Sermon prepared by Gregory Kaurin
for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA
Christmas Eve, 2010
A Sign for You
Do you know the comedian? His trademark joke is that some people should have to wear signs, especially people whose bulbs don’t burn very bright.
Bill Engvall. Like the day my brother and I came off the lake with a long stringer of fish and someone asked us, “Wow, you boys catch all them fish?” My brother answered, “Nope. We talked ‘em in to giving themselves up. Here’s your sign.”
Bill’s humor may be a bit mean or sarcastic, but signs in life and signs in the Bible are meant to do the same thing. Right or wrong, signs label; they warn or guide or give directions; they convey meaning. The angel could’ve said, “Go and look around in Bethlehem and you’ll find a newborn babe swaddled in a manger.” Instead, the angel clearly says to the shepherds that, “This will be a sign for you: you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling cloth and laying in a manger.” It will be a sign for them.
Thirty years later, when Jesus was ministering the Bible says that he performed signs and miracles and that people came looking for those signs to prove that he was the Messiah.
John 2:11 – [After he turned water into wine,] Jesus did this, the first of his signs…
Matthew 12:38 - Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to [Jesus], "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." Prove yourself to us.
The Old Testament, in a few places, it says that when this or that happens, it will be a sign. Something specific happens here on earth as a sign of the bigger picture of what God intends. One of the famous passages we Christians associate with Jesus is from…
Isaiah 7:14. 700 hundred-plus years before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah was trying to convince King Ahaz that God was on his side, but King Ahaz was too afraid to even ask for a little sign. So, Isaiah said, “Is it too little to weary mortals that you wear God out, too? Therefore, God himself will give you a sign.” There was a young girl, the Greek version says she was a virgin, who was pregnant, and would give birth to a son named Immanuel, which meant God is with us, on our side. Isaiah said that by the time that child was born and could tell right from wrong King Ahaz and all of Israel would be victorious over their enemies.
So, long before Jesus, there was a child named Immanuel. God with us. He was a sign when Isaiah prophesied in about 720 BC… but it becomes a greater sign in the New Testament, Matthew’s gospel: Look, the virgin [a new young woman] shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel (which means, God is with us).
Of those signs or labels that the angels attach to Jesus are “Messiah,” or “Christ” in the Greek, which meanst anointed, as in the promised anointed King of Israel. But the Greek title “Savior” in Luke’s day was also startling; it was a politically charged word, especially when Jesus was born.
We talk about Jesus as our Savior all the time, but that title “Savior” for Jesus is only used a few times in the Bible, by Luke, once in John’s gospel, and once in Paul’s writing, because it was a Roman word and it made people think about the Caesar Augustus during the pax romana, the Peace of Rome. After a number of victories, when his reign was firmly established, about the time Jesus was a young boy growing up, Caesar Augustus was repeatedly called the “Savior of all people,” or the “Savior of the world.” It was chiseled in stone for everyone to read, …still is.
So, when the angels say it and when Luke recorded it about Jesus, they meant it in comparison and in stark contrast to Caesar who supposedly brought peace and salvation through his wars and political victories.
There, in the middle of this, the angels declare that Jesus would be the true Savior of all, the true peace, not chiseled in a stone, not by Senate decree, but to shepherds. Was it going to be through war or conquest? Would he prove himself savior through political victories or alliances? Would he become the next high priest of the Temple or a zealous rebel against the Roman government? No.
The gospels talk about the angels, and how the glory of the Lord shone about them, but against everything you’ve ever sung or seen in movies or postcards, the Bible says nothing about some blue glow from the manger or the Child. What made that scene special, important, what made it radiant was the simple beauty of a plain common girl holding her newborn baby boy. The radiance of the child was not some visible miracle, but its simplicity and truth.
It was no more or less miraculous than when I looked through a window and saw my wife, Pauline, holding each of our boys in the florescent lights at a hospital. There were babies and nurses and noises all around, but I remember nothing else than that simple scene, and my place in it.
So, when the angels say that this will be a sign for you, shepherds: “You go, find a child swaddled in a manger,” they mean that how you find him, where you find him, and the fact that we’re sending you, common shepherds, to the little town of Bethlehem to hail this birth, these are all signs about how God is choosing to save the world.
Not by conquest or decree, not even by a church Reformation, but through a simple, common birth, a girl and her child in an antechamber off from the rest of the house, with a borrowed feeding trough for his crib. His birth was probably not all that different than the shepherds’ own births. But God was choosing to save by relationship, by being one with his people, coming to people like shepherds, or to a young girl and her dazed husband. To people.
By joining himself to each person in Baptism. By calling each one of us his adoptive brothers and sisters.
Today, Christmas Eve, be honest, many of us are here, not because we are planning to grow deeper in faith, or because we are looking for a life change tonight. Most of us are here because Christmas is wrapped in traditions. This is how we do Christmas; there just have to be the right carols, the candlelight, the singing of “Silent Night.” It’s just not Christmas, otherwise. We even have traditional complaints every year about how the secular world is taking over or changing Christmas, or the greed of Christmas; I can prove to you that the same complaints and sermons against these have actually been preached for over a hundred years. How many movies are all about rescuing Santa or finding the true Spirit of Christmas and making it happen again.
It almost becomes a contest. People try to make Christmas “real” by overdoing all the trimmings and trappings, or by completely eliminating them. Who in your neighborhood puts out the most lights on their house and lawn? Boy, they must really have the Christmas spirit!
Or you talk to another couple who say, “Oh we don’t exchange any gifts with anyone; in fact, our whole family spends all of Christmas serving in a soup kitchen.” Wow, who can beat that? They must really understand the Christmas spirit…more than me.
But you know what? This isn’t a contest. You can’t win or save or discover the true Christmas Spirit. And the Christ child isn’t just a warm ritual snuggie blanket that you can pull on with hot cocoa and a yule log. The true Christmas Spirit finds you. He is God, wanting to lead each of us to lives that matter more and mean more.
I can only ask you for a moment to derail yourself from all the Christmas traditions, competitions or expectations for a few moments and consider that tonight, the sign of Jesus coming so plainly and simply points to the fact that he came not just to religious people or as some kind of Christmas myth, but for you, to be a part of your life, and to change your life.
God our Father so loved the world that he came to the world, and became your brother. This is a sign for you. The rest of the year, the rest of Christianity, is learning what that means: for you.
