Christmas Eve Service

Welcome & Recognition of Grief

Welcome to our Christmas Eve service. The past month we have been celebrating the glories of Christmas. We have marveled over the incarnation of God as he became flesh to rescue us from death.

And tonight on the eve of Christmas day we gather together to worship our good God!

Tonight as God’s people we want to take time to remember and think deeply about what matters most…to think about the depth of his love for us...

And as we start tonight I want us first to acknowledge that with Christmas, for many of us it is a time of mixed emotions. We glory in Christmas and we grieve those we have lost. We remember with a mix of joy and tears past Christmasses with our loved ones.

Grief is okay and our God is big enough to comfort us in it. And sometimes bad advice is given to those who grieve— “Just forget about the past---you can’t do anything about it. Why bring it up?”

This is bad advice. Because we don’t want to forget our loved ones.

Now we’re going to play a song and during this time I invite you to remember your loved one, thank God for the time that you had with them, and cast your grief on our God’s able shoulders. Listen to the words and pray for those who are near you if you haven’t lost anyone.

[PLAY BEHOLD HIM]

Pray a prayer of grieving.

Now as we look forward...

Tonight we are gathered to remember and renew our hope in a true and ancient story...

A story that has its beginning before the birth of Jesus. It is the story of a broken and wayward people and the God who loves them. The God who always pursues them. It’s our story.

So tonight listen closely to the thread that connects the tapestry of this story as it is told in song and Scripture.

Our story begins with the very first pages of recorded history where our Bible begins...

Continuing the Story

“He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.”

This prophecy is a promise of hope that concludes the rocky beginnings of humanity—for the heel is Christ’s and the head belongs to Satan.

God would fight for the freedom of His people. He would fight for their freedom from the slavery of sin.

No one could have guessed at his battle plan for our freedom. His plans would defy human reason at times.

But His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts.

God would use the faith of a man named Abraham. And God would use his family to bring the Savior to the world.

But first God would test Abraham’s faith.

Continuing the Story

Please sit

Hundreds or years pass and as God promised Abraham’s family grows into a mighty nation of people.

But not all the people of this nation embraced the faith of Abraham.

Israel would wax and wane in its faithfulness to God. They were meant to be a light to the surrounding nations, but instead they would adopt those nations idolatry. And they would break their covenant with God that he made through Abraham.

And so God allowed Israel to have what they desired and they were conquered by these nations. And they were led into slavery.

Now they were slaves to sin and slaves to men.

And it seemed that the glimmer of hope, the promise of rescue was lost. But God always keeps his promise and so he gave Israel the prophets.

Prophets like Isaiah would foretell in great detail of the coming of the Messiah, of the fulfilling of the promise. The prophets would tell of the hope and the peace and the freedom that Jesus would bring.

Continuing the Story

“Emmanuel has come to thee...”

We know that the prophets prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Jesus the Christ, but tragically most in Israel did not believe this to be true. They did not welcome Jesus as the “One Born to se them free”.

God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.

His plan to save humanity is not filled with the strong, wise, and powerful, but it is laden with the weakest and lowliest of the human race—for here, amongst the needy, is where God’s glory and strength would shine the brightest.

And so the light that would bring life to all men would come from the splendor of heaven to the humblest of birthplaces—a stable barn meant for animals.

Continuing the Story

And so this story of ours finds its way, at last, to Bethlehem. It finds its way to the birth of the one who is called Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins.

For centuries, even mellenia, the our loving God has been pursuing his people who stray from Him. He would not cease until he had accomplished their rescue.

The prophets hinted at it. The seed of Adam who would bruise the serpent’s head…the story of Abraham and Isaac and the sacrifice that God would provide to spare Isaac’s life…the prophet Isaiah, predicated this 500 years before the first Christmas...

That one would be born who would be called Wonderful Counseolor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

And at last he comes! The long awaited messiah, the savior of God’s people is born at Bethlehem…the Word becomes flesh.

Jesus came to bear the love of God to us! This Christmas have you accepted this gift from God to you? Are you found in the rescue of Jesus. This rescue is for all the wandering and broken—it is for all peoples. You are here tonight to either celebrate this because you have it—or to get it so you can celebrate it.

This is the great and true meaning of Christmas, this ancient story is our story. It is about God rescuing us. And Christmas reminds us every year that God has accomplished that rescue in coming of Christ. When God became flesh for our rescue.

(Light Candles as you say this) The light of Christ has been lit and now we pass this light symbolically to one another as a reminder that God loves His people. Christ came to make known this love.

1 John 4:9-11 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

As we pass these lights to one another, let us sing Silent Night.

Closing Prayer