Christmas
Eve
Tit
2:11-14
12/24/23
What
time is it? That’s the question Paul
wants us to ask. That’s the key truth he wants us to recognize. On the one hand, the apostle is very clear
about the time in which we live. He
describes in our text how we should live in “in the present age” – more literally, “the now age.” This now age has a very specific
character. It is something that Paul in
Galatians calls “the present evil age.”
Biblical thought recognizes that the
world as we know it is an age ruled by Satan, sin, and death. It has been since the fall of Adam. Now of course, that’s not the way the world
views itself. It thinks everything is
great. People think they have the right
to believe whatever they want. They
think they have the right to do whatever they want. They can choose to be
“spiritual” but not religious as they create their own god. They can live in agnosticism – as they just choose
not to deal with the ultimate questions.
They can use sexuality however they wish and celebrate this fact.
That’s exactly what the god of this
age wants. This is the life that is
alienated from God and leads to judgment.
It is a life of sin which brings harm as it ignores the ordering God has
given to his creation. It is a life that
ends in death for all people because that is the result of sin.
What time is it? Paul says in our text that it is the time
when God has acted in a dramatic way to rescue us from the now age. He begins our text by saying, “For the
grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” The grace of God is the unmerited love and
favor of God. This is what was revealed
when he sent his Son into the world.
Tonight we begin to celebrate the
birth of Jesus Christ. We celebrate the
birth of the child in Bethlehem. Yet
Paul wants us to know that this is an event of cosmic significance. It is the arrival of the new age that frees
us from Satan, sin, and death.
Make no mistake. We too belonged to
the now age. Paul says in the next
chapter, “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray,
slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy,
hated by others and hating one another.”
We were sinners for whom the devil was Lord.
But at Christmas, God himself entered
our world in the person of his Son. Paul
told the Galatians, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his
Son, born of woman.” From the
Gospels we learn that the virgin Mary conceived by the work of the Holy
Spirit. She carried in her womb the One
who was true God and true man. Then on
Christmas Eve she gave birth to Jesus Christ.
The grace of God appeared which brings salvation to all people.
Jesus brings salvation because of what he had come into the
world to do. Paul says in our text that
Jesus is the One “who gave himself for us
to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a
people for his own possession.” The Son
of God entered into the world with a purpose.
He came to redeem us. He came to free us from the slavery of sin.
But
in order to do this, Christ gave himself into death on the cross. There he died
for us – in our place. Paul explained it
this way to the Corinthians: “For
our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus Christ had no sin of his own.
But he took our sin – he became sin for us – as he received God’s
judgment in our place.
God condemned
sin in the flesh of Christ. Sin brings
death – it has since the sin of Adam.
And so to rescue us from the now age that is ruled by death, God raised
Jesus from the dead on the third day.
Paul told the Corinthians, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits
of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man
has come also the resurrection of the dead.”
Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of our resurrection. It is the guarantee that death has been
defeated and we will share in this victory.
God did
this for us in Christ. And then he
applied this saving work to us. In the
next chapter Paul says, “he
saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness,
but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly
through Jesus Christ our Savior.” In the
water of Holy Baptism God gave us regeneration. He gave us new life and made us
his children.
Paul told the Galatians that Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver
us from the present evil age.”
Through the baby born in Bethlehem “the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation for all people.”
God has rescued us and made us the people of his own possession.
What time is it? It is the time when God has acted
dramatically to save us. But when you
look around, you will see that the now age is still quite present. There are wars in Ukraine, Israel, and other
parts of the world. The murder of the
unborn continues, as in our area another abortion facility just opened in
Carbondale. We struggle with the
presence of sin in our own lives and it often gets the upper hand.
God’s reign has arrived in Jesus
Christ. And still, there is a not yet
character to what we experience. The new
age has broken into the old, but the old is not yet gone. There is an overlap of the ages. We live in a time that is characterized by
the now and the not yet.
In our text, Paul tells us the good
news that it will not always be this way.
He says that we are “waiting for our blessed hope,
the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” The risen Lord ascended into heaven and was
exalted to God’s right hand. Our blessed
hope is that he will return in glory on the Last Day.
Tonight we celebrate the humble birth of Jesus as
he entered into the world. We think of
him as the cute baby in a manger scene.
But there will be nothing humble or cute about our Lord when he
returns. He will return as the almighty
Lord. He will raise the dead and
transform our bodies to be like his own.
He will pronounce the final judgment as he strikes the “spiritual” and
“agnostic” with the fact that there is one truth, and he is it. All people will have to confess that Jesus is
Lord as he welcomes those who have believed in him into eternal fellowship with
God in the new creation.
We live as people who have been rescued from the
present evil age. We are a people of
God’s own possession. Yet for fo the
present, we are also still living in the now age. We face the battle against
Satan and sin. Our Lord is ascended, but
he has not left us alone. Instead, he
has given us gifts by which he is present with us giving forgiveness and
strengthening us in the faith.
The words of Scripture are not just words. They
are the Spirit breathed revelation from God. They are the means by which the
Holy Spirit continues to come to us in the present. Through them we receive the Gospel as he
gives us the forgiveness of sins.
Through this gift he nurtures faith and sustains us.
In a few moments we will celebrate the Sacrament
of the Altar. Here, Jesus Christ comes
into our midst as he gives us his true body and blood to eat and to drink. He gives us his body and blood, given and
shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.
Through this food he nourishes us so that we can walk by faith in this
world.
It is easy for the world to ignore and reject
these gifts. Yet that is the nature of how God works until the Last Day. The baby in the manger did not look
impressive. Yet he was the Son of God in
this world as God’s reign invaded the now age.
The man on the cross did not look powerful. Yet that was God’s dramatic action to break
sin’s power. These gifts – these Means
of Grace – are Christ bringing his saving reign to us. They give the
forgiveness won on the cross and sustain us in faith.
God has
rescued us from the now age. He has made
us his own. And he keeps us in the faith
so that we can live in ways that reflect what he has done for us. Paul says in our text, “For the grace of
God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to
renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live
self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Or as Paul adds at the end of our text, Jesus
“gave himself for us to redeem us
from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own
possession who are zealous for good works.”
These
good works are not self-chosen. Instead,
God has placed you in callings in life – in vocations – where you carry them
out. Husbands and wives are to love,
support, and sacrifice for one another.
Parents are to raise their children in the faith as they share the
Scriptures at home and bring the family to the Divine Service each Sunday.
Children are to obey their parents and to give thanks for all the ways they
provide for them. Employees are to do
their work as unto the Lord and not unto men.
Employers are to be fair and honest at all times. Above all, we forgive others in every
setting, just as God has forgiven us in Christ Jesus. This is how we live in
the now age because of Jesus Christ.
Tonight
we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus.
As we do, Paul tells us what time it is.
It is the time when “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for
all people.” Through the birth, death,
and resurrection of Christ, God has rescued us from the present evil age. He has given us forgiveness and life. He has
made us a people of his own possession.
Through
his gifts of the Means of Grace our Lord sustains us in the faith. He does this so that we can live in this
fallen world. Because of what Jesus has
done for us, we “live
self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
waiting for our
blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and
Savior Jesus Christ.”
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