Christmas Tide 2026

I hope it comes as no surprise when I say that the church has fallen to the cultural onslaught in celebrating Christmas too early. We start to see commercial signs of Christmas the day after Halloween, and we start to behave likes its Christmas as soon as advent begins. The Truth is Advent is not Christmas it is the lead up to Christmas and the Last Thursday was the beginning of the 12 days of Christmas in which we now sit. Today is supposed to be a continued celebration of the Nativity of Jesus Christ and for many of us it probably feel more like a hangover. Your starting to eyeball those Christmas leftovers with suspicion, how much longer will you be able to continue to eat this stuff. The counter tops are full of the remnants of things brought home from family parties, platters presents.

That is why it might be hard for us as we follof along in our lectionary to see that the readings are still Christmas readings. Our reading are behaving like we are still smack dab in the middle of the season not at the end…bc we are. Today we catch up with the shepherds after the angels announce Jesus but we follow them to Bethlehem, we join them as the take thier first look at the savior and announce his arrival to their neighbors.

If we are to follow along with how Luther reads today’s text and to draw out what he draws out, we have to put our selves in that place, in the excitement of the shepherds who are still celebrating Christmas, just as Luther would have been doing back in the 1500s. Luther see in our text 9 points worth spending time on and a secret 10th point. No body panic, I only intent to spend time with 3 of those points and then add one of my own to finish. We will look at the unity of the shepherds, their public witness, and their faith. I am going to add a thought about our Lord who is the bread of life…I promise it relates.

Luke 2:15–20 But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told.”

Unity: “When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

In my tradition we have the 39 Article of Religion, they are actually based on the Augsburg Confession. What the two documents, the Lutheran Augsburg and the Anglican Articles is a section on what makes a church. The Anglicans start with a gathering of faithful men, while the Augsburg talks about a congregation of saints. Its a distinction without a difference. What both assume is that this congregation of saints would be in united agreement on the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the unity that binds the Shepherds together. Together they will go see Christ the savior of the world. Today we are gathered to see Christ the savior together.

The unity of the saints is of high priority of Jesus. On the night in which he was betrayed Our Lord took bread, but before he does so he also prays, in John chapter 17

John 17:22–23 “I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.”

He prays for the unity of the future church, so that the future church would reflect the unity that Christ has in God the father. Jesus is undivided, so what is his true church, that is the true believers around the world, are undivided. So we must go out of our way to show that unity. I think having me here visiting from my tradition to worship according to your tradition is a great way that we can fulfill the words of that wonderful Psalm.

Psalm 133:1 “How delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony!”

And when Jesus gives his rational he says that the world would know…That brings me to my next point

Public Witness: They hurried off and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby who was lying in the manger. After seeing them, they reported the message they were told about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

This is not the witness of reluctant church members during an evangelism explosion outing. This is the joyous proclamation of a group that has seen something so wonderful that they must tell their neighbor. We haves seen the Lord. Saint Augustine when reflecting on what it means to have salvation is quoted to say Christianity is one begger telling another where there is free bread. If you were near starving to death and saw free bread you would tell all your starving neighbors.

And in our proclaiming the goodness of salvation we spread the gospel to hearts where it has not yet taken root. The good news that we are all separated from God, in our natural state we are sinful and destined for an eternity of horror called hell. But for those who look to Jesus for salvation we can be united back to God and returned to the place Adam lost the reality called heaven. To be where Jesus is for ever. The Shepherds knew taht eternity with God had arrived to us in a manger and they had to tell everyone. They had looked and seen Jesus and they wher changed and so they proclaimed.

Romans 10:14–15 “How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.”

Will yours be the feet an the lips that declare the good new to your neighbor, family member, co-worker who is without faith. Will you proclaim to them that you were once lost and far from God, but he has arrived and by faith taken your sin on the Cross where he died for it and has sealed you as his forever in your baptism? Will you take this message of Grace Alone, accessed by faith alone, accomplished by Christ Alone, as atested to by the scripture alone all for God’s Glory alone?

Faith final point of Luther’s that I would like to hone in on is Faith. Faith is what caused the shepherds in unity to journey to see the Christ. By faith they trusted in his arrival for them and by faith they tell others. You need nothing other then faith to come into a saving relationship with Christ. He provides the rest. By faith he will put upon you the good works of Christian life. By faith he will come to you in the eucharist. By faith he will begin to restore you to the people you live around.

1st century Jews tried to come into God’s presence through a series of rules and rituals called the Law. The Law was difficult, expensive, time consuming. The grueling low paying work of shepherding made it impossible that the shepherds could come follow the law. But by faith they come to the manger and gaze on Christ and are united to God in the Gospel of Christ. Remember always the Lutheran tradition of the Law/Gospel distinction. The Law shows us that by our own effort we cannot come to God but the Gospel is the news of what has been done for us in Christ.

Spurgeon on coming to Christ

When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death,—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then, lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said,—I did not take much notice of it,—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, “Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.”

It was faith that saved Spurgeon that day, it is faith that brought those shepherds to the manger, and it is faith that has saved all of you.

The final point I want to make with you is my own little pet project about Christmas. It is that we all have the joy of regularly journeying to Bethlehem with the Shepherds to behold the Christ. Jesus is the bread of Life, his words not mine. He is born to Bethlehem, which means the house of bread, and he is laid in a manger, which is a container for food. The feast of the Christmas is the celebration that the bread of life has come to be our food of eternal life. And when we celebrate the Eucharist we are celebrating that reality. Next weekend will be the first Sunday of the month, communion Sunday. Pastor Keith will take you to this manger where you will be fed by the bread from heaven. Go home prepare your self to receive this Holy Food, and by faith extend your hands eat. Merry Christmas.