Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols
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It’s clear that the Christmas season began nearly two months ago, as stores began displaying their holiday decorations in the days leading up to All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween, as some call it.
It was slightly after the beginning of November that Starbucks began selling its holiday coffees.
But don’t get me started on the Hallmark channel, which began its 24/7 programming of Christmas movies on October 17th that make you wonder every two to three hours if the down-on-her-luck girl will find Mr. Christmas in a small town or if the big city accountant who runs away from life will ever find the true meaning of Christmas.
Now, I love a good Christmas movie, a Frosty the Snowman or a little Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but have you noticed how the whole Christmas season, as the world sees it, conditions you for nearly two months?
And it’s about how Christmas begins with you—what you do, how you find and create purpose and love.
This idea really stood out to me in the movie, The Polar Express. It features a boy who has lost his belief in the Christmas stories of the world, so he boards a train on Christmas Eve in the middle of the night to go to the North Pole with other children for a magical experience.
The climax of the movie revolves around the train arriving at the North Pole just in time to see Father Christmas off, allowing one of the children to receive the first Christmas gift of the night. The challenge for the young man who plays a central role in the movie is that he cannot hear the sleighbells ring when Father Christmas appears because of his lack of faith in Father Christmas. You see, the boy no longer believes in him.
Only when the young man finds it in himself to believe in Father Christmas again does he hear the joyful ringing of the sleigh bells.
In a way, this is how you’ve been conditioned over the past two months: that the “spirit” of Christmas begins with you, that it depends on you.
That’s a heavy weight for anyone to carry, let alone a child.
But it also misses how Christmas comes to each of you…
So, what did we hear in the lessons we just read tonight?
The Angel Gabriel told Mary when she questioned the miraculous birth of the Savior,
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)
Mary didn’t do anything here; she simply received the Word of God, and the Christ Child was conceived in her womb through the work of the Holy Spirit who came upon her.
If you fast forward, the Angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds in the field, who seem to have been just doing what shepherds do, and announced to them,
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:11)
There’s nothing the shepherds did to solicit this great news and the joy that overwhelmed them; it came to them through the words of the heavenly angels.
As the prophet Isaiah wrote,
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given… (Isaiah 9:6)
Ponder these words…
The good news of Christmas doesn’t start with you; it’s not a feeling or emotion to be recreated from childhood. It’s given and announced to you through the words of God’s messengers.
To say all of this differently, Christmas is not dependent upon you, but it is because of you.
Again, Christmas is not dependent upon you, but it is because of you.
The truth is, if a successful Christmas depends on the number of gifts given or received, falling in love under the mistletoe like in the movies, or digging deep into oneself to find or create a feeling of “Christmas Spirit” so you can hear the ringing of magical bells, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
No, the joy of Christmas comes to you; it comes because of your heavenly Father’s heart and great love for you that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be born of the Virgin Mary—to redeem and rescue you.
This is why Martin Luther is correct when he said, “The manger and the cross are never far apart.”
In other words, when you approach the manger, you are already starting your journey to the cross of Good Friday, where the Christ Child dies for you.
How wonderful is this?
You have a Savior who came from heaven above to this earth below. He came for you, to save you, to forgive you, and to give you eternal life – His life.
For this reason, the Church remains His manger, where He comes to you through His Word.
The Church is His manger as He comes and is present to feed you at this altar with His flesh and blood, the food of pardon and peace.
The Church is His manger, because it’s here the true Spirit, the Holy Spirit, gathers, creates, and sustains faith in the hearts of all God’s children.
How great this is that Christmas and the Church do not depend on you, but they are for you.
Remember this….
Christmas and the Church do not depend on you, but they are for you.
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Merry Christmas!
