+ The Nativity of Our Lord – December 25th, 2021 +
Series C: Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-18
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Martin Luther once said, “I know no other God than the One who hangs on a cross and nurses at the breast of His mother.” That’s the profound miracle of the Incarnation. No other world religion can make, or dares to make, this historical, monumental claim. Jesus Christ is true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, and also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus is our new and better Adam. God and man are one.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Who is this Word? You probably can guess by now. Even so, John the Evangelist shows us the way.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The Word is the key. The Word that is “light” and “life.” The Word that both was with God and is God all at once. This is the Word who says, “Let there be…” and there is. This is the Word through whom all things that exist were made and in whom all things that exist hold together and have their meaning.
John also tells us…The Word is light and life. Light was the first Word-event of the creation. “Let there be light.” What the Word says is what happens. The Word is the event. The Word is light. It causes light to be and to shine in the darkness. The darkness is nothing, empty, formless, void. The darkness offers no resistance to the Light. It cannot overcome the Light. The Word speaks into the silent Darkness and there is Light. Without Light there cannot be Life. The Light needs to shine. God must speak the Word-event – “Let there be Light” – into the darkness of sin, death, and grave. Uncreated Light comes to cast out the darkness of our sin.
Of course, this means saying the radical, politically incorrect thing, and owning up to our sin. Calling our sin what it is: Darkness, damnable, and death. In our sin, we sit in deep darkness. But that’s only half of the evangelist’s words. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.
There is no need to sit in the darkness holding onto our precious sin. Not anymore. For Jesus, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Christ our Light came into the world, not as a blazing sun or a star but as a tiny flame, a little speck of light so small you would miss it if angels didn’t tell you where to look. There in Bethlehem, in a manger, swaddled in clothes, is the Light, the Word Made Flesh who came to be with us, to dwell among us. The One who gives light and life to all comes like a little candle flame in the vast darkness. Humble. Meek. Rejectable.
Do not be misled by what you see, however. There’s more light in that little flame of a Child than in all the stars of the universe. There is more life in this little newborn lying in a manger than all the life that has ever existed. In fact, He is the reason they, and you, exist. He is the Word Made Flesh.
And now we’ve come to the mystery of Christmas. Here in the little Child who sleeps in a manger and who nurses at His Virgin mother’s breast is the infinite and holy. The second Person of the undivided Holy Trinity. The eternally begotten Son of the Father. The Word who was with God in the beginning before there was anything; the Word who is God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God. The uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, bringing nature up with Him (C.S. Lewis). Christ’s incarnation is the grand miracle of the Christian faith.
Great is the mystery. The infinite resides in the finite. The eternal has broken into chronological time. The Creator has become the creature. God is Man and Man is God in this tiny Child of Bethlehem.
The world laughs and ridicules all of this. How can this be? But the world underestimates God, if it has any estimation of God at all. And it greatly overestimates man. To become Man is nothing for God to do, for with God all things are possible. It’s nothing for God but everything for us. Literally everything. That’s one small step for God; one giant leap for mankind.
“That the Son of God becomes like us would be quite enough. But that is not all. Not only does He become flesh and blood, but our Savior. This little Boy does not belong to his mother alone, but to you…It is joy, delight, pleasure, that the Son of God is clinging to Mary’s neck, that the Son of God is born for me, is crucified for me” (Martin Luther).
That’s why we rejoice at Christmas. It’s why, as Luther said, “we would die of joy if celebrated Jesus’ birth aright.”
All because…The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
From His fullness, we have received grace upon grace. Jesus is pure Gift. Undeserved, unmerited, unearned. He is God’s kindness to the unkind. He is mercy to the merciless. He is love to His enemy. His grace to the undeserving. There is nothing in us that we should deserve this Child. He is grace upon grace. This is how God loves the world. He sends His Son in the flesh, and says, “Go and make peace. Reconcile the world to me. Bring it back. Be the Lamb who takes away the Sin of the world.”
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us to scatter the darkness of your sin and death... far as the curse is found. Unto you is born the true Fountain of Life who baptizes you with living water and sacred blood, flowing from His pierced side. Unto you is born the One who speaks a word of absolution over your sins as quickly and surely as He spoke creation into being. Unto you is born the Word made flesh who gives His flesh for you to eat and His blood for you to drink.
Today, tomorrow, and forever, rejoice in and ponder the mystery of Christ’s birth.
Rejoice in his great mercy for you in Bethlehem, on the cross, and here at his table. For The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
A blessed and merry Christmas to each of you…
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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