Christmas Eve

Isaiah 9:2-7

What Child is This?

Have you ever held a new born baby? It doesn’t happen very often, so it’s a real treat. In that first few weeks, they’re tiny and fragile. I knew a young woman once who so afraid of breaking her newborn that her mother had to take care of him. But they’re a whole lot less fragile than they seem. Every day they get bigger and stronger and before too long, it’s hard to remember just how fragile they were. Somehow,all by themselves really, they learn to crawl, to walk, and to talk. God built that into them. Hidden inside of every newborn baby, there’s a toddler and a preschooler and a young adult just waiting to get out. You can’t see them when the child is only two weeks old, but they’re there. Much of what that baby will eventually turn out to be God builds into the package already in the mother’s womb. The greatest package that God ever put together was for the first Christmas Eve. Deep inside that child, God hid more than a toddler or an elementary schooler, more than a teenager or an adult. In addition to all those things, God hid himself in that child. That’s why we go back to Bethlehem year after year. It isn’t the nostalgia that drives my wife and me to look at the snapshots of our children when they were babies. It isn’t the wonder that I feel when I see how small they were. It’s so much more. Every year, we reach this evening and ask ourselves, What child is this? And God answers,

I. This is Jesus, the Great Light.

II. This is Christ, the King

I.

Light is one of the most familiar symbols for Jesus. But if Jesus is the light, that means that everyone who doesn’t have Jesus is in the dark. Just by saying Jesus is the light, we’re saying that before we knew him, we were in darkness. That’s exactly the point the Isaiah makes: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. Who do you think he’s talking about? He’s talking about every human being who was ever born. He’s talking about us. We all were born in the land of the shadow of death. Now, that isn’t the kind of image that we usually connect with Christmas. We think of bright, snowy days and children opening presents. But no matter how sunny it may be tomorrow, this world has been plunged into darkness. Without Jesus, Halloween would be the holiday that best represents our situation. What makes our lives so dark? Very simply: sin. How many temper tantrums will be thrown tomorrow by children who don’t get what the want? by parents who can’t put the toys together properly? by family members who are bothered by the way other relatives are behaving? Those tantrums are sins. But God condemns even the feelings that cause the tantrums. The eye that looks at what my brother got and concludes, “I got shafted!” The question we ask in our hearts, “Why don’t I ever get what I want?” They show the greed that lives there. When someone we love appreciates the gift someone else gave more than what we gave, or when another member of our family just has more money to spread around on Christmas and we get angry, we sin. All those sinful feelings come from the fact that all of us are sinful from the moment that we are conceived. Our hearts simply are not right with God. That is the darkness that we were all born into.

But the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. As great a wonder as it is to hold a baby in your arms the day that it’s born, the first Christmas Eve presented an even greater miracle. God, the greatest light of all, was set in human flesh. The light of Christ began to shine already in the manger. Since nobody would have thought that a baby in a feed box could possibly be anyone important, God lit the light of Christ by sending angels to tell shepherds what had happened. God provided worshippers from the humblest ranks of society, and then he sent them out to shine the light of Christ -- they told people what they had heard and seen. So the light of Christ began to shine. It shone for the next thirty-three years, as Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. It shone during the three years when Jesus pointed his people to heaven and underlined his testimony with miracle after miracle. That light shone from the manger all the way to the cross, where light and shadow finally met -- and darkness lost. There, Jesus triumphed over all the Halloween in us and left only the Christmas and the Easter. On the cross, Jesus paid for all the sin we are born with in our hearts. He paid for the greed and anger and hurt that drive us away from God. He paid for the temper tantrums and every other sin we’ve ever committed. Now they’re gone, erased from God’s sight. We are forgiven. On Easter, God proved that the light didn’t go out when Jesus died. In fact, Easter makes the light of the cross and the manger shine more brightly, because on Easter we see everything that God built into this child. We see the miracle and the wonder that God made him to be. We see the eternal life our God and Savior gives us.

Walking in the light is pure joy. It’s no accident that the most fun hymns to sing are Christmas carols. Isaiah compared the joy of the dawning of the light to the celebration of harvest time. Harvest was the big payoff. It was the time when all the work actually made money. We’re accustomed to drawing a pay check every week or twice a month, but imagine what it would be like to only get paid a couple of times a year. I suppose we could compare it to the joy and excitement we would experience if we went on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and actually won. Except we’ve hit a far greater jackpot. We’ve won eternal life through Jesus Christ. Isaiah also compares the joy of living in the light with victory. He compares Jesus’ coming to the feeling that his people experienced when Midian was defeated. Remember the story of Gideon? The Midianites had invaded, but miraculously, God saved his people with a handful of men who lit torches and blew trumpets and the enemy panicked and killed each other. There may be a few people here who remember the excitement of the day World War II ended. The joy of Christmas is greater, because it’s the joy of eternal life.

We should celebrate this holiday. But you know what? There was no Christmas tree on the night Jesus was born. You don’t have to have a white Christmas for it to be Christmas. You don’t have to give or receive presents. You don’t have to sip eggnog or deck the halls with boughs of holly or string up lights. One crucial thing happened on the first Christmas night: a child was born. A baby who looked and felt and sounded just like every other baby. A baby that God promised he would send. A baby who was the light of the world and whose light shines from the manger to cross of Calvary to the empty tomb and to eternal life. A baby whose light has changed our lives forever. What child is this? This is Jesus, the Great Light.

II.

Ever since my children were born, I’ve tried to imagine what they would be like when they were three or five or twenty. But it’s hard to do. I couldn’t picture their faces as they are today when they babies. Even less their personalities. You can’t see what God has built into them. But the future that God had in store for Jesus was even harder to see because you couldn’t tell by looking at him what Jesus really was. God built something into him that he never put into any other baby -- God put himself.

But God said he was going to do that 700 years before it happened. Isaiah wrote this prophecy so that the shepherds and later the wise men and still later the people of Israel would understand who stood among them. Sadly, many of them didn’t. But Isaiah did say it very clearly: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Jesus is Wonderful. Not wonderful in the sense that we use the word today -- really, really good. Jesus is “full of wonder.” He’s a miracle. He shouldn’t have been here. It shouldn’t have been possible for God to pour all of himself into a human body and soul and be born as baby. But that’s exactly what he did. And Jesus is our Counselor. He gives us advice like no one else on earth can. Jesus shares with us the mind of God through his Word. That’s what God built into the baby in Bethlehem.

Isaiah called Jesus “Mighty God.” The Hebrew could be translated as “God our Hero.” Jesus is the one who stands up for us. But he isn’t some third rate ambulance chaser -- he’s the ultimate defense attorney. He’s God our Hero, God our Defender, God our Savior. Isaiah also called him “Everlasting Father.” That might confuse us a little bit. We usually reserve the term “Father” for God the Father, not God the Son. But there are passages in the Bible that call Jesus our Father. We are his children by faith, just as much as we are God the Father’s children by faith. Jesus our Father is everlasting. The day will come when each of us will lose our earthly father. But Jesus our Father never dies. His love and his care for us never end. Finally, Isaiah called Jesus “Prince of Peace.” Prince in Hebrew doesn’t really have the same meaning that we usually give it in English. Most of the time, when we speak of princes, we’re thinking of the sons of kings, like Prince Charles. But in the past, any great noble or king could be called a prince. Calling Jesus the Prince of Peace is calling him the Great Ruler of Peace. The peace, of course, is the peace of forgiveness. Jesus is the Great Ruler who brings us peace with God. All that God put inside that tiny, newborn baby.

God did all that to bring us to heaven. Jesus was the fulfillment of all the promises God made in the Old Testament. Isaiah pointed out that this was how God was going to fulfill the promise he had given to David that the Messiah would would rule over his Kingdom. Jesus truly was the Christ, the Messiah from God. The government is upon his shoulder. He does rule over the kingdom of David, establishing and upholding it forever. By the time Jesus was born, David’s earthly kingdom had been gone for close to six hundred years. But the true Israel, the true Kingdom of David, is the gathering of all believers. Jesus did establish that kingdom. He lived and died and rose so that we could join the true people of God. Isaiah says that his kingdom will increase forever. As long as this world lasts, the gospel will continue to shine and bring new believers into God’s kingdom. When Jesus returns, his kingdom will continue forever.

We don’t properly celebrate Christmas unless we remember who was born and why. Isaiah says, The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. Jesus was God’s Christmas present to the world. Have you ever made up your mind in advance exactly what you wanted to give your spouse or your child for Christmas? I do that. Invariably, though, the gift I want to give is too expensive or too hard to find. Almost always, I wind up having to settle for something more affordable, more practical, more in line with the material blessings our family has. But I always search for that one place where I will find what I wanted to buy at a price I can justify. God knew long before even Isaiah wrote what he wanted to give us for Christmas. He wanted to give us a baby. He wanted to give us eternal life. He wanted to give us himself. He did just that. No matter what it cost him in terms of watching his Son die or abandoning him on the cross, the Father did give us that gift. What Child is this? This is Christ, our King.

You never know what a baby is going to be until he or she becomes it. Sometimes I ask my children, “What happened to that tiny, little baby we used to have?” Hannah answers me with just a little impatience, “That baby is me!” Of course, she’s right. But it doesn’t change my sense of wonder at what that tiny baby that used to sleep right here on my shoulder has become. What happened to that tiny baby in the manger? He grew up to be Jesus, the teacher, Jesus, the man who died on the cross, Jesus, the Savior who rose from the dead. He grew up to reveal himself to us as God and ascend into heaven and rule over all the earth. You already know that and you know that he is coming back for us. But never lose the sense of wonder that God built all of that into that tiny baby in the manger. Never lose that sense of wonder that this child is the light of the word and the king of the universe. Amen.