The sermon for December 24th Vespers was based on Matthew 1:18-25.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I remember as a boy my Grandmother bobbing around the kitchen during Christmas Dinner like a cork on a wind rippled pond. She was at my elbows with the potatoes and then over by my uncle with the ham and then off to my father with the corn and so on. We’d always try to persuade her to sit down and eat with us but nothing doing. She loved feeding us. It was her joy and her honor and she was both proud and delighted to do it. If she were still able she’d have me in her kitchen right now stuffing me with one carefully prepared and very delicious token of affection after another. I wish she were still able.

I wish someone could come along with a plateful or a mugful or even a spoonful of something that would make me feel, one more time, like a kid at Christmas. I’m young enough to remember that feeling and to miss it and this year I miss it very much indeed. But I’m old enough to know that there is something infinitely better at hand. If I could just be still long enough to apprehend it.

Sometimes I feel like one of the last few people on earth to have entered the Seminary directly out of the University and the University directly out of High School, a Pastor practically from boyhood. As such, I have always been particularly delighted that the first people to whom Jesus announced His birth were the shepherds, and not just any shepherds but the ones out in the field, the ones abiding with their flocks. But even these capable and competent outdoors men needed a sign in order to find Christ. The Wise men too, for that matter, would never have found Jesus had He not sent them a star to follow. None of us is very good at finding Jesus on our own.

Who here tonight, of all nights, has been longing to actually feel the joy our friends have been wishing for us in their Christmas cards? Who here has been hearing people say "Merry Christmas" and then silently praying "Yes, God, please anything even remotely like merriment would be much appreciated?" Have any of you been almost desperate for the peace on earth that is so casually referred to in the decorating schemes of so many department stores and featured so prominently in people’s plastic light-up yard ornaments? If you have you are definitely not alone.

Probably everyone in this sacred room wants to see Jesus tonight, wants to know Him and to see Him and to touch Him. We are jealous of the shepherds, we’re even jealous of the sheep and oxen and whatever else lived in that stable. They, at least, got to be with God. We want to be with Him too but we don’t know where to go. So we look for Him in all the wrong places. We turn to sentiment, immersing ourselves in movies like "It’s a Wonderful Life" or one of the many versions of "A Christmas Carol". We turn to nostalgia, buying our children toys from our own childhood. We turn to sensation, trying to sate ourselves with the tastes and smells of Christmas.

The lights and the trees and the gifts and the treats and the packages are all like strings tied to our fingers as a reminder. They are to remind us Christ and where He is to be found and yet we stand here, wrapped so completely in such strings that we resemble some kind of Christmas mummy, wondering to ourselves what we have forgotten. Feeling somehow empty and at the same time frustrated because we know the answer is so close at hand. If only we had some kind of reminder that was more specific than a string of lights or a boiled pudding.

This will be a sign to you... You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. Left to our own devises we would never find Jesus. We would wander aimlessly like the Jews in the Wilderness and die defeated. So Christ comes to us. He lies down in a manger and invites all His neighbors to come visit Him. And when the shepherds leave His rough hewn bedside they, in turn, invite all their neighbors. Then Jesus sends up a flair, as only He could, and invites people from the far end of the known world to come to Him and see Him for themselves.

But the angels and the star aren’t enough. They are spectacular and make the account of His nativity easy to remember and recite. But they don’t attract as many people as Jesus needs to heal. So as soon as His time comes Jesus takes to the roads Himself. Going from town to town, proclaiming His arrival and granting to the people of that time and place the fulfillment of our deepest yearning here tonight, personal, incarnate, fellowship with our Lord and Savior. But even this unfathomable blessing isn’t enough, Jesus wants to give more and to even more people.

Long before His crucifixion, Jesus begins preparing men to go out into the world on His behalf and in His place. He’d already tipped His hand when He invited all those shepherds to His manger and then sent them away proclaiming everything that they had seen and heard. Jesus spent every day of His last three years of humiliation preparing the Apostles to carry the Gospel out to the far corners of the world. He wants everyone to know Him and to know the grace that comes from God our Father through the person and work of Jesus Christ, our only Lord and Savior.

And what is it that we Pastors, who follow in the line of the Apostles bring you? Nothing less than Christ Himself. We speak to you His very Words with His very own authority. And more than that we bring you the person of Christ Himself. We bring you, later this very night, on our best silver platter the body of Christ, born of the Virgin and resurrected to glory and life everlasting. We bring you His blood, in our best silver cup, blood shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. You would never look for Him in and with the bread and wine. So He finds you.

When some of you were but little children, perhaps too young yet to even have heard about Jesus, someone who loved you brought you to Church and Christ came to you in Holy Baptism. He gave Himself to you, forgave your sins and created saving faith in you. Some of you He sought out when you were older, reaching out to you through His Holy and Inspired Word, allowing the Holy Ghost to work faith in you through that particular Means of Grace. In every case though, it was Jesus who found you and not the other way around. Which is a comfort to us. It was God the Father who created us and it was Jesus Christ who sought us out in the darkness of our sin and despair. It was the Holy Ghost who gave us faith and keeps us steadfast.

It’s dark outside tonight and for some of you its dark inside too. I’ve felt it myself. But on this night and in this dark too, the grace of God shines forth in the person and work of Jesus Christ. For those of you who have been betrayed, Christ remains loyal through death and beyond.

If you have been disappointed, Christ is so much more than you could ever expect. If you have been hurt, Christ will comfort you with His own Holy Spirit. If you are ashamed of yourself, Christ has forgiven you and declares you to be nothing less than one of His saints. No one has to be angry tonight. No one has to be hurt or offended. No one has to be mean or petty. No one has to be ignorant. On this night Christ has come to pour His grace over our wounds and bind us up. He has come to lead us out of the darkness and into His marvelous light. He has come to release us from our bondage to sin. He has come to us. He has sought us out and made Himself known to us. He has come to us in the least likely ways and at the least likely moments of our lives. He is with us now and we need never be the same old people we were before He found us. We may never again in this world feel like kids at Christmas, but we are learning, each and every one of us, what it means to be the Sons of God, which I’m fining out for myself, is really much better. Amen.

Last Updated: 7/15/2008