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Christmas Eve, 12/24/2010
Sermon on Luke 2:1-14, by Lucy Lind Hogan
“You Shall Call Him . . .”
Merry, Merry Christmas to you all.
I am bringing you good news for great joy
for all people;
to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
who is the Messiah, the Lord.
Luke 2:10-11
This day, once again, we with join the choruses of angels, of shepherds, of wise sages from the east, of generation upon generation who have praised God singing
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace . . .
Luke 2:14a
Today, all of creation joins the chorus. In his ode, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” the poet John Milton wrote:
This is the Month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav’ns eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Ring out ye Crystall sphears, . . .
And let your silver chine
Move in melodious time;
And let the Base of Heav’ns deep Organ blow,
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to th’ Angelike symphony.[i]
This is, indeed, very good news, the best news, that a child was born for you, for me, for all people, born in a stable in Bethlehem, so long ago, and so far away. For in that moment, God moved into human life, our lives, in a way far different, far greater than anything we had known before or since.
This baby, as Milton continued,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work for us a perpetual peace.[ii]
How are we to understand? Who is this child? What does his birth mean for us, today, in a world so different from that world two millennia ago? I think, perhaps, one way to reflect on these crucial questions is to think about the names given to the baby “born this day in the city of David.”
What’s in a Name?
It has been quite awhile since I found out that I was going to have my first-born son. (In fact, that child is now a father himself.) But I remember quite clearly sitting in a park with my husband thinking about what we would name that child. We did not know if it would be a girl or a boy (it was a boy). We needed to choose, therefore, two names. It soon became almost like a tennis match. I would serve a name over the net and my husband would approve or disapprove. It took many weeks to settle on a name.
“What is the baby’s name?” That is always the second question asked at the birth of a child. After the first question, “Is it a boy or a girl?” Why is this so important? After all, in Romeo and Juliet, Juliet herself reminds us
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet[iii]
But we do know that a name is very important. It tells us much about the person, who they are and where they have come from. My name is Lucy. I am named after my grandmother, Lucy, who died in childbirth when my aunt and godmother, Lucy, was born.
The scriptures are filled with people asking that question – what’s in a name?
Standing before the burning bush; directed by God to confront Pharaoh, Moses knew that the Israelites would ask him, who is this God, “What is his name?” (Ex. 3:13) Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” (Mk. 8:27b)
What is this baby’s name? Who do we celebrate this day? Jesus. Messiah. Emmanuel. These names tell us much about who this child is; what he will do, and much about God’s love for us all.
Jesus
If we back up in the story we come to the moment when a young girl of Nazareth met the angel, Gabriel.
Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.
Luke 1:28b
This angelic messenger brought to Mary the news that she would be the mother of a son. But unlike most parents, it would not be Mary nor Joseph who would name this child. Like her cousin Elizabeth and Zechariah, the child had already been named, “you will name him Jesus” (Lk. 1:31b).
Jesus or, in Hebrew, Joshua, “God has saved.” Matthew reminds us that this gives us the news that “he will save his people from their sins.”
The Hebrew Scriptures tell us of the acts of an earlier Joshua. The sun of Nun, Joshua was the assistant of Moses. And it was Joshua who let the people of Israel across the Jordan river and into the promised land. It was Joshua who issued a challenged to those people:
Choose this day whom you will serve, . . .
But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Joshua 24:15
Jesus, Joshua, will do great things. He will save us from our sins and will lead us into a new world, a new creation.
Messiah
Luke also tells us that the child is Messiah, Christ, the anointed one of God.
But how can this be? The Messiah is to be a great warrior; the one to save the people of Israel from those who oppress them.
Do we see a child born in the palace? Do we see a child born to a great family? No, we find a child, “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (Lk. 2:12).
Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah. But when Jesus then told Peter and the other disciples what awaited this anointed one of God – great suffering, rejection, and death, Peter could not abide it and sought to silence his teacher (Mk. 8:32).
John knew that Jesus was the Messiah. Many thought this wild prophet might be the one, but he declared, “one who is more powerful than I is coming . . . He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Lk. 3:16).
Holy Spirit and fire? This is an unusual Messiah. Where is the army, the sword and shield? When John the Baptizer, imprisoned deep in Herod’s jail, sent his disciples to ask Jesus is he was, indeed, the one for whom they had been waiting –
Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:
the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.
Luke 7:22
That is the portrait of the Messiah who has come to us.
Emmanuel
Matthew tells us that an angel also appeared to Joseph with the reassuring news that the baby that Mary was carrying was a child of God. And again, this angel named the child. Recalling the words of Isaiah 7:14, the angel told Joseph that, “they shall name him Emmanuel” (Mt. 1:23b). Emmanuel, God with us.
This tiny, helpless infant is God with us. As John would later declare
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being. . . .
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
John 1:1-3, 14
Hear the words of Paul written to the church in Colossae, “[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation; . . . for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1:15, 19).
Emmanuel, God with us. In Jesus, the Christ, God has come among us, to know us, to share our gladness and sorrow; to know what it means to love, and to lose someone you love, to feel anger and frustration at the evil men and women to.
God came among us, God is among us to help those who are broken and have no hope. God celebrates with us in times of joy and blessing. God weeps with us when we mourn.
Great Good News
Today, with the angels, we once again sing out the very good news. Jesus, Messiah, Christ, Savior, Emmanuel, the Word dwells among us. And we add our voice to God’s other messengers to tell a broken and frightened world that it does not have to be afraid. We bring the news that is meant for all people, in every land and every time. To us has been born a Savior, who leads us from darkness into light; who heals our brokenness and sets our captives free.
We pray that Christmas may be a time, once more, when we hear God’s message of overflowing love in the gift of Jesus the Christ.
[i] Milton, John, “On the Morning of Christs [sic] Nativity Compos’d 1629” http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/nativity/index.shtml
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Shakespeare, William, Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 43-44. The Riverside Shakespeare, Second Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1997, p. 1112.