Matthew 1:23 (Christmas Eve)

Let's pray.

Lord, as we come to your word now

in this account of the birth of your son,

Lord, will you take this familiar story

and Lord, fill it again with new meaning.

And Lord, may the wonderful news of it

resound deeply in our hearts.

As we see a story of your goodness and your love

for your world, for us.

Lord, I would pray that you would encourage us tonight

by your word in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, it is great to see you all here tonight.

I don't know about you, but I love the Christmas season.

It's always encouraging to see people be a little bit cheerier

walking down the streets.

It's always beautiful to drive through the Broadway section

and see all the Christmas lights that they have put up

and to walk through the mall if you dare to get to a mall

and to hear cheerful songs over the Muzak,

whether it's Mariah Carey saying,

all I want for Christmas is you,

or Frank Sinatra singing,

have yourself a merry little Christmas.

It's a wonderful time of the year.

And there is something even in our culture

that makes it a slightly happier time for many of us.

And I don't know about you, but I hope you enjoy it.

And you know, for those of us who are Christians,

as we gather together,

the hymns we were just singing double down on the joy of this season.

They tell us that this season is joy to the world,

peace on earth, goodwill towards men.

And it is a message of great hope

and of great optimism about the state of the world

and about what life can be like here.

And so it's true that in many ways,

Christmas truly can be the most wonderful time of the year.

But there is an empty underside.

Maybe you feel it tonight.

For some of us, we may be carrying losses

that make even the joys bittersweet,

even the happiness of gatherings hollow.

Even if you're not carrying a grief like that during this season,

it's not hard to look into the darkness

and to see how the stress of this season

can cause you to be grumpier rather than more happy.

That the happiness around you can exacerbate the darkness

that you feel in your own soul as you battle depression.

As you read the news and you think,

peace on earth seems like further and further

from our reality rather than closer and closer.

The hymn writers, of course, knew this as well.

When they sing about the coming of Jesus,

they long for a day when the gloomy clouds of night

will be dispersed

and death's dark shadows will be put to flight.

So Christmas is an interesting season, isn't it?

Because it's filled with joy and light and happiness

and yet has this dark underside,

this thing that we don't like to acknowledge

and yet is so often a part of our own experience

and our own life.

What do we do with that?

Cognitive dissonance

between the message of the Muzak

and sometimes the message of our hearts.

I think we can sometimes turn to cynicism.

Yeah?

Bah humbug on you.

Merry Christmas.

Maybe some of us,

with great hope,

just seek to block out all the darkness.

It's not really there.

We deny it and try to go on hoping,

hoping that really it will be

full of wonder and light and goodness

without any other things.

But I think that, in fact,

the narrative of Christmas

can help us navigate this cognitive dissonance,

this darkness and light

with a much greater depth.

And so I want to spend just a few minutes tonight

meditating on the story

that Kyle read in Matthew,

the account of the birth of Jesus.

And as always is true,

there's such a richness to these stories.

I want to focus in,

even particularly,

on the name of Emmanuel

and to think about what that means for us.

As we think about this passage in Matthew,

we need to start by being reminded

that Matthew begins his account

of the birth of Jesus,

not with this,

but right before,

if you look back

at the very beginning of the book,

it's a genealogy.

It's a genealogy that,

for any Jewish person,

for any one of God's people

in the first century,

they would have read this

as the history of their life and nation.

It would be like reading about Washington

and Adams and Abraham Lincoln

and FDR and so forth up to this day.

And yet it had this spiritual undertone as well

of this is the history of God's people.

And so the story is infused

with all of God's promises,

all of God's promises

about how he will call a people to himself

from every tribe and tongue and nation

to lift it up,

to be God's people in this world.

The promise is that they would be his people

and he would be their God

and that he would be among them

and be in their midst.

And yet the people in the first century

wondered where is the fulfillment

of these promises?

Rome rules our country.

The priesthood seems to be compromised.

And where is God with us right now?

And it's into that context

that the story of the baby Jesus steps in.

We've just read about it.

We've just sung about it.

This baby who came claimed,

it was claimed that he was the fulfillment

of the prophecies way back in the prophet Isaiah

looking forward to a day

when God would actually come

and dwell with his people in a new way.

That God would be with us.

And to understand the meaning of this,

I wanted to spend a few minutes

painting for you the whole picture of the Bible

to see how wonderfully good

this news is for us.

Because when you go back to the very beginning

of the story in the Bible,

you see humanity, man and woman,

living together in a place of perfect provision,

in a place of perfect goodness.

And the most wonderful thing about it all

is that they lived with God

and God lived with them.

He walked with them in the cool of the day

is the literary picture that is given to us

of the nearness

and of the unfettered and unhindered

relationship with God in creation.

And you know,

I think this is why we love Christmas a little bit.

Because Christmas reminds us

that this is the way it was supposed to be.

It was supposed to be all good

with no darkness at all.

It was supposed to be joy and merriment

because we would be with God.

But as we read on,

we see that this in fact is not how the story went.

Because humanity in its discontent with God

and its desire to be like God

rebelled against God and rejected Him.

And in that rejection,

which is the root of our sin,

our proud refusal of God with us,

came deadly consequences.

Death, strife, envy, conflicts, murder, war.

And the greatest consequence of all

was our separation from God.

We were no longer able to be with God

because we had rejected Him.

We had refused Him.

And yet you see through the rest of the Old Testament,

the Bible tells us God did not give up.

God did not give up on having a people

who would be His own.

And the whole Old Testament

can be pictured as God's loving pursuit

of His people

and His calling of special people to be His.

And in fact, there are ways in which God showed,

I will be with you,

I want to be with you

throughout the whole narrative.

And yet always,

there was a mix.

And what we experience today

is what they experienced then.

This mix of hopefulness

that these promises may come true

and yet the reality

that they are not fully true now.

So into this context,

in the first century,

when the people of God were saying,

God, where are you?

Are you really with us?

Are you really for us?

A baby was born.

In a manger, he was laid

to a carpenter and his wife

in an obscure town.

And yet,

everyone who saw this baby

knew that it was something special.

Mary and Joseph,

they knew.

Elizabeth and the baby in Elizabeth's womb

who became John the Baptist,

he knew before he was even out of the womb.

Persian wise men from far away

knew.

Shepherds,

watching their flocks by night

on the hillsides,

knew.

They knew that this baby

was something special.

And that in him,

God had come to earth.

And God had come

not just to sympathize with us,

but he came to identify with us.

He came to enter into

the darkness of the world

that we live in.

He came from more than that.

Not only did he enter in

to identify with us in that way,

but he came to deliver us.

This is the most wonderful news.

These are the two names

that we see Matthew giving him.

Emmanuel, God with us,

and Jesus.

For he will save his people

from their sins.

This baby grew up

and instead of rejecting God,

he lived in a perfect relationship

with God.

Instead of seeking to rival God,

he submitted himself

as an obedient servant to God.

Instead of seeking life

apart from God,

he offered himself up to death

in order to give us life.

And in doing so,

at his point of offering himself

up to death,

he took the rejection

of the Father

that we deserved

and he bestowed upon us

the perfect favor

that he had with God.

He saved us from our sin

and God and sinners

are now reconciled

because of him

to all who believe.

And so the word

that Emmanuel,

God with us,

is here tonight

is good news.

It's good news

because it means

the darkness will not win.

God has not abandoned us,

but he has come for us.

It means that your sin

and your distance from God

and your rejection of him

need not be the last word

in your life,

but that in fact

he has come for you

and calls you

to embrace him

and to respond

and to turn to him

and to receive him.

Where meek souls

will receive him still,

the dear Lord

will enter in.

God has come

to rescue us

and to bring to us

the goodness

that we so long for

and so hunger for

and so love

when we taste

this goodness,

the joy

of every longing heart,

the dear desire

of every nation.

This is Jesus.

And all the trappings

of Christmas,

all the presents

and all the lights

and all the feasts

and all the family gatherings,

their richness ultimately

is because they point us

to this ultimate goodness

that God is with us.

The Bible story looks ahead.

It says we're not there yet.

Though God has come

to be with us,

though he has lived

and died and rose again,

he is not yet finished

with this world.

And so we live

in this tension still

and yet we look ahead

with hope.

In the book of Revelation

at the end,

it says this,

I heard a loud voice

from the throne saying,

Behold,

the dwelling place of God

is with man.

He will dwell with them.

And they will be his people

and he will be there.

He and God himself

will be with them

as their God.

And he will wipe away

every tear from their eye.

And death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning

nor crying

nor pain anymore.

For the former things

have passed away

and he who is seated

on the throne say,

Behold,

I am making all things new.

And friends,

this is what Christmas,

God with us,

points us to.

That that day is coming

because he has come.

It is not a wishful hope.

It is a certain future reality

for us.

That just as God has come to us

in the fallenness

to redeem us out of this world,

yet in fact what he will do

is he will come again

to renew this world.

And all the things

that we long for

and all the things

that we hope for

and all the things

that Christmas celebrates

are but an echo

of what we will taste

that day

when the dwelling place

of God will be with man

and woman

and child

for eternity.

and so

sing your,

have yourself a merry

little Christmas.

Enjoy your who hash

and who beast

and roast beast.

Gather around the tree

and think of the presents

given and received.

but remember

that all of this

is meant to remind us

of God

who came to be with us

so that we could be

with him.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you

for your word.

We thank you for

Jesus who has come,

Emmanuel,

who has come with us,

come to us,

to ransom us

and redeem us

and rescue us.

Lord, thank you

for the good news

of this.

Lord, we do pray

that as we celebrate

this Christmas season,

Lord,

that the joy

and the wonder

and the awe

of it

would be ours

in all richness.

Lord, thank you

for this celebration.

we pray

in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, friends,

if you've been here

for the last couple

of years,

we don't typically

do this,

but we're going to try

lighting some candles

tonight.

So,

as we continue

to celebrate

the worship

of Christ,

maybe the ushers

can come up

at this point,

we're going to do

a little bit

of candle lighting.

And the reason

is because

Scripture talks

about Jesus coming

as a light

coming into the darkness

of this world.

And as He did so,

He brought

all that we've just

been talking about

for a few minutes.

So,

this is what we're

going to do.

I'm going to

read the Scriptures.

I'm going to light

the candle.

Tyler and Melissa

are going to come

up the rose

and they're going

to pass the light

out from here

to all of you.

Okay?

So,

here are a few tips

so we don't light

each other on fire.

So,

if your candle

is lit,

it should always

stay upright.

If your candle

is unlit,

you take your

unlit candle

and you light it

from the lit candle.

Once it is lit,

you hold it upright

be careful

of clothing

and hair

in front of you.

And as we do this,

we will be able

to enjoy

the symbolism

of what John 1

tells us

about the coming

of Jesus.

So,

is that clear

how we're going

to do this?

All right.

Well,

let me read.

Our last reading

for the evening

is from the Gospel

of John,

John 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1.

In the beginning

was the Word,

and the Word

was with God

and the Word

was God.

He was in the beginning

with God.

All things were made

through Him

and without Him

was not anything

made that was made.

In Him

was life

and the life

was the light

of men.

The light shines

in the darkness

and the darkness

has not overcome it.

There was a man

sent from God

whose name was John.

He came as a witness

to bear witness

about the light

that all might believe

through Him.

He was not the light

but came to bear witness

about the light.

The true light

which enlightens everyone

was coming into the world.

He was in the world

and the world

was made through Him

yet the world

did not know Him.

He came to His own

and His own people

did not receive Him

but to all who did.

but to all

who did receive Him

who believed

in His name

He gave the right

to become

children of God

who were born

not of blood

nor of the will

of the flesh

nor of the will

of man

but of God.

And the Word

became flesh

and dwelt among us

and we have seen

His glory

glory as of

the only Son

from the Father

full of grace

and truth.

we light this candle

to remember

as a symbol

of Jesus

the light of the world.

I'll do this with you.

Silent night

Holy night

All is calm

All is bright

Round yon

Virgin

Mother and child

Holy infant

So tender and mild

sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night

Holy night

Shepherds quake

Shepherds quake

At the sun

Glories stream

From heaven afar

Heavenly hosts

Heavenly hosts

Alleluia

Christ the Savior

Christ the Savior

Is born

Christ the Savior

Is born

Christ the Savior

Is born

Silent night

Silent night

Holy night

Wondrous star

Let my light

With the angels

Let us sing

Let us sing

Let us sing

Alleluia

To our King

Christ the Savior

Christ the Savior

Is born

Christ the Savior

Is born

Christ the Savior

Is born

Silent night

Holy night

Son of God

Love's pure light

Radiant beams

From thy holy face

With the dawn

Of redeeming grace

Jesus Lord

At thy birth

Jesus Lord

At thy birth

Well friends

thank you for joining us

this evening

please join us

tomorrow morning

if you'd like

10 o'clock

for our Christmas

morning service

and now

may the joy

of Emmanuel

God with us

bring light

and life

to you

as you celebrate

with remembrance

his birth

this night

go in peace

church

hoer

had

King

the

love

Thank you.