Newborn Light
A sermon for Christmas Eve
In the beginning, God made the light to shine out of the darkness by speaking. “‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”[1]
Light gives beauty and order to God’s visible creation. Without light, you cannot see the beauty and order in the world. Without light, the grandeur of the mountains is hidden. Without light, the smile of your wife and child are unknowable. Without light the most brilliant and useful book is meaningless. Without light the eye cannot see the difference between one path and another. Without God’s gift of light, we cannot see the beauty and order with which God endows his creation.
The same is true with respect to faith. We are all born in darkness. Sin lies upon us all like in complete and smothering night. God’s world still has beauty and order to it, but we cannot see it on our own. On our own we only see the savageness of the mountains, the loss of loved ones, the ignorance of truth, confusion—in short, on our own, we see only death all around us.
But Jesus came to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.[2] And the angels are the first heralds of the birth of Jesus—the Sun of Righteousness. Hark! Listen to them.
St. Luke records for us: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”[3]
The angles come to the shepherds to teach them the purpose of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to summon them to worship Him.
The angels’ message teaches us that the work of that little Baby in the manger was to make peace between God and man. He came to free man from his sin. He came to reconcile God to man in His body by counting our sins against Jesus so that we might be counted as righteous.[4] He came to suffer God’s righteous wrath in our place. He came to be the One Mediator between God and man, for He gave his life as a ransom for the sins of the world.[5] He came to destroy the works of the devil:[6] to crush the head of the serpent—that tempter called the Devil and Satan. He came to crush his head beneath the cross. He came to deliver us from the power of darkness and convey us into his own kingdom of light.[7]
God became a man in order to order to do all of this for us. The work of Jesus is a work of substitution. Where we walked in darkness, He came to be a Light. Where we deserved punishment for our darkness, He took our place. Where darkness and death reigned, He crushed their crown beneath His feet.[8]
Jesus does more than negate our darkness. He also becomes our Light. To those who believe in the Christ Child and trust in Him for the remission of all their sins, He is their Light. When God the Father looks at Christians, He sees not their sins, but the perfection of Jesus. He sees no shadows of guilt or failure; He sees the perfect holiness and righteousness of God the Son. By faith, we are seen in His Light. We are seen as holy, absolved, redeemed all for the sake of the Christ child.
Jesus brings His Light into our darkness and makes us see again. And He makes us see rightly. He shows us a world He created and a world that He died for. By His Light we see sins forgiven, wrongs made right, and justice to be rendered on the Last Day. By His Light we see the beauty of God’s creation and we see its order restored.
By His Light we see Light.[9] By the knowledge of His peacemaking death, we see God as merciful and gracious. By His Light we see God caring for and providing for His creation. By His light we see a God at peace with man by the forgiveness of their sins.
God made His light to shine out in the darkness again, that night when Jesus was born. The glory of God shone out into the darkness demanding the worship of the shepherds and the praises of the heavenly army.
The Psalmist teaches us to sing: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.”[10] And the angels teach the shepherds to go and seek the Child lying in the manger. It is only in Him that we sinful men can see God. God dwells in unapproachable Light.[11] But the God the Son is made man in the person of Jesus Christ. He is no longer unapproachable. The beauty of God is no longer inaccessible. The temple of God is made flesh. Beauty is incarnate. God has a body. We, like the shepherds, must seek God and his Light only in Jesus.
It is this mystery that we celebrate on Christmas Eve. We celebrate the unveiling of the glory of God in the newborn face of the baby Jesus.[12] Our hymns are full of it.
From the manger newborn light
Shines in glory through the night.
Darkness there no more resides;
In this light faith now abides.[13]
And this one:
Now through the Son doth shine the Father’s grace divine.
Death was reiging o’er us through sin and vanity
Till He opened for us a bright eternity.
May we praise Him there! May we praise Him there![14]
And this one:
Thy light and grace our guilt efface,
Thy heav’nly riches all our loss retrieving.
Immanuel, Thy birth doth quell
The power of hell and Satan’s bold deceiving.[15]
May we all, with the shepherds, give glory to God and return to our homes praising God for what we have heard and seen, as the Lord has made it known to us. Amen.
[1] Genesis 1:3.
[2] Luke 1:79.
[3] Luke 2:8–11.
[4] 2 Corinthians 5:19–21.
[5] 1 Timothy 2:5; Matthew 20:28.
[6] 1 John 3:8.
[7] Colossians 1:13.
[8] 1 Corinthians 15:25–26.
[9] Psalm 36:9.
[10] Psalm 27:4.
[11] 1 Timothy 6:16.
[12] 2 Corinthians 4:6.
[13] LSB 332.7.
[14] LSB 386.3.
[15] LSB 372.3.