Christmas Homily

The goal of my talk here is not to give you new information or lecture you about something that you probably already know about. Instead, my goal here is to get you guys thinking a little differently this Christmas season. I know that we all believe in Jesus and what he did on earth, so I’m going to talk to you guys as such. This isn’t meant for people who only come to church on Christmas and Easter or for someone who doesn’t go to church at all. And it’s kind of nice that this service is close to Christmas because we can all experience it together less than a week before going home to celebrate Christmas. So the goal here is just to get us thinking about Christmas a little bit differently than we may have in the past.

The first scripture passage that we read was one of the classic passages that we usually hear during a Christmas service, the one from Isaiah 9. It is certainly a beautiful passage about what the coming Messiah will be like. It is so clear that this coming Messiah will come in all of this majesty and will be exactly what we as humans need. It says he’ll be our Counselor, he’ll be Mighty, Everlasting, and a Prince of Peace. As a people that are broken and lost this should certainly give us hope for what the Messiah will be like.

Obviously we know that this was ultimately fulfilled in the person of Jesus. From what we know about Jesus he is certainly all of these things. First of all, we know that Jesus came to us as a baby. He didn’t come down with all of the armies of heaven and immediately wage war on the nations. He was born in a manger to a poor family in a no-body town with no kingdom or throne to inherit. The Isaiah 9 passage tells us that he would be born as a child, not immediately as some conquering warrior. But in addition to being born a child, we are told that this Messiah will be a king. It says in the passage that this coming Messiah, born as a child, will reign on David’s throne and the government will be on his shoulders. This is cool of course, but Solomon reigned on David’s throne, so did Rehoboam, Asaph, and Jehoshaphat. But unlike these kings, we are told that the Messiah will reign forever. He is and is going to be ruling over all of creation, all the nations, and over all the people of the world for all eternity. That’s the picture that we get here from Isaiah 9.

And we know from the Gospels that this is exactly who Jesus is. We know that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father, with all authority over heaven and earth. We know that he is ruling over all creation, all the nations, and over all the people that have existed since his time on earth.

Yet in the same book of Isaiah as the passage we just read, we get an image of this coming Messiah that is almost the exact opposite. The other passage that we read from Isaiah 53 gives us an image of this coming Messiah as one who does not seem like a child or a king. I’ll read this passage again:

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

That obviously does not seem like an innocent child or a magnificent king to me. That seems like it would be part of a different story than the one who would rule over the governments on David’s throne and who would be known as Mighty God or Everlasting Father.

Yet we know that this is actually part of the same story. The same one who was born in a manger to a poor family in a no-body town, who also will reign on David’s throne forever, is the same one who was rejected by mankind, who suffered, was punished, stricken, and afflicted. The same one sitting at the right hand of the Father is the one who was pierced, crushed, and wounded under punishment.

As hard as that is to believe, I know you all know this already. I know that you know that the Isaiah 53 passage is referred to as “The Suffering Servant” which is talking about what Jesus did for us. This is great, but what if we approached Christmas this year with this in mind. A lot of Christians talk about focusing on the real “reason for the season,” and I am by no means saying that we shouldn’t focus on that. I am definitely not suggesting that on Christmas we should not celebrate like crazy for the birth of our savior, because that is one of the best things we could ever celebrate.

Of course Jesus came with all of the majesty and glory we could ever imagine, and of course he is the one true king sitting up on the throne in heaven above. But he had to be that suffering servant before all of that could take place. So what if, what if in the back of our minds at least, we went into Christmas this year understanding the real reason behind the “reason for the season?” This being that Jesus was born in that manger to that family in that place so that a few decades later he would be hung on that cross. What if, this Christmas, we held this view in the back of our minds?

Let’s think about the fact that our savior was born into the world to die. He was born to take our punishment upon himself. I’m not exactly sure when he would have realized it, but as Jesus himself was studying the Scriptures there must have been a moment that he realized that he was the Messiah. As Jesus I’m sure it would have been cool to read Isaiah 9 and realize “this is about me!” It would have been pretty sweet to understand that you were born as the Mighty God and Everlasting Father. But again, all Jesus had to do was flip through the scroll of Isaiah and he would have found himself reading Isaiah 53. He would have found out that his purpose as the Messiah would have to be accomplished through immense suffering, desertion, and affliction.

Based upon Jesus’ life and coming into the world, it is so incredibly profound that Jesus decided to leave his place in heaven, he decided to forsake his divine nature as God, to accomplish all of this. And the special thing is that he did all of this willingly for us. This is why we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate because our savior was born into the world as a man. This is one of the greatest gifts from the Father in heaven that we could have ever received. But yet again, this gift was given to us as a sacrifice.

All of this to say, as much as we are celebrating the birth of Jesus this Christmas, let’s take some time to thank him for coming to us as a man so that he could die on our behalf. Let’s celebrate his coming to us, but let’s also spend some extra time in prayer thanking him and praising him for enduring the unimaginable pain and suffering that he left heaven to endure. Let’s worship him in awe of his majesty, glory, power, and justice, but let’s also bow down at his feet out of the gratitude in our hearts for the real reason of his coming.

Finally, let’s all go home and celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ, that’s what we should do. That’s the only right thing to do this time of year. But as we’re doing that, let’s not forget the real reason behind the “reason for the season.”

Let’s pray together: