The Nativity of Our Lord – Christmas Midnight

December 24, 2024

St. Luke 2.1-20

From the virgin soil God made man. He made that first man in His own image and likeness. In love God made the man. For love God made the man. The man was made to lovingly tend the world, and fill it with children.

He fell. Not simply by eating a piece of fruit. Man fell by turning from the love of God to self-love. Given God’s Word of grace, he hearkened instead to other voices.

He died. Before the man died, he and his wife had sons. But they were not in God’s image, rather in the man’s. The first son murdered the second. In the third, and all subsequent generations, selfishness metastasized. Lust and greed, war and idolatry proliferated.

The sin of the father was in the flesh of his sons. It grew worse.

In many and various ways, God spoke to those people of old, sending them prophets and priests, wise men and shepherds, calling them back to Himself. Yet even the most pious and godly of those men and women were sinful at their core. They were afflicted with a mortality no medicine could cure, no science could solve.

When all seemed hopeless and dark; long after the kingdom of David was sundered in two; when it had been four long centuries since a prophet had walked the earth; when all was still and it was midnight, the Lord acted. He who first tilled the virgin soil to make a man, set aside a virgin woman to bring forth the new man – the second Adam.

This virgin was betrothed to a descendant of the great kings of old. The regal line now seemed futile and forlorn. He was a common laborer, taxed by a distant pagan emperor.

His betrothed virgin had not known a man. Yet from her came the new Man, a new King who would redeem and surpass that ancient kingly line.

Where the first Adam had succumbed to temptation, the second would overcome. Where the first had returned to dust, the second would emerge triumphant from the grave. Where the first had caused man’s expulsion from Paradise, the second would open the portal to return. Where the first would seek to become like God through a proud usurpation, the second would walk in humility. Where the first inflicted a mortal wound on his nature and progeny, the second would work a wondrous healing.

Through many and various ways God had spoken to His creation by the prophets. But now, in these last days, God has spoken to us by this Man, His true Son, the true King. The Son is Himself God’s Word. He is the message of how God is minded toward us. Instead of judgment, peace. Instead of wrath, goodwill.

He could demand our blood for all the human blood man has spilled. Instead, He takes on our blood, our body, our bone, and Himself delivers it over to death.

The Maker is now made a man. The Creator becomes a creature. The Word becomes wordless. The Lord of spirits is made lower than the angels.

And the angelic warriors, astonished at His condescension, muster and chant the praise of this Good Shepherd to the shepherds in the ancient fields of king David, of Bethlehem.

In Bethlehem—Hebrew for “house of bread”—God puts heavenly bread in a feeding trough. The Lamb of God is laid amongst the sheep. In the dark of night comes the One who will feel our darkness and share our sorrows.

The warrior angels burst forth into song at the birth of their Eternal Commander: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” This song is no wish. Neither is it a command. They do not sing, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with you.” They do not sing, “You better watch out, you better be men of goodwill.” This hymn of the angels has become the Church’s hymn of praise at the Divine Service. It resounds to the ends of the earth every Lord’s Day: “Glory to God in the highest heaven because He has declared peace to the lowest men; the birth of the Savior shows His goodwill, His divine favor.”

In Him is peace, the end of hostility. From God to us, and between us, and our neighbors.

That makes this night also a night of repentance. For there are those with whom we are not at peace. Pray tonight for the miracle of His peace destroying the walls of hostility that still stand. For the good tidings of great joy are to all people – no one is excluded.

So make haste, as did the shepherds, upon hearing this good news of great joy.

Make haste to Baptism.

Make haste to Confession.

Make haste to the Supper, the Living Bread coming down from heaven.

And make haste to your neighbors, living in peace with them, making amends for what you have done amiss.

For tonight, everything is made new. Tonight is born to you in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

Tonight your transgressions are erased. Tonight the King has returned, the Second Adam has come, with pardon for all. Tonight the Father gives His only-begotten Son, that you, believing in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. Merry Christmas to every one of you! ✠INJ✠