For Unto You is Born a Savior

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:10

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

00:18

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

00:25

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. Our first reading this Christmas Eve is taken from the prophet

00:31

Isaiah, chapter 9, verses 2 through 7. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

00:40

Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy.

00:49

They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.

00:56

For the yoke of His burden and the staff for His shoulder and the rod of His oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

01:04

For every boot of the trampling warrior in battle, tumult and every garment rolled in blood, will be burned as fuel for the fire.

01:13

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder.

01:21

And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

01:30

Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end. And the throne of David and over His kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

01:44

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Our second reading is taken from Titus, chapter 2, verses 11 through 14.

01:56

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people. Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

02:10

Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave

02:17

Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

02:30

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, chapter 2, verses 1 through 20. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered or taxed.

02:42

This was the first registration when Quirinius was the governor of Syria and all went to be registered, each to his own town.

02:49

Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called

02:55

Bethlehem, because he was of the house and the lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

03:03

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

03:17

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

03:23

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

03:30

And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

03:38

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is

03:44

Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

03:52

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

03:58

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

04:05

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us go over to Bethlehem to see this thing that has happened, which the

04:13

Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.

04:21

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

04:31

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart, and the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising

04:38

God for all that they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. In the name of Jesus.

04:49

Galatians chapter 4 verses 4 through 5 reads, But when the fullness of time had come,

04:54

God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

05:07

What a blessed gift. What a blessed gift. Let's return now to our text and see if we can unpack and unwrap this gift a little bit.

05:17

Our text begins with these words from the gospel. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

05:24

This was the first registration when Quirinius was the governor of Syria, and all went to be registered, each to his own town.

05:32

Now they like to say there's two things certain in life, death, and taxes. Here's taxes at work.

05:38

And I think it's important for us to note this, that when we look at Jesus' miraculous birth, it's prefigured in the

05:45

Old Testament, even with the birth of Moses, if you think about the story of Moses. Moses was born in slavery, and yet he was a child who was very beautiful, and his parents did not want to put him to death, and so they put him in a basket, set him out on the river, and then a princess rescued him.

06:03

And he grew up as a prince. Now, as miraculous as that all is, well,

06:09

Jesus, he did not grow up as a prince. His miraculous birth was truly of a virgin.

06:15

Amazing story, if you think about it, that God would so do this. But this is exactly what he told us he would do back in the garden when he said that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

06:25

So you can say Christ is prophesied in Genesis 3, verse 15, as well as even the

06:31

Virgin Mary herself, although how this went down is quite interesting. So we find here in our story that Israel once again is, in a sense, in slavery.

06:42

They're no longer independent. They're not their own nation state. They're not calling the shots. The theocracy of Israel is long gone, long gone.

06:50

And so here we have Caesar Augustus, a man who considers himself to be a god king, taxing people and to make matters worse.

06:58

In the days before there were cars, before there were, well, decent roads and the things that we enjoy today,

07:07

Mary and Joseph find themselves having to pull up stake while Mary is literally about to give birth.

07:16

The text doesn't say anything about a donkey. And what we know from this text also, as well as from the preceding chapter, is that Mary and Joseph are dirt poor.

07:28

They're absolutely dirt poor. And if you're wondering, how do I know this? Well, in the next pericope for this coming

07:37

Sunday, we have Mary and Joseph going to the temple to present Jesus and to offer the sacrifices commanded by the

07:44

Mosaic Covenant. They can't even afford a lamb for the sacrifice for Jesus. They can only afford two turtle doves.

07:52

That's it. That's a poor man's offering. So here we find literally the house of David reduced to abject poverty.

08:03

Joseph and Mary have to pull up stake out of this beleaguered blight of a town called

08:10

Nazareth. You think of the Gospel of John. Somebody asked the question, one of the disciples asked the question, can anything good come from Nazareth?

08:17

Can anything good come from Nazareth? This is, I mean, where the house of David is. And Mary has to travel probably on foot from Nazareth all the way down to Bethlehem to be registered.

08:30

Things are not looking good. But all of this is to fulfill the prophet, because where did Jesus have to be born? Well, according to the prophet, he had to be born in Bethlehem, the city of David.

08:39

And this is how God chose things to happen. You would think that if God's going to choose the Virgin Mary to hold and carry and be pregnant with the

08:50

Messiah, that there would be a little bit of comfort that goes along with it. Well, things are not so good.

08:56

So we read, so they went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called

09:04

Bethlehem, because he was of the house and the lineage of David, to be registered with Mary his betrothed, who was with child.

09:11

And while they were there, the time for her to give birth came, and she gave birth to her firstborn son.

09:17

Notice it says firstborn. I hate to say this, but there's several texts, and this is one of them, that kind of argues against this idea of Mary's perpetual virginity.

09:27

Jesus had brothers. Jesus had sisters. And here it says she gave birth to her firstborn. So, you know, if that was her firstborn,

09:34

I think there were others. And since Jesus had brothers and sisters, I think it's safe to say, well, she did not maintain her virginity for the entirety of her life, as some would like us to believe.

09:46

But she gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger.

09:51

Notice here it doesn't mention anything about a midwife. It doesn't say anything about nurses tending to her, court officials, or anybody else to offer her comfort.

10:01

In fact, she gives birth, and who's the one wrapping Jesus in swaddling clothes?

10:07

Mary. Mary. So she wraps

10:13

Jesus in swaddling clothes. She lays him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

10:19

Things are bursting at the seams in the town of Bethlehem. They don't even have the ability to stay at Motel 6.

10:28

They're in quite, well, quite a pickle here. Mangers, if you've been around barn animals, barn animals are known to, well, release things that make odors.

10:42

So they're surrounded by animals, horse poop, ox poop, goat poop, pee, urine.

10:51

I'm sure it just smells great. And this is where God chose to be born, because that's who

10:59

Jesus is. He's God in human flesh. This was his choice. Jesus is really the one calling the shots here, and this is how he chose to be born, not in a palace, but literally in such humble, poverty -stricken circumstances that after he's born, his mother is the one who has to wrap him up, and they're staying in a manger.

11:21

John puts it this way regarding Jesus. In the beginning was the

11:26

Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That is

11:31

Jesus. He, the Word, was with God in the beginning, and all things were made through him.

11:37

And without him was not anything that was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

11:45

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man who was sent from God whose name was

11:52

John, and he came as a witness to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness about the light.

12:01

The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

12:13

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but children born of God.

12:35

And the word became flesh, and he dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only

12:42

Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. That's who

12:47

Jesus is. He's God in human flesh. The God who spoke the universe into existence in six days.

12:55

The one who said, let there be light, and there was light. The one who called to the great light in the sky and said, sun.

13:04

And the one who called to the lesser light and said, moon. That very one chose to be born literally in a barn.

13:16

This tells us something about God. Jesus was right. His ways are not our ways.

13:23

His thoughts are not our thoughts. Who of us would have ever written the story where God is born in a barn?

13:31

And he's doing this for us, to give us eternal life. The story turns a little bit.

13:39

In that same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the

13:45

Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

13:53

Who could blame them? Who of us could stand in the presence of a holy, sinless angel who beholds the very face of God and not fear and tremble?

14:07

And it makes sense, too. If you think back to the fact that Jesus is promised in the

14:13

Garden of Eden, there's also an account of angels in the Garden of Eden. And after our fall, in a sense, angels are not technically our friends because we're at war with God.

14:27

When we're brought to penitent faith in Christ, they minister to us. They protect us.

14:35

But prior to that, we're actually born hostile to God, and they are our mortal enemies. And you think about the job that God gave the angels in Genesis.

14:44

Let me read it to you from Genesis 3. I'll begin with the cursing of the serpent. Genesis 3, 14.

14:50

Here's what it says. The Lord said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock, above all beasts of the field.

14:59

On your belly you shall go, and the dust you shall eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

15:08

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said,

15:15

I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

15:24

And to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the fruit of the tree which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.

15:31

Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.

15:38

And you shall eat the plants of the field, and by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.

15:45

For out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

15:50

The man called his wife's name Eve, or Hawa in the Hebrew, because she was the mother of all the living.

15:58

And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin, and he clothed them. And then the Lord God said,

16:04

Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and then live forever.

16:12

Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

16:17

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim.

16:23

These are angels. And a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

16:31

Flaming sword. Holy cherubim. This had to be a sight that if you were just to look at it with your own eyes, you probably would have shaken out of your boots.

16:44

This is a scary and awesome thing. And this is the type of relationship now that man, because of our sinful nature, in a sense by nature has with angels.

16:55

So seeing an angel could be, well, an experience that would leave you dead.

17:02

So here we have the angels showing up to the shepherds out in the middle of their field.

17:10

And it says the angel of the Lord appeared to them, the glory of the Lord showed around them, and they were all filled with great fear.

17:17

Can you blame them? But the angel said to them, Fear not. The angel is there to comfort.

17:25

For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

17:31

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a

17:37

Savior who is Christ the Lord. Those angels who knew their buddies who had been put on guard in the

17:45

Garden of Eden with the flaming sword to keep the men out, they're no longer harbingers of God's justice ready to threaten and to punish.

17:55

Instead, they're here to announce good news to us. And this news that the angels announced to the shepherds, this news is also good news to us because it's not to just the shepherds that Christ is born, but Christ is born for us.

18:13

And this calls for us to believe the same way the shepherds did. For you see, unto you is born in the city of David a

18:20

Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

18:29

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude, the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying,

18:35

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

18:41

Now, quick aside. You know, the Internet is quite the fascinating piece of technology.

18:47

In fact, there's a great quote on there. There's a quote from a very famous person. It goes like this. Don't believe everything you read on the

18:54

Internet, signed Abraham Lincoln. Great piece of advice. But if you're on the

19:01

Internet, you'll notice that there's kind of a rise of a lot of people within Christendom who are falling into what

19:08

I would consider to be just an egregious error. And that is that they somehow are believing that celebrating

19:14

Christmas is somehow a sin. Somehow it's really, in a sense, worshiping pagan deities or that it's somehow a pagan practice that got smuggled into the church.

19:25

That's all hogwash. It's all pious -sounding hogwash. And the reality of the situation is that I see in this text angels who are partying and praising

19:37

God and have good news to announce, and they're doing it on Jesus's birthday. If the angels can celebrate the birth of Christ, then certainly we can too.

19:48

And so don't let anybody steal your joy with these pious -sounding arguments that somehow it's a sinful thing to celebrate

19:54

Christmas. If that were the case, then these angels were truly the greatest sinners of all time. But they're not.

20:01

They're shouting and praising glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased.

20:08

This kind of echoes Psalm 98, which is another Christmas psalm, which is read during this time of the year.

20:15

Let me read it to you. Make a joyful noise to the

20:42

Lord. All the earth, break forth in joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises to the

20:47

Lord with a lyre, and with a lyre the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn, make a joyful noise before the

20:54

King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the world and those who dwell in it.

21:01

Let the rivers clap their hands and let the hills sing for joy together before the

21:06

Lord. For he comes to judge the earth, and he will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.

21:14

Indeed, glory to God in the highest, that he has had mercy on us and he has worked such a great salvation by sending us the promised seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent.

21:26

For you see, there in the manger, in that rough wood of the manger, which is Jesus' cradle, that foreshadows his cross.

21:34

So Jesus is well on his way now to the cross, and he's there for us.

21:40

You think of that song that we sang last week, What Child is This, Who's Laid to Rest on Mary's Lap is

21:45

Sleeping. One of the verses says, Nails, spear, shall pierce him through. The cross he bore for me, for you.

21:53

Hail, hail, the word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary. This is something to be joyful about.

22:01

So when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another,

22:07

Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.

22:13

They recognized that the message was given by God himself to the angels to deliver to them.

22:20

Notice it says, which the Lord has made known to us. Not the angels, but the Lord. That's the way it is with messengers.

22:27

When somebody comes and gives you a message from somebody else, the messenger means nothing. So in other words, just keep that in mind when dealing with me.

22:35

I'm just the messenger. I have words from God. So they went with haste, and they found

22:42

Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger, just like they were told.

22:48

Now, if you think about it, if you had a camera crew in Bethlehem, and maybe you were covering the story, the news was being splashed across the screens back 2 ,000 years ago,

22:59

Bethlehem packed for taxation, right? People from all over are coming to be registered. There's no place for anybody to stay.

23:07

It would look like a packed town. And so there in the packed town, it would be like no big deal.

23:14

And over here, we've got this family, and oh, you just had a baby, and you're in a manger. Oh, wow, that shows you how packed it is.

23:20

It's really not that great of a sign if you think about it. Packed town, small family, lady just gave birth.

23:28

They're in a manger. They're making do. But see, the thing is, without a word from God, we have no idea how to understand the theological significance of what's taking place and what people are seeing.

23:39

Because the sign is that the babe is in a manger, but the theology is that He's Christ the

23:46

King who's born unto us. So because we have that revelation from God, we can look at something as ordinary and common as a baby in a manger and understand the theological significance and understand exactly who that is.

24:02

Without the Word of God, it's just an ordinary event. But with the Word of God, it's something that calls us to believe and to have faith and to have hope and to trust.

24:14

So they made known the saying. So they went with haste. It doesn't say they just dawdled.

24:20

They actually got up and hoofed it. They were running, probably a little bit winded. They found Mary and Joseph, the baby, lying in a manger.

24:27

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told to them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

24:35

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And that's the reason why we know what happened, by the way.

24:42

Because Luke opens up his Gospel with basically saying, I've made an orderly account, talked to the eyewitnesses, and I wrote all these things down.

24:49

So the question is, how did Luke come up with all of this stuff? The answer is, he didn't. He sat down and had a cup of coffee with Mary and said,

24:58

Mary, would you explain to me the circumstances by which our Lord was born? And she said,

25:04

I'd be happy to. Let me tell you what happened. And she does. That's where all of this came from, all of this report.

25:10

There's only one person who was alive at the time who could have given this report, and that's Mary herself. And so we know here from this text that Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

25:22

And the shepherds returned not disappointed, not underwhelmed.

25:28

They returned glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen as it had been told to them.

25:38

And so here's kind of the irony of it. We'll come back here. There's God in human flesh, in a manger, not a palace, born to set us free.

25:50

And Philippians describes Jesus' incarnation this way. Jesus Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

26:04

Instead, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant or slave. And being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

26:19

So we can't talk about the manger without talking about the cross, because here is the God of the universe,

26:26

King of kings, Lord of lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who is and was, who is to come.

26:34

He's chosen to empty himself of all of that, empty himself.

26:39

Why? To rescue you, to rescue me, because every single one of us needs rescuing.

26:48

All of us, born sinners, sons of Adam, daughters of Eve, born with their sin, conceived in sin, enslaved to sin, cannot set ourselves free.

27:04

But God sends a hero. God sends a savior. And his first move is not with flexing power, but instead is to be born.

27:14

And there's God in human flesh, pooping his diapers, crying because he's hungry, nursing at the breast of Mary, all of these earthly, humble things.

27:30

He's done them for you. He's done them for me. And so this is good news.

27:36

And because he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, it says this, therefore

27:44

God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus on the last day, every knee should bow in heaven on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

27:58

Lord to the glory of God the Father. Or as Titus says, But when the goodness and loving kindness of our

28:07

Savior appeared, just think about those words, goodness, loving kindness of God our

28:17

Savior appeared. He saved us. That's right.

28:24

The nature of God is kindness, it's love, it's mercy, it's forgiveness.

28:31

He truly does not desire the death of any of the wicked, but his true hope is that all would be brought to repentance.

28:40

He's paid the ultimate price for us. But when the goodness and the loving kindness of our

28:46

God and Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but he saved us according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

29:00

Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace as a gift, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

29:14

And so this Christmas Eve, as we celebrate and ponder the great mercy and gifts of God in sending us our

29:22

Savior, understand this. All of this was because Jesus was going to the cross, and he went to the cross to redeem and to save you, but he also rose again from the grave, and you too will rise again.

29:34

You too will see this King face to face. You will see him in all of his glory, and you will not shrink back and not have to hear from him, fear not, because he will not say such things to you, because he has washed you, he has redeemed you, and here at this table he feeds you with his body and his blood, and he has you, and he's not going to let go of you, and he is going to bring you with him into eternal life, new heavens, new earth forever, because God is good, he is merciful, and he is kind.

30:08

And this night we celebrate the fact that tonight he sent to us a

30:13

Savior. Let us believe, let us hope, because that's what this night and this day is all about.

30:21

In Jesus' name, Amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

30:41

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again, that address is

30:49

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

30:55

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

31:02

All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.