Christmas Eve
Lk
2:1-20
12/24/25
This year there has been an intense national focus on immigration
and what should be done about illegal aliens who are now living in the United
States. And so I guess it’s not surprising that in the days leading up to
Christmas there have been a number of individuals who have tried to drag Mary
and Joseph into the discussion by comparing their experience to these modern
situations. However, any attempt to do so reflects a lack of understanding
about the historical setting in which they lived. And these same historical facts help us to
understand how God was at work in the birth of Jesus Christ.
When Mary and Joseph travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, they
never left one country and entered into another. They were, in fact, within the
kingdom of Herod the Great the entire time. The Romans had conquered this area
in 63 B.C. However, their typical practice on the eastern end of the empire
during this period was not to take direct control over lands. Instead, they
established client states that served as a buffer zone that separated the
Romans from the Parthian and then Persian empires.
These client states were ruled by petty kings, and Herod the Great
was one of these kings. Herod ruled a kingdom that was larger than the one over
which David had been king. In an impressive display of being a survivor, Herod
had managed to ingratiate himself to whichever Roman leader happened to be
controlling Palestine at that time. Herod ran the affairs of his kingdom, but
there was no doubt about who controlled him. He answered to the Roman emperor.
As our text indicates, at the time when Jesus was born, that man
was Augustus. For more than fifty years,
the Roman Empire had been racked by wars as leaders vied for control. Augustus
had come out on top, and he took actions which transformed the Roman Empire
into something that was truly ruled by one man – by him.
Our text begins by stating, “In those days a decree went out
from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.”
Augustus ordered a census, and normally a census led directly into Roman
taxation. The available evidence
indicates that typically a census was done for lands that were under direct
Roman rule. But in this case it apparently also included lands that were under
their indirect control – a land like the kingdom of Herod the Great.
And that probably explains what our text describes: “And all went
to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from
Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David,
which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of
David.” Normally a Roman census was done
according to where a person lived. But there was some accommodation to local
settings, and so in the Jewish land of Herod it was done on the basis of family
lineage.
Joseph and the pregnant Mary had not travelled to Bethlehem for the
purpose of living there. They weren’t “immigrants.” And there was nothing illegal about their
activity. In fact, quite the opposite, the only reason they were in Bethlehem
was because they were obeying what the government had told them to do. I’ll have more to say about that in a moment.
There was no doubt that the timing of the decree was terrible for
this young couple. We learn in our text that Mary was pregnant, and it turns
out that when they made the trip she was close to giving birth. When they
arrived in Bethlehem they didn’t find the normal accommodations. They probably
expected to stay in an extra room at the home of extended family. The Greek
word translated as “inn” in our text doesn’t mean a place where travelers rent
a room. There is a different word for that, and Luke uses it in the Parable of
the Good Samaritan.
Instead, the word used refers to an extra room in a house that’s
available for use. The influx of people for the census probably meant they
weren’t the only extended family who showed up looking for housing. When Mary
and Joseph arrived, there was no more room in the house, and so they were given
the next best thing available – a stable where animals were kept. This is the
reason that when Mary gave birth, after she had done the typical practice of
wrapping Jesus in swaddling cloths, she did the very unusual action of
laying him in a manger.
Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem because of forces over which they
had no control. An emperor had issued a decree.
A king was obeying by implementing it. And they had to obey. But what we
now know, is that the emperor was subject to the One who controls all
things. St. Paul told the Galatians,
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son.”
God acted at the right moment according to his plan. He, the
Creator of all things, had used empires in the past as the tools by which he
carried out his purposes. He had used the Assyrians, and the Babylonians, and
the Persians. He had used Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Cyrus. And now
he was using the Romans and Augustus. He used them to cause Mary and Joseph to
be in Bethlehem at the time when Mary gave birth to Jesus.
God was at work doing great things.
Yahweh had promised David that he would establish the throne of his
kingdom forever. He promised that this Messiah descended from David would be
the One who would bring God’s end time salvation.
Through Isaiah he declared that the Spirit of the Lord would rest
upon the descendant of David. He said, “And his delight shall be in the fear of
the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes
by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the
poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he
shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath
of his lips he shall kill the wicked.” This One would destroy the evil and
he would bring peace. He would be as our Old Testament lesson says, “the Prince
of Peace.” He would bring a cosmic peace in which “the wolf shall dwell with
the lamb.”
The trip to Bethlehem was not the first unplanned difficulty that
Mary had experienced. Her pregnancy
itself was unplanned and unexpected. The angel Gabriel had appeared to Mary and
announced to her that she would give birth to the Messiah. The angel said of
the child: “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and
he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there
will be no end.”
When she asked how this would happen
for her, a virgin, Gabriel revealed breathtaking news: “The Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called holy— the Son of
God.” The Spirit of God caused Mary to
become pregnant with the One who is the Son of God. When Joseph who was from
the line of David took Mary and the unborn child as his own, Mary’s child
became part of David’s line.
God was doing great things. He had
used the Emperor Augustus to bring Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem at the time
when Mary was to give birth to Jesus the Christ – the Messiah. He had done so
because this fulfilled his word that he had spoken through the prophet Micah:
“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans
of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in
Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”
And in our text we learn that God
announced the great things he was doing. An angel of the Lord appeared to
shepherds in the area around Bethlehem with the glory of the Lord. He told
them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be
for all the people. For unto
you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who
is Christ the Lord.” The angel declared that the promised Messiah had
been born in Bethlehem. This was good
news of great joy for all people because as God’s Word had declared, this One
was the Savior – the One who brought God’s end time salvation.
But in the midst of all this, there
was one puzzling fact. The angel concluded by saying, “And this will be a
sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying
in a manger.” They would know they had
found the right child, when they found a baby in a manger – in a feeding trough
for animals. When they went to Bethlehem, they found exactly what God had
revealed to them. They found Mary and Joseph, and the infant Christ lying in
manger.
Our text tells us that God is doing
great things. He uses an emperor to
fulfill his word. He sends his Son into the world. He provides the descendant
of David who is the Messiah – the One who brings his end time salvation. And
yet when the shepherds come to see it they find only a helpless baby lying in a
manger. A baby in a feeding trough? One
would be hard pressed to find a more humble scene.
In this we begin to learn that God
does big things in ways that look small – in ways that don’t look like what
they really are. Jesus is the Son of God – the Christ who brings God’s end time
salvation. The reason that we need salvation is the sin that exists in our
lives from the moment of conception – the sin that finds it source in the
disobedience of Adam. Conceived in sin, we then live in sin. We do not trust in
God, and put him first. We act in selfish ways as we ignore the needs of our
spouse, children, parents, and friends. We are jealous of the success and
wealth of others as we covet.
Jesus Christ was in this world to be
the means by which God provided the answer to this sin. Sin evokes God’s wrath
and judgment. As God had said since the beginning, sin brings death. And so God
sent forth his Son to take your place and redeem you. Conceived by the Holy
Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, Jesus is true God and true man. At his baptism he took your place and then
went to the cross. The baby was in the manger on Christmas Eve, so that the man
could hang on the cross on Good Friday.
Jesus received God’s wrath and judgment against your sin as he died on
the cross. St Paul told 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.”
A man dying on a cross appeared to
be nothing – less than nothing. But on the third day God raised Jesus from the
dead. He raised our Lord who is still true God and true man with a body that
can never die again. He vindicated Jesus and showed that the cross had in fact
been God doing the greatest thing for our salvation. In the resurrection
we see that Jesus is the Christ who brings God’s end time salvation, because he
is the beginning of the resurrection of the Last Day.
The risen Lord is now the ascended
Lord seated at God’s right hand. He will return in glory on the Last Day and
bring all that Isaiah described about the Messiah. He will judge and condemn the wicked who will
be powerless before him. He will raise up our bodies and transform them to be
like his own. He will renew creation and make it very good once again – a place
of peace for man and all of God’s creatures.
The God who acted in Jesus Christ is
still doing great things today. But like the infant Jesus in a manger, they
often look small and humble. He is doing it right now. This is not a big and
impressive building. I am a nobody in this world – just a man proclaiming the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But this word in this place is good
news of great joy for you. Through this word the Spirit of Christ is giving you
forgiveness and sustaining you as the child of God. This word is the power of
God for salvation for all who believe.
On the altar you see nothing more
than bread and wine. But in a few moments Christ will take that bread and wine
and use it to give you his true body and blood, given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of your sins. He will come into our midst bodily and give to you
the very price he paid for your salvation. The risen Lord will give his body
and blood into your bodies in the guarantee that he will raise your body and
make it like his own on the Last Day.
Jesus Christ is doing these things
now. They may look small, but they are indeed great for it is the crucified and
risen Lord who is doing them. And they
will keep us as God’s people until the day when Christ returns in glory - the day when God does great things in great
ways that all will see.
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