St. Luke's Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Christmas 2 – January 4^th, 2004

Dear children of our heavenly Father,

It has been 11 days since Christmas – less than two weeks ago. The presents are all opened. Those that didn’t work or were the wrong size have been returned. The Christmas trees are starting to come down. The ornaments and lights on the trees and around our homes are being put away. School begins tomorrow. You guessed it – Christmas has come and gone for another year. If you are at all like me, you may have the question. Where did the time go? It just seems like yesterday that we celebrated Thanksgiving and now Christmas has past by for another year.

I enjoy watching all those football games on TV. I have always thought that I have the best seat in the place as I sit in front of the TV relaxing in my comfortable chair. One of the things I like is instant replay. On almost every play they will show you the replay from just about every conceivable angle. If you missed something the first time, they slow it down for you and draw little circles and add a little commentary so that you won’t miss any small detail on that particular play.

As we sit here in God’s house this morning, I would like for all of us here this morning to take some time to take a look back at a "replay" of this past Christmas and for that matter every Christmas . I would like us to in "slow motion" if that is possible actually see every little detail of what Christmas is about. We will use the words of John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah who was led to speak these very beautiful words of our text that describe who Jesus is and what Jesus means for every sinner. Our theme for this morning is:

These words for our text are a portion of Zechariah’s song of praise following the birth of his son, John. For the past nine months God had taken away his speech, but the words of our text show us that the Holy Spirit was still at work in his heart over those past nine months. Zechariah knew that the long promised Messiah was going to be coming soon. He wanted everyone to know this. As we think of another Christmas past, we realize that everyone, including ourselves needs to hear that same Christmas message.

The problem with Christmas is that so many fail to comprehend the full significance of the words of Zechariah when he says,: "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because has come and redeemed his people." Our heavenly Father throughout all time has been looking in on his people, deeply concerned about their great need for a Savior. It has been his concern for a long time. He planned this visit already many thousands of years before Zechariah "was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied." Zechariah happened to be one of the last of the prophets who foretold it. As Zechariah spoke these words, I’m sure that most of the Jews didn’t really grasp that he was talking about the coming Messiah.

But could we say the same of ourselves and the people living in our time? Were we really ready for Jesus this past Christmas, or were we too busy doing something else? How foolish for us to lose ourselves at Christmas time in the hustle and bustle of the season and to forget why we truly celebrate Christmas. Did we possibly cram everything into our Christmas celebration except that which alone can make it a Christmas? We missed Christmas unless we were involved in finding out more about that baby that was born in the small town of Bethlehem — the baby that Zechariah said "has come and redeemed his people." That’s the heart of Christmas. We might ask ourselves as we "replay" this past Christmas, were we in God’s house as often as possible to prepare our hearts and minds to greet the coming Savior – whether that was Sunday morning, Special midweek Advent Services or any of our many special Christmas services? Did we take time in our daily devotional life to read and study more about this Savior that Zechariah proclaimed about so many years ago?

There was a time when Zechariah found it difficult to understand certain features of God’s Christmas plan with his own thinking. He was not willing to let God have his way. Nine months before he spoke the words of our text he doubted that God could keep his promise and give him and Elizabeth a son in their old age, a son whom God wanted to use as a forerunner for the Messiah. God’s way of teaching Zechariah that nothing is impossible with him was to deprive him of the power of speech until after the child was born. During those nine months of silence, I’m sure that Zechariah learned to take God at his word in all humility. I’m sure that by the time John was born, Zechariah was one of the most ready people in all of Israel. I pray that we also were ready and prepared to worship our Lord and Savior.

But let’s think about this a little more. There were many people this past Christmas, most likely ourselves included who were trying to get ready for Christmas, but were we really getting ready? Going through the motions of getting ready for Christmas is not enough. It is even more important that we see in that baby of Bethlehem, the Son of God come down from heaven. Zechariah describes Jesus in beautiful poetic language. He states that his own son John will be "a prophet of the Most High." John will "go before the Lord." There was no doubt in the mind of Zechariah that he who was to come would be "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, being of one being with the Father." As we say in the Nicene Creed.

Our Christmas celebration is not complete, nor does it honor God, unless it is centered on words like this from Galatians, "When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman." We must recognize through our eyes of faith who Jesus truly is,: "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." This may not make any sense to us or to any other person.

In fact there is much that is incomprehensible about the coming of the baby Jesus. There are important features of the Christmas story which human reason will never be able to comprehend. God’s entire plan of salvation through Christ is filled with things too tough for the human mind to figure out. We certainly have good reason to stand in holy awe of the announcement: "His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." But we cannot doubt it, because God has spoken it to us through is mighty Word. The man who always wants rational explanations for what he believes will eventually find himself even more speechless than Zechariah was. When he stands in the presence of God, he will be speechless.

But blessed is the man who has the humble faith of a Zechariah as a free gift from God. The man with a humble faith lets God’s Word be final in everything, and asks no more questions once God has spoken. Be sure that you approach all the great mysteries of Christmas in that humble frame of mind. Whatever in his coming to redeem you you do not understand, accept by faith and be satisfied. Then, and then only do you recognize the baby of Bethlehem as the one who came to save all people.

Christmas has turned into a season of the year where we focus much of our time on giving gifts to other people. This is a nice thing to do, but if the giving of these gifts begins to overshadow the gift of Jesus and the gifts that he has come to give us as lost sinners, then we might have gotten our priorities a little mixed up. The gifts brought by Jesus are the real gifts of the Christmas season. I often wonder how much of Christmas would remain for people if suddenly there could be no more Christmas shopping along Main Street, no decorations, and no gifts. For most people there couldn’t be Christmas without all of these other things.

That will never happen to us as long as we appreciate above everything else the gifts of grace which our heavenly Savior has prepared for us. Zechariah names some of them in beautiful imagery. Let us take a Christmas inventory of the priceless treasures Christ has brought into our individual lives this past Christmas and everyday of our lives on this earth.

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people." Jesus brings us the gift of redemption. We will never understand correctly God’s plan of salvation for us unless we understand this one phrase of our text. God has worked out a ransoming for his people. Bethlehem is only the gateway to Calvary. At Calvary, the ransom he came to bring was paid in full — it was paid in blood. It was a sufficient ransom for the sins of the whole world because the life of the Son of God was the price. Jesus gave himself to save us by sacrificing himself for our sins on the cross. Zechariah tells us we were sitting "in darkness and in the shadow of death." We were doomed. We had to be "rescued from the hand of our enemies."

Some people get very sentimental about the little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay, but sentimental thoughts are not enough for a genuine Christmas celebration. We must see ourselves involved in our Savior’s coming to earth. We must see clearly that this gentle, loving baby is the one who ransomed my sinful soul from the terrors of hell by giving his life for all people on the cross.

God did all this, says Zechariah, "to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant." Because God sent his Son as The Ransom, the floodgates of His mercy are now opened wide. John was born as a forerunner "to give the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins." God’s Christmas gift to us is not a vague, indefinite something, a lacy, frilly bit of Christmas sentiment. It is a knowledge of salvation. It is a firm conviction and a positive assurance because we are assured of the forgiveness of our sins. Until a man knows through God’s gift of faith that his sins have been forgiven, he cannot possibly know what real salvation is. This forgiveness of our sins for Jesus’ sake must be the best Christmas gift we will ever hope to receive. It implies that "as far as the east is from the west" so far has God removed our sins from us. He has dropped them into the depths of the sea, and they w¹¹i never again appear above the surface. He has blotted out the handwriting that was against us; our debt is paid in full.

But we can’t finish this beautiful prayer of Zechariah without looking at one more thing. God gave us all these gifts "to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days." The message of the Christmas season should fill God’s children with a desire to serve our wonderful Savior. But what usually happens? After the last Christmas carol has been sung, after the decorations are gone, there follows a noticeable slump in the life and activity of the church. The post-Christmas Sunday-school attendance drops. The crowds that filled the church for the holidays shrink. Bible Class attendance begins to slowly decrease. An everyday attitude takes hold again. Whenever that happens, it is evident that the Devil is working very hard to lead us to forget Christmas. May God fill us with a desire to remember what Christmas is about each and everyday of our lives. May this grace from God lead us to serve him as we seek to find ways to show our thanks to a God who has given us everything. Amen