Christmas Eve Sermon

The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. So her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.

But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

It is wonderful to have you all with us this evening as we celebrate the birth of our Savior. I know that it has been quite a crazy couple of weeks here in the Snoqualmie Valley with all the rain and massive flooding. Many have lost property due to the damage from the floods.

Maybe you have faced loss in a different way. This may be your first Christmas without a specific loved one who has passed on from this life. My family has been feeling a little bit of a loss this past week, as my grandfather’s last sibling just passed away. Great Aunt Margaret was the last surviving sibling of seven on that side of the family. Even though my grandfather has now been gone for 17 years, Aunt Margaret still gave us a little bit of a connection with him, since the family resemblance was obvious, and they shared a birthday. My grandpa used to joke that after Aunt Margaret was born, he never had another birthday.

In the midst of loss, we can struggle to face the emotions and grief that come with such loss. We may find ourselves jumping headfirst into the holidays to forget about the loss we may feel. But the Christmas season is not meant to be a sentimental escape from a world that feels like it is underwater.

In our Sunday services, we have been working through the book of Hebrews. Our series in Hebrews has been called “The Supremacy of Christ.” Tonight we see that the baby in Matthew 1–2 is the same Supreme Christ we’ve met in Hebrews: the King who enters our mess, the Priest who draws near, and the Anchor who holds when everything else gives way.

Big Idea: Christ is our King, Priest, and Anchor.

In our opening passage from Matthew 1, we see Joseph facing a difficult situation. He was engaged to a young woman named Mary, but before they married, she was with child. You can actually find the account of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary to tell her what was going to happen in Luke chapter 1.

Imagine finding out that your fiancé is pregnant, and you know the baby is not yours. I could see him dealing with anger and confusion. But in a culture where pregnancy outside of marriage was often a reason for public ridicule, Joseph did not want to do that to Mary. Matthew says that he was a righteous man and was willing to quietly divorce Mary to not bring public disgrace upon her.

But before he could do that, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream. The angel tells him that Mary has not been unfaithful to Joseph, but that the baby growing in her womb was a miracle of God. The angel also tells him to name the child Jesus. The name Jesus is actually the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name Yeshua, a derivative of the name Joshua. The name Joshua means “Yahweh saves.” So when the angel tells Joseph that Jesus will save his people from their sins, it is because that is literally what Jesus’ name actually means.

I mentioned a few times on Sunday that the reason for Christmas is not to celebrate a baby being born. The reason for Christmas is Jesus coming to earth as a human, to live a perfect life without sin, and to die a criminal’s death on the cross for our sins, taking the punishment that you and I deserve for our rebellion against God. The reason for Christmas is Good Friday and Easter —Christ’s death and resurrection.

The creator of the universe entered into messy humanity. He was tempted to sin. He got hungry. He got tired. He faced humiliation. His closest friends deserted him. He faced a death so brutal that Roman citizens were not allowed to be executed in that way.

Hebrews 2:10

For in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was entirely appropriate that God—for whom and through whom all things exist—should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

We can be brought into God’s glorious kingdom because of Christ’s suffering. The one whom Scripture calls the King of Kings and Lord of Lords humbled himself to become a child wrapped in our fragile humanity. He did not stay distant. Philippians 2 says that Jesus did not consider his equal nature with God the Father as something to exploit, saying, “I am not letting go of this. Send someone else to earth to die for their sins.”

Instead,

Jesus is our King who came down to us.

Jesus came into a messy family tree. Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, of whom the tribe and nation of Judah were named, had children through his daughter-in-law.

When we read the story of the battle of Jericho, where the walls came tumbling down, the woman who was saved because she helped the Israelites spy out the city and escape, her name was Rahab. As one of my high school English teachers once said, “She was a woman of ill-repute.”

Rahab married a man from Judah’s line and was the mother of Boaz, who married the Moabite woman Ruth, the one for whom the book of Ruth in the Bible is named. In the genealogy of Jesus, a Hebrew who descended from a people who were to separate themselves from the pagan peoples around the Promised Land, we see three Gentile women. For a Jew, that is messy.

But Jesus is not afraid of a mess. He came to this earth because of our mess. For those overwhelmed by the flood, by sin, by loss, or by failure: Christmas tells us the Supreme Christ is not allergic to your mess; he came precisely for it.

If you are here and you are not serving the Lord, you may be wondering if God can even help you. If you think you must clean up before coming to God, look at Joseph’s story—God stepped in before anyone had it figured out. God knew the plan from beginning to end.

But he is not only a King who comes down; Matthew shows he is also a Priest who feels what his people feel.

Matthew 2:1-6

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.

“In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet:

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,are by no means least among the rulers of Judah:Because out of you will come a rulerwho will shepherd my people Israel.

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,are by no means least among the rulers of Judah:Because out of you will come a rulerwho will shepherd my people Israel.”

Here in Matthew 2, we see these wise men coming to see the child Jesus. They call him the king of the Jews. Interesting that we see the wisemen call Jesus the “King of the Jews” at the beginning of his life and at the end of his life, Pontius Pilate has a sign put above Jesus’ head on the cross that said “King of the Jews.”

Well, King Herod does not like this. He likes being king. He doesn’t want anyone to take his place. So he asks the scribes to tell him where the Messiah was to be born. And they read from the prophet Micah that Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem. So Herod tells the wisemen to report back to him where the child is, so he too can worship him.

The wisemen go, give their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the toddler Jesus and his parents. When they leave, they are warned in a dream to go back home a different way and not report back to Herod. Joseph has another dream where he is told to take Mary and Jesus down to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill Jesus. So they skipped town as well.

In a rage, Herod kills all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were 2 years old or under. (The wisemen were not at the manger. This was 2 years later.) Matthew then quotes a prophecy from Jeremiah:

Matthew 2:18

A voice was heard in Ramah,

weeping, and great mourning,Rachel weeping for her children;and she refused to be consoled,because they are no more.

This is the world that Jesus stepped into. Hebrews 4 says that Jesus is our high priest who knows our weaknesses. He knows them because he entered into this world in full view of those weaknesses. He entered a world of threats, violence, and tears.

Jesus is the high priest who draws near to us.

Hebrews 5:7

During his earthly life, he offered prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death…

When we went over this passage about a month ago, we talked about how Jesus cried out to the Father on the cross. He suffered severe anxiety as he was nearing his death. When he was praying in the garden, the gospel of Luke tells us that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood. This is a medical condition where extreme anxiety causes the capillaries under your skin to burst, causing the blood to mix into your sweat glands, making it look like you are sweating blood.

Jesus knew anguish.

To those who are grieving: Christ has walked in a world where babies die, tyrants rage, and families weep; he is safe to come to with honest pain. Since Jesus has walked this same road, Hebrews 4:16 tells us:

Hebrews 4:16

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

I encourage those who need comfort, those who need rest, those who need relief, to approach the throne of God, the throne of amazing grace, asking him for the mercy to help you in your time of need.

So we have now seen Jesus as a King who comes down and a Priest who draws near. The question is: “How does that help tomorrow morning when you wake up still feeling shaken?” Hebrews gives one more picture.

Hebrews 6:17-19a

Because God wanted to show his unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

This passage in Hebrews tells us of how God can be trusted to do what he says he will do. God cannot lie. Whatever he says is going to happen will happen. So when we see God tell us in Scripture that we can have life through offering our lives to him through Jesus, it is true! Hebrews 6:19 says that hope, or the trusting in God’s truthfulness, is an anchor for our souls. That anchor cannot be moved. It is firm and secure.

Going back to the wisemen in Matthew 2, they were traveling through a land of political upheaval. But in that chaos, God led them to a real King who was worth bowing down to.

God’s unchangeable promise and oath, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. When the world feels like it is coming down around us, when the winds of change and uncertainty are blowing against our lives, God stands firm. Though our homes, routines, or plans may be washed away, God’s promises in Christ are steady and secure.

One of my favorite preachers to study, Charles Spurgeon, is credited with this quote:

I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me against the Rock of Ages.

Charles Spurgeon

What Spurgeon is saying is that the trials of life help to remind him that he cannot get through this life on his own strength. He knew his need for God’s strength, grace, and mercy to work in his life every day. And when hardship came, it pointed him to Jesus, reminding him to approach the throne of God’s grace to receive the mercy he needed to get through the day.

The question this Christmas is not whether the waters will rise, but whether you are anchored to the One who cannot be moved.

We have seen tonight how Christ is our Supreme King who came down into the mess of humanity. He is our high priest who sympathizes with us, drawing near to us in our pain. And he is a sure and steady anchor holding us firm in the storms of life.

If you are here and you do not have that security, you do not know that Jesus will be there for you in your time of need; that can change tonight. Scripture tells us that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. We simply need to submit to him, repenting of our sins, asking God to forgive us for the ways we have rebelled against him, and serve him.

This is why we celebrate Christmas. All of us have sinned, and Jesus came to save his people from their sins. He died and rose, and now calls us to turn from our sins and trust him.

I invite you today to come to the throne of grace by repentance and faith.

Next Step: I will repent and submit my life to Christ.

For those who are submitted to Christ, I want to encourage you. Bring your grief, anxiety, and uncertainty to this King-Priest-Anchor. When life is uncertain, you can be sure of Him. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. Romans tells us that God works out all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. In your trials, cling to the Rock of Ages.

Next Step: In my trials, I will cling to Christ.

There is nothing else, no one else who can keep you safe and secure in times of trouble. Hold on to the steady anchor of Jesus, for he will never let you go.

Let us pray.

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