All God Wants for Christmas

[Below you'll find the text of this year's Christmas Eve message as well as live stream video of both services from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Because our sanctuary is small, we move these services to our Mission Outreach Center.]

Luke 2:1-20

The message and meaning of Christmas can be put simply. The very simple message is this: God is for you. 

Now God gives His law–His commands, of course, because He wants you to see that you and I fail to keep His law and, because only perfectly righteous people can live in God’s presence, you are in dire straits. You need to turn to Him in repentance.

God also gives His Gospel–the good news–that tells you that because God loves you, He sent Jesus to take your sins onto Himself so that He could give His perfect righteousness to all who believe in Jesus.

In the first sermon delivered by a Christian preacher, the apostle Peter tells the crowd who just have heard the Law and the Gospel: “The promise [of the Gospel] is for you…” (Acts 2:39)  There’s an immediacy to the Christmas message and to the message about Jesus Christ, that, despite how hard our secular world tries to ignore it, cannot be avoided.

One reason Christmas has become so meaningless for most people is that the miracle of God becoming human to destroy sin and death for all who believe in Him is lost. We forget that God did not do all of this so we can engage in a frenzy of materialism and self-indulgence once a year.

Instead, God became human at Christmas, then went to the cross and rose from the dead for us: for me, for you.

When you hear Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, you can’t miss the message from God that the promise of Christmas is for you individually, not as members of a numberless, faceless mass of people, but as particular people for whom Jesus came to die and rise. 

Let’s look at three different places in Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth where the “for you-ness” of Christmas is underscored..

An angel came to shepherds. Although in the history of God’s people, shepherds were highly regarded, by the first century AD, nobody looked up to shepherds. Shepherds were generally seen as lowlifes. The angel tells the shepherds on Christmas night: “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people…” (Luke 2:10) “This news is going to bring joy to all sorts of people,” the angel is saying, “but right now I am bringing it personally to you, the very people the world looks down on!!”

The Lutheran preacher and novelist of the last century, Bo Giertz, said in one Christmas sermon that this message deeply affected the shepherds. The shepherds could see that “God cared about them. God wanted to help them. In the midst of the dark and the cold, during their hard and heavy work, in the midst of all the burdens life had put on them, God came so close to them, so near, and did so much in order for them to understand…It really was good news.” 

In Jesus, God is near to you too.

He wants to help you too.

God with us–Immanuel, Jesus–is with you and cares about you every moment.

In all circumstances, there is joy in knowing that in Jesus, God is with you and God is for you!

As I prepare to retire in one week, I wonder how I will do. So much of my identity has been wrapped up in my identity as “pastor” these last 39 years.

But Christmas reminds me that God long ago gave me another identity when I was baptized into Christ and blessing was pronounced over me by Reverend Borton: “Mark James, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” Long before there was a Pastor Mark, there was a Mark whom God made His child because, as Christ demonstrates, God is the God Who is for sinners like me and you.

The angel then tells the shepherds, “a Savior has been born to you…” (Luke 2:11) We all need this Savior because we are all sinners. And there are days when all of us feel like failures: as parents, grandparents, spouses, friends, children, employees, bosses, and human beings. Jesus comes to save us from all the condemnation meted out against us by the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. He saves us from condemnation for all our sin and our failings. 

The apostle Paul, after talking about his weakness in the face of his sin, cries out: “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25) 

Friends, Jesus the Savior has been born to you and for you! Even if you were the only person in the universe who needed saving, Jesus would have been born to you, gone to the cross for you, and risen for you. That’s how important you are to God! 

In this time of year, when you’ll be encouraged to make new year’s resolutions, I hope you won’t consider me a Debby Downer when I tell you that you are incapable of deciding to be a better person. You are incapable of doing it. You can’t make a decision to not be a sinner. You cannot decide to follow Jesus. You cannot decide to be a good person. None of us can. We are bound to acknowledge our vulnerability and our utter lack of invincibility. But Jesus can save you and make you a new person as you daily follow Him. (Luke 9:23) 

God’s Word says, “If anyone is in Christ [that is, if anyone is baptized into Christ and lives with Christ in daily repentance and renewal], the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The Word also tells us, as we mentioned a few days ago, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1) In Jesus, you have a Savior. There is absolute joy in that!

The angel then tells the shepherds: “This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12) 

There were likely many babies in Bethlehem that night, their families back in their ancestral town to be counted in the Roman census. But it’s equally likely that none of the others were sleeping in an animal’s feeding trough.

And who would expect the One the angels described as the Messiah, Savior, and Lord to be in such a place?

You’d expect such a King to be in a palace in a crib covered in gold, attended by armies. But that isn’t how the God Who is for you operates. That is not His M.O.

He enters your life not to intimidate you or force you to bow, although when you see Him in His holiness and perfection, you will inevitably feel compelled to bow down to Him.

God enters your life to, in the words of the Christmas hymn, “cast out [your] sin and enter in”--into your life with forgiveness which, when received by faith will make you righteous in God's sight forever! And so, on the first Christmas, the simple sign that pointed the shepherds to the King and Savior of the world was a manger in a barn. 

Today, we don’t need signs. Instead, Jesus comes to us directly in God’s Word and the Sacraments: Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. Through them, we receive the forgiveness of our sins and saving faith in Jesus, the Savior Who is for us. This too is our joy!

In the weeks before Christmas, we may ask the people in our families and circles of friends for their Christmas lists. It turns out, God has a Christmas list too. You, friends, are on God’s Christmas list. You are who Jesus came to seek and save at Christmas.

This Christmas, whatever else is going on in your life or in this world, know that in Christ, you are deeply loved and that, in Him, there is forgiveness and everlasting life with God.

As Jesus says elsewhere: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:40)

In Christ, you can turn to the God Who is for you.

The Savior in the manger shows us that, to paraphrase Mariah Carey, all God wants for Christmas is you!

Merry Christmas, friends.

Amen

Christmas Eve: For You!

[This is the message presented during yesterday's Christmas Eve services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. The structure of this sermon was suggested by one given by the late Bo Giertz.]

Luke 2:1-20

Among the books I’ve read that have had the greatest impact on me is a short one about the central message of the New Testament. That message, it said, is: for you. Actually, that’s the message of the entire Bible. Friends, God is for you.

He gives His law–His commands–because He wants you to see that you fail to keep His law and that You need to turn to Him in repentance. He also gives His Gospel–the good news–that tells us that because God loves you, He sent Jesus to take your sins onto Himself to give His righteousness to all who believe in Jesus.

In the first sermon delivered by a Christian preacher, the apostle Peter tells the crowd who just have heard the Law and the Gospel: “The promise [of the Gospel] is for you…” (Acts 2:39)  

There was an immediacy to Peter’s message that couldn’t be avoided. One reason Christmas has become so meaningless for most people is that the miracle of God becoming human to destroy sin and death for all who believe in Him is lost. 

We forget that God did all this for us: for me, for you. But when you hear Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, you can’t miss the message from God that the promise of Christmas is for you, not as members of a numberless, faceless mass of people, but as individuals for whom Jesus came to die and rise. 

Let’s look at three different places in our Gospel lesson where this is underscored.

An angel came to shepherds. Although in the history of God’s people shepherds were highly regarded, by the first century AD, nobody looked up to shepherd, generally seen as lowlifes. The angel tells the shepherds on Christmas night: “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people…” (Luke 2:10) “This news is going to bring joy to all sorts of people,” the angel was saying, “but right now I am bringing it personally to you!”

The Lutheran preacher and novelist of the last century, Bo Giertz, said in one Christmas sermon that this message had a deep effect on the shepherds. The shepherds could see that “God cared about them. God wanted to help them. In the midst of the dark and the cold, during their hard and heavy work, in the midst of all the burdens life had put on them, God came so close to them, so near, and did so much in order for them to understand…It really was good news.” 

In Jesus, God is near to you too. 

He wants to help you too.

God with us–Immanuel, Jesus–is with you and He cares about your every moment. 

No matter how high the bills pile up.

No matter how overwhelming the required readings of the syllabus are.

No matter how challenging the 1:00 AM feedings can be. 

No matter what challenges or conflicts or griefs may meet us in this life.

In all circumstances, there is joy in knowing that in Jesus, God is with you. He is for you!

The angel then tells the shepherds, “a Savior has been born to you…” (Luke 2:11) We all need this Savior. We are all sinners. 

And there are days when all of us feel like failures: as parents, grandparents, spouses, friends, children, employees, bosses, and human beings. 

Jesus comes to save us from condemnation for our sin and our failings. 

A man came to see me. He was single and had been conducting an on-again, off-again, on-again affair with a married woman for years. “I resolve never to see her again,” he told me, “then she’ll call me. I’m weak. I see her again, then I hate myself again and I’m sure that God can never forgive me or change me.” 

Jesus has come to free us from our self-loathing. 

He has come to save us from ourselves. 

He can set us free as we turn to Him daily for the strength to follow Him and to live in the love for God love for others for which we were made. 

The apostle Paul, after talking about his weakness in the face of his own sin, cries out: “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25) 

Friends, Jesus the Savior has been born to you and for you! 

Even if you were the only person in the universe who needed saving, He would have been born to you, gone to the cross for you, and risen for you. 

You can’t decide to be a better person (none of us can), but Jesus can save you and make you a new person as you daily follow Him. (Luke 9:23) 

God’s Word says, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) 

It also tells us, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:1) In Jesus, you have a Savior. 

There is joy in that!

The angel then tells the shepherds: “This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12) 

There were likely many babies in Bethlehem that night, their families back in their ancestral town to be counted in the Roman census. 

But it’s equally likely that none of the others were in an animals’ feeding trough. 

And who would expect the One the angels described as the Messiah, Savior, and Lord to be in such a place? 

You’d expect such a King to be in a palace in a crib covered in gold, attended by armies.

But that isn’t how the God Who is for you operates. He enters your life not to intimidate you or force you to bow, although when you see Him in His holiness and perfection, you will inevitably feel impelled to bow down to Him. In fact, God enters your life to, in the words of the Christmas hymns, “cast out [your] sin and enter in”--into your life with forgiveness which, when received by faith will make you righteous in God's sight forever!

And so, on the first Christmas, the simple sign that pointed to the shepherds to the King and Savior of the world was a manger in a barn. 

The signs of the now-crucified and risen Savior Who comes to you today are just as simple and easy to overlook or ignore by a world flailing in sin, selfishness, and death: God’s Word and the Sacraments. 

By these signs–these means–Christ comes to us and the Holy Spirit brings faith in and everlasting salvation through Jesus the Savior to us. These are the means by which the Word about Jesus is planted within you, “which can save you.” (James 1:21) This too is our joy!

In the weeks before Christmas, we may ask the people in our families and circles of friends for their Christmas lists. It turns out, God has a Christmas list too. 

You, friends, are who Jesus came to seek and save at Christmas. 

This Christmas, whatever else is going on in your life or in this world, know that in Christ, you are deeply loved and that, in Him, there is forgiveness and everlasting life with God. As Jesus says elsewhere: “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:40) 

In Christ, you can turn to the God Who is for you. 

The Savior in the manger shows us that all God wants for Christmas is you! Amen

[Videos of the two Christmas Eve worship services can be found here.]

God is for You!

[Here are the Christmas Eve worship services of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. I will post the text of the sermon later.]

Who Are The Favored People?

[This was shared last evening with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, during three of the four Christmas Eve worship services. (One of our Christmas Eve service, the Family Service, has no sermon, but a reading of the Christmas history from a children's book.)]

Luke 2:1-20
“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’” (Luke 2:13-14) 

It’s these two verses from Luke’s narration of the events of the first Christmas on which I want to focus tonight. 

The question raised by the angels' words recorded here is this: Who exactly are the people on whom God’s favor rests?

Ann and I have a friend who, when we were all in our late-twenties, seemed to have a favored life. 

Her husband, it appeared, adored her. 

Both she and her husband had good jobs that paid them well, allowing them to own a beautiful new home and to take nice vacations. 

They had a healthy child, at that point, aged two. 

Then it happened. 

The husband who adored our friend announced that he wanted out of their marriage; he’d found someone else with whom he felt more compatible. 

There was the custody to negotiate and a divorce to endure and a new way of life to establish. 

Our friend said that the whole experience was like being on a flight for a planned trip to Italy only to learn once the plane landed that she was in Hungary instead. 

The life she’d begun to experience and projected into the future was no more.

Had our friend lost favor with God?

There’s an idea that’s been popular in this world from the moment that Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the garden of Eden, an idea probably even more popular today that it’s ever been. The idea, put simply, is that the most favored people in life are those who enjoy success, happiness. We’re told that life’s most favored people get the best educations, have the best jobs, take the nicest vacations, make the biggest killings in the market. 

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with good educations, jobs, vacations, or even “making a killing” on Wall Street. 

But are the people who have these things going on for them God’s most favored people? 

Are they the ones about whom the angels, God’s messengers, told the shepherds, “peace to those on whom [God’s]” favor rests”?

A clue as to what the angels meant (and what God means) when speaking of people favored by God can be found in something another angel, Gabriel, said to Mary, the virgin chosen by God to become the earthly mother of God in the flesh, God the Son, Jesus. 

When Gabriel met Mary to announce God’s plans for her, he said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored!” (Luke 1:28) 

Luke, the gospel writer says that even Mary “wondered what kind of greeting this might be” (Luke 1:29). 

Understandably! Mary had none of the things that the world sees as indicators of being favored. From a worldly perspective, she would come to have even more reason to doubt the angels’ words once the angel told her that, a teenager and unmarried, she was going to give birth to a Son, the Savior of the world. 

It seems that God’s idea of being favored doesn’t conform to our world’s ideas on the subject.

God’s favored ones aren’t necessarily those God picks to know this world’s wealth or good health or the applause of others. In fact, Jesus tells us, having it all can be an impediment to the everlasting life with God He came into the world to give: “...it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle [Jesus tells us] than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).  

God’s favored people, it turns out, are those who are obedient to God. 

• They’re like Mary, who told Gabriel, “I am the Lord’s servant...May your word to me be fulfilled.” (Luke 1:38) 
• God’s favored people are like the impoverished shepherds on whom the world looked down, people who were considered to be the low-life, riff-raff of society, who weren’t too busy with the rewards of the world to say to each other after the angels had told them of the Messiah’s, the Christ’s, birth, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (Luke 2:15)

The obedience of the shepherds, as with the obedience of Mary, had nothing to do with the world’s conception of what it means to be religious. As you may have noticed already, it's entirely possible to be scrupulously religious and completely unfaithful as a Christian!

Neither Mary nor the shepherds saw God as some cosmic Santa Claus, “making a list, checking it twice, [figuring] out who’s naughty and nice.” 

While the disciple of Jesus Christ will seek to obey God’s will for his or her life and pay heed to God’s commands, true obedience to God, the obedience that gains us the favor of God, is all about trusting in Jesus Christ alone for life and hope and salvation from sin and death and futility. 

Jesus tells us who God favors in a simple passage in John’s gospel: "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29) 

God’s favored people are those who seek, however imperfectly, to welcome His Son, Jesus, with faith, whether the world considers them blessed or successful of favored or not.

Put another way: This work of God, the obedience of faith, of forsaking everything else in order to bet our lives on Jesus Christ each day through lifestyles of daily repentance and renewal is what brings us God's favor. 

It’s what brings us the peace from God the angels proclaimed on the holy night of Jesus’ birth. It’s a peace that can’t be achieved or striven for, but a peace that simply must be believed and received. It’s what Saint Paul calls “the peace that passes all understanding,” the peace that God gives to those who daily trust in the Christ Who bore the shame of our sin on a cross and rose from the dead to give eternity to all who turn from their sin and trust in Him to be their Savior.

In the midst of her pain and uncertainty, our friend came, gradually, to turn to Jesus as her God and Savior. She moved from valuing the favor above all else of the world to valuing the favor of the God we meet in Jesus. 

There are some people who would say, “She needed a crutch and that’s when she turned to Christ.” Exactly!

Listen: It’s a sign of maturity and self-awareness to realize that, in fact, we all desperately need the crutch that is Jesus Christ. 

• Only Jesus gives us the power to face this life with joy and hope and peace. 
• Only Jesus gives us the power to turn away from the world’s selfish ways and to embrace God’s command that we love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
• Only Jesus gives us the power to look death in the eye without fear, knowing that nothing, not even death, can separate us from God’s love, God’s favor. 
• Only Jesus gives us the confidence to see Him face to face, despite our imperfections and our sins and His perfection and sinlessness, knowing that this same Jesus, by grace through our faith in Him, covers us with His holiness and perfection, fitting us to live in His kingdom. 

You see, Christmas tells us that God wants to favor people with His grace now, in the midst of this imperfect, sometimes painful, inexplicable world, and in eternity, a realm with no pain or tears, no regrets and no goodbyes, a world in which obedience is no grim obligation, but simple faith in the Christ Whose birth among us we celebrate tonight.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, God’s favored ones, keep entrusting your lives to Jesus. 

And then, like the shepherds long ago, “...spread the word concerning what [has been told you] about this child” (Luke 2:17) so that others will come to believe and know the life of God’s eternal favor you and I have in Christ tonight as bring worship to Jesus!

Merry Christmas! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]