Bible Passage: Luke 2:11
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: December 24, 2023

Bulletin Christmas Eve 2023

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

I want you – to the best that you are able – to try to imagine what it must have been like to be one of those shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem the night Jesus was born.  We don’t know what time it was.  We don’t know how many there were.  But there you are, with your colleagues, perhaps warming yourself around a little fire.  The drowsy sheep over yonder.  As many who work the “night-shift,” maybe you are thinking it’s going to be another night of the “same-old-same-old.”

When all of a sudden, there is a brightness all around you.  And then you see it!  A single solitary angel is there.  Here is where we don’t have to imagine.  We are told the shepherds are terrified!  And why wouldn’t they be?  They are up-close-and-personal with the heavenly.  And that is scary for people.  Because people have a conscience.  And most people, in an honest moment, will admit they know they have not lived up to what God wants them to be.  These shepherds have consciences.  And now God sent an angel to have a talk with them!  Uh-oh!

What would the angel announce?  Was the angel here to announce judgment?  Wrath?  Doom?  Destruction?  Thunder and lightning?  Fire and brimstone?  Hellfire and damnation?  There was a Jewish notion that if you saw an angel, it meant that in the next moment you were going to die.  What would the angel say?  Brace yourself!  Here it comes!

Today…a Savior has been born.  Wait.  That’s the angelic message?  Where’s the anger?  Where’s the wrath of God?  Where is the frowning face of God?  Where’s the scary stuff?  A newborn baby?  That’s what God wanted us to know?  That’s the news that was so important it couldn’t wait until morning?  A baby was born?  That’s not scary at all. 

God isn’t scary!  Not tonight.  He is the opposite of scary.  He’s the most “unscary” thing there is!  He’s a newborn baby.  A newborn baby come to be a Savior.   The word “Savior” means a deliverer, a rescuer, a hero!  This is a person who saves from deadly peril by bringing about a dynamic rescue.  That is a “Savior.”  God had sent “rescuers” to his people in the past.  When they needed rescue from the Philistines, he sent them Samson.  When they needed rescue from the Midianites, he sent them Gideon.  What kind of rescue is it that God in effect says, “I will handle this one myself”?  What kind of rescue is it that necessitates the Son of God – God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God – wrapping himself up, not in a superhero’s cape or canopy of light, but in the flesh of a newborn baby? 

The rescue from sin.   Rescuing sinful humanity from the curse of sin.  Rescuing sinful humanity from the guilt of sin.  Rescuing humanity from the power of sin.  Rescuing sinful humanity from the damnation of sin.  No mere man could do this.  But the God-Man, Jesus, could!  God comes in flesh to live a perfect life under God’s law.  God comes in flesh to die on the cross to pay for sin.  God comes in flesh to rise again to break the hold of death on mortal man.  That is a dynamic rescue!  That is work for a Savior!

And just so those shepherds didn’t miss the point, and comfort, of this visit, the angel said something else about this Savior.  The angel said, “…for you.”  There is a wonderful feature about these words in the text.  The “you” is plural.  Here’s why that’s important.  In English we can’t immediately tell if “you” means just one of you, or all of you.  If I say, “Hey, you!”  I could mean “you” or “all of you.”  When the angel said, “…for you,” they weren’t left wondering, “Who? Me?  Or did you mean him?”  In Texas they have a way to express the difference.  They say, “Y’all.”  “All of you.”  The angel said this Savior came for all of them.  Not one shepherd was left wondering, “Did the angel mean me?”  They knew, “This Savior is for each one of you!”

Who are you?  No, really, who are you?  Not the “you” you put out there on social media.  That’s the “you” you want everybody to think you are.  Always happy.  Perfectly together mom.  Active and involved dad.  Fun grandma or funny grandpa.  Popular teen with friends galore.  Who are you really?

Are you really a mom who struggles to keep up, who feels guilty about not being the “perfect mom” and secretly resents all those who appear to have it all together?  Jesus came “for you.”  Are you really a dad who struggles to find a good balance between work life and family life and constantly feels guilty because you feel you never get it right?  Jesus came “for you.”  Are you really a teen who struggles with the many sins of youth and the guilt you feel, who feels there is not one adult in your world you can be completely open with about your struggles?  Jesus came “for you.”   He came for you all!  Don’t be afraid of God.  He came as a baby.  He came to save you.

I have heard people say, “I love you to the moon and back!”  Tonight, we remember the love of Jesus.  He didn’t go to the moon for you.  He came to earth for you!   He loved you to the manger.  To the cross.  To the tomb…and back!  This love so sublimely and superbly captured by our angel friend tonight:  A Savior…for you!

Amen.