Isaiah 9:2-7/Luke 2:1-14
Friday, December 24, is Christmas Eve. Though I have several Bible passages to choose from each Christmas Eve, I have always stuck with the same two:
Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-14.
Because the Word is never exhausted, and its full truth cannot be captured in any sermon, I challenge myself to revisit these two passages every Christmas Eve. I marvel to find how they are new each time!
As you read Isaiah 9:2-7 this year, I imagine the pandemic will shape the way you hear the opening words: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…” Take some time to read this passage very slowly. Let its message of acknowledgement of “darkness” and its bold proclamation that “a light has shined” lead you both to ask God for restoration, and to rest in God’s loving reassurance.
I have often preached the Christmas Eve sermon with a focus on those shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, out in the fields. This year, what struck me as I translated the passage from Greek was the word “enrollment” (or “registration”) in Luke 2:1, 2. So many of the most familiar Scripture stories begin by locating God’s mighty deeds in the midst of history. Here, the story of God’s Savior coming into the world begins by noting a census. A census was, and is, a way for a government to hold and exercise power. In the Roman Empire, it was a way to exploit the people under Roman rule.
We live in a time when many citizens think that our own government is as oppressive as the Roman Empire under the caesars. If you know anything about the Roman Empire, you will know that this is simply not true. Even so, many of us often struggle to reconcile the demands of citizenship with the call of Christ. We do not always agree with every way in which governmental power falls on us.
Our faith is not an escape from this tension, it is a reconciling of the transformative power of Christ’s love in the midst of a fallen world. It calls us to see that our true freedom is not “when the government falls,” but is available in the midst of everything — governments, pandemics, cruelty…and our own sin — that defies Christ’s love.
When you read Luke 2:1-14, follow Mary and Joseph as they leave home (and Mary 9 months pregnant) to comply with the government’s rule. Sit with them in the barn when their baby is placed in an animal’s feed trough. And rejoice with them (and those shepherds) as they do not have to wait for the glory of God to shine “in deep darkness."