Let us pray. Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Please stand for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, and inspired word. from the gospel of Luke chapter two. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. Now, when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all who heard it marveled at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. The history of Christmas is a very old one. Indeed, it is the second most ancient and esteemed holy day in church history, next only to Easter in both cases. Nevertheless, there's this long-standing idea, a myth, I will warn you, that Christmas is based on the pagan cult Roman festival called the Saturnalia, or perhaps the cult festival called Sol Invictus, both to Roman deities. This idea is false for many reasons. First, neither Saturnalia nor Sol Invictus were celebrated on December 25th, contrary to popular belief. Both festivals, furthermore, were times for drinking and debauchery, not quite the vibe of Christian morality. Also, early Christians rebuked the pagans for their wickedness and instead preached Christ crucified. And considering that many of these early Christians were martyred by the Romans for just that, it seems unlikely that they would appropriate a pagan holiday and use it to celebrate the birth of their savior. Christmas as an ancient Christian day, going back all the way to the early third, if not late second century, long before Christianity became even a state-sanctioned religion in Rome. There's also a long-standing myth that Jesus was not born in December, but sometime in early spring. Therefore, some would say that even if Christmas is not a copy of a pagan Roman holiday, they clearly did not have a good grasp of the details. In response to this, many Christians have argued that we cannot know when Jesus was born, but that the date is unimportant, only that Jesus was born. This is true. It does matter not to date so much as Christ's own birth. But this argument can make the logic of church tradition sound faulty or arbitrary, neither of which it is. Late December is by far the most likely time for Christ's birth given the biblical and extra-biblical evidence. In Luke chapter 1, it says that Zechariah was doing his priestly service in the temple as part of the priestly division of Abijah when the angel Gabriel appeared to him and announced that his wife Elizabeth would miraculously conceive their son, John the Baptist. Nehemiah 12 explains that the Levitical priesthood had different divisions that served in the temple on rotation, Abijah being one. In the first century, There were 24 divisions of priests who did service on rotation in the temple for two weeks, one week at various points in the year. The first century historian Flavius Josephus recorded the weeks of service and what this rotation looked like for the 24 divisions. We know where the cycle began because we know what division was serving on duty in the temple when the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Based on this information, the division of Abijah served one week in late September and another in late January. We also know from Luke chapter 1 that the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced to her Christ's miraculous conception in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. That means Jesus was conceived either in late March or late July, six months from either one of Zachariah's priestly service times. Nine months later would put Jesus born in either December or April. So we're narrowing the field. So which one depends actually on the clue of the shepherds. It says they were in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. Something they would do in lambing season. Some would say that while lambs don't give birth in December, they give birth in springtime. That is true if you live in Europe or North America. The Owasi sheep, the sheep raised by Middle Eastern shepherds for millennia, likely even those raised by King David himself, lamb in late December. The date, particularly of the 25th, comes from some theology for many of the Church Fathers of Christ having died on the same day of his conception, meaning that he would have died, been conceived on Passover as he died on Passover, and so we get the 25th from the Jewish calendar. Like I said, the particular date of Christ's birth is not of the most importance so much as his actual birth. But church traditions, while they are ultimately subject to the authority of scripture, often have deep reasons and should not be lightly disregarded. As I said, Christmas is the second most ancient and esteemed holy day in church history, next only to Easter. But compared to Easter, We have comparatively scant details. There are a maximum of perhaps 130 verses, depending how much you want to count in the narrative of Christ's birth, in just four chapters of only two Gospels, leading up to the birth of Christ and the birth of Christ. And for Jesus' birth particularly, these 20 verses in Luke chapter 2 are it. Contrast that with Christ's crucifixion, where all four Gospels go into great detail about the story, with the Gospel of Matthew alone containing more than 140 verses of this narrative. On a real level, this actually lends credence to the Gospels' narratives of Christ's birth. As the 19th century Jewish convert to Christianity and Anglican scholar Alfred Edersheim wrote, legend and tradition ever seeks to surround their heroes with a halo of glory and that they attempt to supply details which are otherwise wanting. And in both of these respects, a more sharply marked contrast could hardly or scarcely be presented than that of the gospel narratives of Christ's nativity. The rather sparse material actually gives that credence because the gospel writers were not trying to write fan fiction. They were trying to write the actual details of what they knew and of what God revealed to them. Unfortunately, the rather sparse material leads to the Christmas story feeling somewhat stale at times and perhaps feeling in need of something more, some new relevance to today, perhaps. or some new observation about the text, which is almost certainly not new. It's quite common this time of year to see articles on Christian websites or blogs explaining how the inn mentioned in Luke 2-7 should really be translated something like upper room, as it is in the Passion Discourse in Luke 22, because this was probably the house of Joseph's family, where split-level houses had the animals on the bottom, and so we should focus on that for this Christmas. Scholars, theologians, and translators have debated that specific issue since before the Reformation. There's really nothing new under the sun that's going to be presented about the Christmas story. Not that in-depth scholarly work that fills in gaps is bad by any stretch. By no means. Questions such as, who were the Magi? What was the star that led them to Jesus? And how did they know it signaled the Messiah's birth? Are perplexing and therefore interesting and therefore worthwhile questions to ask. I personally have spent much time reading about those things. But they are not the substance of the Christmas story. The gospel writers did not write comprehensive biographies of Jesus so that we would have our intellect and curiosity satisfied. Rather, they wrote that by believing, we may have life in his name. Nevertheless, the scripture presents much to us apart from even the most well-founded conjectures about the story. One of these is the contrast between kings presented in Luke chapter 2. We have two kings presented here in this passage. The first is Caesar Augustus. Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor. He consolidated power and brought peace to the empire after more than a century of civil war in Rome. He was worshiped by Romans as a soter, a savior. Expanded the empire to some of its greatest boundaries and was the most powerful man in the world. His decree for a census set in motion all the rest of our story as it required that Joseph go to his family's hometown of Bethlehem to register for the census. Bethlehem, of course, being home to our second king, King David. King David is the second Jewish king from the Old Testament who slew Goliath. He wrote many of Scripture's Psalms. And most importantly, he was promised by God that God would give him a descendant who would rule on Israel's throne forever. These two kings, Augustus and David, and the cities they represent, namely Rome and Bethlehem, reveal much about Christ's own kingship. Christ was not born in Rome, even though it was the political, economic, and cultural center of the Western world at that time. Rather, he was born in a small town of 300 people whose greatest claim to fame was being the birthplace of a king who reigned more than a thousand years prior. Bethlehem is even referred to as too little to be among the clans of Judah in the messianic prophecy from Micah 2 that the Messiah would be born there. Great as David was, that does not make up the difference between Rome and Bethlehem. It's much like Abilene, Kansas, the birthplace of Dwight Eisenhower, and not much else before or since. Why did God not reveal his son in Rome as a descendant of Caesar Augustus? Well, the obvious answer, first, is that God did not make a covenant with Caesar Augustus, but one with David. And he did not make a covenant with Rome, but with Israel. The fact that scripture is so focused on Israel can obscure to us the fact of how, in the broader scope of history, how insignificant Israel actually was in the historical context. Prior to modern archaeology, almost nothing concrete was known about ancient Israel outside of what we have in the Old Testament, or perhaps where great empires such as Egypt or the Greeks or the Assyrians might intersect with Israel. Still today, many scholars doubt, and foolishly I would add, given the weight of evidence, that the Old Testament is a reliable historical witness on those grounds. So God himself told Israel that he did not choose them because they were the mightiest nation. But because he had made a promise to Abraham and God keeps his promises. In other words, God chose Israel not because Israel was great, but because he is great. And in Israel's lack of greatness, God would be shown all the more glorious. He chose that which was weak to shame the strong. And even more striking, he used the strong in Caesar Augustus' census decree to bring about his ultimate triumph in this world. And so too with us. God did not choose us because we were great. He chose us because he is great. But more to the point, this choice of Bethlehem for Christ's birth signified that his kingship would not be like that of Augustus, but like that of David. Augustus was praised because of his political exploits, which were objectively great. He's one of the greatest rulers in human history. But the salvation he brought that earned him that title, Soter, That savior, that salvation, he was an earthly savior. And it brought an earthly salvation that would not last. He rescued Rome from upheaval and restored order. But he could not save men's souls. And eventually, Rome would devolve back into chaos anyway. Those who trusted in Augustus could receive the temporal benefits of political stability even as they missed the eternal stability and rest of God. By contrast, David is praised in scripture as a man after God's own heart. He served as an exemplar because above all and despite his sin, he loved the Lord and his word. He trusted and proclaimed God's promises in his works. In Psalm 32, he prophesied Christ's redeeming sacrifice, saying, He prophesied Christ's forgiveness. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise. He also prophesied and trusted in Christ's coming in psalm after psalm. Today, on the throne of David sits the root of Jesse, the King of David, the Prince of Peace, while the throne of Augustus lies as ruins visited by tourists. Rome was once called the Eternal City. And yet, for all eternity, we will worship God not in the New Rome, but in the New Jerusalem. Christ offers the greatest hope, indeed the only hope we could have in this world because it is an everlasting hope. He came not to serve, not to be served, but to serve. He came to seek and save the lost. He came to do away with sin and redeem his people by the sacrifice of himself. As C.S. Lewis wrote, the Son of God became a man. to enable men to become sons of God. This Christ can do because he is Christ the Lord, as the angel proclaimed. Not just a great man, a great anthropos, but kurios, the Lord, God himself. One reason I love old Christmas carols is that they contain great expressions of this profound Orthodox Christology. From hark the herald angels sing, we have veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel. Or from O come all ye faithful, word of the Father now in flesh appearing. And from what child is this? Hail, hail the word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary. As an encouragement for you, read and sing all the verses in these Christmas carols. All eight verses of O come, O come, Emmanuel are absolutely worth it, I assure you. They are rich in theological instruction for us. And yet, at Christ's entrance into his creation, He did not come as a mighty king, but a mewling baby. Nor was he met with fanfare and throngs of worshippers. Nor was he born in a palace to parents of high and noble birth. But rather, he was born in a stable to normal parents in a small village with shepherds as his heralds. The shepherds are a significant fact, because shepherds were far from elite in Israel, not only because they had a low-status profession, but because the duties of that profession rendered them almost always ceremonially unclean. As a result, they could not study in the synagogue schools, and therefore they were precluded even from offering testimony in court, being considered too dumb. They were, by the standards of first century Jewish society, the last people who should have been invited to such a solemn event. But God does not need man's vindication. This underscores the theme we have seen throughout not just Christ's birth, but his life, his death, and his resurrection. That his grace confounds the wisdom of the wise. For blessed are the meek. for they shall inherit the earth. It is also fitting because these shepherds, given their proximity to the Jerusalem temple, Bethlehem being only about five miles away, these shepherds likely oversaw some of the flocks from which the sacrificial lambs were selected. Thus, these shepherds who watched over the sacrificial lambs heralded into this world the great shepherd who would become himself our sacrificial lamb. But this is not the royal entrance most Jews, and indeed most of us today, would imagine. Yet in these terms, if we think in these terms, it misses the grandeur of Christ's majesty. How fitting that the great author of history, whose very word called into existence all creation, should write himself into his own story, almost undetected by his characters. That the king of kings, whose kingdom far surpasses any in this world, should enter it, not as a king of this world. And that this promised Messiah, who would humble himself to death on a cross, should first humble himself to birth in a cattle stall. Far more striking than some royal display of pomp and circumstance, this simple, serene, and intimate scene conveys a most profound reverence to us, not unlike Moses, who, it must be remembered, stood before God on holy ground in the silence and stillness of the wilderness. So often we see nativity scenes and hear the Christmas story that we have become almost anesthetized and lose our sense of wonder. We ought to marvel as these shepherds did at the mystery before us in the manger. G.K. Chesterton captures this well in his poem, The House of Christmas, when he says, A child in a foul stable where the beasts feed and foam. Only where he was homeless are you and I at home. We have hands that fashion and heads that know, but our hearts we lost. How long ago in a place no chart nor ship can show under the sky's dome. To an open house in the evening, home shall men come. To an older place than Eden and a taller town than Rome. To the end of the way of the wandering star. To things that cannot be, but that are. To the place where God was homeless and all men are at home. People err when they think that the Christmas story is meant to produce within us feelings of joy and peace. For example, if you have ever heard a sermon or read an article along the lines of how to experience joy this Christmas season, you've encountered what I'm talking about. Joyful tidings and peace on earth permeate every detail of this story to be sure, most certainly. But such an approach considers the manger apart from the Christ child in it. Chesterton gets at this in his poem as he explains that the Christmas story is truly the ultimate fairy tale, where the most impossibly fantastic is not just most probably but certainly true. Unless the Christmas story first captures our imagination, it will not capture any part of us. to consider the Christmas story and appropriate the consequent virtues of the incarnation, namely joy and peace, without first considering the theological reality of the incarnation would rob the Christmas story of its power. It would be like producing Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films on a $10,000 budget and assuming that audiences would still be as enthralled with the film. Our primary response to the Christmas story ought be that of the shepherds that first Christmas night, to wonder and marvel at what has taken place. From that comes the virtues of joy and peace. Charles Wesley wrote in his hymn, Let Earth and Heaven Combine, about the Christmas story, see in that infant's face the depths of deity and labor while ye gaze to sound the mystery in vain. Ye angels gaze no more but fall and rather silently adore. Wonder and marvel are the culmination, are our reaction to this culmination of redemptive history. This culmination of redemptive history we hear proclaimed to us in the doxology sung by the angelic choir the night of Christ's birth. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. If we look at our world, there's little peace and even less goodwill. Everywhere, We see the havoc that sin has wreaked, from war, to drug overdoses, to envy, to pride, to petty grudges. There is not one individual left untouched from these effects of the fall, and therefore not one individual whose soul does not yearn for peace, that all would one day be set right. Hardly a day goes by that someone does not publish a book, write an article, or make a video promising that this or that lifestyle or mindset will bring you peace. But despite their lofty and often well-intentioned promises, no movement, no politician, no self-help guru can ever give that peace. because they cannot atone for sin or change our sinful nature. They cannot grant us true and everlasting righteousness. Such can only come from Christ, of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when 700 years before Jesus' birth, he said, for unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given. and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Christ, even as an infant child that first Christmas night, upheld all creation by the word of his power, and in that manger shouldered the government of God's redemptive kingdom. And in this kingdom, that which man had lost in Adam is restored in Christ. And as Isaiah says, which we just read, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. That increase goes on today as God continues to call his people to himself. And it shall continue and end in triumph when Christ, at his second advent, returns in glory. For many, Christmastime brings about feelings of nostalgia for any number of things, family, traditions, home. as we heard from Chesterton's poem. Those things are not bad. And in many ways, they are quite good. But the objective reality of God's revelation given us in Christ's nativity is far from nostalgic. It is a living reality. The glory of whose truth endures even as the glory of him who is the truth endures. It is a reality that hearkens not backwards so much as forward to that great day when all the hosts of heaven shall join in the prayer and the anthem. The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever. True were the words that Henry Longfellow wrote that then peeled the bells more loud and deep. God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail. With peace on earth, good will to men. Rather than direct our gaze inward, toward an inward spiritualized Jesus in our heart, The nativity fixes our eyes on that objective moment of God's intrusion into his creation at Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. So on this Christmas day, behold before you the advent of God's heavenly kingdom, when the infant word incarnate chose a manger for his throne. And in his coups and cries that night, hear how he interceded for us, his people, as our great high priest, as he was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. Amen. Let us pray. Almighty God, who has given us your only begotten son to take our nature upon him, and has at this time to be born of a virgin, Grant that we, being regenerate and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit, through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.