This is an excerpt from a sermon Martin Luther gave for Christmas. It is included in my church’s Advent Guide. It really struck me because I find my heart very cold at Christmas. It is far too easy for me to just go through the motions of Christmas and not worship the eternal Son who condescended into our time and space as fully God and fully man.
“See what God did in heaven about this birth which the world despised and did not even see and know. The joy was so great that the angels could not stay in heaven, but had to break out and tell man on earth. The angels proclaimed to the shepherds ‘tidings of great joy.’ This is a mighty comfort to us. What the world despised the angels honored. They would have had a much bigger celebration if God had allowed them, but he wished to teach us through his Son to despise the pomp of the world.
All the angels in heaven, not one excepted, sang, ‘Glory to God in the highest.’ What a shame that all men should not preach this word when all the angels in heaven play it on organs and pipes in eternity! The angels had no bigger congregation than two shepherds in a field. They were filled with too great joy for words. And we who hear this message, ‘Behold, I bring you good tidings,’ never feel one spark of joy. I hate myself because when I see him laid in the manger, in the lap of his mother, and hear the angels sing, my heart does not leap into flame. With what good reason should we all despise ourselves that we remain so cold when this word is spoken to us over which all men should dance and leap and burn for joy! We act as though it were a frigid, historical fact that does not smite our hearts, as if someone were merely relating that the sultan had a crown of gold.”
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