Christmas Eve’s Question Mark | December 24, 2022

Merry Christmas! This is my first Christmas Eve at Living Hope and Christ the King. Of course, the Scripture for this sermon is the Christmas story according to Luke 2:1-21. This sermon focuses on the question mark in the song, “What Child is This?”

As I previously did at St. Peter, I’ve decided to start sharing sermon audio in the form of a podcast, so this sermon is episode one. Have a listen! (Or watch the service from Living Hope embedded below!)

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Grace to you and peace, from the One who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

I don’t want to complain on Christmas, but I want you to know that as someone new to this congregation, selecting music for Christmas Eve is incredibly challenging.

Trust me, as the new pastor, you don’t want to mess up someone’s Christmas tradition by skipping their favorite Christmas song, but there are dozens of Christmas carols in our hymnal. There’s no way we can fit them all in one service.

So, I thought, we’ll just sing the essential ones, but people have different opinions about which ones are the best! And of course, we have some wonderful offerings of special music, and decisions about traditional or modern arrangements, and I love Christmas music, but it’s a challenge to get everything in.

One I debated is the next carol we’ll sing, “What Child is This?” Personally, I love it, but should it have made the cut over “Angels We Have Heard on High?” I don’t know! I chose to include it because I think it’s one of the most honest Christmas carols we have.

“What Child is This?” is the only Christmas carol tonight that ends in a question mark. I think that question mark is honest, because this story brings up some questions.

The way God’s acting doesn’t make sense. For centuries, prophets had predicted a savior from God coming to rescue God’s people, but no one expected God would show up in person. And if God did come into the world, no one anticipated God arriving like this. It’s too ordinary. It’s too messy. Human birth is not a clean pleasant process. Birth to an unwed mother who can’t find a room for the night is even worse. The Christmas story has a lot of rough, messy edges.

Maybe it’s not hard to connect with the question mark in this carol, because we all have questions this afternoon. At least I do. We have questions about what the future holds for us.

Will I be a good parent? What about to another child? How do I take care of my grandkids? How can I move on from a tragedy? Do I belong here? Will the job offer come through?

Some of the questions are more immediate – there’s a lot in the bulletin, is this service going to be done in time to get to grandma’s for dinner?

Some of the questions are about faith. Am I doing what God is calling me to do? How do I find out what God wants me to do? Is God even paying attention to me, listening to my prayers?

What about when I don’t pray? What if I’m not sure I believe at all? Is there room for me at God’s table?
How does a child born 2,000 years ago help with any of our questions today?

The truth is, no one in this Christmas story truly knows what child this is. Joseph just knows this baby’s not biologically his, and he lives out his faith by trusting the angel’s explanation that it’s from the Holy Spirit.

Mary knows the angel told her that her baby’s the son of God who will save God’s people from their sins, but there are an awful lot of missing details.

All the shepherds in their fields know is that some angels told them the Messiah has been born. What might that mean for them?

Herod the king sees this Child as a threat to his power, which is true, but not in the way he thinks. The Magi from the East we’ll hear about in a couple weeks have no idea what sort of King they’re looking for.

The only way you and I know the answer to the question is because we know the rest of the story; and we have the Holy Spirit nudging us toward faith.

We know the baby born in Bethlehem doesn’t stay a baby in a manger. Verse two of the song will talk about that, about nails and a spear piercing him.

Even the Biblical writers sometimes struggle to express who exactly Jesus is. They use all kinds of poetic language to try to explain. He’s the light of the world, the alpha and the omega, the first and the last.

He’s the great high priest, the conquering king, the one seated at God’s right hand. He’s the eternal Word present at creation, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

Most importantly, this child is God with us, Emmanuel. It won’t be fully revealed until Easter, when Jesus rises from the dead, but again, you and I know the rest of the story. We know the answer to “What child is this?”

This child sleeping on Mary’s lap is our savior, the Messiah. This is Christ the King. And—as verse two of the hymn asks—why lies he in such mean estate? Why does God choose to come this way, through the messiness of birth, into a world with no room for him?

The answer is love. God loves us enough to refuse to leave us alone. Jesus comes to experience what we experience, to come into our world and endure the worst pain and shame and humiliation, the worst this world can offer, and to put it to death on the cross. Jesus chooses to endure those nails to show us how far God’s love will reach.

As people for centuries have wrestled with who Jesus is, there are two traps people tend to fall into. One error people make is saying that he is God with us, but just…mostly with us, God in disguise as a human, not actually human, sort of an Undercover Boss situation.

He appears to be a baby, appears to experience pain; it looks like he dies on a cross, but God would never actually do all that, right?

But for most of us today, accepting that Jesus was born as a baby—believing he was a real flesh-and-blood human being—that’s not the hard part. The mistake we’re more likely to make is thinking he was only a human being. A pretty great guy, the most incredible moral teacher in history, but at the end of the day, a human, not God.

Yet the Scriptures, the angels, the rest of Jesus’ life, and most importantly, the empty tomb demonstrate this baby is no mere mortal.

We need the whole story to answer the question of Jesus’ identity. We need Christmas, and Good Friday, and Easter too. Not just the baby in the manger, but the host at the table, the king on the cross.

Because the answer is, this child is God with us, the Word made flesh. 100% human, and 100% God, all at once. Christmas means the Creator of the cosmos has entered into creation so we can know our God.

This child is the testimony of God’s love, the answer to all of our questions. Our Creator has not left us alone; God has come to dwell with us. God’s light enters even the darkest shadows of our lives.

And we are called to respond like those in the story, the ones the carol mentions. We are called to bring our gifts to Jesus, to turn over our lives to him. Let loving hearts enthrone him. That’s why we’re here today.

We’re called to worship, to raise the song on high. We’re called to live our lives knowing God is with us, knowing that whatever we go through, God understands, because God has come to live as one of us.

If you’re stuck on that question mark today, wondering what child is this, wondering why this child matters, hear the good news of Christmas: God is with you. God knows you. And God loves you.

Let’s sing, hymn number 296: What Child is This?