The Nativity of Our Lord
Christmas Day
December 25, 2011
You see, Christmas is not about keeping Jesus as a cute little baby in
that manger in the stall. It is about getting Him up on the cross where He bled
and suffered and died. I don’t imagine Mary was gazing down at her newborn Son
with any thoughts of torture and suffering. I imagine her face glowed and her
lips smiled as she looked down upon her precious baby and thought of all the
wonderful days and years ahead of seeing Him grow and learn and doing all kinds
of wonderful things. For Mary, I imagine Christmas was about what too often we
think of Christmas as. And that’s not wrong. Mary wasn’t blasted out by God for
enjoying the wonder of the moment of her giving birth to her firstborn Son.
No, God the Father was rejoicing as well. In that, surely. But also in
something more. In something bigger and far greater. In the very reason Jesus
was born. And that thing was to get Him to the cross. To suffer. To bleed. To
be dealt the blow of the hammer of the Law, that He was pronounced guilty of
all sins ever committed. It may seem odd to think about that on Christmas Day.
It seems even more odd to think that this is what God the Father was rejoicing
in. But if you pay attention to God’s story you see that it’s not odd at all
but actually rather amazing.
What you see is that God is love and His love knows no bounds. It moves
Him to send His eternally begotten and eternally loved Son to earth in a baby
and to the cross in a beaten and stricken and forsaken manner. This is why
Jesus’ life was for the purpose of death. You and I, well, our life is for the
purpose of life, but it ends in death. That’s because we have chosen that.
That’s what John makes clear in the Gospel reading. We love darkness rather
than light. We love sin rather than the holy will of God. In the end, we love
death rather than life. So our life ends in death.
This is how we see God’s eternal and amazing love. Jesus comes in with
life in order to go to death. But while the end of our story is death, it’s not
so with God. Jesus’ story doesn’t end in death. It’s not over at the cross. It
ends in life. That’s actually kind of funny to say, because it doesn’t end at
all. Life comes after death. The resurrection follows the crucifixion. Life is
what it ends with; or rather, with what it remains as, forever. This is what is
at the heart of Christmas. True, Mary wasn’t able to comprehend all of that at
that moment. But we are. We are able to see in that baby the Savior. We are
able to see in Him birth, death, and life. And in that baby we are able to see
for ourselves that very same birth, death, and life.
John tells us about this new way it is with us, the new way with us
that is the way it is with Christ. John tells us that even though we are of
death, we now have this new life in Christ. This is the way he describes it: “But
to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to
become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the
flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” God is eternal. But when we are born
we are born in sin and are born into death. In Christ we are born anew.
Interestingly enough, this happens through death. Not by dying in the flesh,
but by dying in Baptism. In Baptism we die to our sinful flesh. We are united
with Christ in His death. His death was a death of dying in sin. We are united
in that death in Baptism. Just as Jesus didn’t stay dead, but rose from the
grave, we are united with Him in His resurrection. In Baptism we are raised up
to new life in Baptism.
This is how we now have birth, death, and life, just like Jesus.
Instead of birth, life, and death, which is what we naturally have in our birth
and in this life, we now are born anew, and in new birth in Baptism we die and
rise to new life. Unless Christ returns in glory before we physically die, we
will physically die. Even in Baptism we are not rid of the sinful flesh we
carry around all our days. But in Baptism we are rid of the eternal
condemnation we were born into. That means that on the day you physically die
you will not be consigned to the grave or to eternal damnation. You will once
and for all be rid of the sinful flesh you carry in this life. You will see in
all its glory what it means to be born, as the Gospel reading says, “not of men
but of God.”
You may not have thought that you would be considering your death on
Christmas Day. The thought of her Son dying may not have crossed Mary’s mind
that day He was born. The joy that came through birth was what was on her mind
and heart. Consider, though, that it became clear to her soon enough not only
what was on her heart but on God’s. That was that her Son’s birth meant death.
It meant He would make His way to the cross. But it meant this because what was
on God the Father’s heart was you and me and the world. It was life eternal for
all of us. And that’s why Christ was born. That’s why He died. And that’s why
He rose.
That’s the blessing we have today. To consider what is on God’s heart
and mind. When we consider today that Jesus was born we are considering the
fact of God’s eternal love for us. That means we are considering an even
greater thing, that Jesus’ birth was followed by His death. We are considering
this because it means that our life does not have to end in death and eternal
suffering. It ends in life when it is new birth in Christ, being born of God in
Baptism.
John tells us about another John. John the Baptist came as a witness.
He made known who this Jesus was, the one who was born in order to die for the
sin of the world. What a great opportunity we have on this Christmas Day to
consider the life we have a ahead of us, to make known to others what Christmas
is really about. That it’s about birth, death, and life, so that we don’t have
to end up in birth, life, and death. What a great opportunity we have to look
back to that day and see in the baby Mary gazed upon one who would give His
all, give Himself, in suffering and dying on the cross for the sin of the
world. What a blessing we have that in looking back on that amazing event in
which God was born we can see that He is the one in whom we are born, not of men
but of God. What a privilege and joy for us to see that as He humbled Himself
to be in the arms of a young girl who gave Him birth that He for us humbles
Himself to be in and with bread and wine that we may eat and drink and receive
Him in the flesh and thereby be sustained in the new and eternal life He has
given us.
Without Christmas there is only birth, life, and death. With Christmas,
and the suffering, death, and resurrection that goes along with it, there is
birth, death, and life, now and forever. Amen.
SDG
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