Christmas Eve (24.12.2024)

As the Angel hosts sang on this night over 2000 years ago: Peace and Good Will, grace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ Whose birth we celebrate tonight. Tonight we celebrate the incarnation of our God, our God taking on humanity. Consider these truths—We read in Holy Scripture how God created the world and created especially human beings. We also read how Adam and Eve sinned, and rebelled against our Creator and God, thus breaking our relationship with our Creator God, separating us from Him. Even without our rebellion, in some sense we might consider our Creator God somehow separate from us. Just as a painter, sculptor, architect or anyone who creates something is separate from their creation. But with our sin, we as God’s creation become even more separate. Through our sin we have rejected God as our Creator. In other words, through our sin we have become willfully and totally “other.[чужой]”. Through our sin and rebellion we have made our God and creator “other.” Because of this, because of our rejection, we are guilty of being traitors before our Creator God, and as traitors, we deserve to be punished. To us, then, who have made ourselves “other” God is no longer Father or Creator, but judge, someone to be feared—feared because He is the all righteous and Holy “other” whose very existence exposes our rebellion and sin. But God in His mercy and love for us refuses to accept our rejection. Despite His holiness, despite the eternal demand for justice and despite our sinfulness, He refuses to let us stay “other.” By His will alone, and in no way by our choice or desire, the Creator of the Universe chooses to do something totally miraculous, totally impossible for us to truly comprehend. He chooses to become one with His creation; He chooses to be born into His creation as a baby in the image and likeness of one of His fallen creatures. Thus He becomes incarnate, and through this He and we are no longer “other.” We are His and He is ours. Tonight we will read through the Christmas History found in the Gospels. We will read prophecies from the Old Testament that foretell the coming of our Savior. We will also sing Christmas Carrols celebrating this birth of our Lord God, our Creator, as a little baby. As humans, usually, the birth of any child is a cause to celebrate. We celebrate because new life has been brought into a family, brought into the world. The birth of Jesus gives us even more reason to celebrate, because through His birth He brings new life to the whole world. This Baby will grow up to bring life to all through His death on the cross. When we celebrate birthdays, we don’t usually think about death—but when we celebrate Jesus’ birthday, the birthday of God Himself into human flesh, thinking of death cannot be avoided. We cannot avoid thinking of death, because this is very reason Jesus is born, the very reason He takes on our flesh: to die for us, to die for fallen humanity so that we might live. Being both Lord and God, but no longer “other,” He comes to redeem and reconcile us to Himself. When out of His great love and mercy toward us Jesus the Son of God becomes ours, He also then takes on our fate as one of His fallen creatures. As one of us, He faces His own justice and is punished in our place so that none of us have to remain “other” to Him now and for eternity.