Christmas Eve - December 24, 2012

{This sermon was offered at the later service at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Aylmer, ON. The early service's message was done with young kids and puppets. There was no sermon text; in fact, I was lucky to get a word in edge-wise.}

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

• There's a story told of a pastor with a family. The family included a young daughter. This daughter had a lot of trouble getting to sleep one night. It seems she was afraid of the dark.
• Her father – as a good pastor – assured her that there was nothing to fear in the dark. There were no goblins there and not boogie-man. Besides she always had God there with her. God would never leave her and would be with her always.
• The little girl appeared not to be satisfied by this. She said “I know that, Daddy! But I want somebody with skin on!”
• Maybe we're all like that: we know God is present with us, but we want somebody “with skin on.”
• Is that too much to ask? Now that we think about it, did we ever ask for that?
• As Christians, we're quite used to a Christmas- based understanding of how God relates to humankind. Maybe we're too used to the scene of the manger, the shepherds, and even the wise men. It becomes “cute” and “safe.”
• Please don't get me wrong! I like everything about and around Christmas. I do the “cute” thing at the early service with a children's sermon involving puppets and such. I do the “safe” thing as well; I enjoy looking at Christmas trees and I'm fascinated by the Weihnachtspyramide ... as many of you know.
• However we're too used to this. Maybe if our breath doesn't catch and our eyes don't open a little wider when we face the lights and the crèche and the powerful story of the singing of the heavenly choir on that night so long ago... well, maybe we need to take a second look with fresh eyes.
• Maybe we need to remember how afraid we are of the dark. Maybe we need to remember that there are no goblins or boogles lurking there, but there are things we'd rather not look at or be seen by. We know God is with us and we still need to remember that we need “somebody with skin on.”
• That is what Christmas is all about. Our gracious and loving God loves us so much that he became “somebody with skin on.”
• Our gracious and loving God loves us so much that this “somebody with skin on” subjected himself to what everybody goes through.
• This “somebody with skin on” became poor both in comparison to what he really is and in comparison to many people of his time and of any time.
• Christmas involves “somebody with skin on.” John the Evangelist puts it more theologically and more poetically: “The Word became flesh and made his home among us.”
• Luke the Evangelist puts it this way, the words of the heralding angel to the terrified shepherds: “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
• To go even further, the apostle Paul wrote this to the Philippians: “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness...”
• All of these words are moving and powerful. I don't think we could live our lives without them. They tell us what we need to know about what we want to know.
• What do we want to know? It's really simple, isn't it? When it comes to living our lives, we all have that same longing that the little girl in the story I told earlier had.
• Our gracious and loving God knows what we long for and it is what God wants as well. What we want and hope for is “somebody with skin on.” That is what we celebrate with special emphasis this night.
• “The Word became flesh and made his home among us.”