Sermon for Christmas Eve
+ Luke 2:14 +
As you heard a moment ago from the writer to the Hebrews, When God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” And they did. First, one of them announced to the shepherds the greatest good news this earth has ever heard: “Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.” Then “a great company of the heavenly host” joined the angel – a great company, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe ten thousand times ten thousand like the company of angels who appeared to the prophet Daniel or to the Apostle John in the Book of Revelation. And they sang this glorious Song at the Advent of Christ:
Reading from the NKJV, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Glory to God in the highest – it’s ironic that the holy angels sing this song when God humbled himself to be born as a man, because it was man way back in the Garden of Eden who usurped God’s glory for himself. And we’ve been doing it ever since. Not glory to God, but “glory to me in the highest.” That has become mankind’s song, a song we learned from the devil himself.
Glory to me – what I want, what I crave, what I like, what I dislike, my comfort, my happiness, my reputation, my good deeds – this has become the mantra of man, whether we’re bold enough to say it out loud or whether we just act on our self-gratifying, self-glorifying desires. Glory to me in the highest, and glory to God, as long as he does what I think he should do and says what I think he should say.
But the angels get it right on Christmas Eve. Glory to God in the highest, because, in his righteousness, he did not let mankind’s sins go unpunished, but has sent his Son into the world to take our sin upon himself. Glory to God in the highest, because God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. Glory to God in the highest, because God, in Christ, has condescended to the lowest, taking on the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. As usual, God’s glory is in his humility.
For thousands of years the holy angels have watched in sadness as men are born, only to die – the tragic result of our own unholiness. And now they marvel as their Maker becomes man and is born of man, born to live a short life on the earth – 33 years or so – and then die, as all men die – except for one thing. This one didn’t have to. This one had no sin. This innocent child, born in Bethlehem, would die only by his own choice as the innocent Substitute for sinful men – to give to us mortals the eternal life that is only his to give.
God has taken all his glory and wrapped it up in one place, so that now, apart from Christ, there is no glory, there is no salvation. In him alone God’s glory is to be sought and found. Through faith in him alone God’s glory is sung.
And so the angels sing in joyful celebration of the righteousness and the grace of God in the birth of Christ, born of a virgin, born in Bethlehem, wrapped in strips of cloth, placed in a manger. “There is your God,” the angels tell the shepherds, “and ours. There is your Savior – yours alone, O sons of earth, not ours, for he was not born to the race of angels, but to the race of men. He is Christ – the Lord! Glory to God in the highest!
“And on earth, peace.” Really? Where? Not in the Koreas. Not in the Middle East. Not in Juarez or the rest of Mexico, for that matter. Not in the streets and the barrios of the United States. Not in every home, either. Or were the angels just singing about their wish for the earth and not what really is?
No, the angels get it right again. On earth, peace! Isn’t that what Isaiah said, too? “To us a child is born, to us a Son is given…and his name shall be called Prince of Peace… Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.” “Peace came to earth at last that chosen night,” so we’ll sing in just a moment. Peace was born – a real end of hostilities between God and man, because now God is man, which makes Christ the perfect Mediator between God and man. Outside of Christ, apart from him, there is no peace. But for all who trust in his peacemaking mission, heaven is open! God is reconciled in this child who has been born.
He also gives the peace of love between angels and people. Listen to them sing, “And on earth, peace!” Now reconciled to God through Christ, we are reconciled also to his holy angels, our dearest friends and protectors. Now reconciled to God through Christ, we have peace on earth even with fellow believers. And why not? We fight with one another when one has something the other doesn’t have. But God makes it simple. He takes our own righteousness away from every single one of us so that we see: all of us alike have nothing. We come to the table with nothing, nothing but sin and shame. But Christ is born to each of us alike – not more for one or less for another. All who trust in him are covered equally with his righteousness. There is no more reason for hostilities among us, no more reason for boasting or for pride, for we are nothing. Christ is everything. There is peace on earth among those who trust in Him.
Peace on earth, the angels sing, and urge all men to receive God’s Christmas gift of peace in his Son.
Goodwill toward men. The angels get it right. Outside of Christ, God is pleased with no man. But God’s goodwill extends toward all mankind when he gives his Son to all and says, “Here! Here is peace! Here is love and joy! Here is my goodwill, not my anger or wrath or punishment! Only Fatherly care and forgiveness! Look here, in the manger. See my goodwill toward you! Repent of your sin and believe the good news that my herald angels have sung to you!”
Now, I ask you, if God’s holy angels sing for such joy at the birth of Christ, how much more reason do we have to sing for joy? The Son of God was not made an angel, not made one of them. He was made man, made one of us. The Son of God did not enter his creation to redeem angels from their sin. They have no sin. He entered his creation to redeem fallen mankind – for us men and for our salvation. No angel can claim the Son of God as his brother. But we can! You can!
And so the Church sings this Song of Advent very often, almost every Sunday and sometimes in between. A song sung once by angels to shepherds out in the fields, this song has been sung by the saints of God – by believers in Christ for nearly two thousand years – Gloria in Excelsis, Glory be to God on high, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. We praise you, we bless you, we worship you, we glorify you, we give thanks to you for your great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty, and so on and so on and so on. We’ll sing it tomorrow morning, in its regular place in the liturgy – but now with even greater understanding, with even deeper joy. With joy in our hearts we’ve sung this song tonight many times, and we’ll go on singing it forever, this song of Advent, the song of the angels, the song of Christmas. Amen.
