The Nativity of our Lord
Christmas Eve
She Gave Birth to Her Firstborn Son
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ! Amen. In tonight’s Gospel, Mary “gave birth to her firstborn
son.” In tonight’s Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah wants us to think of this
Child as belonging to more people than Mary alone. “To us a Child is born, to
us a Son is given.”
Dear Christian friends:
Perhaps you have heard the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a
child.” A couple of decades ago, this proverb helped Hillary Rodham Clinton to
find her way onto the New York Times Best-Seller List. Clinton’s book, It Takes
a Village, argued that “children will only thrive if their families thrive and
if the whole of society cares enough to provide for them” (2006 edition, 5).
That is a nice-sounding idea, but it has its flaws. Many families do not
thrive. Many families barely survive. If “children will only thrive if their
families thrive,” as Mrs. Clinton suggested, then many children have little to
no hope. Then there is the problem of society, which increasingly sees no use
for the family.
You can judge the closeness and the familial attitude of a congregation by
observing how the adult members interact with the children of the church. When
my sons were small, I was always happy when one of them got handed over the
back of the pew, to be held by someone other than their mother for a while. Out
in the narthex, the older men often joke with the teenagers, hoping to be
relevant, and the older women swarm around the young mothers, hoping for their
turn to hold the baby.
This is the way it should be. God says in First Timothy that we should “treat
younger men like brothers… and younger women like sisters” (1 Timothy 5:1-2).
God also says in His book of Titus that He wants us older men
to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in
steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not
slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train
the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled,
pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the
Word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, [we must] urge the younger men to be
self-controlled (Titus 2:2-6).
We could follow the example of the unbelieving world and chuckle about these
gender roles that God has assigned in His Scriptures, or we could take them to
heart and help our Christian children grow into Christian adults. Stated
another way, my children are yours, yours are mine, and we should remain
committed to acting that way. You have influenced my children in the one true
faith and I have influenced yours. Surely there will be more opportunities for
both of us. It is way too idealistic for us believe that it takes a village to
raise a child, but it is not too much to hope from the Christian congregation.
Every time a mother in our congregation gives birth, we should echo the prophet
and praise God, saying, “To US a child is born.” That way, the birth of every
child in our congregation will put us in mind of the Firstborn Son of Mary, the
Firstborn over all Creation (Colossians 1:15), the Firstborn of All Resurrected
Flesh. (Colossians 1:18,
Revelation 1:5).
In the same way that your children and my children should be thought of as our
children together, so the prophet also wants us to think of Mary’s child. Mary
“gave birth to her firstborn Son,” but Isaiah insists that Jesus is not Mary’s
Son alone. “To US a Child is born, to US a Son is given.”
The African proverb should now be reversed in celebration of Christmas. With
regard to Mary’s Son, it is NOT a case of it taking a village to raise a child.
Rather, Christ Jesus our Lord is the Child it takes to raise a village. He
raises hope for the hopeless; He raises sinners up out of their sins; He raises
bodies that have fallen into the grave; He will raise you and He will raise
your children.
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