Luke 2:6,7 * December 25, 2007 * Christmas Day * Pastor Pagels

In the name of the One whose birth we celebrate today, dear friends:

As the well known Christmas song goes, “Tis the season to be jolly,” but if you are like me this has also been the season to receive dozens of solicitations in the mail. Since the beginning of December I have been receiving requests for gifts and donations, as many as three or four per day.

The requests have come from many different places: Special Olympics, the MACC Fund, the American Heart Association, and about a dozen church and para-church organizations. I have to admit that not all of them captured my attention and more than a few of them went straight to recycling.

But out of all those letters there is one that stands out in my mind. This particular request came from the United Way, and I remember it because of its slogan. Maybe you have seen or heard it on commercials: Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes.

Those words speak to people because most people can relate to them. We all have problems. We all have things in our lives that we would like to change. But change isn’t easy. Change takes work. Sometimes the change we desire has to be initiated by someone else. And if that is the case, if all we can do is sit and wait for the situation to change, that can be a very frustrating the experience.

I wonder if that is how God’s Old Testament people felt at different times in their history. Through his prophets the Lord had given them promise after promise that a Savior would come. For centuries God’s people waited. For centuries God’s promises went unfulfilled. And for the longest time nothing seemed to change.

But then something happened. With very little fanfare, with very few people in the world even noticing, something changed. Actually everything changed. Who or what was behind it? It wasn’t a natural disaster. It wasn’t an army invasion. It wasn’t an amazing invention. The most important change in the history of the world took place when a baby was born.

Thousands of years after God promised Abraham that through his offspring all nations on earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3), hundreds of years after Isaiah prophesied that a shoot would come out of the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1), nine months after the angel Gabriel announced to a young virgin that she would give birth to a son (Luke 1:31), a baby was born.

Today we celebrate the birth of that child. Today we recognize that the baby in the manger is no ordinary child. This morning we give thanks to God the Father for the gift of his Son…

A CHILD WHO CHANGES EVERYTHING

‘This child changes everything.” That is what Mary was thinking to herself as she tried to comprehend what had just happened. Mary was engaged. She was planning to get married. Lord willing, she was planning to have children. But God had other plans.

The Lord sent an angel to tell Mary that she had been singled out to receive a very special blessing. This was not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This was a privilege God gave to only one person in the history of the world.

The angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be with child. Even though Mary was a virgin she would become pregnant because nothing is impossible with God. And in her womb she would carry the promised One, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.

And nine months later that child was born. Just as Micah predicted he was born in Bethlehem. Just as Luke records, the mother laid her firstborn son in a manger. And just as Gabriel told her, she gave him the name Jesus, without a complete knowledge of how descriptive than name would be.

“This child changes everything.” That is what Joseph said to himself after he woke up from the most remarkable dream. When Joseph found out that his future wife was pregnant, he was angry. He was disappointed. He was heartbroken. But because he was a righteous man, he chose not to expose Mary to public disgrace. Instead Joseph decided to divorce her quickly and quietly and move on.

But then he had a dream. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him that things were not as they appeared. Mary had not been unfaithful to him. Her pregnancy was the work of God. The child conceived in her through the Holy Spirit was the Son of God. And as a result, there was no reason he should not marry Mary.

And so he did. Joseph and Mary got married. For their honeymoon they traveled to Bethlehem. Because there were no rooms available they had to settle for a stable. Shortly after they settled in for the night Joseph became a father, or perhaps we should say, a stepfather. And in obedience to the angel’s words, Joseph named his son Jesus because he would save his people from their sins.

“This child changes everything.” That was the message of the angels on the first Christmas Eve. In Psalm 103 King David describes angels as “mighty ones” who do God’s bidding (20), and on that night the Lord of heaven and earth gave his heavenly creatures a very special task.

God sent an angel to shepherds who were watching over their flocks. He told them not to be afraid. He told them that he brought good news of great joy. He told them that the Savior of the world had been born. He gave them the location, the town of David (Bethlehem). He even gave them a sign, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.

And then the messenger angel was joined by a heavenly chorus. Their glory lit up the night sky. Their voices filled the shepherds with wonder and awe. “Glory to God in the highest,” they sang, “and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).

“This child changes everything.” That’s what the shepherds were saying to each other after the angels disappeared from their sight. That night had begun like every other night. Watching sheep wasn’t the most exciting work, especially after dark. There was the occasional bandit or wild animal to contend with, but on this evening the Judean hillside was the picture of peace.

Until the announcement of the angel shattered the silence. Until the glory of the angel scattered the darkness. In a matter of moments the shepherds were afraid, then confused, then amazed. And as amazed as they were to come face-to-face with this supernatural being, they were even more amazed by his message.

The shepherds were the first to hear that the long-awaited Christ child had finally come to earth, but it wasn’t enough to hear about him. They had to see him, and then they couldn’t wait to tell others about him, which means something else changed that night. The Lord turned these ordinary men into missionaries. They hurried to the stable to see Jesus, and from there they went to tell their friends and neighbors and anyone else who would listen the good news that a Savior had been born.

“This child changes everything.” That’s what the Magi concluded as they gazed into the starry skies. We aren’t sure if they were astronomers or astrologers or something in between, but these Wise Men had at least a partial knowledge of the spiritual wisdom that comes from God.

The Magi had seen a star in the east, a new star that wasn’t a part of any of the constellations on their charts. That star signaled the birth of a king. That star led them on a quest to find this king. Ultimately the star led them to the place where child was, and they bowed down and worshiped him (more details on this story to follow in twelve days).

Who would have thought that a single, solitary birth could impact so many lives? But it did. The birth of Jesus forever changed the lives of Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the Wise Men. They saw him. They held him. They worshiped him. And on this Christmas Day, as we listen to these people and learn from their experiences, we recognize that the birth of Jesus also changes us.

This child changes the way we look at history. His birth teaches us that nothing in the past happened by accident or by chance. Every event, every coincidence, every twist and turn, everything that happened happened for a reason. The Lord wove together the events of world history and salvation history to bring to fulfillment his plan to save the world from sin.

This child changes the way we look at our God. God is holy. God is perfect. God demands perfection from his creatures and threatens to punish everyone who does not comply. But in the Christmas story we catch a glimpse of another side of God. We see God’s generosity. We see God as the giver of gifts. We see the Father’s gift of love wrapped in swaddling clothes. We see God’s amazing grace revealed in the manger.

This child changes the way we look at our own lives. We don’t talk about it as much at Christmas, but most of us here today know why Jesus was born. Jesus was born to die. Thirty-three years after Jesus was born he died. He died on the cross. He died to save us from our sins. He died to give us eternal life. And because he did Jesus gives meaning and purpose to our lives on earth.

We live to serve and obey him. We live to treasure the gospel and ponder it in our hearts. We live to praise him like the angels. We live to share the good news like the shepherds. We live every day to thank our Savior for saving us.

You are probably familiar with some of those “How many people does it take to change a light bulb?” jokes. I have a similar question for you this morning, but this is not an attempt at humor. How many people does it take to change the world?

The answer is…One. It only takes one person to change the world, as long as that person is a child, a very special child. Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Today we worship our newborn King. On this glorious Christmas morning we give thanks and praise to God for the gift of his Son, a child who changes everything. Amen.