Christmas Eve Sermon 2021

 

Christmas Eve 2021

Isaiah 9:1-7  St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY

Pr. Mark Preus

 

The years go by, and so much changes, but the Gospel doesn’t.  It is the same message of mercy for sinners that God still wants sinners to hear.  “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has dawned.”

 

What is this darkness?  It is the darkness of our hearts.  It is what Isaiah speaks of in the chapter before he writes of this light shining, “It shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and God, and look upward.  Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness.”

 

  The darkness is the devil’s lie that we are like God, knowing good and evil.  We look up, as if we can pierce heaven with our own judgment and thinking and works.  It is the devil’s lie that we can set aside God’s Word for our own desires for pleasure, judgment, greed, envy, entertainment, duty, whatever.  It is the darkness of justifying ourselves.  We think we are shedding light on our lives when we trust ourselves.  But Isaiah says, “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

 

We Lutherans speak of these verses when defending the Scriptures.  People can’t add to the Scriptures.  We interpret Scripture with Scripture. The only light that can enlighten our dark hearts is the lamp shining in a dark place (2 Peter 1).  But it is because these verses refer to God’s Word that they refer also to our own dark hearts.  There is by nature no light in our hearts.  There is only our own selfish thinking.  We experience trouble and hunger for earthly things, for loved ones we’ve lost, for judgment against the wrongs done to us, for better relationships, for better treatment, for more money or success, for less pain, and our flesh is angry, and our hearts can only offer more darkness to our dark desires.  We don’t get the truth from ourselves.  We only get more darkness from within us for the darkness without us. 

 

Isaiah speaks of the Scriptures and their faithfulness in Isaiah 8.  It is the pre-incarnate Christ speaking, as Hebrews teaches (2:13), when Isaiah prophesies,

 

“Bind up the testimony,

Seal the law among my disciples. 

And I will wait for the Lord,

Who hides His face from the house of Jacob;

And I will hope in Him.

Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given Me!” 

 

The Son of God was waiting for the Lord God, His Father, to send Him to fulfill the Scriptures, and with Him were those who hoped and waited with Him.  The Law and the Testimony prophesied of the light that would shine in the darkness and the darkness would not overcome it.  The Bible promised Light for the darkness.  And it from that same Bible that we see the light tonight. 

 

There is no light in our hearts without the Gospel.  And this light does not come upon us if we do not see our darkness.  God made us to know only good, but man chose to know evil.  Now we must know our evil for what it is, if we would see the light.  We can’t know the light unless we know the darkness.

 

 But who among us could be so proud as not to admit it, not to confess this darkness, not to bewail it and mourn, because we cannot see heaven on our own, with our knowledge of little good and so much evil in and around us?  Yes, there is darkness in the world!  It is all around us!  People in fear because of tyrants who want power.  Families divided because of selfish behavior and choices, and offer no mercy, no pity, no forgiveness.  An entire civilization that stood so strong and proud crumbling before our eyes into greed, lechery, and despair, exalting every vice and attacking every virtue.  Her gods of money and power and influence and success showing their demonic faces for the destruction that they relish in, since evil is nothing, and evil demons have nothing, and what they take they turn into nothing. They bring everything into darkness.

 

Why else would there be such despair around us, so deep a night that men cannot see that they are men, women cannot enjoy being women, and children, that great blessing that gives so much joy, considered a hampering burden, to be either killed or the duty to raise them shipped off to schools that don’t give a whit about their souls? The proud and haughty rule, the meek suffer their arrogance and violence.  Wars and rumors of war.  Men’s heart failing them at what is happening to the world.  Darkness!  Thick clouds of darkness!  Death!  The very shadow of it so thick we can feel it! 

 

Do you see what darkness this world is in?  And what hope is there out of it?  A fascist dictatorship?  A supreme court desperately trying to hold onto its authority while ignoring the holocaust of babies defiling our land?  Democracy, where the wicked have more power than the righteous?  Guns and ammo?  An army?  Social programs?  Revolution? 

 

 

“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; But we will remember the name of the Lord our God,” because it is dark inside and outside. That is what the Scriptures say. Where the Scriptures do not speak in our hearts and outside of us, there is finally no light that can dispel the darkness. 

 

But the Scriptures speak tonight.  They tell us that those walking in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. 

 

What is this light the Scriptures speak of?  It is the eternal God who is all good, whom men curse and revile for suffering and blame for their own sin, and yet He still comes to us, He still joins us, who were His enemies, who did not want Him, but He wants us.  He wants to shine on us and give us hope.  We did not see Him, we could not.  We were walking in darkness and the shadow of death that overcomes every great thinker, artist, general, politician and ruler, the shadow that engulfs us with the knowledge of guilt and death and fear, but now the light us shined on us.  For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given.

 

Unto us a Child is born.  He is man.  He is a human being like all of us.  He has a mind like us, a body like us, but without sin.  He is not far away from you.  He is near you, as close as your own flesh and blood are to you, as close as your own thoughts are to you, and He sheds light on you today.  It is frightening.  The shepherds were sore afraid, but fear not, for “behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”  He is not born as your destroyer, as your judge, as your enemy, but as your Savior, who is your Lord.

 

For unto us a Son is given.  He is the eternal Son of the Father.  He is true God, and there is no other God but He, and He is given to us.  He is a little baby born for us who is the Son of God given to us.  And He shines His light on you tonight.  It is not a terrifying light that you run from.  It is the light that fills the heavens and joins the word of the angels to dispel your fear that God is angry with you, that He is your enemy, that you must eke out your life only in darkness – no, because on us who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death a light has shined.

 

And this light is the little, weak flesh of a baby laid by his virgin Mother in a manger, where lowly cattle lately fed.  He reveals Himself to the lowly, to shepherds, not kings, but do not doubt His strength.  He shall be called Wonderful, because He works wonders.  He changes hearts of doubt and unbelief into hearts that trust in the God who loves them.  He shall be called Counselor, because He gives counsel and comfort to poor sinners.  He shall be called Mighty God, because in this weak little baby is all power over earth and heaven, over sin and darkness, over death and misery, over all sadness.  He shall be called Everlasting Father, because He is born a child to make us God’s children, and He will never stop being the loving Father that we need, the Father who gives us life and sustains it.  He shall be called Prince of Peace, because He ends the war against the darkness that we could not win.  He is born to live and suffer and fight against sin and sickness and sadness, to endure God’s righteous anger against sinners, and to bring about that peace which no one could give us, but He does.  He shines tonight into our hearts.

 

Bring to Him the darkness, and He will dispel it.  Bring to him your sadness, and He will be your joy that no man can take from you.  Bring to Him your sin, and He will claim it as His own to bear in His body and destroy its power.  Bring to Him death itself, and He rips the shadow apart and the glory of the Lord shines round about us and we are not afraid anymore.  We are happy to see our God.  We are happy to see the Child who is born for us, because we are His children who believe in Him and trust in Him.  We are filled with joy to claim this Son of God as our own dear Brother, because He is not ashamed to call us brothers.

 

If our blessed Lord and Maker

Hated men                          

Would He then

Be of flesh partaker? 

 

Come here now, whoever feels the darkness and sees it, because it is on you that this light has shined, unto you a Child is born, unto you a Son is given, and his name is Jesus because He saves you from your sins.  He shines a light that kindles faith so that we can look up and see amid so much sin and grief and misery the true light that gives forgiveness of sins, life, joy, and hope that will not leave us ashamed.

 

What war is there that is not ended?  Midian oppressed Israel, but was scattered by the light of the lamps of Gideon and his little army of soldiers. They held Israel under the yoke of bondage, but that yoke was broken, the staff and rod of the oppressor was shattered by the light.  So now the burden of the Law, the yoke that presses so hard, demanding of you what you cannot do, is broken by Him who fulfills the Law for you, for the government is upon His shoulders.  Every thing that needs to be done He does, everything you did not do He makes up for.  He fights the war, and He scatters the darkness with the light that He is, shining in the flesh that we are.  And all that was used for war He burns in the fire, for unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.  Of the increase of His government and peace, of the increase of grace abounding more than sin, of the increase of righteousness to cover our sin and glory to cover our shame there will be no end. 

 

He sits as King upon the throne of David, and His kingdom is ordered by grace and mercy, by a light that does not stop shining into hearts afraid of their sins, to speak, to say what the Scriptures assure us of, that this God is our God and King, from the hair on His head down to His little toe.  We will not look up and be angry with those who do not know the darkness.  We will look up from the darkness of our sinful hearts and have them enlightened by the mercy that God shines on us in His only begotten Son, our Brother.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts has performed this.  He has brought to us what our hearts and the world couldn’t give us.  He brought us Himself by becoming one of us.  And He still is.  The baby born in the manger is the Crucified and Risen Lord who rules over your conscience by forgiven every sin He shows you, by shining a light on you that does make you run away from Him, but it leads you with the Shepherds to find Him gentle, lowly, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. 

 

For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given.  And so He is mine.  I will wrap Him in my heart that He has cleansed with His blood.  I will enfold Him in my arms with Mary, and say, “Let it be to me according to Your Word,” because He is the Word made flesh, and He dwells among us still today, wherever two or three are gathered in His name.  Dear Jesus, let me embrace you this night, whenever I see the darkness, and always, because You are the true light that shines into my heart to show me the God I lost, but you have found me, you have made me and are made like me to make me like you.  So take me, and all I am and have.  Remove all that would harm my faith in you.  Let your good and gracious will that led you to take on my flesh now remove from my poor flesh all sorrow and doubt that you were born for me, that you were given for me, that are my Savior and my Lord.  Amen.