Having missed two services, I feel this need to try to make up for them. This doesn't mean, however, that this sermon will be twice as long. It's just that we have so many choices for a theme. The text for Christmas Eve comes from Luke 2, the familiar Christmas story. The text for Christmas Day is from John 1, talking about the glory of the incarnation. Today is actually the celebration of St. John, the Apostle and Evangelist--not to be confused with John the Baptist, but the assigned readings, we were going to go with, focused on a couple of old saints, Anna and Simeon, in the temple,

What do we do? Where do we start? It was so not like Christmas, for so many of us, that I thought we have to have the Christmas story out of Luke. John could wait, and so could Anna and Simeon. But we can't ignore where Jesus and His family were when Anna and Simeon approach them. They were at the temple. One of the ways the Israelites were reminded that the Messiah would be the firstborn, was by offering a sacrifice for the firstborn at the temple in Jerusalem. The point is, Jesus is at the temple. He may be just a little over a month old, but He is at the temple.

This is the place where the Old Testament people would go to find God. Oh yes, just as much as He is with us all the time because He is everywhere, He was with the people of the Old Testament. In other words, they wouldn't hesitate to say God is everywhere. But when they wanted to find Him in His grace and mercy, there was only one place they could look--only one--the Temple. Imagine that. Imagine what that was like. It's nothing like that anymore. Whenever we come to worship, we know God is here to bless. Where we find His Word preached and the sacraments administered, we know God is there. But for them, this was the only place. That's why the Temple was so important to the people back then.

And now, in the reading we would have had today, Jesus is there, in the temple. The Lord's presence used to be found in the temple, but the location is changing. God's presence is now to be found in the flesh of a little man, an infant at this point in our readings. And the angels' song outside of Bethlehem announces the change. In fact, the song tells us worship is about to dramatically change. The worship of the New Testament is going to be different from the worship of the Old Testament when it was just in the Temple. And you thought the angels were just singing to a couple shepherds. Actually, the angels' song is a prominent part of the Christmas story. I was looking at a lot of the Christmas carols, and just about every one talks about the angels. It makes sense that music is still such an important part of Christmas. It was at the first one.

I have to admit, though, more than once, I have heard people--pastors, actually--say, "You know those angels didn't sing to the shepherds, don't you? They didn't sing; they spoke to them." I looked it up. It's true. The Bible does say "saying."

When I first heard it, I thought, "How did I miss this?" But lately I have been looking at the church's song, the song of praise, which got its start at the temple in Jerusalem, the same temple where Simeon and Anna greet Jesus. I learned some amazing things about that temple song . And then, not all that long ago, I heard it again. "You know the angels only spoke to the shepherds. This time I got a little irritated. I was going to dig a little deeper for myself.

O.K., so the Bible does say "saying." What about the Greek? I figured I had Greek classes many moons ago. I could look for myself. So I looked it up. Sure enough, there it was. The Greek word is translated, "saying."

I wasn't going down for the count that easily. So, I decided to look at other places in the New Testament where it talked about singing. Revelation has a lot of songs. One of them is really familiar to us. We sing it when we use the first setting of the Divine Service. The words to "This is the Feast," are pretty much straight out of Revelation. You know what I discovered when I looked at the Greek? Either nobody sings in heaven, like just about everyone seems to think and the Church has been wrong its entire life, or when you record the words of a song in the Bible, you use the word for saying.

Did you know we have exactly that in the Divine Service? Right toward the end of the preface, when I say this part, "...therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name evermore praising You and--" wait for it--"saying. And then you go right into the Sanctus, the "Holy, Holy, Holy" song, speaking it very loudly.

No, you don't speak it. You sing it. You have to sing. This is the song of the angels. These are the words they sang as they hovered over the Lord in His glory in front of the eyes of Isaiah.

Could you imagine if we spoke it? What if we spoke, "Angels we have heard on high?" Here is what it would have sounded like: "Angels we have heard on high, sweetly speaking over the plain. I could go into the Glorias, but it sounds awful. Even if you can't sing, you can't not sing.

No, the angels sang. They had to. What they sang is remarkable, but where they sang is even more so. It's not just above the shepherds. It was that they were here on earth, or at least slightly above it. In fact, where they sang had about as much to say about what they were singing as what they actually said when they were singing.

Let's back up again to cover what we were saying before about the temple. God Himself had designed that song of praise to be sung in the Temple. Priests and musicians would perform it. The song was announced by clash of cymbals and accompanied by lyres and harps. After each verse, the priests would blow their trumpets to announce the presence of the heavenly king. So, the music had a special function. It wasn't to talk about how great God was. It was to announce that God was there to forgive His people.

You see, they had the same problem we do. They would sin and would need to seek forgiveness. But they didn't have it like we do now. Forgiveness would be given out at the temple, but nobody actually came into His presence, not like we have it now. He was there, but He was in a back room, where no one, but one priest, once a year would go.

Here at church, however, God speaks to us the words of forgiveness. We don't hear His voice, but we hear His words. More than words going into our ears, we are actually given His flesh and blood to eat and drink. As we have always been taught, the Lord is actually here.

This alone, should have us giving serious consideration to our attitude as we come to church and especially as we approach the communion rail. It affects our behavior while we are here, our dress, and especially our practice of self-examination. Do we harbor sins, for which we are not penitent? We're not talking about sins that we fall into or fall back into, but rather sins that we commit and then defend. His holy presence doesn't destroy the way it did back then, but do we tempt Him when we act like our sin is no big deal? Sacrifices were continually being offered at the temple for inadvertent sins. The sacrifices didn't cleanse the sins. Rather, they were giving them forgiveness, because it brought to them Jesus' sacrifice. But unrepented sins, which by their very nature are hardly inadvertent, would remain unforgiven--the same as today.

For those who genuinely sought forgiveness, though, for those distressed by their sinfulness, it was a joy to come to the temple. Here is where they knew they would get that forgiveness.

They wouldn't see Him or His glory. They wouldn't hear a voice He used. So, there was no real experiencing of Him. But the Lord had devised a system. God's people would know He was there, by the song. When there was singing they would know. The words of the song announced He was there. The song told them He was there to bless His people and show that He accepted them. That was the purpose of the song. It was all about God's presence in the temple. God's glory and His gracious presence was announced by the words of the song.

All of this was a temporary arrangement. It pointed to that time when God was actually going to be among His people. He came to earth and made His dwelling in the temple, the Holy of Holies, in particular, but He was still absolutely untouchable, except for that one priest, once a year. You have heard me say, and probably in other places, one priest, once a year got to go into the Holy of Holies. That's it. One representative of the people.

But the Lord had in mind a day when He would offer something better. One day, the untouchable Lord would come and be Immanuel, God with us. God would live among us and would even look like us. Far from untouchable, He would look weak, starting with His birth. The appearance of weakness would persist His entire life, in fact, in so many things, He would look so unbelievably weak and then it would seem to reach a head at His death.

As weak, that is, an unspectacular, as it may seem to be, His body would now be the place for us to look for the glory of God and His gracious presence. All of the worship of the Old Testament, then, was pointing to the glorious time when the Lord would become flesh.

While the priests and musicians of the Old Testament would be worshiping God, that is announcing His gracious presence to God's saints with the words of their song--and yes it was a song--the angels would be singing in heaven their praises to the same gracious God. They can't help it. Whenever they are in His presence, they sing the song of praise.

But something changed that midnight clear. The angels changed the location of their praise. It wasn't just heaven anymore. When they stand before God, they glorify Him. But now, God was on earth. Therefore, they would glorify Him on earth. That's why they came. That's why they were singing on earth--or at least just above it, because that was where He was to be found.

Jesus may have ascended after His death and resurrection, but He is still with us. He is still Immanuel. He still comes among us in His Word, and we are privileged to be in His presence. But more than that, because He comes to earth every time we worship, you realize what that means about heaven and the angels, don't you? If they are to be found where He is found, because He brings heaven with Him, then they also come down, along with all the saints of heaven. And if all this is taking place on earth where we human beings live, we can join in with the angels and all the company of heaven in their singing.

It's no accident that the Gloria in Excelsis, the song of Praise near the beginning of the Divine Service, starts off the angels' song sung above the fields of Bethlehem. We are not only announcing that God is here in the flesh as He comes to us to bless us, to give us gifts of life and forgiveness, we are using the words of the angels' song to do it.

But more than that, we are actually singing with the angels. They can't help but break out into the song of praise in the presence of the Almighty God, and, as I have been saying, where we find God present, that is, where He is to bless His people, there we will find the angels praising Him. Every Divine Service, the Preface confesses the truth that we sing with the angels and all the company of heaven.

The angels came and sung to a bunch of shepherds some 2009 years ago, and that marked a new and glorious age. God is now among His people. But, this change was also announced by a change in the choir. It would no longer be just the angels alone singing to God in heaven, and the people of God alone singing on earth.

Now that God has come down in Jesus and continues to come down when Jesus places Himself with us in our worship, angels and saints join together on earth singing the praises of God. The day for Sabbath worship moved from Saturday in the days of the Old Testament to Sunday in the New, because Sunday was the day when the Lord had conquered death. Therefore, every Divine Service is a celebration of Easter. But if every Divine Service is the place where heaven comes down because Jesus is here in the flesh, just as the angels came down to sing God's praises because He had become flesh, then you could say every Divine Service is also a celebration of Christmas.

AMEN