A Savior, Christ the Lord
Luke 2:1-14
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Luke 2:13-14 “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 goodwill toward men.’”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… This proclamation of the Evangelist St. Luke in his Gospel peals back the curtain to Heaven for us. This birth of a Savior – the Child born in Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger – reveals for us the reward of His birth. We get a glimpse of Heaven as the heavenly host sings the Gloria in Excelsis, the song we have been omitting in the liturgy since the beginning of the Advent season.
The birth of our Lord Jesus may be a humble birth – He was born to poor parents, in lowly means and lowly surroundings. But this birth is also a most glorious birth, for this birth opens the very gates of Heaven with the song of the angels. It is the song which we will join in with all the host of Heaven, the company of the angels, saints, prophets, and Patriarchs all gathered around the throne of our Lord Jesus. He comes to us tonight in lowly means and in a humble beginning, but we will join Him in Heaven and praise Him in all of His glory.
Even as we get a foretaste of that heavenly worship whenever we gather together in His Name. He gives us His gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation, and we sing His praise. The Sundays in Advent, being a penitential season, have been subdued in their nature. We have missed the Gloria in Excelsis. Our worship was a reflection of the humble birth of our Lord, for we are poor, miserable sinners unworthy of our Lord’s grace and mercy. Like St. John the Baptist, we are unworthy even to unlatch His sandal.
But beginning tonight and on into the next several days, all that changes. Our voices are raised in singing all the wonderful Christmas hymns, the Gloria in Excelsis returns, and the Divine Service will once again be in full bloom. All of this adorns the wonderful message of our Lord’s birth; it dresses up the wonderful message of the birth of our Savior.
It is most certainly a celebration! The Church celebrates with a song on her lips. We join our songs to the eternal song of Heaven. In our song we proclaim all the good things that our Lord Jesus has done for us. He has fulfilled the Law perfectly for us, the Law which we are unable to keep. He redeems us from our sins – the sins that we commit because of our disobedience to the Law of God; He redeemed us with His very own Blood. He sheds His Blood and breaks His Body for us on the tree of the holy cross. Our Lord offers up His life for us, and we sing of His glorious death and resurrection. The angels in Heaven – the heavenly host of St. Luke’s Gospel reading – proclaim this great news to the shepherds abiding in the fields of Bethlehem in song.
Quite obviously, our Lord Jesus cannot fulfill the Law of God for us and suffer and die in our place if He is not born. Jesus is born into our flesh; He takes on the flesh of man. The God of all creation has put on our flesh. What a wonderful thing to sing about! Our Savior dwells with us. He does not just stay up in Heaven and wave His hand or say the “magic” word to save us. No, He demonstrates His love for us by willingly paying the penalty of our sins, thereby doing what we are unable to do.
Truly we should sing “Glory to God in the highest,” for His redemption is for all mankind. Whoever by God-given faith believes that Christ paid for his sins has the gifts Christ won for us on the tree of the holy cross, the gifts He purchased for us with His own precious, innocent Blood.
This glorious message of salvation – a Savior is born for all mankind, one who will redeem His people from their sins – this message is first proclaimed by the angels to poor shepherds as they watched their flocks by night. St. Luke tells us that these shepherds did not live in houses but in the fields with their sheep: they never leave their flocks; they care for their sheep.
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Our Lord Jesus at His birth also has no home. He also is living among the sheep as He is placed by His mother Mary and His father Joseph into a manger, an animal’s feed trough, because there was no room for them in the inn. Jesus is born among the sheep and placed in the feed trough of the sheep, and the first proclamation of this wonderful birth by the angel host of Heaven is to shepherds who dwell among the sheep and care for their sheep.
The messengers of our Lord – His angels who proclaim His Word – also care for their sheep. In the following verses of St. Luke’s Gospel we are told the shepherds go to see this wonderful thing that the angels sang about to them. Upon seeing this Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths – the Babe who the angel told them was born in Bethlehem – they go out into the surrounding region and proclaim the good news to all: A Savior is born this night!
The shepherds of the Lord Jesus, which are His ministers, still preach the good news of the Savior to their spiritual sheep; that is what is happening here tonight and will happen here again tomorrow morning. The ministers of the Lord point us to the manger; they point to the Savior who dwells with us in the flesh. Here is your salvation. Here is your Lord. Here is the One Who has come into the world to defeat sin, death and the devil, and open up your way to your eternal home in Heaven.
Our Lord Jesus comes at night; He is born when everyone is asleep, when no one is paying attention. Nobody paid much attention to His birth because it was at night. Even the shepherds had to be told by the angels from heaven. They were the only ones who were awake as they were keeping watch over their flocks by night.
The world we live in is still asleep as our Lord Jesus comes to us. Our world has so distorted what this holy day is all about that the birth of our Lord and Savior, the birth of God in our flesh, is lost. The world would rather hear about some fat man in a red suit. Or worse, the world would rather have a watered down, sappy, overly-emotional type of holiday, one that is devoid of any substance at all. The world would rather have you concentrate on your joyous, loving, caring, feelings. But feelings cannot be artificially created, and having these types of feelings are pointless unless there is some meaning behind them.
Tonight we are given true joy and true hope and true love; and it makes us sing because there is real salvation being given to us. A Savior is born. Our Redeemer from sin, death and the devil is born for us, therefore we have great cause for rejoicing. This holy day is not about presents or family gatherings or food, although these things certainly have their proper place.
But this holy day is first and foremost about our Lord and Savior being born into our human flesh. It is about the Lord God coming down from Heaven to be born as One of us, in order that He might redeem us from sin, death and the devil. Our Lord Jesus gives us the greatest gift anyone can give: He gives Himself. We are given to by our Lord Jesus tonight in His Body and Blood given under bread and wine.
And just as we now rejoin our voices to the angels of Heaven in the Gloria in Excelsis, we will also join our voices to the angels of Heaven, and all the saints, as we sing the song that proclaims Hosanna to the Son of David. Just as our Lord Jesus came to us in lowly means at His birth in Bethlehem, He comes to us tonight in His body and blood wrapped in the lowly means of bread and wine, to give us the gifts of forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation.
Therefore, my dear friends, lift up your voices in song. Give thanks to the Lord Jesus for putting on our flesh, and being born among us. Let us join our voices to the whole host of the heavenly choir and sing for all eternity of the great news that our Lord and Savior has been born to us this night in the city of David. Let us follow the example of the shepherds and go and see this thing we have been told about this night, and share that message of salvation to all who would hear.
“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” And this same Lord Jesus continues to come to you through His Word and Sacramental gifts. These are the gifts which keep on giving, and will strengthen and preserve you in body and soul unto everlasting life.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
