Christmas Eve is a night of joy and wonder, a magical (if I can use that word here) night full of hope and promise. It is a night that celebrates what Christian theologians technically call the Incarnation, when Almighty God, creator of the heavens and the earth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, took on frail human flesh in the man Jesus. As Luther once said, there is no God or Godhead at all apart from the man Jesus. As Christmas is thus about how God comes to us and reveals himself to us in that Christ-event, the theme of our celebration, appropriately enough, centers on images of light, and how light illimines what formerly had been in the shadows, revealing what had been hidden in darkness. It is, therefore, in Christ that the joyous, life-giving light of the dawn of a new day and of a new age breaks through the darkness and gloom of our long night of sin and sorrow.

But it would be too easy for us just to leave it at that, for as we must always remember, and especially on this night, the baby Jesus will grow up to be rejected, suffer and die on a cruel and ugly cross. In God’s revelation of himself in Jesus, God also hides himself in the profundity of Jesus’ crucifixion. It is no secret that between the two major Christian festivals Easter is older than and has a certain prioity over Christmas. Holy Week and Easter are central to the Christian faith in a way that Christmas is not, or not so much, in that Christmas actually is quite meaningless apart from its connection to the cross. That connection to the cross, moreover, does not in any way remove from us the truth of the incarnation or the joy of this season; rather, by setting these in their true and fuller context, our understanding of the wonder of God’s incarnation in Christ should deepen and enliven our joy in this holy season. That joy is best expressed in the words of the ancient church father Irenaeus—“God became man, so that man might partake of the divinity of God.” This is the blessing of Christmas that our joy may be found in the gift and miracle of God’s humiliation and sacrifice—in the manger and on the cross—for our salvation.

Let me illustrate this with an extended quotation from an early sermon of one of my favorite 20th century theologians, Karl Barth. Listen carefully to this rather lengthy portion of his Christmas sermon from 1920:

“How great is the hiddenness of God, who lets his light shine—shine in the darkness. How great is the risk of believing in this light that shines in the darkness. We may not think that, because of Christmas God is less hidden or faith less of a risk, that Christmas has made God or faith easier, more comfortable and simple. The very opposite is true: nowhere is God more hidden than in Jesus Christ. For nowhere is it as clear as it is in Jesus that the real light of our life is eternal light, a light to which our life is not at all suited, a light that completely contradicts our life, and light that we are not able to see. If we do see it, it is because a miracle is worked in us. In this light it is clear as nowhere else that we really are in the night and that the night is not over; that we are still separated from God by that curtain; that we exist in an old being that has not passed away; and that we can neither see, have, possess, nor enjoy what is new.

“Furthermore only in Jesus Christ does the nature of the risk of faith become so completely clear. Where Jesus Christ is not known or where he has been forgotten there life is easy, comfortable, and simple, and human beings think they know all sorts of means, bridges, and pathways to get from the world to God. But Jesus Christ says, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ [John 14:6]. Where Christ is not known or has been forgotten, God is made accessible, inexpensive, cheap. With Christ God is inaccessible, expensive, costly. Where Christ is not known or has been forgotten, one hears, ‘Come on, just trust in God and be good about it; it is possible for you, you’ll see!’ But here, where Christ is known, one hears, ‘No, it is not possible, it will not turn out right; and to trust in God means to see light where one sees only darkness; to see life where one sees only death; to see yes where one only sees no. To trust God means a leap into space where one sees only an abyss; it means to trust nothing but God. Can you do that? Will you do it? Then come! Between God and those who say, ‘It is possible,’ stands the crucified Christ, and he says, ‘Yes, it is possible, but through God alone. And that is the greatest of all risks: to believe in God alone.”

A little later in the sermon Barth adds this as a further clarification: “The wish for other lights [that all of us have] must die, as must the wish for other paths, for another faith, another God. God speaks where we are silent. God begins where we end. God lives where we die. Did Christ not have to suffer these things in order to enter his glory? [Luke 24:26]. As the sign that is opposed and contradicted, he is the sign of our reconciliation with God. As the crucified one who draws us into his death, he is the light that shines in the darkness.”

And finally, to what Barth has said we must add this from the evangelist John: “What has come into being in him [i.e., in Christ] was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it “[John 1:3c-5].

As Christ was born in Bethlehem to be God’s gift of light and life, the creation of a new humanity that will emerge out of our sin and death, the incarnation not only of God but of a new human being, so also does Christ’s resurrection vindicate his suffering and crucifixion, and thus Jesus’ claim to be Israel’s true and final King. Both his birth and his death portend the coming of something totally new; and it is our faith in that promise of something heretofore unseen and unknown that is our light in the darkness, and our hope. It is that little baby born of a Virgin who is destined to be Lord of lords and King of kings just as Psalm 110 declares about him: “the Lord says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” How can this be? This little baby, crucified and raised from the dead, will as that king execute God’s judgment on all of God’s and our enemies, especially sin and death. What has come into an inreasigly dark and threatening world tonight in the infant Jesus is the light no darkness can overcome. For us who sit in darkness, placing our faith in him is perhaps the greatest risk we can take, but it promises also to be our greatest joy.

So may our song this night be the song of the Psalmist: “Declare God’s glory among the nations and God’s wonders among all peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, more to be feared than all gods. As for the gods of the nations, they are but idols, but you, O Lord, have made the heavens…Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; trenble before the Lord, all the earth. Tell it out among the nations: ‘The Lord is king!”

-Amen-