A Savior Born to Change the World (Luke 2:1-20)

Families cherish their Christmas traditions. Year after year, they decorate the tree with the same ornaments, play the same music, bake the same Christmas cookies. Without asking, family members know when they will open presents. If you try to change your family’s Christmas traditions, you just might pick a fight! When it comes to family Christmases, people generally don’t like things to change. Because our celebration of Christmas is so steeped in unchanging traditions, it might be easy for us to miss that the Nativity of the Son of God meant radical change for the world. The birth of the Christ child meant that nothing in the world would ever be the same. We even divide history into the events that occurred “Before Christ” (BC) and after “Anno Domini” (AD), Latin for “Year of our Lord.” Christmas traditions are wonderful. But make no mistake about it. Christmas is all about change. The Lord God came to change the world by becoming part of the world. Because we are part of the world, that means Christmas changes us too. This Christmas Eve, we see how.