Isaiah
9: 2–7; Psalm 96; Titus 2: 11–14; Luke 2: 1–20
This
is the Christmas Eve homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on
Sunday, December 24, 2017, by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“WHY BE A
CHRISTIAN?”
Why be a disciple of Jesus? Or – if we
could ask this question another way – why be a partisan of Jesus (a phrase I
heard in seminary, and one I like). Or – if we were to ask this question in a
very commonly used way – why be a Christian?
Perhaps there are many reasons to be a
follower of Jesus (still another way we could describe being in relationship
with the Lord Jesus Christ), but – on this Christmas Eve – I think the central
theme of our Christmas celebration offers us one very compelling reason to be
in relationship with Jesus.
(At this juncture, it might be good to
remind ourselves that the accounts we read in Holy Scripture usually convey one
or more central teachings, lessons that God wants us to learn. No matter how
much we might pick Scripture apart to study its various aspects, once that
process of close examination is finished, we are called to step back from that
process and ask ourselves, “What is it that this passage is trying to tell
us?”)
The account of Jesus’ birth, as we
hear it from Luke’s writing, conveys one overarching theme (it seems to me):
God cared so much for the
human race that He reached out to us
in the sending of Jesus
to take on our humanity.
in the sending of Jesus
to take on our humanity.
This means that God took the
initiative. It means that you and I matter a lot to God. It means that God
loves us, and loves us deeply and intensely. In I John 4: 9, 10, we read this:
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son
into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we
loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
sins.” (English Standard Version)
Isn’t it a wonderful and glorious
thing to know how important we are to God? Knowing this truth changes
everything in our lives, for now, even the smallest things in our lives become
important, for all that we do and say is done in God’s sight.
Jesus Christ is the “image of the
invisible God” (Colossians 1: 15), the One who came to show us the Father’s
love, the One who opened the way to God for us.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
