Christmas Eve
Jesus-followers are God’s solution to a troubled world but we can only share that solution if we do go, making Jesus the Christmas choice.
We gather together this Christmas Eve to reflect upon the Christmas choice that each of us needs to make as we approach this Holy Day. This Christmas choice is welcoming Jesus into the center place of our Christmas celebration. Many of us are ready for Christmas. The Christmas tree is decorated, our presents are beautifully wrapped under the tree, the pine needles are beginning to fall from the tree, and the house is decorated. We may be ready in the external preparations for this holiday, but are we ready in the inner recesses of our lives for a Holy Day? Have we made the Christmas choice of welcoming Jesus afresh and anew in our hearts?
It’s not easy as well to keep Jesus in the center of our lives as we enter a new year. Following Christmas there is the usual deluge of sales, the finishing up of left-over turkey, a few days of holidays, New Year’s and then it’s back to school or work. Christmas is over for another year. And just as we were getting into it, too!
But the Christmas choice of placing Jesus at the center of our celebration doesn’t have to end. It was not meant to end. Christmas is, rather, the beginning of something big. The birth of Jesus was the beginning of something big for the shepherds who long ago tended their flocks by night on a Bethlehem hillside.
Let’s read a portion of the Christmas story from Luke 2:8-20…
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” 16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Just because the world around us treats Christmas as a shallow façade of a holiday that wears off by January 1 does not mean that we need to sell out on the celebration of Christmas throughout the year. We can put the tree and decorations away, but that does not mean that Christmas should be forgotten in our hearts.
The shepherds on that Christmas Eve long ago certainly didn’t put Jesus away after they found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. They spread the world concerning what had been told to them about the baby Jesus. They returned to their places of routine, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen.
Christmas, in its essence, is about God entering our world—God coming to live life as one of us as flesh and blood just like us. This reality is not something we should only celebrate for a couple of weeks every year. Rather it is something we should celebrate every day of the year. In fact, if we want Christmas to be meaningful for us, it is the rest of the year that helps us appreciate the true spirit of Christmas.
In our text this evening, we find the shepherds who attended and cared for sheep discovering that Mary and Joseph would attend and care for their baby. There is a startling contrast with this imagery. The shepherds were to present in the Temple the unblemished lambs for sacrifice. Mary and Joseph would present to all people the unblemished Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.
God discloses to us in the gospels John the Baptist knowing what is the real meaning of Christmas in John 1:29…
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
“Look,” John says pointing to Jesus, the Lamb of God. After John’s testimony, two of his followers—Andrew and Peter—left to follow Jesus. But why go? What did these two followers expect to get by following Jesus? What led them to follow this man? They believed they had found the Messiah, the Savior, but so what?
Perhaps they expected to obtain wealth, or power or prestige, or honor? Perhaps they thought it would be fun—a good experience? Hardly! As Jewish men, they knew all about the Old Testament passages which told about the Lamb of God. They knew all about the Passover Lamb. They had been taught all about the suffering servant songs in Isaiah and the illustration of a lamb being led to the slaughter.
To call someone the Lamb of God as John had called Jesus was not an illusion to worldly power or riches. The two men who left to follow Jesus expected none of these things. Perhaps these Jewish shepherds on Christmas Eve knew all about the Lamb of God as well as these future followers of Jesus. So why go? If these shepherds in the likeness of the Jesus-followers did not expect wealth, power or prestige, or honor, why follow? Why indeed?
They simply followed because they were called to go. They went because they knew that life would be unfulfilled unless they gave themselves completely to God. They knew the illusions of fulfillment which the world offers, that those things of wealth, power, family, and prestige are just that, illusions. For the shepherds, they did not know where God would take them, but they knew that by following, they would find fulfillment. The fulfillment came, not because of what happened to them, but because they were following God. They went away from Jesus praising and glorifying God because they knew that there was no other road that offered fulfillment.
This evening we hear that Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” How do we respond? Christmas has come. Jesus has entered our lives. How do we respond to that reality of God becoming flesh? Do we go or not? Do we follow Jesus—not necessarily in the sense of packing our bags and leaving home—but definitely in a sense of living our lives for God? How do we respond?
1. It is a choice of perspective
How we respond depends on how we see God. Many of us have fallen into an illusion that contentment comes from wealth, from family and from the social and economic values which we take from the culture around us. For these people, the call of God makes us uncomfortable because we see it as a call to fanaticism. We see it as a call to give up everything that we value.
2. It is a choice of price
We will believe in God only so long as there is not commitment, no cost, no sacrifice, no challenge to our false illusions of contentment, and no call to “Go!” If the price tag is too much to pay then we will forfeit the committing everything that we value. If we are ever asked for more, then we are tempted to put away our faith just as easily as we put away our Christmas decorations.
These two responses keep us in our comfort zone. So comfortable are we in the life we have built that we are more prepared to live an illusion than in accepting the offer of real fulfillment.
But there is a third response.
3. It is a choice of purpose
There are also those among us who, when they are introduced to the Lamb of God, set down everything and go. Their fulfillment comes from walking with God. Their meaning and existence are wrapped up in the fact that they do not journey through life alone. God is their guide. God has given them a purpose for living, a journey marked before them with intention and direction.
Their joy comes when they proclaim the Lamb of God to others through their words and actions. Their lives are not consumed by some false illusion, but rather they are filled with a closeness to God. Like the shepherds, they simply share with others what they have heard and seen. What have you heard and seen this Christmas?
Oh, you say, had I been there at Bethlehem that night I would have heard and seen. I would have understood. I would have known it was the Christ child. Would you? There is a way of knowing:
Ask yourself what you have heard this Christmas Season?
Did you hear only the blast of music and carols, or did you hear the silent sighs of the lonely and the bereaved who may be dreading Christmas because it accentuates their loneliness, their loss of a loved one.
And in the midst of the sounds of honking horns and people arguing over parking places, did you hear faint sounds of laughter coming from church missions’ projects because you furnished shoeboxes, food and toys for families and children.
Ask yourself what you have seen this Christmas Season?
When you watched the 6:00 news did you see chaos and strife, or did you see sheep without a shepherd.
When you went out to do your shopping did you see only hordes of people in the stores, or did you notice the worried expressions on some of their faces–worried because they are facing this Christmas without employment or enough money and they don’t know how they are going to make ends meet.
So often what we hear and what we see is not dependent upon the event but upon us. If we did in fact hear the cry from the lonely, the laughter of poor children, if we saw the sheep without a shepherd, then, and only then, might we have noticed the events that took place in Bethlehem that night. If we lacked that spiritual hearing and seeing then we probably would have been with the 99% who were present but who heard or saw nothing out of the ordinary. In the end perhaps one of our carols, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” words it best: No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin. Where meek souls shall receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.
There are people for whom Christ enters in and lives on at Christmas. “Look, the Lamb of God.” Christ has entered our world at Christmas. Now is our opportunity to decide how we will respond. We are invited to follow. We are invited to walk with God. We are God’s solution to a troubled world but we can only share that solution if we do go. “Look, the Lamb of God.” Let us follow him because Jesus is the Christmas choice, not only this Christmas Eve but also after Christmas! Amen.
[Drama—“Lamb of God.” The angelic voices announced the Radiance of Light—Jesus, the Lamb of God. Let’s listen to what a young shepherdess recalls the night she first met Jesus, the Lamb of God.]
