WHEN HOPE BECAME REAL

Sermon for Christmas Eve

24 December, AD 2008

TEXT:  Titus 2:11f and St. Luke 2:1f

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, . . . looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.”  (Titus 2:11, 13).

Moorhead Kennedy, the former US Foreign Secretary in Iran, was one of the hostages held in the American Embassy during the hostage crisis in Iran from 1979 through 1981.  In his memoirs recounting that time he wrote, “In the end, we hostages learned how to live on hope . . . When hope becomes credible, extremists lose their credibility.”1  Another way of expressing that thought is what we’re about tonight.  You see, for us, more than two thousand years ago, hope became more than credible.  Hope became REAL.  It became real for the thousands upon thousands of people who had been hoping for what happened that night for about as long as there were people who had expressed that hope.  What’s more, it is a reality that, although it happened so long ago, its effects are still just as real in 2008 as they were on that night in Bethlehem.  And what is truly miraculous is that the consequences of what happened then and what we commemorate and celebrate tonight won’t end until time as we know it ceases to be.  

For in that food trough, a manger, – in a stinking, cold, unsanitary stable in a small insignificant town in Palestine, a woman, a girl, really, gave birth.  Not an uncommon occurrence to be sure, except that so much hope was connected with this particular birth.  You see, hope, theologically, is called prophesy.  And this particular birth, prophesied all the way back to Genesis 3:15 when the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head and he, in turn would bruise the heel of the woman’s seed, was different than all births that had happened before or since.  In fact, there will never be a birth any more significant or momentous than the birth we commemorate, celebrate, and remember tonight.

Long before the written word, prophets told of a time when a Saviour, whom they called the Messiah, would come and free the Lord’s people from physical and spiritual bondage.  Throughout history, the Promised Land, given to the Hebrews by God, Himself, had been in the midst of wars and tumult.  Taken into captivity at least three times in their history, the Hebrews lived as slaves of their captors; first of the Egyptians, then the Assyrians, and finally of the Babylonians and anyone else who was strong enough to conquer their oppressors.  Through it all God promised, through the prophets that a star would rise out of Jacob, a strong branch would come forth from the root of Jesse and they would be free.  Throughout the centuries hope became the watchword for life and the promises of God sustained the Hebrew people through those centuries.  

At the time of Jesus’ birth, things had not changed very much at all.  Rome was now the oppressor and Palestine was ruled by those who have become well known in the Christmas narrative; Caesar Augustus, Quirennius, and Herod.  And still, as brightly as the star of Bethlehem shone down on the rude manger that night, hope still sustained the Jews.  Yet not unlike that which made the night of Passover so different than any other night, the night in which the Blessed Mother gave birth to the Christ Child ushered in a new reality for all of us.  On that night, as the Psalmist said, God leaped out of Heaven and became Incarnate.  He took on human flesh and blood.  He became just like that which He had created from the beginning of time and chose to dwell among us in the person of Jesus.  That’s what the name Emmanuel means – GOD with us.  He wasn’t just with us, He was us and brought with that Holy Mystery the fulfillment of the prophecy of hope.  All of the prophetic oracles for centuries before coalesced that night of Jesus’ birth.  All that Jesus was and is would be proclaimed by the Foreunner, St. John Baptist so all who heard his words and then witnessed and experienced Jesus’ teachings and miracles would know for themselves that hope had become real for them.  Then roughly thirty-three years later, that same hope made real in the birth of Jesus became real for all humanity at our Lord’s Resurrection.  Our Christian Faith is not a matter of the birth of Jesus Christ being more important than His death and Resurrection.  It’s not a one or the other situation, but a both and reality.  Christmas and Easter can never be separated; for without the one, the other has no meaning.  Christmas without the Resurrection is just another birth ~ as miraculous a gift as birth is.  Likewise, the Resurrection without the Holy Mystery of the Incarnation of God at Christmas would not have occurred and Jesus’ Crucifixion would have been simply the death of another insurrectionist claiming to be the Messiah.  But as it is, as St. Paul explains to Titus, “the Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men” in the person of the Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ.  God has reconciled us with Himself and has made us meet partakers in the inheritance of everlasting life so that hope is born anew in us as we live and grow more and more into the people God originally created us to be – that we might be fully united with Him when He comes again.  Therein lies even a greater Mystery than the birth we celebrate tonight.  

Just as surely as God became man on that first Christmas night in Bethlehem, He will come again.  The hope of “God made Man” has been fulfilled, but that’s not all that God has in store for His Creation.  By the Birth, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, each one of us here tonight has been redeemed.  We have been purchased and released from captivity by means of a ransom.  Sin has been our captor just as surely as those races which enslaved the Jews throughout their history.  Jesus has purchased us away from death and oblivion by His Body and Blood on the night in which He instituted the Last Supper.  Hope, once again, became real on Maundy Thursday night but still remains to be fully realized.  Again St. Paul explains to Titus a little later in the Epistle lesson for tonight that our hope is still expectant when he writes, “while we wait for the blessed hope, that is the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”(Titus 2:13)  What happened on Christmas night was the beginning of our glorious redemption.  It was made real for us then and we were made able to share in that reality at Easter.  What we are called to now is to live into that blessed hope and reality as we live our lives becoming fitted for the Kingdom of God; watching for Our Lord’s return so that we may live the rest of eternity in His nearer presence.  That’s why we celebrate and keep Christmas.  That’s why it’s so important to keep it all the rest of the 364 days as well, for on this night is when our hope as a race and as individuals became real and that same hope sustains us even now.  The terrorists and extremists of sin, death, and hell have been rendered powerless over us because HOPE has become REAL.  May the Hope and Reality of Jesus Christ in your life continue to grow in your heart, mind, and soul this night and throughout a Christ-filled New Year.  Maranatha – the Lord comes!

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this night, both now and forever; world without end.  Amen.

SOLI DEO GLORIA – JEU+            

1 The Ayatollah in the Cathedral:  Reflections of a Hostage, pgs. 163, 209.