This sermon was preached by Fr Eckardt on December 24th, 2023 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Kewanee, Illinois.

St. Luke 2:1-14

Oh, how joyful, how glorious is this night! It is wrapped in the goodness of God, and a night for all the world to celebrate, this marvelous night of the Savior’s birth.

And yet, we cannot fail to notice that the events of this night seemed so frantic, so out-of-place, so disastrous. Truly, for Mary and Joseph this night must have seemed to have unfolded as an absolute disaster. The days were accomplished that she should be delivered of her child. The decree of Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed went out at exactly the wrong time; it required a hasty journey from Nazareth down to Bethlehem, the city of David. Since Joseph was of the house and lineage of David, it was required that they go directly to Bethlehem, right then, the worst possible time for a woman about to give birth to travel. And then, when they got there, there was no room for them in the inn! What to do? Where to go? Joseph was constrained to lead the way to a nearby shelter, a stable, for it was time for her to give birth. Everything was going wrong all at once. It was a train-wreck, a catastrophe, a perfect storm.

But all this served to contribute mightily to the glory and wonder of this night; the events surrounding the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem were in truth all arranged according to the magnificent and wonderful plan of God. Nothing was out of place, though reason cannot comprehend this, for reason can never comprehend the mysteries of God, but must learn instead to keep silent and to wonder in awe.

Ah, why did it have to be so, that Jesus was born in the middle of the night in the middle of winter, in a cold and damp stable? Why did it have to be in the middle of the oppressive urgency of a Roman tax upon all the world, a tax imposed so suddenly that poor Joseph had nowhere to lodge with his betrothed wife who was great with child and ready at this most dreadful hour to give birth; forcing her to lay her firstborn Son, swaddled, in a manger, of all places? So horribly wrong it all seemed. And why did it have to be that no one was informed? No invitations reached the ears of the rulers and the important people of the time, and no one knew that it would be on this night, and in this place; no one, that is, except for a few peasant shepherds keeping watch over their flock. Consider the planning that goes into the most important occasions in your life; and the greater the occasion, the more involved and complicated is that planning, lest anything go wrong. And now consider by contrast this occasion, which happens to be the most important occasion in all the history of mankind!

But the truth is that this event and all its details were indeed divinely arranged just so, for a heavenly and not an earthly reason. They wondrously and perfectly portray the meaning of this greatest event in the history of all mankind.

And here’s what they say: Jesus was born in the middle of the night in the middle of a cold and dark winter because he is the Light of the world, and so it is right that his birth be a shining in the darkness. And it is right that he be born in the coldness of winter, a silent reminder of when God once walked in the Garden in the cool of the day, a day made cool by the calamitous sin of Adam. That cool day was a harbinger of a world that would soon be full of trouble, and so it was; but now, on this night in the bleak mid-winter it is again cool, or even cold, that we might remember why he had to be born. It was to a world gone wrong because of Adam, and gone wrong in all his children, a world whose chill night was unwelcoming to a newborn Babe, but a world to whom he deigned to be born all the same; a world he came to save. The Light shines in the darkness; the Sun of righteousness gives warmth to a cold and weary world. It was perfectly arranged.

And so, too, it was perfectly arranged that this happen in the midst of a tax upon all the world, as the Evangelist tells it, a tax that was indeed oppressive, that made things miserable for those who were taxed. For in the same way, all mankind, that is, all the world, to use the Evangelist’s phrase, has been taxed from the beginning, by the consequences of sin. How dreadfully have we all been taxed! For the wages of sin is death, as the Apostle says, and this tax is imposed upon every child of man. It is a universal tax; it is upon all the world. And is not the decree of Caesar therefore a most wonderful reminder to us of the bitter tax of misery, pain, sorrow, and death that has been imposed upon us all? In the midst of a tax upon all the world is born the Savior of the world, who comes to pay the debt of tax we all owe. How wonderful; how fitting.

And is it not also perfectly fitting that Christ should be wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger when there was no room in the inn? For he did not come to be served but to serve; he did not come to be wrapped in fine linens and laid in a crib of gold and luxury; he came for us; he came to save us. See, a manger is made of wood! And as he was laid in wood of the manger at his birth, so was he laid on the wood of the cross at his death. This was his reason for coming, his mission, his focus, to be for us a Sacrifice for sin.

And is not a manger a feeding trough? How marvelously fitting is that too! A feeding place; for truly, he came to feed us. For he is the Bread of life, and he therefore came to be baked and put to death in the oven of God’s wrath, that he, upon rising from the grave like leavened bread, might then deliver the forgiveness of sins to us by feeding us on himself, that is, on his crucified body and the blood he shed. In a manger he was laid, and rightly so, and this is every bit as much as a sign to us as it was to the shepherds, to whom the angel had said, “This shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” And so to us this sign must also become clear: he is placed in a feeding trough; for he is himself our heavenly Food. And like the swaddling clothes, we find him here wrapped in the elements of bread and wine: here in the Sacrament, at the Christ Mass, our Christ himself is given for us to eat and drink, that we might gain life and salvation.

And the shepherds! Is it not a marvel that it was to shepherds that the angels made this announcement? Not to princes or kings, not to the rich and mighty, that is, but to shepherds, to poor and simple peasants. Behold, it was for such as these that the Christ came! As Mary his mother proclaimed, He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. How utterly fitting and wonderful is this! When all the world is busy with their own lives, carrying on with their idols and their prideful enterprises, ah, how silently, how silently the wondrous Gift is given! To shepherds, of all people! To the small, to the meek, that they might inherit the earth. The audience for the greatest display of angelic glory the earth has ever seen was a few humble shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night. Do you see the majesty in this design? It bespeaks the way of God, and demonstrates definitively how he has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

And it was to these peasants in particular that he came: to shepherds, who, when they went to Bethlehem and found him in the manger, returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen. How could we miss the message embedded also here? That it is to shepherds that the message is given, that they might go forth and proclaim it to the world. Shepherds, also called pastors, that is, whom God has sent into all the world with these glad tidings of great joy: that unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. This is the burden and duty of every pastor, to proclaim this Gospel, that you may hear it. Behold, you are hearing it now! Unto you this Savior is born, to you! To you who have come in from the cold to this place, now, on this night. You have set aside your important events at this hour, you have put them on hold; you determined that they could all wait, because the message of the angel to the shepherds has now been handed down to you as well, by the shepherds of the Lord, all that you may go even now, as it were, unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto you. That you may come with haste, and find Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. That you may humbly kneel at his wooden crib, and worship him here. That you may give thanks forever for that blessed wood in which the Babe was laid, and the blessed wood upon which he also laid down his life for us and for our children. And that you may feed, that you may partake in this blessed Sacrament, which is none other than the fruits and elements of his holy sacrifice for you. That you may kneel here, and receive the Christ-Child wrapped in the swaddling clothes of this Blessed Sacrament.

Such a marvelous, wonderfully fitting occasion was that holy night, so perfectly ordered that we may learn so much from all the divinely choreographed circumstances. For with God nothing shall be impossible, and he is easily able to order the events just so, that we may see them as his own illustrations, written in the very events, of the marvelous truth of our salvation, yea, that we may ever rejoice and be glad in the glorious birth of the Son of God.

O come, all ye faithful! Joyful and triumphant! Adeste fideles, laeti triumphantes!

O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem!

Come and adore him, born the king of angels.

O come let us adore him! Christ the Lord!

Veníte adoremus,

Veníte adoremus

Veníte adoremus Dominum!

 The audio file is here.