Christmas Adjectives

The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. -John 1:14

Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. The twelve days of Christmas.

When it comes to depicting and experiencing Christmas think of all the words. Think of all the music. Think of all the decorations. Think of all the movies and plays and works of art. Think of all the gifts. The plans. The dinner feasts. The family and guests and greeting cards.

To say there is a lot there would be the understatement of the year, and those are just a few things about Christmas off the top of my head.

How would you describe it? There are some four-thousand-eight-hundred adjectives in the English language. As most of you know, an adjective is a word - a part of speech – we use to describe something, like the word “big,” or “small,” or “short,” or “tall.”

Given all the ways to depict and to experience Christmas, which single adjective would you choose to best describe it? Yes, I know. It would be impossible to pick just one. That is part of the magnitude of it all. But you could give it a try for now.

For starters, how about the word “Silent?” The most famous Christmas carol of all time – you sang it just a short time ago - depicts Christmas as a silent night. That word fits extremely well with the idea of being in a little town like Bethlehem in the dead of night with no business transactions taking place and only a starlit sky, doesn’t it?

Some of you will pause in silence as Christmas unfolds this year. What is there about silence that goes so well with Christmas? You know, but you just can’t find the words, can you? That’s okay. In fact silence means you don’t think or say them. That kind of silence happens a lot in your life, too, not just at Christmas but throughout the days and years, because the weights and burdens of life so overwhelm. At times there just are no words.

Besides all those weights and burdens that cause you at times to be silent, the arrival of the Holy Son of God as He is born of the Virgin Mary invites all mortal flesh to keep silence, because the One Who will judge the world at the Last Day has come to save it by His tender mercies from of old. Kings will shut their mouths because of Him. They will be silent.

Or how about the opposite of silent: “Noisy.” Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.  Do you think they sang a lullaby? I think not. Singing of the fact that God is now reconciling all fallen flesh to Himself through the flesh and blood of His only begotten Son is the most sublime of subjects to sing about, and the sound must reach every corner of the earth. It must reach into every nook and cranny like those Christmas church bells that ring throughout the land. No city noise ordinances will stop it. Everyone needs to hear it, and everyone is going to hear it! 

Let it be sung loudly: “Peace on earth” because the One Who made the earth and the heavens loves them. “Goodwill toward men,” not because He is pleased with their behavior, but because He has invested Himself completely in their creation and their salvation, a salvation that requires the shedding of blood, a salvation worked out lavishly without any merit, earning, or working on the part of you or anyone else, but by works of love in and through the crucified and risen LORD Jesus Christ.

Truly Christmas is something to make noise about.

Or how about the word “slow” to describe Christmas? Yes, that may seem like an odd choice of adjectives, but think about it. How long had it been since God declared that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. Even as He is born there are still some 33 years to go before He fulfills all righteousness for you and is put to death upon the Cross for you to be raised up in glory for you.

How long had it been? What had all happened since the First Promise of the Seed? You can read about it all in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First Samuel, Second Samuel, . . . need I go on? You get the point: While your Father in Heaven is eternally quick to forgive sin and iniquity, for that to happen in real time exceeds the experience of any man’s life span. It took generation after generation. It took a long time.

Or how about instead of the word “slow” you choose the word “sudden” or “quick?”

When all was still, and it was midnight, Your Almighty Word, O LORD, descended from the royal throne.

The average length of time for a woman to be in labor is twelve to twenty-four hours. For the Virgin Mary those hours could not have come at a more inconvenient time. They also came suddenly. Not unexpectedly, but suddenly. Birth pangs. The child is making an entrance. Nothing will stop it, and it will be soon.

You see, God is not slow in working out your salvation, though it may seem like it. In truth however, it was finished before it started. Yes, it took a long time as you look at history, but in the heart of God it all happens at once, for He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not bound by time as you know it, but coming soon and suddenly to save you.

The word “peaceful” does extremely well to describe Christmas, even as peace on earth between God and man are bound up in the infant born of Mary.

But so does the word “violent,” because the beatings, the crown, the nails, and the spear necessary to take away your sin are anything but peaceful. They in fact embody the holy wrath of God against sin, but they cannot be separated from the one born of Mary. Moreover, violence follows where the Gospel is preached, because the world and the devil are that way when it comes to Truth. Violent.

Then there is the word “Joyous,” because nothing can take away your salvation as rendered eternally in the works of Christ Jesus done for you and delivered to you in your baptism and His supper and His preaching.

At the same time “Solemn,” or “Reverent” describe Christmas, too, don’t they? because this is not child’s play, but life and death in contention against one another for all time, for you, for and your household and for generations to follow.

Those are only a few choice adjectives to describe Christmas, and all of those adjectives work, don’t they? And that is fairly well the point:

The One who made all the languages with all of their adjectives undertakes to have a Word with you in person.

The One by Whom the heavens and the earth were made has taken upon Himself frail flesh to suffer and to die for you upon a cross.

The One Who made you; the One who knit you together in your mother’s womb sees to it that He will be knit together is His mother’s womb so that His being knit together would become your being knit together in His perfect righteousness, not just as some amorphous, enormous, impersonal, organizing principle, but as your Tender Shepherd Who lays down His life for you and takes it up again, knowing every single hair on your head, and every single fear and worry that has struck you and hounded you in life. Every enemy, even death and the devil, both of which are so formidable that you would never even begin to defeat them.

The Word became flesh. That is Christmas. That is why it is so big that all the adjectives put together cannot begin to comprehend its breadth and depth. What eye hath not seen nor ear heard. Yet it is that breadth and depth your Father is heaven wants you to have, and so He has delivered it to you.

First by seeing to it that from the foundation of the world His salvation for you would be put into place. Then acted out – not like a movie or play, but in real life. Real flesh and blood life just like the life that is coursing through your veins right now.

Second, by making a way for all He has done to be placed into your body through His preaching of repentance, His baptism of you, and His feeding of you from the feed trough known as The Sacrament of the Altar.

Third by using those ways, as He is right here and right now, to deliver to you all that has been in His heart not just as a thought, but substantively by His Holy Spirit Who is keeping you together with all Christians in the one true faith, preparing you to be raised up bodily at the Last Day.

The point is this, really: Everything good for you is comprehended in the birth of Christ Jesus, because it is all laid out for you to receive by God Himself, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. It is laid out in love. It is laid out lavishly. It is laid out gladly. It is given with the smile of perfect love and grace because His face does shine upon you. Not because of your works, but because He is love. He always has been. He always will be.

For that reason there is indeed no single adjective that will express all that Christmas means. There does not have to be when everything that Christmas means and everything that Christmas is, is this night, and at every Divine Service throughout the year, delivered into your mortal mouth, namely the true and living body and blood of Christ Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary and crucified under Pontius Pilate, given for you now and unto eternity.

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