Christmas sermon 2024
The following is the Christmas sermon at Grace. Merry Christmas!
By now, you’re probably either completely loving the Christmas season or counting down the days until it’s over.
Maybe you can’t wait until the town is less buy, when you can actually find a car park in the multistorey, and decorations come down so you can relax into a long and quiet summer. Or perhaps, for you, Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year.
Either way, in all the fun and excitement of the Christmas season, the birth of Jesus is on our minds. But here’s the question: What makes the birth of Jesus worth celebrating? Why do we take this moment, every year, to think about a child laying in a manger?
Today, we’re going to dig into Isaiah 9:1-7, it’s there on your handout, and it’s a prophecy written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth. This part of the Bible reveals why Christmas is worth the celebration. Because this child born in Bethlehem—this Jesus—is life-changing. Here’s why:
- Jesus brings light into our spiritual darkness.
- Jesus is the liberator who frees us from oppression.
- Jesus is the God given leader for our chaos.
- Jesus Brings Light into Spiritual Darkness
So number 1, we see in Isaiah chapter 9 that Jesus brings light into our spiritual darkness.
Isaiah’s prophecy begins with a powerful image, Isaiah 9 verse 2 says
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned”
The people of Isaiah’s day lived in spiritual gloom. They had turned away from God, seeking answers in all the wrong places. Chapter 8 describes them consulting mediums and necromancers who ‘chirp and mutter’. They had been listening to them instead of God. And what was the result? Distress, gloom, a thick spiritual darkness.
Chapter 8 verse 20 says “If anyone does not speak according to this word (that is God’s word), they have no light of dawn.”
Verse 21 “They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. And they will look to the earth, and see only distress and darkness, and fearful gloom. And they will be thrust into utter darkness.”
Isaiah describes a group of people who had pushed God away.
They had rejected his authority, and removed themselves from hearing what he says.
And once they had done that, they realise, or perhaps they don’t realise until Isaiah tells them, they realise that they are wandering around in the darkness.
Utter darkness, it says there, and anguish is everywhere.
They are in the gloom of alienation from the source of life and light, God himself.
And doesn’t that sound familiar? We live in a world that pushes God away.
We tell ourselves that we don’t need God. That technology is all that we need, science will solve our deepest problems. That connections with people will heal us. That education will make us better than we are. And we can imagine a life where we don’t need God.
And yet, there is darkness.
We wonder why the cracks start to show. Why there is tragedy is all around us. Stories which horrify us that only get spoken of in hushed tones. Why death haunts us.
And Isaiah says to us. That whatever we tell ourselves, because we’ve banished God from our lives. As a consequence we’ve become insecure, lonely, and afraid.
If you’ve ever been out at night, no moon, and it’s cloudy, so that not even the stars give their light for you, a fear can grip you in those moments. Utter darkness is scary. Maybe you’ve experienced something of this image that Isaiah is talking about here. A spiritual gloom has fallen over the world.
A gloom where people listen to anyone and anything apart from God and turn their backs and hearts away from him. And Isaiah says, it’s like wandering around in the pitch black.
Many of us feel that gloom not just in the world around us but in our own hearts. Yet Isaiah promises that a great light will dawn—and that light is Jesus.
In John 8:12, Jesus himself says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
This is the message of Christmas: Jesus came to dispel the darkness. He came to bring light. Bright, shining, beautiful, glorious.
Jesus came into the world, the baby was born, so that we who have pushed God away will see light. And the darkness of our sin against God, the gloom in which we wander will be no more, because Jesus brings people who follow him out this spiritual darkness into the light.
The Apostle Paul describes it beautifully in 2 Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
No matter how dark the world or our hearts may be, the child born at Christmas brings the light we need. He makes his light shine in our hearts. Praise God for the light of Christ!
- Jesus Liberates Us from Oppression
Jesus is the light. Secondly, Jesus liberates us from oppression.
Isaiah’s prophecy continues in Isaiah 9 verse 4:
“For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor”
In Isaiah’s time, this pointed to God’s physical deliverance of Israel from their enemies. But Isaiah is ultimately concerned here about the greater reality: the spiritual oppression of sin, and the spiritual bondage that they were in.
The burden crushes us, weigh us down, and the darkness that enslaves us. But Isaiah promises that the Messiah will free his people from that yoke that burdens, shattering the bar across their shoulders, and breaking the rod of the oppressor.
Notice the phrase “as in the day of Midian’s defeat.” This refers to the story of Gideon in Judges chapter 7. Gideon was the leader of the army with some 32 thousand men, and they were facing the armies of Midian. And God kept Gideon to send away more and more and more soldiers, until he only had 300 left.
It seemed impossible to go up against the enemy.
And yet, God gave Midian over. Gideon defeated a vast enemy army with just 300 men, showing that deliverance comes not by human strength but by God’s power.
And in the same way, God’s ultimate deliverance comes through the most surprising means: a child born in Bethlehem, a man who would die a shameful death on a cross. Through this child, through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the power of sin is broken. The bar is cast off, the yoke is shattered, as in the day of Midians defeat.
As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:25: “The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
Friends, Jesus bore the yoke of our sin, the bar of our guilt, and the rod of our shame on the cross. He bore those things in our place, paying for our darkness, he took on darkness in our place. And in his victory, he shatters them forever.
So, if you’re bound by sin or burdened by shame, look to this child— believe in Jesus. Because he’s the Saviour who frees us.
- Jesus is the God-Given Leader for Our Chaos
And so, finally Jesus is the God given leader for our chaos.
Isaiah tells us in verse 9:
“The government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
In a world of chaos and gloom, we desperately need a leader who can guide us.
And Isaiah paints a picture of people stumbling in darkness, leaderless and lost. But the child born at Christmas is the God given leader we need.
He carries the weight of government on his shoulders, Isaiah writes. He provides wisdom, and strength, and love, and peace.
Jesus is our Wonderful Counselor: He is wise and leads us in his wisdom, through his word. He guides us in life.
Jesus is Mighty God: He strengthens us to live for him and his glory.
Jesus is the Everlasting Father, who cares for us with unending love.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace: who floods our hearts with his peace in life’s storms.
The child born that first Christmas came to lead us to God.
Isaiah concludes with this promise in verse 7:
“Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end” (Isaiah 9:7). Jesus’ leadership is eternal. He is everything we need, not just for today but forever.
Conclusion
So why is the birth of Jesus worth celebrating? Because this child is the light for our spiritual darkness who came to bear our darkness to the cross. Jesus is the liberator for our oppression- he free us from sins’ captivity, and Jesus is the leader for our chaos – he guides us and leads us to God. And his rule and reign is forever.
So the question is…do you know this Jesus? Have you believed in him to be saved from darkness, from captivity and chaos?
You can take or leave the trappings of the season, but the message of Christmas—the message of Jesus—is worth all the joy and praise we can offer.
This Christmas, let us rejoice that the child born in Bethlehem is the Saviour. Let us celebrate the light that he is. And let us commit ourselves anew to following him, not just during the Christmas season, but every day of our lives. So happy Christmas to you all.
Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven,
Thank you that you are our Rock and Redeemer. Our Saviour and God.
We praise you that what was told long ago happened as you said it would.
That the child born is the King, the Christ, the Messiah, God with us.
We thank you for Jesus. And confess today that our hope for ourselves and for this world rests in him.
Lord Jesus, we bow before you in wonder, in adoration, for you are the Lord. Very God of Very God. are the ruler over every ruler, the God over all. Your kingdom is unshakable and eternal.
Heavenly Father, we look at Jesus, who came to this world. He came to be despised and rejected. You laid our sins upon him. You sent him to live the life we failed to live. To die the death we deserve for our sins. And to rise again to live, so that we might have life in him.
So we pray and seek your forgiveness for our sins, even the sins that we’ve committed today. Please forgive us, and renew us to live your way.
And as we celebrate today, advent, Christmas, Jesus first coming to this world. We look forward to when Christ will come again. We long for the day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He are Lord, to the glory of God the Father!
We pray for each other today. For those of us who are full of joy and happiness at this time of year, we pray that you’d lift our hearts in praise of you. For those of us who have sadness with memories of Christmas past, of loved ones gone, we pray for your comfort and near presence with us this coming week. And likewise we ask that you’d lift our hearts to praise you.
Jesus, we long for your return, when all that is broken will be gloriously renewed, that all the darkness of the world will be gone, and where everywhere will be filled with the light of Christ. Come Lord Jesus.
We pray these things in your great and merciful name. Amen.