Christmas Eve Service
Luke 1:76-79
“The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and someday suddenly wake up and discover why.” ~ G.K. Chesterton
Christmas is the good news that God has come into our broken and dark world in Jesus Christ.
I. Christmas is about God’s Coming (1:76)
John the Baptist (“the prophet of the Most High”) plays a significant role in the redemptive history of God’s people. He breaks 400 years of silence from God and is the forerunner to the ancient promise of a Savior.
Christmas is not simply about a birth. Christmas is about a coming; it is the message that God himself has come in Jesus. He does not lose his divinity, but adds on humanity. Jesus is uniquely fully God and fully man in the incarnation. This is the glorious and unique mystery where Christmas finds its meaning.
II. Christmas is about Salvation (1:77-78a)
God’s coming is good news because he has come to offer salvation to his people. This salvation is marked by 2 things in this passage:
1. The Forgiveness of Sins: Jesus warns: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Lk. 5:31-32) All of us are infected with the sickness of sin & need the healing of forgiveness.
2. The Tender Mercy of God: This ‘tender mercy’ is the deep compassion of God toward us, evidenced most clearly at the crucifixion of Jesus.
“The crucial significance of the cradle at Bethlehem lies in its place in the sequence of steps that led the Son of God to the cross of Calvary… the Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity – hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.” ~ J.I. Packer
III. Christmas is about Light (1:78b-79a)
Light represents a few things in the Bible:
Light illuminates & reveals while darkness covers & conceals
Light brings life while darkness is associated with death
Christmas is the good news that the “sunrise” from on high has visited those of us who dwell in darkness and in “the shadow of death.” Christmas proclaims: “the light shines in the darkness & the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). This is not merely wishful thinking, as the resurrection of Jesus from the dead powerfully proclaims that the darkness will not win. Light and life will conquer darkness and death.
IV. Christmas is about Peace (1:79b)
All of us have a longing and an aching for “peace” this time of year, but we are continually confronted with the fact that things are not the way they are supposed to be. This is an ancient longing that is as old as the Fall of man.
Christmas is the good news that Jesus has come to bring this peace we all desire. He does this in two directions: he reconciles our relationship and hostility with God himself, and then reconciles us to one another. Christmas was the beginning of this work, and we await the day when he will return and make all things new and set all things right.
“Son of Adam, Son of heaven, Given as a ransom;
Reconciling God and man, Christ, our mighty champion!
What a Savior! What a Friend! What a glorious mystery!
Once a babe in Bethlehem, Now the Lord of history.”
~ (from the hymn Joy Has Dawned)
“There has never been a gift offered that makes you swallow your pride to the depths that the gift of Jesus Christ requires us to do. Christmas means that we are so lost, so unable to save ourselves, that nothing less than the death of the Son of God himself could save us. That means you are not somebody who can pull yourself together and live a moral and good life. To accept the true Christmas gift, you have to admit you’re a sinner. You need to be saved by grace. You need to give up control of your life. That is descending lower than any of us really wants to go. Yet Jesus Christ’s greatness is seen in how far down he came to love us. Your spiritual regeneration will be achieved by going down the same path.” ~ Tim Keller
