John Wesley was the founding father of the Methodist denomination. Even though he had been leading his followers throughout England for several years preaching repentance, Wesley himself still questioned the validity of his own faith. While leading and inspiring others, Wesley’s was consumed with doubts regarding his own salvation.
Wesley felt depressed and dejected for his seeming lack of faith. Realizing this, a few friends compelled Wesley to accompany them to a Moravian society meeting in a room on Aldersgate Street, a few blocks away from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Wesley unwillingly attended the prayer meeting, but in doing so his life was transformed. While attending that Moravian prayer meeting, Wesley heard a reading from the book of Romans. That passage that he heard is still unknown to us today, but it transformed Wesley and gave him the assurance of his salvation.
Regarding that experience, Wesley wrote in his Journal on May 24, 1738, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
“I felt my heart strangely warmed.” This has become one of the catch phrases that has defined Methodism. It is used today exactly in the same way that John Wesley intended it when he wrote it in his journal. “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” I am assured of my salvation. I no longer harbor any doubts. I am no longer uncertain. I know I have been saved by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the message of Christmas that we celebrate this morning. With the coming of the Christ child we have been saved from our sins. We are forgiven. We know with assurance that heaven will be our final resting place.
In Latin Christmas means “Christ mass.” Christmas is a mass, it is a worship service where we celebrate Christ’s birth on Christmas Day. The celebration of Christmas was not an important event for the first four centuries of the early church. It was during these centuries that the church focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus. This made Good Friday and Easter Sunday the most important events for the church during the liturgical year.
Christmas was recognized during these centuries, but to a much lesser degree. There was no common understanding among the various churches on how and when to celebrate the birth of Christ. Therefore, the Christmas Day celebration took place on various dates throughout Christendom. How these dates were selected varied from church to church.
Some used the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox is the time at which the sun crosses the plane of the equator toward the relevant hemisphere, making night and day of equal length. It occurs about March 21 in the Northern hemisphere.
Another date for the birth of Jesus was on the fourth day of creation. This is the day God created the sun and since Jesus is the “sun of righteousness” he was also born on this day of light.
Another popular date for the birth of Jesus was January 6, which is Epiphany. This is the day on which we celebrate the baptism of Jesus. Those who promoted this date considered Jesus just to be human at his birth. He was not divine until the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon him during his baptism. It was then that Jesus as a human being was incarnate with the Spirit of God.
This was the most popular view that was circulating around the early church. It was also the most heretical doctrine because it denied the incarnation of Jesus at conception, and caused the church fathers to realize that a date for the birth of Jesus had to be officially established.
The date selected was December 25. One reason for its selection is that it came before January 6, which is the date for the celebration of the Baptism of Our Lord in the liturgical season of Epiphany. With the church officially recognizing the birth and incarnation of Jesus on December 25, the date of January 6 could no longer be defended.
Another reason for this date, and the reason you may be most familiar with, is on December 25 there was a great secular celebration in honor of Sol Invictus, who was worshiped as “The Invincible Sun.” Sol Invictus was the sun God of the Romans. The celebration of Sol Invictus went far beyond mere merriment to actually debauchery. The lack of social restraints that allowed someone to indulge in all sorts of mischievous behavior attracted some Christians to the festivities. The attractiveness of the celebration’s activities certainly made it easy for the flesh to rule over the spirit.
The church leaders knew they needed to draw Christians away from this secular pagan holiday, and determined that celebrating Christmas was one of the best ways to do it. The selection of December 25 not only countered the heresy of the January 6 celebration of the baptism of Jesus, it also denounced the celebration of Sol Invictus. The selection of December 25 also cleared up another dispute in the church; now all congregations would celebrate the birth of Jesus on the same day.
John Chrysostom was an early church father and was the Archbishop of Constantinople. He was known for his ability to preach and for his skill at public speaking.
Chrysostom delivered his well-known Christmas sermon In diem natalem. The title of this sermon in Latin means the following: In diem means “in the day of,” and natalem means “birth.” So, the title of Chrysostom’s Christmas sermon In diem natalem means “In the Day of the Birth.” What is interesting is that natalem can actually mean “birthday.”
Chrysostom preached this sermon in Antioch in the year 386. By this year at the end of the fourth century, it had become universally accepted that the celebration of Christmas would be on December 25.
In his sermon Chrysostom expressed the joy we all feel on Christmas morning. Chrysostom preached, “God was seen on earth through flesh and dwelt among humankind. So then, beloved, let us rejoice with great gladness. For if John leapt in his mother’s womb when Mary visited Elizabeth, consider that we have actually seen our Savior born today. So now we, much more, must leap, rejoice, and be full of wonder and astonishment at the grandeur of God’s plan which exceeds all thought. Think how great it would be to see the sun coming down from the heavens, running on the earth and sending out its beams on everybody from here.”
This is the same joyous celebration we experience today. From Chrysostom’s sermon we learn that in Jesus we see God on earth in the flesh. As John leapt in the womb of Elizabeth, we who have seen Jesus also leap and rejoice. On Christmas Day we know that God has come down from the heavens to earth, and we are bathed in the beams of God’s light.
Christmas did not really become secularized until the middle of the nineteenth century. In the mid-nineteenth century Christmas began to acquire its association with an increasing secularized holiday of gift-giving and good cheer. This view was popularized in Clarke Moore’s poem A Visit from St. Nicholas in 1823, and Charles Dicken’s story A Christmas Carol in 1843. These are stories that we love to hear during Christmas, but their emphasis on Jesus was shadowed as benevolence became the theme. Christmas cards first appeared in 1846, and from there one secular tradition after another was added.
It is not wrong to participate in these secular traditions, if they don’t take precedence over the study of the birth story in Luke’s gospel and celebrating “Christ Mass.”
Chrysostom preached in his sermon In diem natalem these sobering words, “He will reward you for this enthusiasm. Your heartfelt zeal for this day is a great sign of your love for the one who is born.” The birth of Jesus should make us enthusiastic to serve him. We should have a heartfelt zeal in sharing the Christmas love we have experienced this day with others.
New Testament scholar William Barclay wrote in his commentary on Titus that our scripture reading for this morning, this Christmas morning, that “There are few passages in the New Testament that so vividly set out the moral power of the incarnation as this does.” William Barclay, who published a commentary series on the New Testament in 1955 and which is still read today, was a professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Glasgow. Barclay is an exegetical scholar who must be taken very seriously for his knowledge and insight into the scriptures.
He stressed the moral power of the incarnation. The incarnation is the embodiment of God’s spirit in Jesus, allowing us to confess on Christmas Day that Jesus was fully God, fully man. This is the moral power of the incarnation that is proclaimed on Christmas Day. This is the moral power that is seen throughout the ministry of Jesus that changes lives.
Those who knelt before the manger in Bethlehem were never the same again. John Wesley while attending a societal meeting in a room at Aldersgate Street had his own form of a manger, and he was never the same again. Where is the manger that changed your life? Where did the Christmas experience happen for you? When did you come to be able to say, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.”
Did your Christmas experience, whether it happened on December 25 or another day of the year, make you enthusiastic to serve Jesus? Did your Christmas experience give you a heartfelt zeal to share the love of Jesus? Did the moral power of the incarnate Christ bring you salvation and a transformed life?
In our lectionary reading, Paul began his discussion of the meaning of the birth of Christ with these words, “bringing salvation to all.” For Paul, the Christmas story is a story of salvation. It is the story that we will have an Aldersgate experience. The moral power of the incarnation will have us accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and by grace we will experience salvation. We will know what it means to be forgiven.
But Paul then wrote if the Christmas story brings us to accept Jesus as our Savior then we must live, in Paul’s words, “to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.” The moral power that brings us to salvation is the same moral power that changes how we live.
We no longer attend the festivities of Sol Invictus, who was the Roman god worshiped as “The Invincible Sun.” We have surrendered that debauchery way of life. We now desire to live a life that is “self-controlled, upright, and godly.”
To live a life, in Paul’s words, that is self-controlled, upright, and godly, is not an easy mandate. It does require self-discipline. It does require us to be engaged daily in private spiritual meditation. It does require us to be a part of a worshiping congregation that celebrates Christ-mass each sabbath. But Paul expects those who are saved to live a life that demonstrates that salvation. Once you feel your heart strangely warmed, it becomes imperative that you are engaged in activities that will continue to warm your heart.
Apollo 8 was the first manned space craft to enter the moon’s orbit. What heightened the excitement of this historic occasion is that the spacecraft began its flight around the moon on Christmas Eve, 1968. To commemorate this special occasion and to recognize the religious significance of the date, all three astronauts — Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Andrews — decided to read passages of scripture to all the inhabitants of planet earth. The three men decided the most appropriate text would be the creation story recorded in Genesis. The Gideons presented the space voyagers with a Bible from which to do their reading. Unfortunately, the Gideon Bible was not made of fire resistant material, and the astronauts could not take it along. How, they wondered, could they carry the Genesis text into space? The solution: print the Bible passage on the flame-resistant flight plan. Therefore, each time the astronauts read the day’s agenda, their eyes also fell upon the word of God. Because of this arrangement, the word of God was constantly kept before the astronauts during their entire journey in outer space.
In the foreboding darkness of space looking down upon a light blue colored planet surrounded by a white halo of clouds, and beyond that the brilliance of other planets, stars and moons, the astronauts must have truly understood the words of Isaiah, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” Whatever darkness one may encounter, it shall always be penetrated by the light of Christ.
As we celebrate Christmas today we do so knowing that today and every day, that every time we look at our daily agenda, we will know that we no longer walk in darkness but have seen a great light.
Amen.