2024 12 24 Christmas Eve Candlelight service Zion & Berea Lutheran Church

Dec 24,/24 Christmas Eve - As We Gather
Can you imagine a person who has never heard of Christmas? How would you explain what we are hearing on Christmas night to such a person? To fully understand what Christmas is about, that person needs to know, first, that God who created everything, including the person you are explaining this to. Then that person needs to know that, from the beginning, all people have sinned against God, with the result that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Christmas is the discovery that God's love is so deep that, even though we have sinned, from eternity He planned a way everyone could be forgiven, return to Him, and live forever in the way He originally intended for us. People in Old Testament times were saved by faith in the promised Christ. And people are saved by faith now in that same Christ who has come in the person of the Son of God, "conceived by the Holy Spirit" and "born of the virgin Mary." He was born in our flesh so that He could satisfy those "wages of sin" before God for us and for the whole world by His sacrificial death. The proof that His payment was sufficient is His resurrection from the dead and return to the Father to live and reign over all forever.
Paul said, "My heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved." Then he asked our question, "But how are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? . . . So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:1, 14 17).
It is not that difficult to imagine someone who has never heard of Christmas for one more reason. For even we who have heard still too often live as if we have never heard! Because sin continues to be our struggle until we are finally delivered from its power, we need to hear this story over and over again. Tonight we recall how Christmas and the entire Gospel of our salvation is beautiful news to hear and to believe over and over again.