An unexpected Nativity with unexpected gifts

Sermon for Christmas Day

Isaiah 9:2-9  +  Luke 2:1-14

Maybe you have a Nativity set up at your house. I recommend it. It’s better than all the secular Christmas decorations combined. It’s that familiar scene of Mary and Joseph kneeling over the Christ-Child in the manger. There are usually animals nearby, and shepherds, and angels, and a star, and maybe even the wisemen, although they weren’t there yet when Christ was born. Think of how unexpected that scene was to everyone involved as it unfolded before their eyes.

Oh, those who had been paying attention to God’s revelation through the holy prophets knew that a special Child would be born. Adam and Eve knew it. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—they knew it. Moses knew it and wrote it down so that all Israel could know it, and even some outside of Israel who cared enough to study the Jewish Scriptures, like the wisemen. King David knew it. Isaiah knew it and wrote about it in the First Lesson you heard today. To us a Child is born, to us a Son is given. He even foretold that the Child would be born of a virgin. So all the faithful in Israel were certainly expecting the Messiah’s birth.

A few were given a few more details. Mary and Joseph and Gabriel knew how He was conceived. They expected with greater precision when He would be born, some nine months after He was conceived.

But no one, and I mean no one, was expecting Him to come as He did. Caesar Augustus, did you know when you decreed your census of the entire Roman world that you would be God’s instrument in getting Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where they needed to be, so that the Christ could be born there as Micah had foretold? Joseph, did you know that your wife would deliver her baby before you got back to Nazareth? Mary, did you know that you would be giving birth in a stable and laying your Son in a manger for a bed? Travelers to Bethlehem and innkeeper, did you know that, by filling the inn in Bethlehem, you would be setting the stage for the most memorable birth in history? Farmer, did you know that your hay would provide the Lord’s bedding? Builder of mangers, did you know that your craftmanship would serve the Creator? Shepherds, did you know that you would be visited by angels and become the first visitors to welcome your God to earth? The answer is, no, not at all. Did the angels know ahead of time what exactly their role would be on that first Christmas night? Almost certainly not.

But God knew what He was doing and how all these creatures, men and angels, would fit into His Nativity, at just the right time, in just the right place, and in just the right way.

Yes, even the angels were likely wonderfully surprised by how God brought His Son into the world, like their very own Christmas present to unwrap, getting to watch it all unfold and then learning that they, too, would get to be a part of the story, part of the Lord’s unexpected Nativity scene that is recreated in Christian homes and churches and yards each and every year.

And what great gifts they were given! Unexpected gifts! The holy angels got to be part of God’s grand Nativity, and their role has been commemorated by Christians for 2,000 years.

One of them was given this gift, to be privileged to proclaim to the shepherds one of the clearest, sweetest, most profound messages in the whole Bible: To you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. No celebration of Christmas is worth anything at all if it doesn’t recognize and center around the Child who lay in the manger. His identity is not insignificant. It’s everything.

A Savior! Because mankind had been enslaved in the dark dungeons of sin and condemned by God’s righteous judgment to spend eternity dying in the devil’s kingdom. Only a special Substitute could save us, a human being like us who could take our place under God’s holy Law, and fulfill it, and pay for our pardon with His own precious life. That’s the kind of Savior we needed, and it’s exactly what the angel meant when He called that Child “Savior.”

He also called Him “Christ,” the very first messenger to apply that title to Him, long before Andrew or Peter or anyone else confessed it. The long-expected Anointed One had been born, the One who would teach and preach, make atonement for sin, die and rise again, who would reign over the world and build His Church and, finally, bring judgment and justice to the world.

And the angel also called Him “the Lord,” and that’s maybe the most profound, because the word he used for “Lord” is the special Old Testament name Yahweh or Jehovah. In other words, the angel made it plain to the shepherds, this isn’t just a human Savior who has been born to you. God has now joined Himself to the human race. Jehovah has been born among you as one of you. Yahweh has been born “to you,” for you, because He loves you and wants to save you from your sins. What a gift that angel was given, to be able to proclaim that truth! What a gift you have been given to hear it proclaimed to you in the words of that angel all these years later!

That same angel was given another gift, too, to be the very first messenger to point sinners to their newly arrived Savior and tell them how to find Him. Then it was in a manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths. Now it’s in the preaching of His Word, in the waters of Holy Baptism, and in the most intimate way of all, in the bread and wine of the Christ-Mass.

Finally, a whole multitude of the heavenly host, possibly all the created angels together, were given a most wondrous gift. When the Firstborn came into the world, then the word from the Old Testament was fulfilled: Let all God’s angels worship Him! They praised God and said, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men! They praised God in heaven, and they praised God on earth as He lay in the manger, and they proclaimed the peace God had come to earth to bring, and the goodwill of God that His birth displayed. Yes, you’re sinners. But God doesn’t hate you. He gives His own Son to you as the most unexpected gift of all, persuading you to repent and to trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins.

How unexpected, that God would include you and me in His Christmas revelation and in His plan of salvation! There’s so much we don’t know about our part in the plan and the specific roles we’re going to play before it’s all done. But no one really knew what to expect before Christ’s Nativity, either, and yet God put everything and everyone in place. He’ll do the same for you and me and for His whole Church before Christ’s expected second coming, not in a humble manger, but in glory and power. He’ll come in an unexpected way, at an unexpected time, and with unexpected gifts for those who worship Him now and who are eager to worship Him them—gifts beyond our wildest imagination that God Himself will be eager to watch us unwrap! Christmas, more than any time of year, should teach us this Biblical truth: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. Amen.