somebody had to die. So Jesus died. He died that we would escape.

That is the reason that the Creator, who provides for all living things, had no place to lay His head on this earth. There was no room in the inn. There was no room in all of creation for Him. He was an outcast, stricken, smitten, and afflicted. He was a worm and no man, One born out of time and out of sync. He allowed all this by denying Himself, in part, and for a time, His Divine rights and attributes. He humbled Himself so that He could suffer in our place, so that He could know sore feet and a tired back, hunger and sorrow, betrayal by friends, laughter at times, but mostly disappointment. He lived as a Man, with all those goes with it, in Adam’s fallen, chaotic world. He lived as a Man but without sin. He lived a perfect, an innocent, a righteous life, but paid the penalty for the guilty.

He was tempted by the devil, even as we are. His temptation was fundamentally to be God only, to not be Man, to abandon us, to take up His power and reign, to not go hungry or without, to not be mocked or hurt, to come down from the cross and leave us to what we deserve: death, Hell, and the devil. But He would not. The annihilation of death had to die. Not Him. He didn’t have to. He was innocent. Somebody had to, but not Him. But He died anyway. He wanted to die so that we wouldn’t have to die. He wanted to be our Substitute, to defeat the devil for us, to break down the bars of Hell of that held us in and swing open the gates of heaven that locked us out, to make us again His. He came with a mission: to seek and to save the lost; to lay down His life as a ransom; to be lifted up and draw all men to Himself; to be THE Atonement, THE Scapegoat, THE Passover Lamb, THE once-for-all Sacrifice, that the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve might be pardoned, guilt-free, and exonerated as though they had never sinned. He accomplished that mission. He fulfilled His Father’s will. He crushed Eden’s lying serpent and reconciled the world to Himself.

The annihilation of death had to die. For this He was born: to die. He has died. And now, because of that death, we don’t have to die. He became one of us so that He could take what was rightly ours: guilt, sin, shame, death. He crucified it. It is gone. There is no more to pay, not a thing. It is done, complete, finished, no strings attached, no questions asked, God for man as Man that men might have peace. He took what was ours. He gives what is His: innocence, righteousness, holiness, blessedness, perfection, communion with the Father and the Spirit, comfort, hope, love, peace, life.

There is no one to accuse you. There is nothing left to do. Mary’s Son has done it all. And, now, thanks be to God, nobody has to be annihilated! Death has been conquered. He died to kill death. He died but He is not annihilated! He lives! He came forth from the grave even as He came forth from Mary’s holy womb: alive, in love, perfect, for mercy’s sake, for you.

These are the things that that holy, honored, most blessed of all women pondered in her heart: that she had been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit; that God had entered into her virgin womb and taken up her flesh to redeem her and her kin; the great and awful cost of the world’s salvation that her innocent, little Boy would pay – because Somebody had to die. Let us also ponder these things in our hearts. And rejoice in them. Let us eat what God laid in the manger. Let us feast upon the Body that snuggled up to Mary’s breast and the Blood that was shed on Calvary’s cruel cross. Let us partake of resurrected glory of this Bread of Life, this Lamb of God, this Firstborn of the Father, our Lord and Savior, who has died for us, and who lives for us. Let our mouths and hearts receive Him as eagerly as Mary’s arms.

Because death had to die so that your life would end in a resurrection. A Merry Christmas To You.

In +Jesus’ Name. Amen.