122405 Christmas Eve Sermon
Sermon: Christmas Eve Program Based on Quempas, stanza 3, and Luke 2
Introduction
Our Advent mid-week theme this year was based on The Quempas Carol. This Carol arose in the Middle Ages somewhere in Bohemia. The action in it is sometimes portrayed by groups of singers who parade around the church while singing. There is a great deal of activity in the Quempas as there was all the coming and going that attended our Lord’s birth: awed shepherds, westward faring sages, holy family, and resounding angels. Tonight we have heard of the whole reason for this carol and for Christmas.
Sing with Mary, virgin mother;
Praise her Son, our newborn brother;
Angel ranks, lead one another,
Hailing him in holy joy!
God’s own Son is born a child;
God the Father is reconciled!
That God is reconciled is a marvelous wonder. The Christmas story revealed in Luke 2 might not seem too important to anyone at first glance. But that’s because our human senses are dulled. It takes more in terms of God’s revelation to man to get through our dullness and awaken our spirit to know the importance of this miraculous birth of the Savior of all mankind. So, let me review the rest of the story with you.
Verses 1–5
And there was a decree from Caesar Augustus.
Verses 1-5 says: “there was a decree from Caesar Augustus. So, what is a decree? That is a word seldom used these days. Modern governments don’t issue decrees. They issue laws. The term “Law” seems to have less negative baggage attached to it than decree. But, the two words amount to the same thing. Some might argue that the only good thing about laws today is that they allow us to pay our taxes online rather than making us walk to our ancestral home, like Joseph and Mary. The point is this: the decrees, laws, and requirements for them, is not unlike our own. The law culture of humanity has not changed.
Christmas is not about obedience to the decrees of our culture. Last Sunday we had our three children, and four grandchildren, and Bonnie’s mother with us. We celebrated our oldest granddaughter’s 6th birthday and Christmas all at the same time. When all the gifts were opened, I asked the grandchildren, “What is Christmas all about? And, what is the greatest gift of all?” With all the trappings and wrappings, glitter and glamour, it’s easy to lose the meaning of Christmas and get lost in the cultural laws of the season. You see, the only one who can take Christ out of Christmas is we ourselves. Laws can’t do it. Only unbelief! And, if we do that, the most valuable gift, small and seemingly insignificant as it is, will be lost in all the clutter and trappings of culture, law or no law.
No, what comes to us from God the Father is his Son, the perfect gift. Forget all the hype and hoopla of cultural decrees about Christmas. Christmas is not about dogmas and decrees, or cultural requirements. No, Christmas is about that which is sung in the Quempas.
“God’s own Son is born a child;
God the Father is reconciled!”
Verses 6–7
And there was no place for them.
Verses 6-7 of the text tells us there was no proper place for this child to be born. But it wasn’t as though Joseph had forgotten to make reservations. There were not such things. It isn’t as though people in Bethlehem were inhospitable that causes there to be “no-room-in-the-inn.”
No, there was no place for him because there never is a place for Christ in the world. Neither human hearts nor homes are open to a God so radical as to be born a human child. And what is this about us being sinners? Speak for yourself, man! Sadly, in spite of our God’s tenacious and long-suffering grace, the world of unbelief provides no proper place for him.
Even so, so stubborn is God’s love us that he allows his Son to come even where his Son is hated, rejected, persecuted, and put to death on the cross! So stubbornly does God love us that he sends his Son to be one of us, to be our human brother! And he does it even when there is no place for His Christ—His anointed. Into a world that considers him to have no place, and to be out of place, God’s goal is to be with those who have been displaced, those out of place, those whose place remembers them no more. Have you thought about what the people affected and displaced by Katrina might be thinking right now? Might they be thinking, like so many think of the government, “Where is God?” I can tell you. God is everywhere faith receives Him. And the place is not earth-bound, but heaven sent. Consider the depth of Mary’s prophetic song: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble” (Luke 1:52 NIV). So we sing …
“Mary, virgin mother; Praise her Son, our newborn brother.”
“God’s own Son is born a child; God the Father is reconciled!”
Verses 8–14
There has been born for you today a Savior.
In verses 8-14 we are told about the angel host appearing to mere shepherds. Shepherds were outcasts from the culture of the day. They were rustics, simple people, people we might call country bumpkins. They have nothing to share with the child born in Bethlehem except rejection from the culture of religious elites.
But to these lowly souls comes an exalted proclamation. “Today … a Savior has been born to you” (v. 11 NIV). Mark these words! The angel says stop being afraid and then tells them why: “A Savior has been born to you.” I find it rather amazing that God would bother with the lowliest of society to reveal His salvation. I find it magnificently marvelous, that He counts sinful people like me to be worth dying for. It’s really rather shocking to hear the angel say, “for you.” “For you!”
Hear the message of the Quempas:
“Angel ranks, lead one another, Hailing him in holy joy!
God’s own Son is born a child; God the Father is reconciled!”
Verses 15–20
They kept on saying to one another, “let’s go.”
The remaining verses leave little to do, except to receive the message as it is, God’s own word. The eternal Son who existed before the foundation of the world is born a child. I just saw a program on TV that posed the question, “How can Jesus, a baby boy, be God?” Aren’t the two antithetical to each other?” How hard-heartedly blind this question is. It reveals unbelief at its core. Nevertheless, for those touched by that blessed news life is never the same. It can only respond: “Let’s go and see.” Notice the progression of emotions in the Shepherds. They go from terror in the presence of God’s angels, to confident insistence that the thing had to be seen. They had gone from being sure that they would die to being sure that they would see the One who would die for them. There was only one thing to do, “Go and see.”
So they went. Talk about a come as you are birthday party. Shepherds who have been out in the field with sheep for several days don’t exactly smell of Ivory Spring. There was no need for them to put on airs to impress this child. The child in the manger would hardly notice that they smelled like the manger.
What a great shame it is on us to be unimpressed when He comes to us even today in Word and Sacrament. Sometimes I think, if people could only see what the shepherds saw. If people could only hear what the shepherds heard. … And then it dawns me, they have seen and they have heard the message, many times. Every year for the last two thousand years, it has been proclaimed: “A Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11 NIV). Could it be possible that when we hear the message now, we can be like the Shepherds who keep on saying to one another, “let’s go”; Yes, let’s go and keep on hearing, and keep on saying, as the Quempas does:
“Heav’nly gifts for us obtaining,
Raise your hymns of homage high!”
“God’s own Son is born a child;
God the Father is reconciled!” Amen.