Christmas Eve 2020
Throughout the Advent season this year—Advent of course meaning “coming”—we have been looking at some verses in the Gospels in which Jesus Himself tells us the surprising reasons why He came. We continue that tonight as we hear Jesus tell us: I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. How fitting for us to hear this word of Jesus as we tonight hear the angel, in the midst of that glorious heavenly light, announce to the shepherds and us: There is born for you this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Here all around us are object lessons. Even the unbelieving world around us that wants nothing to do with Christ makes for us object lessons to preach to us and to them, if they are willing to see and hear it. And that object lesson is what? The Christmas lights! Look at the streets and homes and downtowns of cities. Christmas is a festival of lights. Let our eyes not just be amazed and at awe at the dazzling displays, but let these lights—even put up by enemies of Christ and His Church—preach to us; let them point us to a Light invisible to our physical eyes but not to our hearts. As we admire these lights, as we light our own candles or our own Christmas tree, may we be pointed to that true Light, Christ Jesus, who was born that first Christmas, who said: I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.
Christmas is a festival of light because, as St. Paul writes in the epistle [Ti 2.11; 3.4]: For the grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared and the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. God’s grace has appeared—but not in the full bright daytime light that illumines everything, but as that little Baby who was born, that glimmer beginning in that stable in Bethlehem that first holy night which would spread throughout the world and the centuries bringing the light of salvation and life to the hearts of countless millions. Each Christmas light that you see preaches to you that Jesus has come; that God’s grace has come; that He has come to you and for you. As you see each Christmas light illuminating the darkness, there be reminded of Jesus who came as a light into the world, that whoever believes in [Him] should not abide in darkness.
In Jesus’ words, we have the very mystery of Christmas itself: I have come as a light into the world. Jesus has come into the world. That means He already was/ already existed before He came/ before He was born. For example: A child who will be born 3 years from now, cannot come to Christmas dinner tomorrow—but a newborn can. So here—Jesus came into the world/ could come into the world because He already was/ already existed. Here we come to Jesus’ divinity—that He is the eternal God. At a certain point in time and at a certain place, the Son of God took on human flesh and blood and was born. The Son of God became also true man taking on human flesh and blood in the womb of the Blessed Virgin at the Annunciation when the angel announced to Mary that she would be with Child, that she would be the mother of the eternal God. The eternal Son of God became also true man as Mary told the angel [Lk. 1.38]: Behold, the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word. And He was born 9 months later at that stable in Bethlehem.
This Jesus is, as we confess in the creed: God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father. He is the eternal God and yet He was born at a certain time and place in human history. True God and true man! This is the mystery of Christmas.
How fitting that Jesus—the true God, Light of Light—is born in that manger that first Christmas at night! This describes perfectly His work/ mission: I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. Just like our Christmas lights shine in the darkness and look so bright, so too does the true Light’s coming—Jesus’ coming—shine in the darkness, the darkness of this world’s sin and death, of its subjection to the devil.
Remember St. Paul’s Christmas Gospel: For the grace of God that brings salvation to all men has appeared and the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. The very fact of Jesus’ coming into this world, of the Light of the world coming into the world is nothing but God’s pure grace and mercy toward us. What is the condition of the world? It is nothing but spiritual darkness. Jesus calls the devil the [Jn 14.30] “ruler of this world.” But Jesus, the true God, became also true man and came into this world and for us and our salvation endured the worst that this world could throw at Him. Why would Jesus do this? Why would God have to come into this world of deep spiritual darkness? –Because we are in this great deep spiritual darkness, because as Luther writes in the hymn: Fast bound in Satan’s chains I lay; death brooded darkly over me. Sin was my torment night and day; in sin my mother bore me. But daily deeper still I fell. In other words, Jesus came as Light into the world because we cannot save ourselves. We need God’s grace from start to finish. Christmas teaches us that we cannot save ourselves; that we need God; that we need His grace. And because I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness, Christmas is a festival of great joy: God’s grace has come to us and it is visible in the Person of Jesus. Christmas is a festival of our salvation.
How does the OT prophet preach the Christmas Gospel? How does He proclaim the coming of God’s grace, the coming of the Savior of the world, the coming of God to save us out of our hopeless situation? This way [Is 9.2]: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. Look at that image—the image of darkness, people living in great darkness. How can they see anything? Try walking around your house, which is very familiar, in the dark: how you must feel your way around lest you trip. Now imagine doing that all the time, everywhere, especially in unfamiliar areas. That’s on a small scale like the great darkness the world finds itself in spiritually. This great spiritual darkness means that we don’t know God rightly and so we cannot love Him. This is what the devil is so happy about—we instinctively know that there is a God but because of sin, because of the ignorance, this great spiritual darkness, we don’t know who this God is; we don’t know what His thoughts or intentions are. We know we are sinners; we have that moral law written on our hearts of what is right and wrong and our consciences tell us/ accuse us when we do wrong. But what is the way out? What a horrible situation all this doubt and uncertainly is! How can people be truly happy and fulfilled—as our spiritual rest and contentment are found only in the true God? But the devil relishes this.
But maybe the objection is raised: things are going well. We don’t live in darkness; we are enlightened and have science. Or another objection: I’m happy. I’m content. I don’t need God. I live by truth as I see it, but you can have your own truth and be happy and content. Or maybe people’s lives are so filled with all sorts of extraneous things that they give no thought or attention to the deeper spiritual questions. All this is spiritual darkness and ignorance. The devil can easily delude people in one way or another. This spiritual ignorance is the darkness that covers the world. But remember Christmas: I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.
Jesus came that first Christmas to bring that true Light, the Divine Light into the world. And what does a light do? It shines on things; it shows things as they really are—shows what the darkness conceals. To be delivered from our spiritual darkness, Jesus—the Light—had to come. And that’s exactly what He did that first Christmas. And He came to fight against the devil and his kingdom and his forces. And Jesus won! By our sin, the devil had claim on us; because of our sin, death and hell awaited us. But when Jesus came, He came to save us from our sins. Our sinful conception in Original Sin was undone by His holy conception free from original sin; our sins we daily add to because of our sinfulness were undone as Jesus lived a holy and sinless life for us under God’s law. The sins we commit, He took on Himself as He went to the cross and there endured God’s wrath and punishment. Jesus paid for our sins; Jesus kept God’s law for us. Death and hell no longer have any claim on us. In fact, Jesus came to destroy death by dying and rising from the dead; by His resurrection and ascension, Jesus opened the kingdom of heaven to us. This is Jesus’ work for us and our salvation—work we could not do ourselves. This is why Jesus came and so we rejoice at Christmas.
Remember: I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. By His holy word, Jesus takes away the blindness of our spiritual ignorance. He now shines on us revealing who He is and what He has done for us and our salvation. He now shines on us by His Holy Spirit in His word giving us the blessings of His work. Jesus the light has come to us! He shines on us and gives us life as He enlightens our sin darkened minds showing us that God is our gracious heavenly Father and enabling us to know and trust in Him with our whole heart. Here we see how vital faith is. It receives Jesus, the Light of the world. And in that faith that is worked by the Spirit as Jesus shines on us revealing Himself to us, we then become illuminated; we receive the light and escape that spiritual darkness. Through Jesus and His saving work we know God rightly and love and serve Him. With the eyes of faith, we know God rightly; we know Jesus rightly. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.
What blessings come to us as Jesus shines on us. We no longer are in the darkness of sin, devil and death but live in the light of Christ: instead of the darkness of doubt and despair not knowing God, we live in the light of peace and blessing; in place of the darkness of death, we live in the light of eternal life; in place of the darkness of ignorance we have the light of knowledge; in place of the darkness of sin, we have the light of salvation.
And what is so wonderful is that Jesus, the Light who has come into the world, shines on us and gives us life—new life in Him. His light shines on us and we reflect that light of Jesus. We become children of light. With Jesus’ light shining on us and also as He dwells in us—as He has been born in us and made our hearts His manger—His light shines through us as we live a life of faith and good works. Now we delight to do Jesus’ will. After all, since we have escaped out of the darkness of sin, ignorance and death—why would we/ how could we live in it anymore? Now our joy is to live in the light and follow Jesus’ will. When we follow Jesus our Savior as the Light of the world by living a life in faith, in holiness and in patience, we do not walk in the darkness of unbelief and fear of eternal death; instead we have the light of eternal life. Christmas, Jesus’ coming as the light in the world, has meaning every day of the year.
As we see Christmas lights, may they preach to us and point us to Jesus. May they also remind us that as we live a life of faith and holiness, we are reflecting Jesus who came/ was born to save us, and He illuminates us and is at work in us. And in fact, the darker the world around us, the brighter the Light shines. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. INJ Amen.