Why are we here again? Weren’t we just here a few days ago? Didn’t we cover every gospel reading about the birth of Jesus and sing all of the classic Christmas hymns between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? What more is there to say? How can you top the celebration of Christmas?
On those years where Sunday follows Christmas fairly closely, there is perhaps an unspoken assumption that we are all going to be tired of each other, like an out of town family visit that lasts a little bit too long.
It is normal to feel a sense of a letdown after Christmas, just like after Easter Sunday. The larger crowd of Christmas Eve thinned out, nobody is video recording this service, the Poinsettias are gradually making their way to people’s homes. And the radio stations, you can’t count on them to play Christmas music anymore.
The winter is only just starting and short sleep or lapses to our routine from Christmas can start to catch up with us, and we can be more irritable than usual toward people in our lives. How quickly things can go from a high to a low! How easily we can end up putting peace and goodwill toward man on a shelf, stored away in a big box with the Christmas decorations.
But as we know, Christmas is not over. We heard God’s Word celebrating the power of Christmas in the world at the start of our worship service: “The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Oh sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things!”
Considering that God’s Word is the balm for all our ills and troubles, it is a good thing that Sunday is already here, and we are gathered for worship, and we can experience not a post Christmas let down, but an extension of the celebration of Christmas into our daily faith life.
“Oh sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things!” Although we already know the story of Christmas, when we live out the promises of our faith in the world we are singing a new song, we are alive in Him through faith. The Christmas story continues with our response of faith to the news of the birth of the Savior. We might even say it is the fulfillment of the story.
Our Epistle reading from Galatians begins with a message about fulfillment. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.”
The fullness of time refers to God’s plan reaching its moment of ultimate ripeness for our salvation. This fullness was achieved through the work of God’s Word over thousands of years in the messages of all the prophets, preparing Israel for the coming of her Savior.
And the time had also reached its fullness in the form of the growth and development of the world population. Events in history provided the rise and fall of empires to the point where the people of Israel were dispersed throughout the ancient world, connected by common languages and roads.
But this was not a spiritually prosperous time, but a time of great darkness as people throughout the ancient world looked to false gods instead of the one true God. The fullness of time included the world’s readiness and need to hear the good news of the birth of Jesus.
It was the right time for us to hear the message. At worship on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we heard about the events of Jesus’ birth, God’s loving action in our world- The Word becoming flesh. Now we hear about the birth of Jesus in scripture verses that include pronouns like ‘us’ and ‘you’ , and those. Listen in our Old Testament reading from Isaiah how often God’s people are the subject of the scripture.
“The nations shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”
What a magnificent image, we are compared to as a crown in the hand of our God. A Diadem, a band of jewels that kings and queens wear. Fashion accessories are intended to highlight the beauty of the person wearing them. The jewels add something to the appearance of the wearer and confirm something of importance.
We are jewels in the hand of our God because Jesus has saved us without any of our own contribution. Our existence in the family of God is a testament to God’s greatness. It is the second part of the Christmas story- our adoption as Sons and daughters of our God.
There is so much in the short reading from Galatians. It may not be as picturesque and descriptive as the gospel of Luke, but Paul tells all of the important details of the Christmas story, the Word becoming flesh, and includes one more purpose clause “to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.”
Through the Holy Spirit we have been born into a living faith and adopted into God’s kingdom. When Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary it was the greatest miracle in history, God became man. This is something only the Holy Spirit could accomplish.
This same Holy Spirit performed a miracle of much lower profile in each of our lives, giving us the gift of New life in Christ. For only through the miracle of God’s work in the waters of Holy Baptism could we have spiritual life.
It is only through this miracle of our Sonship in Christ that our lives can break out of the cycle of repetition that all of creation is destined for. The type of repetition that makes us feel periods of let down or discouragement.
As Solomon declared in Ecclesiastes: “The sun rises and the sun goes down , and then goes back to the place where it rises.” Inspired by the Holy Spirit Solomon wrote about how everything in life comes and goes and does not last: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”
In Christ our lives have more than a predictable cycle of beginnings and endings. In Christ we sing a new song, our lives are entirely different than other lives in history because we have the Spirit of the God who has entered into our history, and who is living in our hearts.
We see this difference to our lives in the close of our Epistle lesson: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba Father!” Because we are sons we call on God as Abba Father. This is the same address as Jesus uses in the Lord’s Prayer.
We only can say “Our Father” because we have been made sons through the Holy Spirit. Only because of the miracle of Christmas can we have the sonship with our God that we can address God as Father in our prayers and in our worship.
We began reflecting on how easy it can be to have a post Christmas let down where we wonder what is next and feel the weight of life responsibilities outside of celebrating Christmas. As we have looked to God’s Word in faith we see the fulfillment of the birth of Jesus on that first Christmas connects with our lives in our own birth by the Holy Spirit, our adoption as God’s children.
This birth from above gives us a purpose in life that does not know let downs. Because in Jesus we have everything we need, and He does not disappear from our lives as a letdown. Like Simeon in the temple we may find in the gift of salvation a fulfillment that nothing else in the world can match.
And like Simeon we can confess “Lord now you let your servant depart in peace, according to your word, for my own eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples.” We confess that in looking upon Jesus in faith our life is without question complete and fulfilled. Amen.