The Nativity of Our Lord

Sermon for Christmas Eve

Luke 2:1-14

December 24th, 2025

Christmas Eve is unlike any other night of the church year. It’s not that it’s the best night or that it somehow surpasses Good Friday, it doesn’t, but there is no Good Friday without Christmas Eve. We need the angels, and the shepherds, and Joseph and Mary, and the manger and the tiny babe wrapped in swaddling cloths in order to get to the Cross.

Every event of the salvation story from the very beginning to the end of Scripture is necessary for our salvation. Christ’s birth, His perfect life, suffering, death and resurrection and ascension all done for us.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. He has freed us from our sins by His blood. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Word made flesh manifest for you. The story of the journey to the Cross to make full atonement for our sins begins tonight in word and song even as the journey is now finished and we feast on the fruits of His atonement in the Sacrament tonight.

The pinnacle of the life of Jesus is His suffering and death on the Cross. That’s the place of the new creation. That’s where Jesus deals with your sin. It’s the reason we should have a corpus, the body of Jesus on every cross you see in the church. His body nailed to the wood with blood streaming visually confesses what an empty cross cannot. It shows the love of God in flesh and blood suffering and dying, the sacrifice needed to save us. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

The cross with a corpus is a beautiful thing. Our eyes need to see the love of God confessed visually. That’s good for the children. It brings a fuller meaning to the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths they see lying in the wooden manger every Christmas. If they get used to seeing the corpus of Jesus on the wood of the cross, then every Christmas the wood of the manger will point to the tree where that infant was destined to give His life into death for them. That babe wrapped came to grow into a man and be lifted up for them. It’s beautiful. Let them see it.

When I was at St. Paul in Fort Wayne as the principle of the school I had a crucifix in my office. It’s the one that’s hanging in my office here. In my Fort Wayne office it was hung at eye level so the kids could see it better. Many of the kids in the school didn’t attend church. They didn’t know what this Jesus dying on the cross thing was all about. They didn’t know the true meaning of Christmas was found in that flesh and blood lifted up to die for their sins.

I remember one day a young girl came in, probably 7 or 8 years old, and she just stood there staring at the crucifix. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. And then she slowly took her finger, reached out and traced the bloody scar where Jesus side had been pierced. “What’s that?” she asked. I said, it shows the blood Jesus shed for your sins. She won’t ever forget that image or the words about her Savior.

That’s the Gospel in a nutshell both in image and word. Put a corpus on every cross in the church. If not for yourself, then do it for the children. Everything in this space confesses something.

That’s why the baptismal font is uncovered and filled with water. When you see that water you remember that you are baptized into Jesus death and then raised to new life. The water confesses. The eight sides are the new creation. You are a new creation baptized into Jesus. If you dare to dip your fingers in the water and cross yourself, don’t worry, it’s not holy water. Dipping and crossing yourself is a simple confession that I am baptized into Jesus. His death is my death. His resurrection is my resurrection to eternal life. It’s a good thing. Let the children see it. Teach them to do it.

This chasuble I am wearing is a Christian confession. It’s a reminder of being covered in the blood and perfect righteousness of Jesus. It also tells you tonight we will receive the true body and blood of Jesus Christ. It’s only worn when there is communion.

At the center of everything we do in the church is the atonement. Jesus death on the Cross for your sins. Tonight see the manger and the baby wrapped in cloths and see the flesh and blood of God that came to live and die for you. It’s the true meaning of Christmas and the reason we gather tonight to confess and remember that our God had to be born in our flesh of a virgin, in humility, so He could grow under the Law, sinless. Live a full life, experience and overcome everything in the flesh for you and then go to that cross and suffer and die and then rise again.

That’s what it’s all about. From the manger to the cross to the tomb to, to hell and back, satan defeated, sin and death abolished and now ascended to the right hand of God. And He brings it all to you in words.

Yes, tonight is one of the best nights in the church year. Tonight we see with eyes of faith as we hear the word and sing the songs and reflect on the images of the Son of God born in humility, destined to die with thieves on tree lifted up. A beautiful story. A heroic ending. Tonight is all about the Word of God become flesh that He might go to the Cross for you.

The course begins in Bethlehem and takes us into Holy Week and Good Friday and then the Resurrection - Easter. Good Friday is the greatest night in the Church year. Easter is the greatest morning of the church year. But not without tonight. We need tonight to get to the Cross.

There is something about tonight. The sights and sounds, the cold December air and the scents of the season. Children, excited and dressed in their Christmas best. Even the adults tend to step it up a notch and dress a little sharper and appear a little more joyous than normal. There’s something about the little town of Bethlehem under the moon and stars and the angels and shepherds and the lowly infant that brings out the best in people, even if only for an hour. There is hope.

Hearing the story, singing the songs, seeing friends and families, there is a sense that despite how things are going in your life and the world around you, maybe there is hope beyond tonight. And indeed there is. That’s what Christmas is all about. Hearing that there is still hope in the midst of the muck and the mud of life. Belief that when everything seems to be finished and over, suddenly God is found in the most unexpected ways and places.

He brings the gift of that first Christmas Eve right here to you in Words read, songs sung and images that confess. And the body and blood that laid in that manger, so tender and innocent, grew into a man, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is given to you tonight in the bread and the wine. Your sins are forgiven as you are taken into heaven even here on earth.

And it’s the words that matter. They bring us Jesus in His fullness. For if Christ’s birth, His life, His suffering, death and resurrection were not comprehended in words for faith to cling to, then that one night in Bethlehem would have been for naught. And a death on a Cross outside Jerusalem, inaccessible. But it’s all here in Words that are read, songs that are sung, and images that confess. The whole story of salvation delivered to you in God’s Word. And faith hears and clings to the story told, which is more than a story. Because the story told is Jesus the Word of God made flesh for you. That Word creates the faith needed to cling to those Words.

Our eyes of flesh so often deceive us. What we want and expect from God is often not what we see or experience in life. It seems as though the joy of Christmas is something we only hope to experience once a year. But the true joy of Christmas isn’t found in a lighted tree, a perfect gift, delicious food, or drink, or even the company of those we love.

The true joy of Christmas is found in the dirt and the muck! The revelation of a Savior that takes away fear in the midst of chaos, doubt, and uncertainty. Even a Savior lying in a dirty manger because that babe wrapped in swaddling cloths is the creator of the universe. Conceived, born, suffered, crucified, died, buried and risen for you.

Tonight look in the manger, find God in the dirt and manure, covered in straw, wrapped in the cloths of Holy Scripture. Let those ragged, lowly cloths of Scripture speak and point you to Christ crucified, so you can see and believe.

Tonight, our eyes of faith behold our lowly Savior in the words we hear, sing, and speak, and in the beautiful images that remind us of the true meaning of Christmas. The babe in whom we find refuge from all our ills born to be lifted up for you.

Tonight, hear the readings, sing the songs, see the manger and the crucifix and see poverty and love, meekness and might, rejection and deliverance, death and life and find forgiveness and peace. Peace on a cold, dark winter’s night. Christmas Eve, where Jesus takes us where we can’t take ourselves, into heaven, even here on earth, Thanks be to Jesus. In Jesus name. Amen.