12/24/2021 - Christmas at Illuminate - Pastor Jason Fritz

We really need Christ in our Christmas this year.

Don’t you agree? Silent Night and Peace On Earth sound pretty good too. How about some Joy To The World? Seems to be a lot of shouting right now but it’s not the sound of joy. Lines are drawn. Hostilities, dissension, anger, violence are at the top of our social media feeds and on every news broadcast…every single day. We need the hope of Jesus who is the Christ. The name Jesus means “the Lord is our salvation.” The title Christ means messiah. Christmas is the celebration of God’s promised messiah born to save us.

I’m always amazed at the way God works. The sights and sounds and smells of a stable were the first sensations of the new born king. An improbable cast of characters surround him. A teenage virgin and her betrothed who has only been shaving his face for a few years. This is majesty in the midst of the mundane. God in a barn. Jesus emptied himself of his rights and privileges as deity and arrived to the earth in humility so that he might taste death for us all. 

We need to be saved.

Saved from guilt, shame, sin and death. Saved from the many false messiahs we think will save us. We need something that will unite us. We need the manger and everything it represents - light, freedom, forgiveness, mercy, grace and love. Think about this…if Jesus was willing to show up in a stable, then what place could possibly be off limits for him? No place is too dark.

Max Lucado tells the story of Father Josef Mohr who pastored the small church of Arnsdorf near Salzburg, Austria. The congregation, like the village, was comprised of simple people. They were farmers and woodworkers. There was more poverty than affluence. They worked long hours and endured harsh winters. Christmas was one of their few respites. The pastor did his best to make the holiday service special for his flock. But this year, 1818, he had a problem. The organ had become unfit for use. It was old. Mice had eaten at the bellows. The church needed a new one. But they didn’t have the money. Father Mohr went to his organist and expressed his chagrin, “We must have something special for midnight mass.” What is Christmas, they wondered, without music? On the day before Christmas Eve, the Father was called to administer last rites to a dying woman. By the time he returned to Arnsdorf, the hour was late. The valley and the village lay in darkness. The priest paused on a height overlooking the town. The events had left him sad: the useless organ, the death of a parishioner, the cold night and long journey. His heart, like the valley, was lost in shadows. But then he saw a faint light of a distant home. Against the black curtain of night, it shone even brighter. The priest pondered the light, then thought to himself: It must have been something like this–that silent, holy night in Bethlehem.

Suddenly inspired, he hurried home, sat over his desk and wrote:

Silent Night, Holy Night,
All is dark, save the light,
Yonder where they sweet vigils keep,
O’er the Babe, who, in silent sleep,
Rests in heavenly peace,
Rests in heavenly peace.
Silent night, peaceful night,
Darkness flies, all is light;
Shepherds hear the angels sing.
Alleluia! Hail the King,
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born.

Upon arising the next morning, he took his lyrics to Franz Gruber, his organist. Within moments, Gruber imagined the perfect melody. When he sang the song to his wife, she told him, “We will die, you and I, but this song will live.”

The song lives on because the world still exists in shadows and we hold hope to the promise that light has entered and still shines.