Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
December 25, 2025
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
Christmas
“He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” Isaiah 53:2
On a cold January morning in 2007 a man stood at a Metro station in DC and started to play the violin. Over the next 45 minutes he performed six Bach pieces. Since it was rush hour it is calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
After three minutes a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first tip: a woman threw a dollar in the till and continued to walk. A few minutes later someone leaned against the wall to listen, but soon the man looked at his watch and started to walk again.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy who stopped to listen. His busy mother tugged him along, but the young boy dragged his feet, and kept turning his head back the whole time.
In the 45 minutes the musician played only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk at their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed and, no one applauded, there was no recognition.
What no one knew is that this was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a Stradivarius worth three and a half million dollars. Two days before his subway performance, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston at the average price of $100 per seat.
But the great violinist is not the first “Joshua” to go un-noticed. Isaiah, speaking of the Greater Joshua to come, even Jesus our incarnate Lord tells us that: He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. (Is. 53:2)
What does this story teach us about Christmas? That we must learn to look past the humble circumstances of our Lord’s Holy Birth and recognize that the child whose nativity we celebrate today is God in the flesh, present among us, to visit and redeem His people.
We must learn that Jesus is the center of history and His birth the most important ever to occur! It is as St. John writes, “In Him was life and that life is the light of men.” (:4)
But except for the few who heard the angelic choirs, and witnessed the divine worship rendered to this Baby by wise men and shepherds alike, this was just another birth of another baby, another hungry mouth to feed, nothing new under the sun. Nothing new except that this Baby is the Bread of Life! Born in Bethlehem which means “house of bread” and laid in a manger which is the dish that animals eat from; who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
But God’s preference of concealing majesty in less-than-ordinary packages is not limited to the Savior’s birth, it was His way before Christ came and still is so today. May this celebration of Christmas help us to recognize it.
What is the evidence? When our first parents fell from grace God did not come riding in on a white steed and hack the murderous snake into a hundred pieces. Instead He killed common animals, innocent animals we might add, and used their warm, fleshy, bloody skins to cover the shame of the people whom He still cherished. He also made a promise, one that would take thousands of earth years to fulfill, that a Descendant of the woman yet to be born would crush the serpent’s head, and reconcile sinners to God. No glamour, no glitter, just a promise, but what a promise it was! Repeated in one form or another until the arrival of the child whose birth we mark today. Born of modest parents, in an obscure place and under the meanest possible circumstances. But what a birth it was!
This baby was born to do all that sinful man could not. He lived a life of unwavering devotion to His Father, and what a life it was! One that transmits Christ’s own righteousness to all who believe, and turns sinners into Sons. While human reason might possibly see God at work in our Lord’s unique life, no one perceived the glory of His death! None could grasp that our Lord’s ghastly demise was God’s way of dealing with sin. That this was the King of Israel, crowned with the thorns of our sins, reigning from the throne of the cross, and crushing the head of the devil in order to strip him of his power to harm. There was nothing here to attract us, but what a death it was! giving the gift of life and salvation to sinners.
And nothing has changed over the centuries. The resurrected Christ still comes to us in measures so ordinary that human reason will always overlook them. And so the church reminds us again this Christmas to see Him where He wants it to be seen, and to find Him where He wants to be found.
We first meet Christ in Baptism, a sacrament which appears for all the world to be nothing more than a kindly religious rite. But by it Jesus delivers us from death and the devil and pledges to be our Lord forever. Humble though it may appear there is nothing ordinary here!
We find Christ in Scripture. In this book, which to sinful flesh appears to be just one more set of religious writings, the Word made flesh speaks to us, pardons our sins, gives us words to pray, and song by which we might properly worship him. In it he fills our troubled heads with giddy visions of glory, and what a Word it is!
Christ comes to us in holy communion, feeding us with His true body and blood, putting our sins into remission and restoring the joy of salvation to us. There is more here than meets the eye! Much more indeed!
There’s one more place we must learn to identify Christ: in the face of the poor, the sick, the prisoners and all whom the world considers to be of no count. The less important people are to the world, the more important they must be to us, who now carry on the merciful work of Christ in this world. Through us Jesus Himself is truly present ministering to others. Not that we should idealize people, or think of them as pets like the world does, or approve of the world’s smothering welfare industry. Instead we should heed the simple lesson of St. Paul to: do good to all men as we have opportunity, especially to those who are of the household of faith.
It is natural to judge people of low estate, and to haughtily think that they are how they are because of their own doing. It may be so but it is true of us as well. Everything we suffer is the result of our own sins and we deserve nothing but wrath and punishment. But just as we do not get the justice we deserve, but rather the mercy we need, God grant that we never overlook or neglect Christ because of His mysterious appearance in this form.
So this Christmas let us once again stop to hear the Music; behold the majesty of God incarnate; receive the gifts He gives, however humble they may appear; and impart His gift of love to others. Amen.