Christmas is, among all the holidays that we celebrate throughout the year, probably among the most emotional. It is a festive time, filled with joy and happiness. We celebrate with feasts and presents, and all the emotions that go with that, the anticipation of unwrapping the gifts, of seeing the look on children’s faces as they receive their favorite toys from Santa.

It’s also a time of calmer emotions, of peace and quiet, of the tranquility of snow fall, of the silent night. Time of nostalgia, of years past, of celebrations remembered.

But it can also be a time for less pleasant emotions too. Memories can be bittersweet, as our thoughts occasionally linger on those who are no longer here. And life, despite our best efforts to pretend otherwise, does not stop even for Christmas. I spent the better part of this morning counseling my friend Rich. Rich is a schoolteacher in Thailand, all the way on the other side of the world. He was very upset, because one of his students, a boy of probably 15 or 16, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Dead on Christmas Eve.

I do not sentimentalize Christmas. This holiday has a purpose and the uglier side of the world in which we live is central to that very purpose. You see, I often think of yet another emotion with this holiday: anger. Not my anger or yours, God’s. God’s anger is a defiant anger, a righteous anger. An anger directed at all that has gone wrong with his creation. An anger at the suffering and evil that is inflicted upon the people that he created, the people that he loves. God is angry that there is darkness in this world: sin, suffering, evil, sorrow, and all the other things that we try to pretend don’t exist on this day.

But they do exist, but they were never meant to be a part of God’s good creation. Something went wrong. We went wrong. We disobeyed, we sinned, we went our own way. And because of that nothing has gone right with the world since Adam and Eve first got a hungering for forbidden fruit.

God could have left things as they were. It’s not like we didn’t deserve it. But that’s not who God is. Our God is a loving god and like any parent whose child is in danger, God will act. God is angry at the evil that has come about, and God wants to fix it. God wants to put things right again.

So he sets in motion a plan. The prophets of old, Isaiah and others, are given a vision of what that plan looks like and how it will come about. He tells them there is a day coming when peace will reign, when suffering will come to an end, when man will no longer seek violence against man, when disease is healed, when there will be joy in the hearts of all people everywhere. This day is coming, he says to his prophets, a day of light in the midst of the darkness.

THIS IS THAT DAY.

This is God’s declaration of war on the brokenness of the world. But as Isaiah also tells us, God’s ways are not like our ways. Isaiah 55. “My thoughts are not your thoughts…” So this is not going to look like any war that we humans have ever witnessed before and the way it begins gives testimony to that.

For Jesus does not come riding a white horse at the lead of a horde of angelic warriors. No, instead he comes as a baby, helpless and humble. And he is not born in a palace as the son of kings so that he might rally a great earthly army to his cause. No, he is born to vagrants who are living in a stable because there was room not even in the local inn. And the first to give homage and laud, who bend the knee to him, are not kings or rulers or generals, but shepherds and the beasts of the field. And the first kings who do come do so from far-away lands, not even from his own people.

God’s way is not our way and this war will look like nothing we expect or have ever seen before.

That continues throughout his adult life. Jesus does not stretch out his hand to smite or to hurt, but instead to heal and to embrace. His words are words of teaching and welcome. And yet defiant words, words that say to the lost and forgotten, “God remembers you. God loves you. God seeks to save you.” And it is among the lost that he travels, it is in their midst that he teaches, the shepherds, the tax collectors, the lepers, the prostitutes, and all those the world has rejected as not being good enough. Jesus comes among them and tells them “God loves you too.”

He does not go to the high and mighty, although to their credit, some of them come to him and some of them also get it. Nicodemus, Joseph of Armithea, and others unnamed, they see in Jesus something new, something different. They understand that change is coming, that God is doing a new thing in this man who was born in a cattle manger.

But it is not change like any before. This is not the change that comes when a ruler overthrows another, the change from one tyrant to another. This is not the change that comes with the cycle of kingdoms, empires, and nations throughout history. This is change within, within hearts and minds. This is God’s war and it is nothing like we expect or have ever seen before.

Its final battle is the ultimate statement of that. Jesus comes to Jerusalem, lauded by the people with palm branches and words of praise. “Hosanna!” But he doesn’t go to the garrison, he doesn’t go to stomp out the army of the enemy. That’s a human war, and Jesus is here to fight God’s war. So instead he goes to the temple to give God praise and prayer. Angry, the crowd turns on him, one his own closest friends turns on him. They arrest him, drag him before councils and rulers, and find him guilty of whatever charge they decide to make up. And then they hang him on a cross to die.

It would seem at that moment that all that God has done has failed. This is it. The game is up and the evil of this world has won in the end. But this is God’s war and it is nothing like we expect or have seen before. So here in the midst of what looks like the defeat, Jesus cries out from the cross the words of triumph. “IT IS FINISHED.”

He dies for us. He receives death, so that we might live. This is not defeat, it is victory for all of us.

You see, Christmas is about more than just the birth of a baby. What is that? A joyous occasion no doubt for his parents, but what is it to us? Nothing really, unless we remember that this baby, this Jesus, was born for a purpose, was born with a task to accomplish, a war to fight. And we see that war come to fruition throughout his life but ultimately at the moment of his death on the cross. This baby comes to die to put right all that has gone wrong. This baby comes to die to set the prisoners free, to bring sight to the blind, healing to the sick, and strength to the weak of heart. This baby comes to die so that we, God’s created, might have life and have it abundantly. This baby comes to die so that you and you and you and me and everyone here and everyone everywhere might be saved.

This is what Christmas is truly about. It is God up there saying “Enough! There has been enough death. There has been enough suffering. It is time things changed. It is time things were put right. And so I will send my son to do just that.”

And on this day, we celebrate. We celebrate because the son has come and light has broken into our darkness. Through Jesus Christ, we have seen God at work. We have seen his plan and we know, because of the cross and the empty tomb, the war has been won. And now, because of all this, there will come a day when there will be no more tears, no more suffering, and the world will be as it was meant to be. This is what Christmas is truly about. Amen.