Christmas Eve: Three Meditations on the Hymn, “O Savior of Our Fallen Race”
O Jesus, very Light of Light, Our constant star in sin’s deep night: Now hear the prayers Your people pray Throughout the world this holy day.
“He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good, for goodness’ sake!” I’m not sure how Santa determines goodness, but when God reviews our year, our life, and the collective life of all humanity, He says, “None has been good, no, not one” (cf. Rom. 3.10). Technology is improving; our collective knowledge in science and medicine continues to grow; but mankind is not improving. We are deteriorating.
We slaughter children in the womb and starve to death brain-damaged patients. Any true health care reform would have to begin with those great evils. Mankind has deteriorated to the point that we cannot determine what is marriage, what is the purpose of human sexuality, and our most prominent scholars proclaim that there is no God. The renowned scientist Richard Dawkins said it’s possible that space aliens planted life on earth, but not possible that a god created us. In the last century, the atheist tyrants Stalin and Mao slaughtered their own populations by the millions. Our race is not improving, we are declining, and the decline cannot be reversed by politicians and legislation.
As for you and me, do we have anything of which to boast? No. We are sinful from birth, sinful from the time our mothers conceived us. And we have added to that countless, horrible sins, perverse things done in the dark; contempt for others; pride; gossip; and on and on. We are what the hymn calls us: a fallen race, fallen from the original goodness and righteousness in which God created us. The whole of human existence is what that ancient hymn calls sin’s deep night.
And so the Gospel reading for Christmas Eve says literally that the shepherds were “guarding their sheep against the night.” Bad things happen in the night. But these are tough men. Soldiers after a fashion, prepared to fight against man or beast who would steal or harm their flock.
But the shepherds were not prepared, could not have been prepared for what they were about to see: a giant warrior, a spirit who took shape out of thin air, standing before them, with a brilliant powerful light not made by anything in nature surrounding him. “And they feared a great fear,” Luke says.
But as unexpected as the angel’s appearance was, even more were his words: “Do not be afraid! I bring the gospel – good news! – to you! There has been born to you a Savior for your fallen race. He is for every people” – for there really is no Jewish race or Greek or Italian or German or Spanish or Chinese. There is one race, the race of man, the children of Adam. They fell, into sin and death. This One, this Child Jesus, is their Savior.
And in the circumstances of His birth, we see that the Father has sent His Son – the One who shared His might – into the depths of human misery. Into rude, dark, unsanitary conditions – where no woman would wish to have her baby – comes the Savior, so that we might be assured that this Jesus is for rude, unkempt, un-beautiful people, for the poor, the lonely, the suffering, the addicted, the confused, the lost. He came for you, to assume your nature, your sin, your suffering. Therefore rejoice and be glad this blessed night!
Remember, Lord of life and grace, How once, to save our fallen race, You put our human vesture on And came to us as Mary’s son.Today, as year by year its light Bathes all the world in radiance bright, One precious truth outshines the sun: Salvation comes from You alone.
“Remember, Lord!” I have potent memories of Christmasses as a child. The biting Minnesota cold, the trip to church late at night, singing carols in English, German, and Swedish, the wax from the candle burning my thumb.
Perhaps you have favorite memories of Christmasses past. The thing about memories is that they exist only in our minds. We cannot recreate the experiences we had, and so memories are happy but also painful, for it is the experience of loss – people, places, and times that we can never recover.
But tonight we cry out to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, “Remember!” As we gather on another Christmas Eve to hear the account of Jesus’ birth, we are keeping alive the memory of what happened in a backwater province of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago. But in our hymns and prayers, we are doing something more: we are calling on Jesus to remember what He did, the sacrifice He made, how He condescended to us.
What does that – what should that – mean to you? A few years ago, one of our members loaned me a CD by a folk songwriter and brilliant guitarist named Richard Shindell. One of his songs is called “You Stay Here,” about a series of progressively horrific reassurances a husband gives to his wife in an apocalyptic time: “You stay here, I’ll go look for wood; You stay here, I’ll go look for bread; You stay here, I’ll go look for coats” – coats that he’ll find in the road, presumably from corpses: we’ll wash them clean with snow, the kids will never have to know. “You stay here, I’ll go look for guns”; and then the finale: “You stay here, I’ll go look for God; Not so hard, cause I know where he’s not. I’ll bring him back with me, make him listen, make him see.”
It’s easy to think nice thoughts of God as we sip egg nog or wine, visit with our families, fiddle with our new toys and wait for the game to come on. But this song asks the question everyone asks in times of crisis, times of suffering, times of death, when we are hopeless or on the brink of madness, wishing it would all end: Where is God? Doesn’t He care?
Christmas is the answer to that question. Where is God? He came to put our human vesture on. He came into our madness and despair, lived the life of a homeless man, suffered every indignity, starved, thirsted, was mocked. People tried to stone Him, throw Him off a cliff, and finally they hammered His bloodied body into a tree and ran Him through with a spear. Where is God? He’s been there. He’s been to your darkest place and conquered it for you.
If you want to look for God, the angel told the shepherds, you’ll find Him in the manger. If you want to look for God, the Gospel writers say, we saw Him on the cross. If you want to look for God, He is still where He promised to be: in the water of your Baptism, in the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist, in the Word of Absolution.
Remember, Lord, how You once came to us as Mary’s Son, we sing; and our Lord assures you today that He has not forgotten you, but will be with you in every dark time and place. He listens. He sees. He will bring you through the grave to the resurrection. Therefore rejoice and be glad this blessed night!
For from the Father’s throne You came, His banished children to reclaim; And earth and sea and sky revere The love of Him who sent You here.And we are jubilant today, For You have washed our guilt away. O hear the glad new song we sing On this, the birthday of our King!
The flocks outside of Bethlehem were kept year round, for an unceasing supply of sacrifices for the Jerusalem temple. The shepherds to whom the angel of the Lord appeared were guarding animals destined for slaughter. To these men, guarding the sacrifices, first comes the news that the long-awaited Lamb had been born, the Sacrifice who would put an end to the entire sacrificial system. All those bloody sacrifices served to show the people that sin must be paid for, but also that God wished to remove their sins and transfer them to another. The sacrifices – so often viewed as barbaric – were signs of God’s love.
God is love – but not in an abstract, sentimental kind of way. It was the love of the Father that sent His Son into our flesh to reclaim us, His banished children. That reclaiming could only happen through a remedy for sin, a payment, an atoning sacrifice.
At long last, the angel announces to the shepherds guarding the sacrifices that the One who would take on all the guilt of our fallen race had come – God Himself, come into our flesh. In Jesus, all our guilt is washed away.
As the human race runs out its course, we cannot look to physicians, scientists, or politicians to save us. Approaching death, we can see nothing but black darkness, and yet that light, “To you is born this day the Savior,” pierces through the gloom of sin’s dark night. The Savior will help you when all have forsaken you. When everything has turned against you, think of nothing but this Child, your Savior. (This paragraph adapted from Luther.)
So we are jubilant today, for God has reclaimed you, His banished children. Therefore rejoice and be glad this blessed night! +INJ+
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