"The Child Glad to Be Born"
#91-51Presented on The Lutheran Hour on August 18, 2024
By Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer, Guest Speaker
Copyright 2024 Lutheran Hour Ministries
Reflections
Text: Luke 2
O Child of Bethlehem, You went from the manger to the cross. You suffered a terrible death, but now You live and give us joyful life. We thank You for coming into our world of sin and sorrow and death. We thank You, Jesus, that You, the eternal and divine Son of God, were pleased to become also a human being, born of the Virgin Mary. You came to free us from sin and death and Satan. You come to comfort us in every time of trouble and temptation. One day You will receive Your faithful into the eternal and unending joys of heaven. Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born on Christmas morning. Jesus, to Thee, be glory given. Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. Oh, come, let us adore Him. Oh, come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
Did you ever wish you hadn't been born? That's a downbeat way to begin a Christmas message, I know. But if you want this to be an uplifting Christmas, let's face it. Most of us have times when we wish we hadn't been born. Sometimes those feelings pass, but sometimes they hang on and they draw us to do things we shouldn't do. Your husband beats you. You're making up lies to friends about those bruises. You can't bring yourself to leave him. You feel trapped and don't have the will to get out. Sometimes you wish you'd never been born. You're alone. No family close by. Your friends and co-workers are keeping Christmas with their families, but you're alone. Maybe you didn't even bother to put up Christmas decorations. Some days you wish you hadn't been born. You're broke. You're getting phone calls and threatening letters from people you owe. There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. You're starting to think about some desperate solutions to your financial problems.
There's an empty spot this Christmas in your home and your heart. Someone you love has died. You had a good life with him, with her, but now your life has no joy, no meaning, and you think that maybe you'd be better off dead, too. Are those depressing thoughts for a holiday season? Sure, they are. But tell me, what do you want? Do you want a Christmas that gives you nothing more than temporary relief? Do you want only a day or two in the glitter and then back to what seems to be your useless existence? Or do you want to look at your life and say "I'm glad I was born." Do you want to look at the problems of your life—and they may be severe problems, I'm not trying to minimize that—yet, still be able to say "Life is good"? That's where I want to take you in this holiday broadcast. I want you to say "I'm glad I was born." The power to say that comes from Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ was a Child who was glad to be born. He wanted to be born. No other human being has ever said that. You and I didn't exist before our conception. God the Father knew you would be conceived and born. He looked ahead to you with love, but you didn't exist until you were conceived. No human being has ever wanted to be born, except Jesus. The Christ Child is the eternal Son of God. As the church confesses in the Creed, "Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds. God of God, Light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father." This eternal Son of God wanted to be born. God the Father wanted to send Him into the world. So, God, the Holy Spirit conceived Him in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
Martin Luther put this truth in poetic form in his hymn, "Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice." "God said to His beloved Son: 'It's time to have compassion. Then, go bright Jewel of My Crown, and bring to all salvation. From sin and sorrow set them free. Slay bitter death for them that they may live with You forever.' The Son obeyed His Father's will, was born of virgin mother. And God's good pleasure to fulfill, He came to be my Brother. His royal power disguised He bore. A Servant's form, like mine, He wore to lead the devil captive." Yes indeed, God's Son wanted to be born. He wanted to come on a rescue mission to free you from sin and sorrow and from death itself. He was glad to do this for you because He's the only One who could do it.
It should be obvious that you can't free yourself from sin and sorrow and death. If you think that a better medicine or a better psychologist or a new government program is going to free you from sin and sorrow and death, you're kidding yourself. Medicine and counselors and programs have important places, but they can't free you from sin and sorrow, and death. The Son of God was glad to be born because He's the only One who can truly set you free. As Jesus Himself says in John 8, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." So, He was born. He was born for all, but most especially, He was born for you.
That story is told in Luke 2, "And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place when Quirinius was governing Syria. So, all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with Child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." That was the beginning of some 30 years that He was visible on earth. In many ways, Jesus, the holy Son of God was like the rest of us here on earth. He grew up, He ate and drank. He worked and rested.
When the Gospel of John talks about Jesus and says the Word became flesh, it means that He really became flesh. Though He was sinless, He was no imaginary Superman. The bullets didn't bounce off of Him. He felt the pain. He especially felt the pain when they nailed Him to the cross. Christmas is finally about the cross. My church in Collinsville always saves the Christmas tree. One of the men takes the trunk and fashions it into the shape of a cross. That Christmas tree turned into a cross is brought into the church in Lent. Christmas is ultimately about the cross. Jesus wanted to be born and Jesus was born so that He could go to the cross and pay to the holy and perfect God the price for your sins. When His suffering and death had satisfied God, God restored His dear Son Jesus to life.
Jesus is not dead now, He's alive. He lives to give to you forgiveness of sins, life, and an eternal salvation. That's why we love Him. At least I do. I certainly hope you love Jesus. St. Peter writes, "You never saw Him but you love Him. You do not see Him now, but you believe in Him, and a joy unspeakable and wonderful fills you with delight." Joy, delight, do you see? The Child who wanted to be born can make you glad to be alive. That joy for living comes when you hear His story. The word of Jesus brings joy. It's been that way from day one. The word of the Savior's birth brought joy to the shepherds.
Listen, "Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign for you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.' And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest. And on earth, peace, good will toward men.'"
Those shepherds pursued the joy of life. They went to Jesus. "So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, 'Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.' And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger." Please do the same. Go after the joy of living that Jesus alone can give. You don't have to make a pilgrimage to Bethlehem. He's no longer confined to a manger. He's not confined to some location in heaven either. Jesus Christ, divine and human, meets you in His Word, His Gospel, His Bible.
He who wanted to be born and was now wants to be born in your heart. When you hear His good news, the things I'm talking about right now. When you open His book, His Bible, that's sort of the spirit that turns your sadness into joy. When you believe that Jesus' birth is not just another part of the mythology that has grown up about Christmas. But rather the birth of this divine Child is what gives meaning to Christmas and to life itself. When the Spirit of God brings these truths and words into your heart, then a joy unspeakable and wonderful fills you with delight. The poet Phillips Brooks put it this way, "O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell, oh, come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel."
One of the ornaments that's always brought out at Christmas is Charles Dickens' story, A Christmas Carol. It's so familiar that I fear we might miss its impact. These would be good days for you to read some of Dickens' other novels because Dickens wrote about people who still live, people who have little or nothing going for them, people who are victimized, people who sometimes lose hope and despair. Louisa Gradgrind was such a person. She's one of the characters in Dickens' novel Hard Times. Born in the industrial city of Coketown, Louisa's parents had money, but they did a terrible job of raising her. It wasn't that they ignored or abused her. No, not that. They failed to teach her love and the things of the heart. As an adult, she finally confronted her father.
"What is it, Louisa? Tell me what is the matter?" he said.
"Father, you have trained me from my cradle?"
"Yes, Louisa."
"I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny," she said.
He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating, "Curse the hour? Curse the hour?"
"How could you give me life and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, O father, what have you done?"
There are going to be days when you feel like Louisa. Someone, something, takes the joy of Christmas and drives it away. All of a sudden, you who are glad to be alive feel like Louisa. You curse the day you were born. When those feelings come, as they probably will, meet them with the word of Jesus, remember why He wanted to be born. Sin and sorrow and death are real things. Jesus wanted to be born and was born to free you from them. When you're feeling down, way down, the Good News of Jesus, His Gospel, the pages of His Bible can put joy back into your life. St. Paul writes in Galatians 5:1, "Christ has freed us so that we will be free. Stand firm then and do not get caught again under a yoke of slavery." And when you meet someone who's down, someone like Louisa, cursing the day of her birth, extend to them the hope of Christ. Tell them the wonderful reason why we celebrate Christmas.
Remember what the shepherds did. "Now, when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds." You and I have a story to tell that will make people marvel. You and I can tell those who despair, those who have been victimized, those who are hurting. You and I can tell those who wish they had never been born about this Child who was glad to be born and who can give them joy.
"Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them." Let our gladness have no end, Hallelujah! For to earth did Christ descend, Hallelujah! On this day, God gave us Christ His Son to save us-Christ, His Son to save us. Amen.
Reflections for August 18, 2024
Title: Christmas in August
Mark Eischer: Thanks for making The Lutheran Hour part of your week. And thank you for your faithful support throughout the year. To learn how your gifts and prayers help in Bringing Christ to the Nations—and the Nations to the Church, go to lutheranhour.org. To introduce today's message, here is Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Mike Zeigler: Dr. Broge and I are continuing as your conversation partners during these August programs as we revisit some classic sermons from our archives. Today we're going to hear a Christmas sermon, and two weeks ago we started with an Easter sermon.
Jason Broge: We're all out of order right now.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah, all out of order.
Jason Broge: Heard about Christmas in July, but this is Christmas in August. When we did the Easter sermon, we spent some time talking about how Easter was a term the early English-speaking church borrowed from the culture surrounding them. It was originated from a springtime festival, which was likely connected to the name of a pagan goddess, I think you said.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah. So we get this from a writing by a British monk named Bede. He's sometimes called the Venerable Bede. Wouldn't that be great if that was your name? The Venerable Jason? The Venerable Bede, he lived in England around 700 A.D. And he explains in this work that Old English speakers called the month of April, Easter, e-o-s-t-e-r, it was spelled, Easter month. And it was named after a goddess of theirs called Eoster. But he says Christians in England now use that old name, Easter, but they use it to refer to the Pascal season. Remember, Pascal is a reference to the Jewish Passover that Jesus fulfilled in His death and resurrection, which happened in fact during the season of Passover, and is celebrated every year in association with Passover.
Jason Broge: It's an example of how Christians order their seasons differently—sometimes borrowing from the customs of the cultures around them but filling them with new meaning, meaning that centered on God's promises fulfilled in Christ. The celebration of Christmas, it turns out, is similar. The winter solstice, the time of year when the day is shortest and night is longest was celebrated by ancient Romans. But as the Good News of Jesus spread across the Roman Empire, Christians started reclaiming this holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Mike Zeigler: So, one of the ways that Christians filled that holiday with new meaning was in relation to light. Many ancient Roman Christians believed that it was fitting to celebrate the birth of Jesus who is the true Light of the world during that winter solstice because that was the time when the natural light was at its low point but was steadily growing brighter and brighter. And it's appropriate to celebrate the birth of Jesus then because the Light of the world has come into the world and is growing brighter and brighter.
Jason Broge: It's a way of us remembering that the night of sin and death is over, and the true Light is already shining. As the book of Romans says, "The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."
Mike Zeigler: And that's the theme of this Christmas-time sermon from Dr. Dale Meyer. The hope that we have in Jesus, even in our darkest times.
********QA CONTINUES AFTER THE SERMON*******
Mark Eischer: That was Dr. Dale Meyer with a Christmas sermon from December 1992. You're listening to The Lutheran Hour, and this is Archives August. You'll find FREE online resources and other previous messages at our website, lutheranhour.org. Now back to Michael Zeigler and Jason Broge.
Mike Zeigler: Dr. Meyer's Christmas-time sermon helps us hold onto the simple truth that God's Son Jesus was glad to be born. He created all things with His Father; He existed from all eternity, and in time, in the fullness of time, He was glad to be born for us and among us. And if we didn't pause at Christmastime to reflect on this, the Incarnation, the birth of the Son of God, we might miss this truth of the Gospel. So, Jason, we've been talking about the church calendar. How does the church calendar help us embrace the full work of Christ, the full work of what Jesus has done for us?
Jason Broge: Well, there's more ways in which we could possibly sum up in a conversation that we only have a few minutes for. But here we are at Christmastime, and so it may be a good place for us to start is this thing that we go right through all the time, this idea of Emmanuel, God with us, that Christ is with us. He went before us, He goes with us, and He is there to bring us to the end.
Mike Zeigler: Two weeks ago, we heard a sermon from Dr. Seltz and he had this image of this woman in East Germany leaping over the wall, the Berlin Wall, and being caught by the firemen. And so, in a sense, she was rescued by the firemen. We talk about God as our Rescuer. But then imagine if one of those firemen said to that widow, "Come and stay with me. I'm going to adopt you into my family. I want you to live with me. I want to live with you and so that you can be part of our family." This is what you're saying, that when God saves us, it's not just out of the fire and onto something else, but into His family, to dwell with us. And Christmas is exactly what we hear—that God was pleased to dwell with us.
Jason Broge: And we find that, as you just said, "into His family," we become children of God in Christ's death, in Christ's resurrection. Because of Him, we are adopted into God's family. And so, this becomes our story, too.
Mike Zeigler: And so the family calendar that we have in the Christian faith is oriented around the birth, the life, the suffering, the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the giving of the Spirit by the Son of God and the return of the Son of God to renew all things. That's how our calendar is shaped.
Jason Broge: And church year, the church calendar, gives us a different narrative than the world around us of who we are. It gives us a different view of our past, a different view of our future, and that shapes how we live every day in the here and now.
Mike Zeigler: And by the calendar moving forward, it doesn't allow us to get stuck in one place in the story. It's going to quickly move us forward past that time of waiting into this time of fulfillment and the presence of the Holy Spirit, where now we are with Jesus and on a mission with Him, but then is also going to bring us back to Advent to remember that we're still waiting for more.
Jason Broge: This is one of the beautiful things about the church here, right, is its cyclical nature. C.S. Lewis would talk about this, and he would say that one of the nice things about these seasons of the church here is it keeps everything predictable, orderly, stable, while also everything new, fresh, and exciting. This focuses us on the whole counsel of God, the whole life of Christ, the whole cycle and narrative of our lives in Jesus. But also, each season has its own fresh spin, its own thing we're looking forward to, its own thing we're excited to follow.
The other nice thing about being a cycle is when you learn something new the first time through, you only catch some of the details, right? When you go through it again, you catch some nuances you miss the first time. And that makes it all the more interesting and all the more exciting. And when you go through again a third time, you'll get a deeper understanding. Think of a mystery that you just didn't see the end coming. And the second time you go through it, you go, "Oh, wow!"
Mike Zeigler: There is that clue.
Jason Broge: These clues ...
Mike Zeigler: I missed that first time.
Jason Broge: And then you come back to it years later and you read it or watch it again, depending on the type of media you're consuming, and you find, wow, the author really was a genius because of what they did with the characters and the structure and how they perfectly set this up to both reveal everything and confuse me simultaneously. Well, in a similar way, when we go through the church year, we're encountering the narrative of all creation, again and again and again. And we're finding out just how magnificent, amazing—and whereas we grow deeper and deeper into that narrative—that the Author really is.
Mike Zeigler: So, join us again next week as we talk more about how Christians order time, how we see time, how we've been brought into God's family, and we are learning to follow His calendar around His Son.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
"Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice" sung by the Concordia Seminary Chorus. Used by permission.
"O God, My Faithful God" From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.
