CHRISTMAS VIGIL:Is 62:1-5, Acts 13:16-17, 22-25,Mt 1: 18-25

Michael Hendrix tells about a dinner party he once attended during the Christmas season. The house was properly decorated, including an electric train set up around the base of the tree. One of the children was running the train too fast and it derailed. She was bent over the train trying to put it back on the track. The host noticed what she was doing and went over to help. He said to her, “You can’t do that from above; you have to get down beside it.” Then he lay down on the floor beside the train where he could see to place the train back on the track.

This is the story of the history of salvation. “The human race had derailed and needed to be put back on the track of life. It couldn’t be done from above; God had to come down beside us in order to put us on track. That’s what God did in Jesus Christ when he became a child in the manger.

There's only one religion in which mankind’s effort to climb back up to heaven is met by the unimaginable event of God himself deciding to climb down into human nature. Christmas is one thing that makes Christianity entirely unique among all the world religions. Only we Christians have the privilege of saying, "The Word became flesh, and lived among us."

God came down because we could not reach up to God intellectually. Our little brains are not sufficient to understand God. Christian faith is not a philosophy that someone thought up. Christian faith is revelation. God revealed His purpose and plan, His love and His grace, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. If there are some things about our faith you do not understand, join the crowd. If we could understand everything there is about God, God would not be God. We do not have the mental capacity to reach up to God intellectually.

We also could not reach up to God morally. That is, before the coming of Jesus the Jewish people believed that the way to God is through right living. If you could just follow the Law and keep all its ordinances, then you could be saved. But salvation by righteousness did not work. For some, their devotion to the Law deteriorated into an odious legalism. They looked down their noses at others who were not as righteous as they. While others, feeling that they had no hope of fulfilling the Law, simply threw up their hands in despair and did not bother to try. So, God came down to save us through grace in Jesus, not by knowledge or moral righteousness.

The angel told Joseph that Mary, his betrothed will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” The name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Yehosua, which means "YHWH is salvation." Just as the first Joshua (successor of Moses), saved the Israelites from their political enemies, the second Joshua (Jesus) will save them from their sins.  The Jews, however, did not expect a Messiah who would save them from their sins, but one who would deliver them from their political oppressors. Matthew stresses the fact that the birth of Jesus as Savior is the fulfillment of a prophecy by Isaiah (7:14): “'Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,' which means, 'God is with us.' In Hebrew, El is a short form of Elohim, a name for God.  Immanu-El, therefore, means "God with us," a meaning which Matthew spells out for non-Hebrew readers. Emmanuel is not a second name by which friends and neighbors will know Jesus.  "Jesus" is Our Lord's true name and   Emmanuel describes his role. Thus, Matthew begins his Gospel with the promise that Jesus' role-name means "God-with-us." He will end his Gospel with Jesus' own promise that He will be with us "always, to the end of the age" (28:20). His being with us is to free us from all the irrational fears and worries.

We fear life, we fear death, and everything in between. We are afraid of little things like a black cat crossing our path or spilled salt. Or, leaving our home at night lest we become a victim of crime. Or, the fear that floods our hearts as we wait for the doctor to tell us if we have cancer. Or, the fear that startles us when the shrill sound of the telephone jolts us awake in the middle of the night.

Leonard Griffith, the outstanding pastor in Toronto, tells the story of a mother who was putting her little daughter to bed in the midst of a thunderstorm. She told her daughter that she did not need to be frightened, that her mother and father were close by in the living room. The girl replied to her mother, "Mommy, but when it thunders this way, I want somebody who has skin on." This simple, homely story, in essence, is the essential truth of our celebration. The invisible spirit of God the Son did clothe Himself in skin, flesh, and blood and came to dwell among us with grace and truth. He did not remain far away as an impersonal force, but a loving embrace.

The antidote to our fears is found in the coming of Christ into the world. The first words of Adam are "I was afraid."(So he hid behind the tree). But the first words at the birth of Jesus are, "Don't be afraid. If Jesus is Emmanuel, the God with us, why should we be afraid of anything? If I am afraid, it means, He is with me, but I am not with him.  The purpose of every Christmas celebration is to bring ourselves to Jesus the God with us and strengthen ourselves in his power. The message of Christmas is that you are never alone.  So, let us not have a Christmas without Jesus in our hearts and minds and in every of our relationships.

Real Christmas is not in the amount of gifts we receive, but in the measure of Christ we have in our hearts.

Let us remember the famous lines of Alexander Pope: “What do I profit if Jesus is born in thousands of cribs all over the world during this Christmas, but is not born in my heart?” Let us allow Him to be reborn in our lives during Christmas 2017 and every day of the New Year 2018.