Do you have your passport? How about a copy of your birth certificate? If you were entering the country of Canada tonight, you would need one or the other to get across the border. With everything else going on this evening, it’s fortunate you and I don’t have to worry about crossing a border. Or do we?
In one way, Christmas is like another country, a special place we visit only once a year. Christmas has its own music, its own food,
its own family customs and traditions, even its own language, with words such as Yule, merry, and Noel. We could say we’re here to
cross the border into the country of Christmas. If we look at it that way, if Christmas is like a country we’re about to enter,
then we might also say that
THAT WE ARE TRAVELLING TO CHRISTMAS!
Do you have anything to declare before crossing the Christmas border? That’s an important question to ask ourselves. So important, in fact, that inserted in your bulletin is this customs declaration form for crossing into Christmas. If you’ve ever traveled into Canada, Mexico, or another country, you know that you have to fill out a form that declares whatever items you’re bringing into the country. The word declare has an original meaning of making something very, very clear. What baggage do you and I bring into the Christmas Eve worship?
Some of us are here tonight surrounded by the love of family or friends with us in worship. Others think of a loved one now celebrating the light of the Savior in the glories of a Christmas with the Lord. Some of us are wrestling with the needs of a family member, healing from illness, finding a new job, or receiving a sense of peace after many problems in this year, which is nearly over. Still others are aware of how sin and evil loose in the world have wounded us and others. We come seeking help from the Prince of Peace.
Yet in one way, all of us are the same. We declare that we need God because of our sin. Whatever the problems, worries, or sorrows in our lives tonight, we know that we are not perfect. Each of us has personal sins to wrestle with, even on Christmas Eve. We’re like the shepherds; that’s why they were terribly afraid: they saw the brightness of God’s perfect glory, from which no one can hide. They knew they were sinners.
And that’s why the angel says to them in v 10, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.” That’s why we’re here this night. As we cross into Christmas, we declare that we need God. We come here because we’ve had things of our own to declare, and we need that Good News.
The shepherds were the first to hear some of the heavenly declaration, making God’s love and forgiveness clear and open for all to see. At Christmas, the angels declare God’s glory. We hear their song in v 14, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Those words of the angels remind us of the start of Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” The glory of God starts with his being our Maker, our Creator, the source of our life and love. But the great and loving God saw that you and I are not always great and loving; we are not perfect. We’ve just declared that fact. So the angels declare that God in the glorious light of his love has a solution for our problem.
That solution comes at Christmas. Here Jesus declares his Father’s love for us. In v 11, the angel tells the shepherds: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” That word Savior means so much to us. If you save someone, that means you rescue him. Sometimes we forget that rescue is connected with Christmas.
A person once interviewed on Japanese television while Christmas shopping can help us remember. Christmas shopping is a big thing in Japan, even though persons who belong to Christian churches are only one or two of every hundred. The television interviewer asked this young woman, “What is the meaning of Christmas?” She laughed and answered, “I don’t know. Is that the day Jesus died?”
It isn’t, of course. Jesus died on Good Friday. But his birth on Christmas meant that the eternal Son of God had become human to share our life, in order that he might die. That is the only way Jesus could rescue us from our sins. He dies for those times when we know that we are imperfect, sinful people who need healing from outside ourselves. Jesus dies on the cross to connect us once more with the heavenly Father, our Creator. Through his death, our sins are forgiven, and he can be called our Savior. Through his resurrection on Easter, we receive new life, and he can be called Christ, the Lord.
Because of that, we have something more to declare beyond our need for God. We visit the country of Christmas to declare God’s praise. That’s not always what happens at Christmas. Sometimes we’re like the little girl who was taken by her grandmother to visit Santa Claus. She sat on his lap and told him everything she wanted for Christmas. When she jumped down, he gave her a candy cane. “What do you say?” her grandmother asked. The little girl thought for a minute, then turned and with a big smile said, “Charge it!”
We do not visit the country of Christmas simply to get gifts for others or ourselves. Oh, it is true that we receive the greatest gift of all: Jesus, our Savior. But if we really see and hear what’s going on in this place called Christmas, we’ll have more to say than “Charge it!” We’ll have God’s praise to declare. That’s what the shepherds did, as v 20 says: “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.”
But we can look back at that verse once more. “The shepherds returned” to their flocks and pastures. We can’t stay in Christmas forever either. What happens tomorrow, after the last present is unwrapped, or in January, when the decorations at home come down, or after Epiphany, January 6, when the church takes down these trees and candles?
When we return home, we also will declare God’s glory. That’s what the shepherds did. Not only did they praise God in Bethlehem, but they also kept on when they got back home. We can do that too. In fact, maybe we can learn from the shepherds, that we, too, can “return praising and glorifying God for all that we have seen”, that we can give God glory and declare that glory this Christmas. Perhaps right now, this very moment, you can think of one way, or many ways in which you can declare God’s glory this Christmas. Does that sound hard? Well, when the Bible talks about “declaring glory,” the idea is “to cause someone to be seen as great.” How can you and I do that this year? In what new or old way can we cause God to be seen as great, because we have visited Christmas?
May God’s Spirit guide your thinking about that question as we cross the border into Christmas and when we go back home again. Amen.