"A Child is Born" - Text: Isaiah 9:6 (ESV)

              Christmas is a time when a lot of people “go back home” in more ways than one.  It's more than just a matter of returning to family or to childhood surroundings; Christmas seems to instill in all of us a longing for the familiar.  Even those who ridicule the preservation of tradition during the rest of the year seem to value at least some of it at Christmastime.  It's all a testimony to the fact that in our fast-paced and ever-changing world people need something to hang onto--something that they can count on to be there even when everything else is gone and forgotten.  In keeping with these thoughts, the sermon text for this evening is one of the most well-known, often-quoted, and traditional Messianic prophecies to be found in the entire Bible.  Isaiah speaks in this verse of the Child to be born and of all the royal titles that will be attributed to Him.  No doubt all of us have seen this verse of Scripture on Christmas cards and heard it in both ancient and modern music.               There is a bit of a problem, however, with things that are familiar and traditional.  The problem is that we think we know them so well that we stop paying attention to them.  Isaiah's song of prophecy is no exception.  I can't help but wonder, especially at Christmastime, how many of the people who recite and sing these sacred words have a clue as to what they mean.  We need to be on our guard so that we listen attentively and thoughtfully to everything that God says to us in His Word, no matter how familiar any particular passage of Scripture may be to us.  As we kneel in spirit this evening at Bethlehem's manger, we discover anew, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, the "good tidings of great joy" (Luke 2:10 KJV) prophesied by Isaiah and proclaimed by the angels.               The "good tidings of great joy" (Luke 2:10 KJV) is the glorious message that God has fulfilled the promise written so many centuries earlier by Isaiah the prophet.  The "Child is born" and the "Son is given."  God's even more famous promise, also given through Isaiah, explains the significance of this when it ascribes to the Child born of the virgin the name Immanu-El, which means, as Matthew the evangelist explains, "God with us" (Matthew 1:23).  This Child of promise is more than just a child.  He truly is God with us--"the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father"--the Creator of heaven and earth; sun, moon, and stars; skies and seas--comes into the world to dwell as a Man among men.  This is not a mere visitation; it is an incarnation.  It is not a temporary visit to earth of some deity desiring to promote himself; this is the only true God permanently uniting Himself with Man by becoming human like us.  In Christ God really is with us.               To rightly understand and appreciate the incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ it is important also that we understand that He was born in every sense of the word that we were born.  The miracle of Jesus’ conception is that He had no human father--that His only Father is God Himself.  But His birth was as natural and normal as that of anyone.  I feel constrained to say that because throughout the history of the Church (and during the Middle Ages in particular) legends have abounded concerning the birth of Christ--legends that made His birth appear to be unnatural in the sense that it caused no pain or stress for His mother.  Such pious speculations may be well-intended, but they are misguided.  When Luke tells us that Mary "brought forth her firstborn Son" (Luke 2:7 KJV) and when the Church confesses in the Apostles’ Creed that its Savior was "born of the virgin Mary" (Apostles' Creed, Article II), these words are to be taken literally.  There is no need for us to censor or sanitize the reality of it all.  To do so would be to deny the true miracle of Christmas:  Eternal though He is, God was born that night in Bethlehem.               The "good tidings of great joy" (Luke 2:10 KJV) for you and for me is that this Child--this God incarnate--was not only born; He was born for us.  This glorious event that we have been celebrating year after year with such great joy took place for our sake, not God's.  He could have just as well stayed in His heaven and enjoyed His glory.  He doesn't have to "win us over."  Indeed, He has nothing to gain by convincing us of anything.  In the end He will be praised and worshiped by the saved and the damned alike.  It won't matter whether anyone wants to worship Him; He will be worshiped simply because He is God.  No, when He willed to become Man, He did it out of love for us, so that He might stand in our place under His own Law and under His own judgment--so that this Child--God in the flesh--might grow up to offer to His Father the perfect righteousness that the Law demands and might shed His own innocent blood to atone for the sin of all humanity.  All of this established peace between the perfect God and sinful Man (hence the title "Prince of Peace").  And that's Good News for us.               From the salvation He accomplished for us flows everything else that we need.  That's why Isaiah designates the coming Savior to be our "Wonderful Counselor."  While the sacrifice that reconciled us to God was a one-time sequence of events, fulfilled exclusively in Christ and never to be repeated, our need for the grace that was manifested in that one-time sequence of events is an ongoing need that has to be met again and again on a daily basis.  We who have been baptized once and thereby united with Christ and given His Holy Spirit, through whom we have access to His grace, nevertheless need that grace every time we sin or are sinned against--every time we face temptation--every time we face death, whether it be our own or that of someone we love.  That redeeming grace is available to us because God was born in Bethlehem, as we confess in the Nicene Creed:  "for us men and for our salvation" (Nicene Creed, Article II).   The Child born in Bethlehem is no ordinary child.  Nor is He merely a sentimental example of poverty and rejection.  This Child is Immanu-El--God with us.  His birth heralds the redemption of sinners, for He is the One who comes to fulfill all the promises of God.  Because He is born, God has made Himself One of us.  Because He is born for us, we are the recipients of God's grace and therefore live at peace with Him because He has overcome the power of our sin.  How comforting that Good News is in this world of uncertainty and fear.  Because of the grace of God visited upon us in the Christ Child, there is hope for us in every situation in life and death--the hope given to us in His birth, life, death, and resurrection.  And that is something for us to celebrate not only tonight, but every day of our lives.  Merry Christmas!   Amen.   May the true Light which enlightens everyone, which has come into the world, shining brightly in the darkness, be your very life.  And may the Word become flesh, Jesus Christ Himself, continue to make known to you His redeeming grace and truth now and always.  He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.  Amen.   ~