St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI

Pastor Mark Gartner

Sermon for Christmas Day -- December 25^th, 2005

Dear children of God who have come to worship the birth of our Savior.

Are you the Christmas Eve present opening crowd or are you the Christmas Day present opening group? For some of us here this morning, we have had a whole night and part of the morning to look over and play with all the presents that we received last night. For others who opened their presents this morning, you have had only a short time to see and use your presents. Did you get what you wanted? Did you get the one or maybe two or three presents that you really hoped for? Did you get that one present that brought a smile to your face, because it was exactly the one that you wanted? Maybe or maybe not. Whether you receive exactly the present that you wanted, I’m sure that you received some pretty nice gifts this Christmas.

Today for this Christmas Day, I want to take a look at that question; did you receive the presents that you wanted? As we think about this perfect gift, we will first need to think back to what presents did we really want for this Christmas? Did we make a list and give some pretty strong hints that this is the one present that I would like? Or did we just hope that we would have family members observant enough to pick out the gift that we wanted. As we gather today, our theme will also follow along with this question.

As we look at our text for this morning, it may not seem exactly like a Christmas Day sermon text. It is not the account of Jesus’ birth, but rather it is from the account where Jesus’ birth was announced to Mary. If we remember, the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary and the angel said to her, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." What a time this must have been for Mary? Here she was talking to an angel of God. She was called someone who was "highly favored." What kind of reaction would you have if an angel would come and give you this kind of message? Would we be afraid, joyful, or perhaps even a little confused? It is hard to tell, but one thing is certain, I bet we would all listen with our best listening ears. We would recognize that these words are very important. God doesn’t send angels to talk to us, unless he has something very important to tell us.

Certainly he had something important to tell Mary and to tell us. "But the angel said to her: "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High." This is no ordinary message and was not delivered in an ordinary way. The angel made sure that Mary realized that she didn’t need to be afraid. In fact, the angel wanted to Mary to feel exactly the opposite. Once again he says to Mary, "Mary you have found favor with God." That is twice in a couple of sentences that God was telling Mary through the angel Gabriel that she had "found favor with God." This morning we are going to spend much of our time talking about this little phrase and especially this little word "favor."

The word "favor" in our language today has many different meanings. It can be something that someone does for someone else. It can be an act of kindness for someone. But the word that is used for "favor" in our text this morning tells more than this. This word is from the Greek word for God’s grace. As we gather on this Christmas Day, what better word can be used to describe and answer the question that is our theme, What do we really want for Christmas? The answer is God’s grace and favor. The answer is found in what God has given to us, rather in what our earthly relatives or friends gave us as presents last night or this morning. That little word favor lays out for us the whole plan by which the world was saved from its sin, the sin that all this world has. The problem is that the world around us is trying very hard to answer that question, what do we really want for Christmas from an earthly point of view. How many of you when you finis! hed opening your presents truly felt satisfied? I don’t just mean that you felt this little sort of happiness on the inside. I don’t mean that you had this sort of extra bounce in your step because you had all these presents around you. I mean that you felt that this was just the best gifts that I have ever received.

I know that this is not a fair question and I am not in any way diminishing the exchanging of gifts that went on last night or this morning. That is one of the joys that we have for living in country that has been so richly blessed. We have the physical means to buy and exchange many gifts. This certainly is a blessing that I would never want to see stopped, but I hope and pray that our Christmas was not ruined or a disappointment because we didn’t really get the gifts that we wanted. Or that the people that were opening the gifts we bought for them didn’t seem as excited about the gift as we thought or hoped they might be. It is all too easy to take for granted the many things that we receive at this time of the year.

Maybe an indication of this earthly type of satisfaction is the gift receipt that now comes with almost every purchase. This little receipt makes it much easier to return the gifts that we don’t really want or maybe were broken or just maybe were to small to wear. And when you go the stores tomorrow what line will be the longest – we all know it is the line for returns and exchanges. We know that it is almost impossible to buy the perfect gifts, but we try very hard to do this – sometimes almost too hard.

That being said, we will jump back to Mary and the message from the angel Gabriel. "But the angel said to her: "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High." Mary would be the tool by which God gives us the perfect gift this Christmas season and every day of this year. Everybody knows the Mastercard commercials that end with the phrase priceless. As this commercial always goes, it mentions items that cost money – sometimes great amounts of money and in the end the commercial wants us to think that this amount of money is worth it because the end result is something that money can’t buy. Isn’t that true as we look at these words from the angel Gabriel to Mary? These words are not fancy and they didn’t come with any great fanfare. They wer! e very simple words that came to one of God’s sinful servants – a lady name Mary.

Mary was given this one little sentence which would change the world. It would be the greatest gift this world has ever seen, "You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High." As we gather in God’s house on this Christmas morning, this brings everything into perspective doesn’t it? For at least a small moment we are able to set a side all the things that this world calls priceless to set our hearts and minds on what the angel just said to Mary. Here is the fulfillment of God’s promise given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Here is the fulfillment of the plan that would take away the sin that is in every person’s heart. Here is the plan that has been in existence from the beginning of time.

This Son as we know so well was not an ordinary son. He was going to come into this world just like any other baby, but as Mary heard from the angel, he would be great and would be called the Son of the Most High. Her baby would be God’s Son -- the Messiah. If that doesn’t send shivers down your spine, I don’t know what will. Mary would give birth to the long awaited Savior and she would give him the name Jesus.

Mary found favor with God. Guess what, we have also found God’s favor. Mary didn’t receive this favor, because she was such a special lady or had led such an exemplary life. She received God’s favor grace, because of God’s grace given to her. It was his act of loving-kindness for her that was important. As we gather this morning, I pray that we truly understand and appreciate that we have found favor in God’s eyes also. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, working through his Means of Grace, we have had our hearts and minds opened to see that the baby that was born to Mary is also our Savior from sin. We have received God’s favor and grace in an amount that cannot truly be understood or appreciated.

As we open this present, I pray that it gives us a feeling that is truly different from opening that perfect earthly gift that we received this Christmas. I pray that we don’t throw this wonderful in the pile just like many of the gifts we receive each Christmas. I pray that we hold on to this gift and never let go. This gift will never wear out. This gift will never go out of style. This gift will never need to be exchanged for a new and better one. This gift of God’s Son will bring the same joy today as it will for the rest of our lives on this earth. Amen