Christmas Eve Service

The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez, and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Naishon, and Naishon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon, Jechaniah was the father of Shatilil and Shatilil, the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel, the father of Abiod, and Abiod, the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim, the father of Azor, and Azor, the father of Zadok, and Zadok, the father of Achim, and Achim, the father of Eliud, and Eliud, the father of Eliazar, and Eliazar, the father of Mathen, and Mathen, the father of Jacob, and Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So, all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations and from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ 14 generations. Now the birth of Christ took place in this way, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph. Before they came together, she was found to be with child and the Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. He called his name Jesus. — Matthew 1:1-25

We did it! That was a mouthful. Thank you for bearing with me on that. That entire genealogical passage is quite a bit to read.

A couple weeks ago, I had been assigned to preach this evening and I was driving my kids to school. When we're driving to school it's a pretty short drive from our house to the kids' school. We have theological discussions. Sometimes I initiate those theological discussions. Other times, the kids introduce those theological discussions and the one that happened a couple weeks ago, it went like this. One of my backseat theologians said, "I know why we sing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas.' Because Mary had Christ. We sing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' because it's about Mary." And one of my other backseat theologians rolled his eyes and laughed and said, "Come on. That's like saying, 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' was about Mary having Jesus too." They crack me up.

Looking at the genealogy of Christ and taking some time this evening to consider Mary, my hope is that this would be a Merry Christmas, not in the sense that Mary had Christ, but in the sense that from looking at Mary and from lessons that we can learn from her we might be pointed to the one that she had, the little lamb, who took away the sins of the world and we might rejoice in that.

I have a couple of just very brief meditations tonight that I hope you'll take home with you and you'll reflect upon. First one is this: all that genealogical data, all of those names—a lot of times you can read Matthew's gospel and feel like what Matthew's trying to do there is build a case for the bloodline of Jesus to show that by virtue of his bloodline he's worthy to be the Messiah. And it is true that Matthew is absolutely concerned with showing Jesus' bloodline and how that points to him being the Messiah, but it is not his bloodline that makes him worthy to be the Messiah. That bloodline is full of all sorts of names, all sorts of different people, Jews and Gentiles, which is surprising considering Matthew's Jewish audience.

Jews and Gentiles—and the point of it is simply this: Jesus is inheriting a bloodline that has been promised by God throughout Scripture that he would make things right through a Messiah. So yes, the bloodline is pointing to Jesus as the Messiah, but it's not showing that he's worthy to be the Messiah.

What should we do with that genealogical data? I feel like all of the different sermons that we've looked at, all of the different women in Christ's genealogy, if we looked at all of the individual men, the point of it would be this: you should see yourself in Jesus' family. Because all of these people represent a broad swath of different folks—Jews, Gentiles, men, women, kings, paupers, insiders, outsiders.

The point is this: the promises of God throughout all ages to all mankind find their fulfillment in Christ. And this evening, as we meditate upon the birth of Christ, you should see yourself in the bloodline of those promises. Because no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter who your people are, the promises of God throughout Scripture apply to you and find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Mary's Humanity

Here's the second thing to consider. Mary is very often talked about and portrayed as though she is perfect. In fact, the Catholic church very famously talks about her Immaculate Conception. A lot of Protestants sometimes we get confused. We think they're talking about Jesus's conception. The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary being born of a virgin—her mother. That's nowhere in Scripture. Nowhere in Scripture is that. But Catholics also teach that Mary was perfect when Jesus was conceived. That is also nowhere in Scripture.

In fact, you can look at points of Mary's story and Mary's life—like later when she shows up and kind of questions Jesus' sanity—it kind of looks like she's being sinful. And here's the point: I think it's very easy for us to start to think of Mary as perfect, even as Protestants. We like to picture her as this pristine kind of virgin woman doing everything right, listening to the angel, responding appropriately. And she does do some very righteous things. But here's what I want you to understand: she is not perfect. She is sinful, just like the rest of us.

The meditation for you this evening, the thing to kind of think about is this: mankind did not create some sort of perfect bloodline that resulted in two virgin births that somehow produced a semi-perfect and perfect and then perfect Savior. Jesus didn't wait to come until mankind produced a perfect woman to be born of. Jesus came to a sinful woman.

We should see ourselves not only in the bloodline of the genealogy of Matthew chapter one, but we should see ourselves in Mary herself, because we are sinful. And Jesus didn't wait to come into our lives until we cleaned ourselves up, got ourselves put back together again, and became perfect.

You know, this evening, all of us are at the end of the Christmas season and if you're like me, you're a little frazzled. You're a little tired. You're a little weary. I ran into a pastor at a coffee shop like a week ago, and it's always kind of funny for me when I run into a pastor in a coffee shop because I always envision Anchorman, right? Like, what are you vintage church people doing here on my turf? And we always have kind of these little fun conversations like we're in competition, but we all love each other and it's kind of funny and we joke.

But I ran into some of these pastors and we were talking about Christmas time. And we were reflecting on how life as a pastor during Advent and Christmas time—right, you run around as fast as you can and tell other people to slow down and start to think about the beauty of the Incarnation. I feel like that's what I've been doing for the last month: running around, telling people to slow down and focus on the beauty of the Incarnation. You see, I'm sinful. You're all sinful. We're all sinners. Mary was sinful, and it doesn't matter. Jesus came anyway.

Mary's Reception of the Promise

Third thing that I just want to reflect on this evening that you can take home and think about: I want you to think about how Mary—one of the things, perhaps the greatest thing that she did in her story—is that she received the promise of the angel. And she received that into personal application and global application.

Personal application: Mary, you got to consider this, right? This angel shows up and says, "Hey, you're pregnant. You're not married, but it's gonna be okay." I would submit to you that in her time and her place, it took a lot of faith to believe that everything was gonna be okay.

But consider this. Consider the juxtaposition of Mary and Joseph and Jesus with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve in the original garden were created together. They experienced this great unity of life together with each other and with God the Father in the garden—in what was the picture of life.

Mary and Joseph, we find at the beginning of their story, they're separated. They're separated and they're brought together with God through the conception of Christ. Mary in her life reflects very personally the redemptive work of Jesus and what he's going to do for the world. And as she experiences that in Luke's gospel, she explodes into song, right? The Magnificat. Go look it up. It's in Luke chapter one at the very end. Read that. That is such a magnificent song about the beauty of Christ's redemption and it's not all pretty and rosy. It talks about God lifting up the oppressed, the broken, the poor, and in fact, in countries where they're on the verge of rebellion, they actually tend to ban the reading of the Magnificat around Christmas time because of the redemptive themes in it and how it talks about the poor being raised up.

Mary took the personal application of the incarnation and all of the beauty that held for her and she applied it globally, bursting into song.

Three Closing Thoughts

So in conclusion, I want you to think about three things tonight. I want you to think about how you don't have to be from the right family. I want you to think about how you don't have to be perfect. And I want you to think about how all you have to do in the light of the incarnation is to accept it, to take it as the gift that it is, and to rejoice before a watching world.

In just a moment, we're gonna sing the song Silent Night and we're gonna physically represent that. We're gonna start singing and Jeff and I are gonna come over here to this candle in the center which represents Christ and his light coming into a dark world. We're gonna take light from that candle and we're gonna distribute it to all the sections and we're gonna pass it back. And that's meant to represent the reception of the gift of the incarnation and the truth of what Christ came to do, the redemption of the world bringing light into darkness.

So let me pray and then we'll do that.

Lord Jesus, we rejoice that you didn't wait for us to become perfect. You didn't look for just the right bloodline. You didn't expect anything from us. But you came as a gift to sinners like all of us. You filled us with hope and with peace and you've unified us with each other and you've unified us with your heavenly father. Lord, thank you for coming. Be with us this evening as we reflect upon your incarnation and your birth and what an amazing thing that was. We pray this in your name. Amen.