Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Born to Die? - December 24, 2008

Born to Die?

Luke 2

December 24, 2008

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

Now, I’m going to begin preaching this sermon high atop this beautiful pulpit. That’s what a lot of people expect, especially on a high festival like Christmas Eve.

But the choir just sang an anthem called “God is With Us.” WITH us. That is why we call Jesus “Emmanuel” because that name means “God With Us” (John Rutter). And that is the whole point of what Christmas is about: that on this night, God came down among us when He sent His only Son Jesus to be born in the manger. Furthermore, we say that Jesus is the Word that became flesh when He came to dwell among us as one of us. So that being the case, I think I should come down from this pulpit and preach the Word among you, not over you.

But now that I’m down on level ground with the rest of you, I want to take a closer look at the words of that choir anthem. Jack, would you loan me your score of that piece? The music was beautiful but I want to take a closer look at those words. Some of the words almost sounded like something you should sing on Good Friday, not Christmas.

Well, on closer examination here I can see that it starts out OK as a Christmas anthem because it talks about Jesus being born among us and sleeping all meek and humble. But then it somehow slides into talking about Jesus being despised by everyone. That doesn’t sound like part of the Christmas story to me. Then it goes on to say that He was called “the man of sorrows”. Huh? On Christmas morning?! And it talks about Him dying to defeat Satan and death. No, this all sounds like something you should have picked for Good Friday and Easter.

I mean, we often say that Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birthday. That kind of an anthem sounds more like a birthday dirge like the tune of the Volga Boatman going, “Happy Birthday, Oh happy birthday. People starving and dying. Have a good day.” What a downer!

Except for one thing. The anthem that the choir sang did get it right. You have heard people say that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” And that is absolutely correct. But do you know what the reason for Christmas itself is? The reason for Christmas is Easter. The whole reason why Jesus came to earth was to die for us and then rise for us. That was His mission. That is why He landed here in the first place.

You can figure that much out by remembering what three gifts were brought to Him by the Wise Men. The gifts were not at all appropriate things for a baby. Why would you bring a baby gold? Well, you might if that baby were a king. And then there was the second gift called frankincense. Back in those days priests used incense the way priests use incense today. They would burn it so that a trail of smoke would waft upward to take their prayers to heaven. So this was a gift to a King who was also a priest. And finally there was the gift of myrrh. That was used to embalm bodies. Can you imagine giving embalming material to an infant – unless that infant was to die?

This particular infant actually was born to die for us. One of the most intriguing paintings is one which shows the sun casting a shadow from the Christ Child. The shadow is in the shape of a cross.

I have baptized something over two hundred and sixty babies in this congregation. I have even seen some of them grow up. I often look into the eyes of the infant and wonder what will become of her, what he might turn out to be like. We often like to tell children that they can grow up to be anything they want to be. It is almost unheard of these days to say that a baby is born to fulfill this or that particular role. In Jesus’ day that was a whole lot more common, especially for a boy who often would be assumed to follow his father’s vocation. And Jesus did indeed become a carpenter like his dad Joseph.

But as those three gifts testified, this child arrived on this night for one specific role: to die for us.

Many of us grew up thinking of this night as the night of presents. And we say that we give presents because the Wise Men gave presents to Jesus. But you know what? We are the ones who do get the present after all. The present is the Son of God who was delivered on this night and would be unwrapped for us on Easter.

THAT is why we are here tonight – to unwrap the greatest gift ever given, to unwrap the gift of Easter, to unwrap the gift of our eternal life, Jesus Christ!

Merry CHRIST – mass!