Christmas Eve 2025

Jesus

What’s in a name? One of the most exciting and daunting tasks for new parents is the responsibility of giving their child a name. There can be all kinds of reasons why you would pick one name over all the rest. Sometimes the child will be named after a family member, or based on the time of the year they were born, or maybe just because the parents thought the name sounded really cool. In the Bible, names often have great significance. They can give you clues as to a person’s significance in the overarching story playing out. Sometimes, people will even receive new names at times of drastic change in their lives. Fro example, Eve was given her name after the fall of man and God’s promise of salvation, and her name means “mother of the living”; or Abraham was given his name after God gave him a promise, which means “father of a great multitude”; or Peter was given that name by Jesus after he made profession of faith, which means rock. There are so many people with significant names in the Bible, but none of them are so significant as the baby born to a virgin who received the name Jesus. Sometimes I think we can just grow comfortable with his name and think nothing of it — but the name Jesus holds an incredible weight behind it. In Matthew 1, we read,

Matthew 1:18–21 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.””

Now whether or not Mary and Joseph already had a list of names for their baby we will never know, for this baby received his name from God. And he received this name specifically, not because of some family history, or because it sounded cool, but because God was declaring to the world something about who this baby is and what this baby would grow up to do.

The name Jesus means, “God saves.” The name itself isn’t that extraordinary; this wasn’t the first time someone was called Jesus. In fact, Jesus was a rather common name amongst Israelites for a very long time leading up to this moment. There were even several figures throughout their history that arose as types of saviors for the people. However, the angel gave some further clarification that makes this Jesus incredibly unique. The angel doesn’t just say God will save, but he says of this Jesus, “he will save his people from their sins.” Now this is extraordinary indeed!

God’s people had faced many enemies throughout the years, and each time God raised up a kind of savior to deliver his people from their enemies.

When there was a great famine in the land, God raised up Joseph to preserve his people in the land of Egypt.

When after generations passed Egypt enslaved God’s people, God raised Moses up to deliver his people out of slavery.

When they encountered fierce armies in the promised land, God raised Joshua up to lead them in battle and conquer.

When the different people surrounding them kept enslaving God’s people, God continued to raise upjudges to save the people— like Ehud, Jepthah, Gideon, and Samson.

When Goliath of the Philistines threatened to destroy the people of Israel, God raised David up to deliver the people from his might.

You get the picture. Over the years there were all kinds of enemies that required all kinds of saviors to be raised up by God. But throughout that entire history, there was lurking in the background and above all of these enemies one great nemesis of God’s people that had thus far been unscathed. Far greater than Famine, or Egypt, or Canaanites, or Goliath, there was the enemy not of flesh and blood, but of principalities and powers. There was the enemy of sin, who wields the power of death, which has been plaguing the people of God ever since the fall of man recorded in Genesis 3.

Because of sin, God’s people stood condemned by God’s law. There was a great distance between God and man, and man could not enter into God’s presence because of his sin. Sin was really at the source of all of these other issues that continually plagued the people.

But all the way back in Genesis 3, a special kind of savior was promised who would “crush the head” of the serpent that tempted God’s people with sin. And throughout the Old Testament, none of the saviors have ever been able to successfully deliver on that promise. Sin still plagued God’s people, and death still reigned over them. They were still far from God. They still longed for a messiah, a savior who could deliver them from this ultimate enemy.

And God would send prophets to his people to continue to point them in the direction of that coming savior. Men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the others would continue to point them forward to the one who would finally deliver them from this evil once and for all.

And then, with the beginning of the New Testament, we see God finally deliver that savior to the world. We behold the birth of this baby, who is to be named Jesus, because he is going to save his people, not from any mere earthly oppression, but from sin itself. And in delivering the people from sin he would bring them to a peace that cannot be found in anyone else.

No doubt you each come here this day with your own share of enemies that you would readily accept salvation from. Whether that be poverty, loneliness, loss, illness, pain, boredom, or some other thing. And these are the kinds of enemies that can plague us so badly, and maybe it feels even more oppressive at this time of the year. I am sure that anyone who is suffering in any of these ways would long for a way out of their suffering.

But just like God’s people of old, behind these very real sources of our suffering lurks a greater enemy, one that we have no power to overcome. Sin has caused us to be so far from God, so far from the source of true and real life. Sin has wreaked havoc on our world, on our lives.

As the Apostle Paul said,

Ephesians 6:12 “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

And to make this an even more daunting issue, we find ourselves powerless against its might. There is nothing that we can do to free ourselves from its grip. It lords itself over us like a dark cloud that refuses to be lifted day after day, month after month, year after year, just like a Detroit winter.

But on on that first Christmas day some 2000 years ago, the clouds began to part; a beam of bright light breaks through, and God himself condescends to dwell amongst us — not as our enemy or judge, but as our savior. And not just any savior, but THE savior, the only one who can save us from our sins.

Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

And Jesus has come for people like you — those who are broken, hurting, cast off, and laboring beneath the weight of sin. He came to free you from your burden, to reconcile you to God, to adopt you into his Kingdom, and to equip you with the whole armor of God that you might live as an ambassador for his Kingdom in this life.

Romans 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And when the salvation of Jesus comes to you by faith through the power of the Holy Spirit, this is a salvation that cannot be undone. There is a great hope delivered to us by our savior, a wonderful cause for celebration.

Romans 8:31–39 ESV

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Brothers and Sisters, all who call upon the name of Jesus, rejoice! For to us a child is born, and he has saved us from our sins. Through his perfect life, sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrection from the dead, victory is ours. And because he lives, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen, and Merry Christmas.