A Thief in the Night :: Luke 2:1-14
And the shepherds were in that region, living outside and keeping watching at night over the flock. And an angel of the Lord stood over them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they feared with great fear (vv 8-9).
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We began this night hearing the result of a thief entering the garden where Adam and Eve lived. This thief was a slick, swindling, snake. He knew how to flatter with his tongue. He came like a con man who bilks people out of their hard-earned dollars. He told the man and the woman that they were missing out on a great deal of knowledge that God was keeping from them. All they had to do was eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then they would know all that God knew. Then they would be like God (Gen 3:5).
Turning from God’s words to his own deceitful words ... this thief ... this devil ... the adversary ... the Satan ... robbed man and woman. And he enticed them to add to God’s Word ... to try to speak like God ... to be like God ... be their own god. And in so doing, he stole their humanity ... he pilfered their very lives.
You are the sons and daughters of that first man and woman, Adam and Eve. You are in the same shape. Despite all of your knowledge and all of your achievements and all of your abilities ... despite all your cunning and frugalness ... we are now less than human. We are a disfigured shadow of what we were created to be. These bodies are being destroyed under the weight of sin. Our inhumanity now manifests itself in anger and impatience ... disrespect and disunity ... pride and lust ... greed and gossip. We seek our own creation instead of receiving God’s good gifts.
To be human is to live as God’s creation, to receive everything from him according to his good and gracious will ... the bread of heaven, the cup of salvation in the marriage feast of the Lamb in his paradise. To be human is to love and trust in him alone that he will protect and keep us, to make his face shine upon us. To be human is to be dependent on him for all that you need.
But by nature, we would rather be like Adam and Eve ... independent ... a creature of our own creation ... doing things the way we want, when we want. We want to be like God. We want to control our own destiny. We want to be in charge ... to make decisions for ourselves ... decisions that we think are for our good. We want to call the shots. We want these things because we have fallen. We’ve been robbed. We’ve been mugged. We’ve been left to die.
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But thanks be to God, he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in covenantal love. So there in the garden, God promised to send one who would silence the liar ... to crush his head ... and to deliver us from his curse. God would do this by turning the tables on the devil, using Satan’s own tactics against him. Fear not, he told Abram, I am your shield. Your reward will be very great (Gen 15:1) ... Behold, he told Ahaz, the twelfth king of Judah, who bowed to Assyria instead of God. The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and his name will be Immanuel (Isa 7:14). ... The people walking in darkness have seen a great light (Isa 9:2).
This would be a sting operation. Whereas it was through a virgin that the devil worked his thievery, so it would be that God would enter the world through a virgin to undo and destroy the devil’s work. Whereas it was in a quiet, subtle, shrewd manner that the serpent attained his plunder ... so it was in a quiet, subtle, shrewd manner that God came in flesh, born of the virgin, to restore what was taken from you.
The Scriptures of the New Testament say that our Lord comes as a thief in the night (1 Th 5:2; Rv 16:15). Those passages from 1 Thessalonians 5 and Revelation 16 are both references to Jesus’ return on the Last Day. He will come suddenly and unexpectedly ... like a robber in the middle of the night ... to judge the living and the dead.
That can be said of Jesus’ first coming at Christmas, too. In our reading from Luke, Jesus came like a thief in the night ... that is, quietly ... in the darkness ... with almost no one noticing his arrival. The Son of God, who upholds all creation, has entered into his creation through the womb of the blessed Mother of God, Mary. Traveling curled up in her belly to the Holy City of David, he is born alongside the animals because he had no place to lay his head. He arrived on the scene undercover ... secretly ... to win back for you what the devil stole from you.
The Son of God ... that is, God Incarnate ... begins to do that in the very act of his becoming man. By taking on your body and soul, Jesus has redeemed and cleansed your humanity with his divine holiness. His incarnation permeates and hallows mankind. In the stable with the animals, we see Jesus as the new Adam. All dominion is given to him. He has come to lift you out of your beastly inhumanity and recreate you by his coming in the flesh. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15[:22], As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. God the Son took your humanity into himself so that your humanity might be restored and made new. God has greatly exalted you in this way. He has communed himself fully in humanity so that in him you might commune fully with God and among men ... receiving forgiveness from God and sharing it with men. He has done it in the House of Bread, Bethlehem, and he is still giving us his living bread.
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That’s why we hear the heavenly host break forth in a jubilant song tonight and every Lord’s Day: God in Christ is fulfilling all the promises of God. Your salvation has been accomplished. True God and True Man has come through the blessed Virgin to deliver you from the shadow of death. In Christ, your humanity is recaptured from the tempter and given back to you. You who fell from God into the hands of darkness have been brought back to your Maker.
That is the peace on earth of which the angels sing. God and man have come together in Jesus, who is himself both God and man. Thus, those who believe and are baptized into the Body of Christ are thereby united with God. Those who confess with their mouth Jesus is Lord and believe God raised him from the dead will be saved. And so the angels sing, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men (v 14). For so it is that God’s glory has come to you ... to aid you ... to nourish you ... to nurture you ... to care for you ... to serve you ... descending from heaven to you ... all to save you. Think of it this way: By uniting your humanity with his divinity, God has made your cause his own, destroyed death, and given you life.
Whatever the devil did to us, he has now done it to God, too, and that simply won’t stand. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that he might save the world (Jn 3:17).
So again, our Lord engages the battle undercover. Just as the Son of God was born in lowly state, so also his divine power to save us will be hidden beneath meekness and humility and suffering. The tender brow of this little one is being prepared to be pierced with thorns. His fragile hands and feet will feel the hammer’s blow as spikes are driven through them, attaching him to the cross. The tiny beating heart of this baby will grow to be pierced with a spear, and from it will flow the blood and water that cleanses us of all sin. Now all who are baptized by him are saved and all who eat his body and drink his cup will have everlasting life.
It is no coincidence that Jesus was crucified between two robbers (Mt 27:38), as if he were a thief himself. Not only did he come to take his victory over the devil, he has taken all of your sin. He took away from you every uncleanness ... every failure to love ... along with every hurtful and evil thing that has been said or done to you. He has taken it all from you. He has taken it all as his own. And He has demolished it in his death, and restored you with his eternal life.
It was through the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil that Satan conquered man, and so it was also by a tree, the holy cross, that Christ conquered Satan and reconciled man to God again. It was by death that Satan sought to steal away man’s glory. And so it is by the death of Christ and his resurrection that the glory of God is restored.
WHAT HAD BEEN STOLEN FROM US, THE LORD RESTORES BY HIS OWN HOLY THIEVERY
Listen carefully, then, and hear clearly what the angels declare ... and believe it ... For behold, I bring you Good News of Great Joy that is for all people. Because there is born to you this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (vv 10-11). He comes in the night to take away your sins and heal your injured flesh and spirit with his own pure flesh and Holy Spirit. He is born to give you second birth to a new and everlasting life with God. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger (v 12).
Let us, then, with his mother, Mary, treasure and ponder these holy sacraments in our hearts and cherish them, and treasure them. And let us with the shepherds glorify and praise God for all the things we have heard and seen, just as it has been told to us.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.