Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Hymn 12:1,3
Hymn 11:1
Hymn 16:3,4
Hymn 1A
Psalm 30:3,7

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The Lord God once instructed an angel before His throne to go to Joseph in Nazareth of Galilee with a message. In a dream the angel told Joseph to wed Mary, told him too that the child conceived in her womb was "of the Holy Spirit". As official step-father to this Son of God, Joseph had to give the name to the child: Jesus. For this Child, the angel added, "will save His people from their sins."

Here is action on God’s part. God in heaven saw a need on earth. He saw that the human race was in need of saving. He saw that the bondage under which people suffered, the burden from which people needed to be saved, was the slavery of sin. And God in heaven on high saw too that people could not save themselves from sin’s control; people were themselves sinners, given to sin, slaves of sin.

So God acted. Though too holy to tolerate sin, He yet acted; through His Holy Spirit He caused the Son of God to be conceived in the womb of a – sinner! And the program of action God set out for the Son-of-God-on-earth was designed specifically to benefit sinners, for His task would be to "save His people from their sins." How marvellous is this God; He was not pleased that mankind should wallow under the burden of slavery, and so He set out to do what was required to save mankind from that bondage. How marvellous, Lord, are the splendours of Your infinite mercy!

Yet –and this needs to be straight in our minds- the salvation the Son of God was to obtain was not to benefit every person on earth; people should not automatically lay claim to Jesus’ work for the salvation He was to obtain was designed to benefit only "His people". This is what God told the angel to say; God, for reasons of His own good pleasure, discriminates among people so that God the Son saves only "His people from their sins."

This truth has a consequence. If the Son of God had come to earth to die for every person on this earth, we’d never need to doubt our salvation – for all men would be saved from their slavery to sin. But it’s exactly because God does not save everybody that we have our questions, specifically this one: Has Jesus in fact paid for my sins? Do I belong to the people of God?

Precisely there, congregation, is the reason why the Lord gave us the sacraments. Not only does He through the bread and wine illustrate for us the riches of the gospel; He also gives the bread and wine to us so that we might not doubt that His Son died for our benefit. Remember: it is not so that we celebrate the Supper of the Lord today by chance, or because we’ve taken it into our heads to do so. Rather, the same God who sent the angel to speak to Joseph long ago about divine discrimination today sets the elements of bread and wine before us – and not before the person across the road. For He would impress upon us that the Son of God saves us from our sins. That is to say: He would impress upon is that we are "His people".

Yet the God who gave His Son for sinners does not push the bread and drink into our mouths without our participation. God once created us with a sense of responsibility, and at His table demands of us to work with the sense of responsibility He gave to us. That is why He commands us to "eat" and to "drink" and to "do this in remembrance of Me." For we need to accept what God in heaven has done for us, and that accepting is done by going –in obedience to God’s command (for He gives His children no choice)- to the table to receive the tokens of bread and wine in remembrance of Him. That going is an act of obedience to God’s command, and therefore an act of faith. And God blesses that deed of faith by assuring us the more that indeed we are "His people", that God the Son has come to earth to save us from our sins.

Come, therefore, my brothers and sisters, in obedience to God’s command. The angel told Joseph that the holy Child would save only "His people" from their sins. Come to this table and receive from God’s hand His evidence to you that His Son became flesh at Christmas to wash away your sins.  Amen.