Every year as Christmas fast approaches, commercials confront us on radio, television, and the internet, using emotions to try to get us to buy their products. And such commercials usually tap into the secular sentiments of the season.
Yet, as God’s people, we have something deeper than that when it comes to Christmas, something deeper than our emotions. We find the deepest content of Christmas in the words the angel spoke to the shepherds: “Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born for you. He is Christ the Lord.” Jesus brings the deepest mood and meaning of all to this season. For He is God’s Christmas gift to you and me, a gift to be seen, heard, tasted, and shared.
How great and good is the gift? He is our bridge back into the arms of God. Christmas is God bridging the distance between Himself and us.
Some of that distance between God and us remains, even though we are Christians. How does it show itself in our lives? It’s what I think, and what God thinks. It’s what I want, and not what God wants for me. It’s my life, and I want to use it and enjoy it my way. We may have our eye on a bigger, better house or car. We want to move to the top in our business or profession.
These desires are not wrong in themselves, but they don’t belong at the top of life’s priorities. But all too often, there they are. We want to be at the top in what we have and what we do. That becomes the priority our lives. At best, this is holding God at arm’s length. At worst it’s turning away from Him all together.
How else does this distance between God and us reveal itself? We don’t spend much time in prayer or in God’s Word. We stay away from how God comes to us in His Word and Sacraments. We don’t trust Him as we should, and so we worry. Love and self-giving seem like a drain on life, instead of being part of its fulfillment. We’re not thinking God’s thoughts. We’re holding Him at arm’s length.
And what results when we live our lives that way? We see a wide gap of sin wedge between God and us. God’s life in us grows weak and thin and, again, spiritual death threatens us. This is the pressure sin puts on us, and we can’t fight it or overcome it by ourselves. Sin keeps pulling us deeper into its strangling embrace. Eventually, it destroys us.
We need a Savior in the face of sin’s power that distances us from God. We need a Savior for that final accounting before a righteous and holy God. So, hear God’s life creating Word from the angel: “Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born for you. He is Christ the Lord.” That is God’s great Christmas gift to you!
If you unwrap that gift, what do you find? “Behold,” says St. John to each of us. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1: 29). Look again and what do you see? You see a cross, death, and an open tomb.
What’s happening there? He’s taking your sins away! He’s paying your sin-debt! He’s taking into Himself the guilt of all your sins! He dies and lives again! That is your gift from God at work for you.
Look then and see how that gift changes your life. Sin–it can’t curse and condemn you anymore. Sin–it can’t enslave you anymore. Christ is alive in you, and your new self in Him will continually challenge the old you enslaved by sin.
And what of death? Oh, your gift is alive! And He takes you through death into life unending. His gift is personal—and it’s for you!
But don’t just look, listen. “Your sins are forgiven.” Jesus said that to people as He preached and bought them to God the Father. He says it to you now. When you know and feel your sins, forgiveness is music to your ears! Remember? He died for your sins, and was raised to make you right with God (Romans 4: 25). Listen again, “[I am] your refuge and strength” (Psalm 46:1).
Jesus is here to support you against the endless push and pull of sin in your life, as well as in all your burdens and cares in life. Listen again, “Lord now you are letting your servant depart in peace . . . for my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2: 29a-30). That’s Simeon talking, the priest who greeted the holy family when they presented the holy Child in the Temple. God gives you those words to say as death finally has it way with you. And they are just as true for you as they were for Simeon. Lord, now let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.
But don’t just look and listen, taste! “O taste and see that the Lord is good,” wrote the Psalmist (Psalm 34:11). That means come to Jesus, believe Him, lean on what He says and promises; and you see how good he is. Taste and see that the Lord is good. We do that in the most-intimate way on this side of heaven at the Lord’s Table. Take eat, take drink, my body, my blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins. Come with your sin, your need, your weakness, and go with His pardon, peace, and strength!
It’s wonderful! It’s comforting! It changes your eternity. It strengthens you to see, hear, and taste all that’s wrapped up in God’s Christmas gift to you.
God’s Christmas gift is the source of never-ending comfort and security. This little story pictures it well. On his 80th birthday a man wrote these words about Christ, God’s wonderful gift:
As a boy, I knew Him. I trusted Him because of what my parents taught me and how they lived. I trusted Him because I was baptized and received Jesus in His Supper. And so I have wintered and summered with Him and spent days and nights with Him. I know what He can be when a man sins and fails, and when the heart is hard and loveless. You cannot wear Him out or tire Him. Your sin is no barrier against His love.
That’s the comfort and security of God’s Christmas gift to you.
Christmas is a time for giving. God is the supreme giver. He gave His Son. The Son came to give. He doesn’t stay in the manger. He grows up to serve, preach, and teach. He grows up to help, heal, feed, comfort, and raise the dead. And here is the supreme gift: “The Son of Man came . . . to give his life as a ransom for the many” (Matthew 20:28). The whole purpose of His coming was to give, give, give!
That moves us to be givers, as well. That’s our challenge. And we give what we have received–namely, Christ. The giving is in the telling. It began already on that first Christmas. The shepherds go to Bethlehem to check out what the angel said. They return and spread abroad what they have seen and heard.
The giving and the telling flow out of a heart filled with Christ. He is not only the content of your message, but also your enabler. And when we fail and falter, we flee to His mercy. After forgiving us, He strengthens us for a life of giving and sharing His goodness, which is meant for all.
“Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born for you. He is Christ the Lord.” That is God’s Christmas gift to you: A gift to be seen, heard, tasted, and shared. “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift” (2 Corinthians 9: 15)! Amen.
