It is the morning before the night before Christmas, and we’re getting ready for Christmas Eve Morning Service, and anticipating our 5th Annual Christmas Eve Service. I love this time of year. It is genuinely one of my favorites, and, though I like the lights, and giving gifts, and seeing my children’s faces light up when they receive their presents, I love Christmas most of all because it’s all about the Gospel. From Angels foretelling, to a king wrapped in sacrificial lambs swaddling clothes and lying in a stone manger, to shepherds proclaiming, to Simeon and Anna celebrating the hope they have been waiting for realized in this baby they held, to wise men from the east bringing gifts for a King and Priest and Sacrifice, it all speaks to the promises of God for the salvation of this fallen world in Jesus Christ.
There are some outside the Church who oppose Christmas, at least a Christmas that is centered on Jesus. They don’t want Jesus, because Jesus reminds them that they cannot be saved on their own, that they need an intermediary between them and God to be good. There are some within the Church who, for various reasons, oppose Christmas, a thought that, even when all arguments against it have been debunked, lingers. I don’t get it, but I respect your right to not celebrate Christ. But I will celebrate it. I will point toward the previous coming of Jesus Christ to point toward His death, burial and resurrection, and to show people that because all of these things, which were foretold, happened, that Jesus is alive at the Right Hand of the Father, and that He is coming back again, just as He said He would. So Merry Christmas, whether you want it or not. Jesus came, and is coming again!
Luke 2:8-20
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
