The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, Year A

“BEHOLD, IT IS VERY GOOD, AND WORTH SAVING”
Isaiah 9: 2 – 4; 6 – 7 -- Psalm 96 -- Titus 2: 11 – 14 -- Luke 2: 1 - 20
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker and given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Monday, December 24th, 2007 (Christmas Eve)

“…and God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good.”

Remember where those words come from?

Of course: Genesis 1: 31….at the end of the account of the creation of the world.

“And God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good.”

Whenever we might have occasion to read that first chapter of the Bible, our eyes might tend to glance over these words. The full impact of what they convey about the nature of the created order, that is, this world and everything in it (including people) might elude us.

So, let’s unpack those words just a little….

What they essentially say is that the world is good, because God created it to be good.

In addition, what these words say is that the world is not a place to be avoided, to escape from, or to simply tolerate during our time on this earth.

No, the creation account in Genesis tells us that God seems to want us to care for the world He created, even as He put Adam and Eve there to till the Garden of Eden and to tend to it.[1]

Down through time, people the world over have come to various conclusions about the world, its origins, and the involvement of a god (or gods) in its creation and ongoing existence….

Let’s name some of the ways of looking at the creation of the world, and its importance from a divine point-of-view:

1. The created world was abandoned by its creator: This view was held by the Deists[2], a group that were quite prominent during the 17th and 18th centuries….They believed that the world had, indeed, been created by a divine being, but that divine Creator had no further, ongoing involvement in the world after its creation….A simple way that theologians describe this outlook is to use the illustration of a clock being wound up, then being thrown off to run on its own until the power ran out. So, according to this way of thinking, we human beings are “pretty much on our own down here (on earth)”.
   
   
2. Some lesser god created the world: This view says that there is a hierarchy of gods, and some god that was lower in rank created the world, not the real – or highest – one.
   
   
3. The gods exist not for the benefit of the created world, but to interfere in it: It’s probably fair to say that many of the ancient Greeks and Romans held to this view, for some of their pantheon of gods were viewed as having malicious intent toward the world and the people in it.
   
   
4. An accident: A more modern notion of the world’s creation and ongoing purpose is to regard it as being some sort of a big accident. No divine power was – or is – at work in its creation, nor in its sustenance.

Against these conceptions, Holy Scripture stands as witness to a radically different understanding, namely that:

• The world and its people are the deliberate creation of God (the highest and “real” God), and are not accidents.
  
  
• Despite the subsequent destruction of the world’s initial goodness by human sin and disobedience, the world continues to be a good place, a place that is worthy of God’s continued involvement.

And it is to God’s continuing involvement that we now turn… God has a habit, the Bible tells us, of:

• Saving His world (and the people in it).
  
  
• Using human beings to do the saving.

Let’s look at the biblical record. For example, God saves His people through the efforts of:

1. Noah: When the Great Flood occurred, God instructed Noah to build an ark, providing safe passage through the flood waters for his family and for the animals that had been collected.
   
   
2. When God’s people were in bondage in Egypt, God led His people back to the Promised Land through the leadership of Moses, who led them through the waters of the Red Sea and through their Wilderness journey.
   
   
3. Cyrus: The Persian king Cyrus was the instrument of liberation for God’s people in exile in Babylon. With Cyrus’ conquest of the Babylonian Empire, the way was cleared for the Jews to return to the Promised Land in 538 BC (See Ezra 1: 1 – 4 for an account of the return home).

We could name many other persons who were God’s instruments, persons who made possible the saving of God’s people.

But now, we come to the ultimate act of God’s saving actions: the birth of Jesus Christ….Remember that we have said that:

• God saves His people
  
  
• He uses people to do the saving.

Both elements are present in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to take upon Himself our human condition….that is the reason – the central reason – for the Christmas celebration we are gathered for tonight….We celebrate God’s saving of His people, and God’s use of a human being, Jesus, to do the saving.

Our Lord’s coming among us demonstrates in tangible ways that God continues to regard the world as being good, as being worthy of saving. God continues to be active in the world He created. We are not left alone here, to make our way without God’s presence in our lives. Nor are we the products of a gigantic accident, which would make our lives and our existence on this earth of no particular purpose or value.

The scriptural witness says, “No” to any thought that this world – and its people –are without purpose, without value, without meaning.

Jesus’ birth signals God’s intent – made understandable only by the power of Jesus’ resurrection – to save His people, the people He created to be in relationship to Him.

For in the Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection, we see the power of God to make the whole creation new. We see the demonstration of God’s love, come to us in human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man.

Praise to God the Father, who saves His people through the work of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

AMEN.


[1] Genesis 2: 15
[2] Some of the Founding Fathers of our country were Deists.