Sunday, December 24, 2023… “God with Us?”

A Hymn Service for Christmas Eve

Psalm 97:8-12; Isaiah 7:10-14; 1 John 4:7-16; Matthew 1:18-25

Hymns: #366 “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear”; #358 “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come” v. 1-5; #370 “What Child Is This”; #374 “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child”; #361 “O Little Town of Bethlehem”; #368 “Angels We Have Heard on High”; #363 “Silent Night”; #379 “O Come, All Ye Faithful”

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

    Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.

    God with us? God wants to be with us? Why? The all-powerful, world-creating God of the Universe wants to come down here and hang out with the likes of us? What on earth for? We try God’s patience; we sin and sin and sin some more. We’re unfaithful to God, and cruel to one another. There’s no one who does good in this world, not even one. We’re disobedient, impatient, impenitent, belligerent, irreverent, and every other “ent” you can think of. We’re unholy, unlovely, and selfish. We’re people of unclean lips, living among people of unclean lips. We’re blind and deaf and dead in our spirits.

And we’ve turned this beautiful world God made for us into a mess.

    Why would God want to come down here? To punish us, perhaps, to rebuke us, chastise us, and put an end to us; but what other reason could there be? The only possible answer on this holy Christmas Eve is that God is love. Love is who God is and what God is and what God is all about. Love gives. Love forgives. Love is patient, love is kind. Love bears all things and hopes for all things. The God who made us loves us, in spite of our sins and flaws and ornery-ness. God sent His only Son into the world, hoping, hoping, hoping that we’d come to know Him, and come to know the Father through Him, and love Him back, and learn to love each other.

    God is love, and love comes from God. “And this is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” God wants to be with us, because He loves us. The God of love took on human flesh for our sakes, came to be with us, came to be one of us. Christmas is love in a manger. God’s love is found in a merciful, wonderful, loving and lovely man named Jesus, who walked the earth over 2000 years ago; a man people could see and touch and listen to; a man who loved people, even when people wouldn’t love Him back. God’s love was nailed to a cross, and then raised up again. God is with us, not just once on the first Christmas Eve -- with “Mary and Joseph and shepherds and all” -- but with us always, with us forever, “til the very end of the age.”

    So this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about; this is how the God of love came to be with us: Mary, who was chosen to be the mother of God, had no idea that’s how things were going to be. She was engaged, promised to a man named Joseph. Mary and Joseph were good and godly people. They knew well enough that God was “with them,” as He was with all His people – that He was with them in worship, with them in prayer, with them in that far-off, arms-length way people always think of when they think of God’s Presence.

    But they had no idea God would ever be with them like this. God with us at a distance is one thing, but God in your living room, God in your house -- God coming to live inside Mary, in this case -- was another thing. That’s taking things to a whole new level. “Why me?” Mary must have thought. “Why us?” the holy couple must have wondered. Why would God come to sleepy little Nazareth, into our simple lives? Out of all the people in the world…

    Before they came together; before they’d made their marriage vows before God; before they’d ever been intimate in the way married couples are -- she was found to be with child. In the ordinary world, that would be a disaster -- the end of their engagement, the end of the trust between them, the end of their relationship. Mary must have been certain Joseph wouldn’t love her anymore. She was with child by the intervention of Holy Spirit, by divine conception, by an act of God (fulfilling God’s promise that “the virgin will be with child”) -- but who was going to believe a thing like that?

    Joseph didn’t, at least at first. He assumed the worst, like anyone would. But he was a righteous man, a good man, a man who loved God. Had he so chosen, he could have had Mary publicly accused of adultery. That was the “safe route” for him, one that would have allowed him to keep his own reputation and standing. But she would have marked, ruined, shunned in her little town forever -- maybe even stoned in the public square. Joseph, righteous man that he was, and loving her as he did, had in mind to do the best he could in a bad situation. He’d send her out of town, he thought, send her to visit relatives, end things between them quietly, without any harm coming to her.

    But God is with us, and God is for us; and God had His hand in this whole wonderful story; because He loves us enough to be with us, and He wants us to be with Him. And God showed father Joseph the wonderful thing He was doing; not in the same way He’d told it to Mary, but in a different but no less wonderful way. God came to Mary through a heavenly angel, while she was wide awake; and God came to Joseph through an angel in a dream, while he was fast asleep. (Whatever it takes to get your attention, God will do).

    The angel told Joseph, in his dream, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” Have you seen “A Christmas Carol” this year? Remember how it took Ebenezer Scrooge three visits from an angel to get the message? After the first angel’s visit, Scrooge woke up and chalked it all up to indigestion. “Bah! Just a bit of undigested beef…” But Joseph, godly man that he was, got the message in one try!

    God assured him that Mary hadn’t done anything wrong, and that the child in her was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and the child to be born to her would be a Son -- the Son of God. And Joseph believed God. And believing isn’t just saying, “Yes, Lord, I believe;” it’s also trusting God enough to obey Him and do what He says. Joseph believed God enough to change his mind and change his plans. And Joseph, said the angel, name Him Jesus -- “God is Salvation,” “God has come to save us.”

    All this, says our Gospel, took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet Isaiah. This was God’s plan to be with us from the beginning of time. This was how the God of love always intended to show His love to us. This was how the God of creation would come to give Himself to His children: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a Son, and they will call Him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us.”

With us. Sinners though we are, hopeless as we were, lost as we’d become, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…

    Our God has many names in Scripture that we can call Him by: Yahweh, I AM, God of Creation, God of Life, God of Love, and many more. And our Savior has many names as well: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Messiah; King of kings, Lord of lords; Wonderful, Counselor, Prince of Peace. And here He’s called Emmanuel, “God is with us,” “God has come to save His people.”

    Joseph woke up from his heavenly dream and did what the Lord asked him to do. He took Mary home to be his wife, whatever tongues it would cause to wag, whatever trouble it would bring. We know about how Emperor Augustus issued his decree to put the whole world on his tax rolls, and how Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem, heavy with child though she was. And we know the story of what happened there in Bethlehem, and how our Savior came to “be with us” in just the place God had said He’d appear. We know about the joy-singing angels, and the shepherds in their fields abiding. We know about the cross, and about Easter morning, and about the good Holy Spirit who’s come to be “with us always.” And now we know what “God with Us” really means. “God with us” means we’re blessed and forgiven and free, and safe in the arms of God forever. God is with us now on this blessed Christmas Eve, as we join “angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” in kneeling at the manger and singing praises to His name. A happy and blessed Christmas to you all!

    Jesus, Savior, infant small yet Lord of all, You have come to earth this night to bear our sin and be our Savior. Lord, be with us, stay with us, live in us, and help us to love one another as You have loved us, until we’re all together in heaven at last. Amen.