The Night the World Changed – December 24, 2024, Christmas Eve

Micah 5:2-4, Luke 2:1-20
Christmas Eve 2024

Who knew that the world would change that night?  That’s what I’d like you to think about this Christmas Eve, as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

On Sunday, the title of my sermon was, “A Strange Way to Save the World.”  I borrowed that from a song by the group 4 Him.  The song was about the birth of Christ, told from the perspective of Joseph. And as I said, I’m sure to him, it was a strange way to save the world!

But I was thinking, there’s another way of looking at this.  Because I believe Jesus being born that night, to a poor couple, in a small town, lying in an animals’ food trough – however strange that may have seemed – was a milestone in all of history.  I believe it truly was “The Night the World Changed.”  And that’s what I’ve titled this sermon.

One of my favorite movies is Apollo 13.  (Yeah, like that’s a surprise!)  Well, in that movie, mission commander Jim Lovell and his family, watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon.  And later that evening, he said to his wife Marilyn, “From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon.”  Well, ever since that first Christmas night long ago, we have lived in a world where God has walked on the earth!  That alone is huge way the world changed that night!

But there are other ways.  One of them was announced by the angel to the shepherds.  (Which was another strange way to save the world!)  I know I’ve pointed this out before, but it bears repeating on this night.  Because it is so momentous!  It is such a great way the world changed!  The angel said, “Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that shall be to all people!”  That’s a change because up to that moment, a lot of the prophecies of the Messiah – the Christ who was to come – had to do with the Jewish people.  At least the prophecies that were important to them!  There were prophecies about the whole world coming to the light.  But they tended not to think about them.  Because the focus was on their world!

If you think about it, even our own Advent hymns tend to focus on the coming of a Savior to the Jewish people.  “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.  That mourns in lonely exile here, until the son of God appear.  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”  Do you see?  There are a lot of references to Israel in those hymns, aren’t there!

That was their understanding.  That was their situation on this earth!  As I’ve said before many times, that’s what the people wanted!  They longed for their freedom!  That’s why many would come to reject this baby 30 years later.  Because he didn’t give them that freedom.  Instead, he gave them freedom from their sins.  And we can argue about how much greater that was than merely their political freedom.  But, that’s not what they wanted.

But still this was more than that!  This was beyond their expectations – their longing for a political Savior of Israel.  This was the night that the good news they had waited for – for centuries – had finally come.  But!  The angel said it had come to all people!  And there’s a sense that they took that to mean “all the people of Israel.”  Because again, that was their world.  And they didn’t often think beyond their world, especially in matters of their faith.

But then the Maji came – the Wise Men!  And they came from another country.  They came from another religion!  And they came to worship “the king of the Jews.”  And ironically, it’s only Matthew who tells their story.  And that’s ironic because Matthew is the one who wrote his Gospel specifically for Jewish readers.  He wanted to prove to them that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in their scriptures! And in his Gospel he gives them many references to those prophecies.

And yet, he is the one who tells the story of these foreigners – these Gentiles – coming to worship the Christ child!  And that was the great moment of Epiphany, the great moment of understanding, that the “Good News of great Joy was for all people.”  And if you think about it, we here tonight – two thousand years later – are part of that “all people!”

The world truly changed that night.  We do now live in a world where God has walked the earth!  But I don’t think everybody realized that.  And it wouldn’t truly be realized until years later.  Moving forward, the story of Jesus – the story we read in the Gospels – would still be told from the standpoint of the Jewish tradition.  Because Jesus lived in, and was part of, that Jewish world.  The references and traditions and teachings were all about that world!

And of course, that world included the Romans.  They were still in charge throughout the story of Jesus.  They played a huge part in all of the Gospels!  That’s why I love the image we have at the end of John’s Gospel, where Jesus is standing before Pilate.  There he’s being questioned by that man who held great earthly power.  There stood Jesus, as the end of his earthly life, beaten, in chains, a prisoner soon to be condemned!  But in that scene, I ask you, who held the real power?!  I believe it was Jesus!

Ever since that first Christmas, ever since that night, with all the hosts of heaven proclaiming it, the real power was in that baby, wrapped in swaddling cloths, laying in the trough where people fed their animals.  What an incredible story!

This was the night the world changed.  And I hope this Christmas, that we can all get a greater understanding of how that night changed us!

Prayer

Eternal God, your great love for us was shown so long ago when you came to walk this earth.  Help us this night to know how you have changed us, through the holy child of Bethlehem.  May our lives reflect the great light you have brought this earth through him.  And may we truly show your great love, to all people.  For we pray in our Savior’s name, Amen.