Christmas Eve
As an example of beautiful prose and story-telling, the Christmas narrative from St. Luke’s Gospel is not excelled by any other ancient tale. Its magical charm, and the emotional pull by which it draws all who hear or read it into the events that are described, are unsurpassed. And the story has everything.
A young woman expecting the imminent birth of her first baby, with that all-too-familiar combination of excitement and worry, is being looked after and cared for by a similarly excited and worried husband. And they are far from home, relying on God and on each other, because they don’t have anyone else to rely on.
In this story we also have the shepherds, out in the fields with their flocks. Theirs is a simple and uncomplicated life. They live at the fringes of the larger society.
Some of them – maybe the younger teenage members of the group – might dream of bigger and better things in their future. They know the story of David, the shepherd boy who became king. David is no doubt the local hero for these shepherds, who are watching their flocks just outside his historic hometown.
But they also know what the economic and social realities are. So they are mostly resigned to having a future that will be pretty much the same as the way things are now. They don’t expect anything exciting to happen to them.
The power-players of the ancient world are also in the story – although from a distance. Humanly speaking, it was Caesar Augustus, sitting in regal splendor in the magnificent marble palaces of Rome, who set all the events of the story in motion.
And Quirinius, who represents Caesar’s power in the region where the story takes place, is also a part of this tale – but likewise from a distance, although not as much of a distance. The decisions and actions of these men are impacting the lives of everyone else in the story in some significant ways, even though Caesar and Quirinius are oblivious to what is really happening in Bethlehem on this night.
And for those who are drawn to the supernatural in a gripping story that is marked by other-worldly mystery, the supernatural is very much a part of this account. First one angel, and then a host of angels, appear to the shepherds: forever changing them, and the trajectory of their lives.
And then there is the baby. He is the central figure in the story. At first glance there is nothing unusual about him. He was born in an ordinary way, was swaddled in an ordinary way, nursed from his mother in an ordinary way, napped in an ordinary way.
But there is also something very extraordinary about this baby. It’s not in anything that can be seen outwardly, but we are talking about what the angel told the shepherds about him. And what he said to them in this account is almost beyond human comprehension.
To the Jewish minds of the shepherds – steeped as they were in the ancient prophecies and promises of the Hebrew Scriptures – what the angel said would have made sense, as far as the meaning of his words was concerned.
Of course, the pagan power-brokers of the age would not have been able to understand what the angel was talking about, in his descriptions of the baby as in some way connected to King David; as the Christ or the anointed one; and as the Lord. If anything, Caesar and Quirinius would have suspected that some kind of sedition was cloaked beneath such words.
In contrast, the Jewish shepherds would have understood that these words were not a direct threat to anything that the Romans cared about. But they would no doubt have struggled fully to grasp what these words now meant for them.
Especially the word “Lord,” as in “Christ the Lord” – in reference to the baby – would have gotten the shepherds’ attention. The story-teller Luke knew that such shepherds would have known, that it was the established custom among the Jews, that the special testamental name of God – Yahweh – was never spoken out loud.
This was one of the ways in which they sought to honor the Second Commandment. In the synagogues, the rabbis and cantors who quoted or chanted from the sacred text would say or sing the word “Lord,” rather than the name of God that was actually written.
So Luke, in the tale that he tells, wants us to wonder about what the shepherds were wondering about, and to conclude what the shepherds concluded. Is that what the angel was intending to communicate to them about this baby: not only that he was the Christ, but that the Christ was and is God himself, who had now entered into the world clothed in humanity?
As hard as it may be for mortal men to believe this, that’s the conclusion they would eventually reach.
And in the meantime, as the shepherds were still contemplating this – and everything else the angel had said – they needed to act on what he had told them. They needed to go to where this baby was, to gaze upon him, and to let him gaze upon them.
As we listen to this story, the author also wants us to notice the announcement from the angel, that the birth of this Savior was a joyful message of good news for all people. As members of an impoverished and mostly unnoticed underclass in the society, the shepherds would have been used to situations where something that might be good news for others, was not good news for them.
But in a way that brings hope to the downtrodden and courage to the oppressed, Luke tells us that this message was for them. An angel had actually visited them to deliver it specifically to them!
And as we read this story, we are to see that the use of the word “Savior” in the angel’s message – which was a familiar word to anyone familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures – would also have triggered some deep reflection on the part of the shepherds.
They knew that God was the Savior of his people. That is the big back story to the Christmas story.
God had saved the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. God had saved the Israelites many times over, from the attacks of Canaanites and other earthly enemies, during the time of the judges and the kings. God had saved the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity, so that a remnant could return to the promised land – where they now were.
But now, the idea of God in the flesh being a Savior seems to mean something different: something more, and something deeper. Now God in human flesh was a Savior for all people, and not only for the people of Israel.
The whole human race needs salvation, not merely from the slavery of Egypt, but from the slavery of sin. All people need salvation, not merely from the attacks of Canaanites, but from the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Everyone needs salvation now, not so that they can be restored to the land of Israel, but so that they can be restored to fellowship with God, and have a place with him and all his saints in his eternal kingdom.
This account of the birth of Jesus truly is a thought-provoking masterpiece of dramatic storytelling. It speaks to the deepest aspirations of the human heart.
It lifts the human mind to reflect upon things that really matter, for time and for eternity. And this story poses to each of us, deep and probing questions about the meaning and purpose of our own lives.
As we hear this story, we think about how great it would be if there really was a God like this, who loves everyone, including people like the shepherds, including people like me.
We try to imagine what it would be like to be touched in mind and heart by those life-giving words of the angel – as the hearts and minds of the shepherds were touched and transformed – so that we could experience for ourselves similar changes in our lives: which are now dreary and aimless lives; guilt-ridden and discouraged lives.
And with all of humanity – in its pain, and with its dreams for something better – we would pray and hope and wish that this story could be a true story. A hurting humanity would love for this story to be a marvelously real account of real history, about things that really happened in a distant place many centuries ago; and a wonderfully real account of things that can happen for us, and to us, here and now.
And you know what? The best thing about this beautifully-written story – this story of the birth of a Savior – is that it is true. It is real. This really did happen.
At a human level, St. Luke tells us at the beginning of his Gospel that this work was based on information he received from “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses” of the events that he describes. In this way, his readers could “know the certainty of those things.”
And in regard to the story of Jesus’ birth in particular, Luke identifies in the text the reliable eyewitness from whom he got that information: “But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
That’s the way ancient historians indicated their sources. And Luke’s source was someone who would never have forgotten what happened to her and what she did, what she saw and what she heard, on that stupendous and magical night of her son’s birth.
And so yes, we can know that these things really happened – even by the canons of human history. But beyond that, we also have a word and a promise from God that pertain to all of Scripture: including Luke’s Gospel; including this part of Luke’s Gospel.
St. Paul writes to Timothy – and to you – that the Holy Scriptures “are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,” and that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
So, that inner sense of wonder and delight that you experienced as you heard the reading of the Christmas Gospel tonight, was not just the wishful thinking of your emotions. It was the testimony of the Holy Spirit, assuring you that what you were hearing is true.
That inner feeling of cleansing and of a new beginning in your life, that came upon you as you heard the announcement of the angel that a Savior for all people has come, was not just a subjective psychological phenomenon. It was the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, forgiving and washing away your sins, and impressing upon you the reality of God’s grace to you in his Son.
Once the shepherds had heard the angels out in the fields, and once they had seen their Lord in the manger, they were never the same again. And if the Christmas Gospel has truly touched you this night, you will never be the same again, either.
And this is what God will do for you, and in you, every time you gather in the Lord’s house to hear his Word – his real and true Word – and to receive his sacrament – his real and true sacrament. Everything that the Scriptures say is something that God is saying. And everything that God says is real and true.
All the sacred history in Scripture is real and true. All the warnings and words of admonition are real and true. All the promises and words of comfort are real and true.
What the Bible says about Jesus, and what Jesus says in and through the Bible, are real and true. Jesus speaks to you.
Jesus forgives you, and he teaches you his ways. Jesus renews your faith, and he teaches you how to trust in him.
Jesus gives you strength and fortitude to face the challenges and trials of this world, and he teaches you how to pray. Jesus promises that he will never leave you nor forsake you, and he teaches you how to live and how to die.
These are the blessings that come from having a real Savior from sin and death. These are the blessings that come from having Jesus as a real friend and companion.
These are the blessings that come from hearing and believing the real and true story of Jesus’ birth, announced by real angels from heaven to real shepherds in the fields.
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! Amen.