Christmas Eve Candlelight Service

Order of Service

• Instrumental Music — Opening Instrumental
• Congregational Hymn — Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
• Call to Worship — Isaiah 9:6-7
• Hymn — Joy to the World
• Prayer of Invocation
• Hymn — In the Bleak Midwinter
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — Luke 2:1-21
• Sermon
• Hymn — Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
• The Lord's Supper
• Prayer
• Hymn — O Holy Night
• Benediction

---

Sermon Title: Christmas News, Christmas Joy, and a Christmas Sign

Scripture: Luke 2:10-12

I. Christmas News

A. The angel's announcement is objective gospel news, not a subjective feeling

1. The Greek word euangelion (gospel) signals this is an objective event, not an emotion
2. We live in a world where truth is determined by subjective feeling; Christmas cuts against this
3. God intruding into history by becoming man demands a response — belief or unbelief

B. Good news demands to be shared

1. Like V-Day news, the gospel of the incarnation is not kept to oneself
2. We go and tell family, neighbors, and friends, glorifying God in this objective reality

II. Christmas Joy

A. The world treats Christmas joy as seasonal — once a year and then gone

1. Songs and movies express a longing for the Christmas feeling to last all year
2. The post-holiday depression many feel reflects an incomplete understanding of Christmas joy

B. The joy the angel announces is not seasonal but eternal and permanent

1. It is a joy that rests in the soul every hour, every day, and into glory
2. Those who receive the good news of Christ do not lose this joy when the decorations come down
3. In glory, the redeemed will join the angels singing praise to Christ forever

III. Christmas Sign

A. The cosmic, divine setting of the angelic announcement raises expectations for a spectacular sign

1. The glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds; they were filled with fear
2. One might expect mountains quaking, stars falling — something majestic

B. The sign given is shockingly ordinary: a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger

1. Isaiah 7 — Isaiah gives King Ahaz a sign; the Hebrew shifts to the plural (all Israel): a virgin will bear a son called Immanuel
2. Isaiah 53 — He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him
3. To eyes without faith, he is just an ordinary baby; to eyes of faith, the swaddled infant is God made flesh

C. Christmas is about the ordinary becoming extraordinary

1. Luther's distinction: theologians of glory seek glory as the world seeks it — bright lights, kings on thrones; theologians of the cross see glory in an insignificant baby in a manger and a naked man dying on a cross
2. Even the bread and cup of the Lord's Supper are ordinary elements that point to the extraordinary: God made man giving the extraordinary gift of salvation and eternal life