The opening of Luther’s first sermon celebrating the “Festival of Christ’s Nativity”, preached on Christmas Eve, 1532 at the parish church. After reading Isaiah 9:1-7, Dr. Luther began:
People are presently celebrating the beautiful and delightful festival of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is fitting, indeed, for us to celebrate God’s glorious grace with a truly wonderful festival and to ponder it well, so that the article in which we confess and pray in our Christian faith, “I believe in Jesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,” may be remembered not just within Christendom, but also that distressed, sorrowful hearts everywhere might find comfort and be strengthened over against the devil and every misfortune.
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