Christmas
Eve 2022
Fr. Phil Eberhart
Christmas
Eve / Christmas Day
So happy
to see you out on Christmas. It is the
only time of the year that you can be driving along in your car and suddenly
the Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah comes on the radio – and you almost want
to stop the car to stand up!
The
wonder of Christmas and the Christmas message is what fills our hearts these
days. The message of God’s love and God’s
over-whelming commitment to us all in coming as a baby, being born in a
back-water barn, laying in a manger – a feed stall, surrounded by the animals,
and all that juxtaposed with the angels, the shepherds, and the visit from the
Magi. It’s a lot to take in. Ask Mary!
When John
the Baptist, 30 years later, recognized Jesus, his cousin, coming to be
baptized, he said to those around him , “Behold the Lamb of God, Who takes away
the sin of the world.”
John
passed on a truth that I want us to think about this season: This season wasn’t the last ditch effort,
plan Z, of a God who was out of options in dealing with mankind. The birth of Jesus, his life and death were
plan A in a story that began “before the foundation of the world.” You see God is God, and by definition, knows
the end from the beginning! He sees all
of history, past, present and future as one piece!! He knows our choices, all of our ways, our
mistakes and sins, from beginning to end.
And God has chosen to love us.
And further, He came to live among us – John said, “God became flesh and
dwelt among us.” Later in his letters,
he wrote, “That
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have
seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our
hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made
manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the
eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that
which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have
fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with
his Son Jesus Christ. “
A lot of
people look at the Christmas story as a kind of fairy tale! There’s lots of cute-ness in the story, if
it weren’t so real. Kind of down and
dirty: a stable (have you ever been in a
stable?), farm animals, sheep, cows, camels, probably some chickens too! It wasn’t fairy tale like. It was earthy. God was willing to get his hands dirty!
He worked
in a carpenter shop with his father for 30 years! Being the savior was his second career! He was a late bloomer as a rabbi!
All of
this, all the churches, all the songs, all the festivities, almost a third of
the population of the planet today who follow Jesus and more every day, growing
by more than the day of Pentecost (3000) every day… all of this, from that
manger in Bethlehem! As one preacher put
it…
"Here
is a man who was born in an obscure village as the child of a peasant woman. He
grew up in another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was
thirty and then for three years was an itinerant preacher.
"He
never wrote a book. He never held
an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college.
He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles
from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually
accompany greatness.
"He
had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the
naked power of his divine manhood. While still a young man the tide of popular
opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him.
Another betrayed him.
"He
was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was
nailed upon the cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the
only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying, and that was his
coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through
the pity of a friend.
“Nineteen
wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the center of the human race
and the leader of the column of progress.
"I
am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and
all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat and
all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of
man upon the earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life."
One
Solitary Life!
That is
the LIFE that we celebrate tonight! That
LIFE is what all the hubbub is about!
Whether we recognize it or not.
It all came from the manger in Bethlehem! And it all ended on a cross outside
Jerusalem! And then it started again
three days later when the Son of God was raised from the dead and the empty
tomb remains so today.
One
Solitary Life! An Unending,
Indestructible Life. That is given to us
as a gift tonight
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