Nativity of Our Lord - A                                                                                    Meadowvale Lutheran Church, Mississauga

Christmas Eve, Dec. 24th, AD 2007                                                                                                   Pastor Peter Lisinski

"WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW"

I remember, as a young boy, the awe and wonder I felt at Christ­mas Eve worship, and imagining what a thrill it must be for a pastor to proclaim the good news of Christmas!  And it's true. From the very the first time it was -- and every time since, down to this very day -- preaching at Christmas remains -- a holy and joyful privilege for me!  But after more than twenty Christmases as a pastor, and on top of all the other Christmas sermons you and I have heard in our lifetime, this year I've been wondering what I might say about the miracle of God becoming human in the birth of baby Jesus that I haven't said, or that you haven't heard before?

So, fishing for ideas, while driving our daughter, Sarah, to her annual Christmas gathering of university friends last Tuesday afternoon, I asked her, "What should I tell the people in church on Christmas Eve?"  She thought for a moment and then responded with a simple, but profound rhetorical question of her owns "What is it you want them to know?"

Well, what I want you to know began to unfold when our son Jonathan and I drove into Toronto later the same day.  I asked him the same question.  In the course of our conversation we discovered that our hopes for a better future for the world had faded with the passage of time; we acknowledged that our lives don't seem to make much of a difference in the world; and we lamented the limitations imposed on us by the human condition of our common mortality.  Upon further reflection later, it occurred to me that that is the very reality from which the infinite₁ eternal God has come into this finite, transient world to save us!

In this world of darkness and death; a world of broken promises, shattered dreams and fading hopes -- a world in which, for exam­ple, Jonathan and Sarah's twenty-seven year-old cousin, Erin Ann Tilley, can be shot and killed near the Edmonton Mall on December 7th-- I want her parents and family to know that, in spite of their loss, life can become good again; that God shares their pain and grief; that someday the world will be that better place of peace and good will God promises; that they will be together with Erin again, to share the fullness of life for which God created her and them, us -- and all human beings!

I want everyone who grieves in this holy season to know; and I want you to know -- no matter what past regret, present loss, or future anxiety you may be facing at the moment -- that Christmas has already changed forever the course of human history, and also the course of our personal lives.

Had God not come into the world that first Christmas, you and I would be somewhere else today, doing something else with our lives!  But we are here today, in the presence of God where we belong, communing with God and with one another, because God's entry into human history in the birth of Jesus Christ has made all the difference in the world, and in our lives!  Here in this sanctuary we are in Bethlehem -- God's house of bread.  Here at God's altar we gather around the manger where God, in the divine humanity of Jesus Christ, feeds us with the incarnate Word of his own body and blood.  Here in this counter-cultural place on the margins of worldly wisdom and power we are out in the fields with ancient shepherds -- hearing the angel's Christmas message, and keeping its timeless message of hope and promise alive for all the weary world.

“Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring good news of great joy for all people.  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”

It may be nothing I haven't said, or you haven't heard, before; but it's what I want you to know, and what all of us need to know -- at Christmas, and every day of the year.