There is no shortage of explanations for what the Christmas
season is all about. The explanations
are always about things that are good.
People will say that Christmas is about family and friends. It’s about mending bridges. It’s about helping people with gifts. Nobody talks about the Christmas season as
the time to commit crimes or be crabby.
No, the explanations of the Christmas season are always for good and
beneficial things.
This is true also for the explanation of what Christmas is
all about that the Bible gives. We had a
short little explanation of what the Christmas season is all about from St.
Paul in our Epistle reading from Titus.
This is what I’d like to talk about tonight. Let’s hear, again, what he says:
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, waiting for our
blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus
Christ, who gave 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.
There are a lot of words in what I just read that don’t
immediately hit home most likely because we are not familiar with them. We are used to talking about sports and
shopping and work. We don’t talk all
that much about the saving grace of God that has appeared in the birth of Jesus
Christ. Since we are unfamiliar with the
words and concepts that are brought up by St. Paul it can kind of sound like
the teacher sounds in the Charlie Brown cartoons. You hear the noises, but the meaning is not
taken in. It might just sound like a
bunch of church words heaped up together, one after another.
I don’t plan on fixing all this with just one sermon. God will bless you if you study this text on
your own—and you go ahead and test me on that to see if I’m speaking the
truth. Prove me wrong. There isn’t a wasted word in the whole
paragraph. But for tonight I’d like to
focus on just two words that might help us understand what Christmas is all
about. The two words are pretty much
opposites. One word is the way that we
are before Christ comes, the other words is for after. “Godless” is a word that sums us up pretty
well before and apart from Christ. “Godly”
is the way that Christ makes us live. If
I can simplify what St. Paul says in our reading tonight: the saving grace of
God has appeared that trains us to renounce ungodliness and to live godly lives
as we wait for the appearing of Jesus Christ.
So let’s think a little more about these two words:
ungodliness and godliness. What does it
mean to be ungodly? There’s a pretty bad
connotation connected with that word the way that we normally use it. If you say that someone is ungodly, then you
are saying that he or she is a pretty bad person. They have no scruples. They have no respect for common morals. They are wild and wooly, doing as they
please.
Normal people, so it is thought, are far from being
ungodly. They go to work, pay their
taxes, and don’t get in trouble with the police. They aren’t perfect—nobody’s perfect, right?—but
they aren’t that bad either. And so the
way that we use the word “ungodly” does not apply to most people.
It’s interesting that something similar happens with the
word “godly” also. This is not a word
that we readily apply to normal people.
Pastors, priests, saints, goody-two-shoes, and other people who don’t
live “normal” lives might be possible candidates for being “godly,” but not
just any Joe Schmo. Godly people are
thought to have an air about them that sets them apart from everybody
else. It’s an exclusive club.
And so what you have with the way that these two words are
understood are small groups. There
aren’t that many ungodly people. There
aren’t that many godly people. Almost
everybody is just “normal.”
But what these two words really mean—particularly when we
think about them biblically—is different from the way that they are typically
used. And the real meanings aren’t too
hard to understand. Ungodliness means
that you do not belong together with God.
Godliness means that you are happily together with God. Those who are ungodly are uncomfortable and
scared by the thought of being together with God. Those who are godly are happy to be together
with God and desire it.
And so there is a simple test as to whether you are ungodly
or godly: Do you want to be together with God?
Do you want Jesus to come again with great glory to judge the living and
the dead whereby those who have done good will be resurrected to life and those
who have done evil will be resurrected to condemnation? If the clouds of judgment were suddenly
rumbling on the horizon, or if you felt your life slipping away from you in
death, and you know that you are about to meet your Maker, how would you
feel? If you are filled with fear, then
you are ungodly. If you are filled with
joy, then you are godly.
I don’t think I really need to tell you this, because I
think you already know it quite well: the normal reaction to meeting our Maker
is fear, not joy. It’s only natural to
think of the things that you have done wrong—perhaps even the things that you
have done wrong in just the last night or two—and now that you are meeting your
Maker you have been caught. Ungodly
people aren’t dumb. There’s a reason why
they don’t want to have anything to do with God. We with our sins that cry out for judgment
and punishment aren’t too keen on being together with the one who judges and
the one who punishes.
But this is where St. Paul’s words to you tonight about the
meaning of Christmas are so important.
He says that the saving grace of God has appeared in Jesus Christ. That is quite a different thing than saying
that the dreadful judgment of God has come.
The saving grace of God in Jesus Christ has appeared. Grace means forgiveness and acceptance. Jesus has redeemed us by his death from the
way that we have lived in rebellion against God. He has taken your place and my place and the
place of all sinners. No ordinary Man
could possibly do this. Only God in the
flesh could bear the heavy load of all the sin of all the world. With the birth of Jesus we are witnessing the
appearance of this saving grace of God in Christ Jesus.
And what does this saving grace of God do? St. Paul tells us that it trains us to
renounce ungodliness and to live in a godly way. Now try to forget the baggage that we have
attached to these two words that we’ve already talked about tonight, and think
about them with their true meanings. The
grace of God trains us to renounce ungodliness.
That means it is training us to renounce and have nothing to do with the
fear that we feel at the thought of being together with God. Why should we not fear? Is it because we have nothing to fear except
fear itself? Heavens no! Is it because sins are no big deal? No! Is
it because God doesn’t really care? Is
it because we’ve tried to make up for the wrong that we’ve done by doing good
things? Is it because we aren’t as bad
as other people? No, none of these false
ideas and false hopes has any merit.
We can only renounce the fear that we have of meeting our
Maker by the saving grace of God that has appeared in Jesus Christ. Only because Jesus has bled and died for me,
and for absolutely no other reason, can I look to the prospect of meeting my
Maker with joy. Jesus alone makes you godly,
that is, Jesus alone makes it so that you can live together with God.
We can see this play out in a wonderful way with the
shepherds that we heard about tonight who were keeping watch over their flocks
by night. These shepherds were
ungodly. By that I do not mean that they
were dastardly villains. They were just
normal shepherds having normal shepherd thoughts. But when the angel of the Lord appears to
them they see the reflected glory of God in this angel and they are filled with
fear. They do not like this intrusion of
God upon their lives. It immediately and
plainly shows them that they were not loving God with all their heart, soul,
strength, and mind. Neither were they
loving their neighbor. They were
thinking about when they got to go home or eat supper or what the sheep might
be doing. But with the coming of the
angel they know that God has drawn near to them and they are filled with fear.
But the angel says to them: “Fear not! Fear not!
I have not come to kill you or judge you. I bring you glad tidings of great joy that
will be for all the people. For unto you
is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!” The saving grace of God appeared to these
shepherd in the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them. It trained them to renounce ungodliness. It trained them to renounce the fear they
have at the thought of meeting their Maker.
Why? Because a Savior has been
born to them who reconciles them to God—the Babe, the Son of Mary.
Filled now with the Holy Spirit the shepherds’ fear is
turned into joy. Their ungodliness is
turned into godliness. Their desire to
stay away from God is now replaced with the desire to see him. And so they say to one another: “Let us
now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord
has made known to us.” That is
nothing other than saying, “Let us now go to meet our Maker.” That is nothing other than saying, “Lord,
I love the habitation of your house, and the place where your glory dwells.”
The Scriptures have been written for our learning, and so
you do well to apply these words also to yourself. It’s quite likely that you came here tonight
with thoughts not all that different from the shepherds. You probably weren’t thinking about sheep,
but you quite possibly were thinking about your home or your family or the
gifts that might be in store for you tonight.
Meeting your Maker was probably a thought far, far from your mind. Well you have met your Maker. This is the message that he has for you, O
Sinner, who fears being together with your God because of your sins: “Fear
not, for I bring you glad tidings of great joy that is for you and all
people. Unto you is born in the city of David
a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!”
It is my hope that the Holy Spirit blesses you tonight so
that your fear of Christ’s second coming may be replaced with joy. This is a miracle. Nobody is able to do it except it be given
that person by the Holy Spirit working through the Gospel. But the Holy Spirit does create faith in
Jesus when and where he wills it, and I have confidence that he has worked it
in you.
But remember one last thing tonight of what St. Paul has
said. Remember that the grace of God trains us to renounce ungodliness and to
live in a godly way while we await Christ’s coming. Renouncing ungodliness, renouncing the fear
we have of being together with God, is something that is ongoing. We are trained in it. It’s not something that can be learned once
and never brought to mind again.
Thank God Christmas Eve brings people to Church who normally
don’t come. If this is you, I only
desire blessing upon blessing, grace upon grace for you. I want you filled with joy for Christ’s sake
at the thought of meeting your Maker, for indeed, there is no greater joy than
that. But I also want you to be filled
with wisdom—another gift of the Holy Spirit—and that you continue your training
in renouncing ungodliness and embracing godliness as you have tonight. If that should be with us in our
congregation, then that is great. If it
be someplace else, then I wish you God’s blessing there too. It does not matter exactly where this
training takes place so long as you are trained and trained well. Go where the Gospel of forgiveness for
Christ’s sake is preached and be trained in renouncing the fear you feel for
your sins by embracing Christ your Savior, born for you.
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