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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
What for you is the glory of Christmas? The delightfully‑illuminated house and yard? The impeccably‑decorated inside tree? Carefully‑chosen and wonderfully‑wrapped presents? Family and friends gathered around a marvelous meal? Singing only all of your favorite songs? What for you is the glory of Christmas? The Gospel Reading appointed for The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day, speaks or even sings of the glory of Christmas, and this morning we consider that Gospel Reading under the theme “The Glory of the Word made Flesh”. (As you may know, the word “Word” there refers to the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, especially before He was made flesh as Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.)
In some sense, we naturally think of other things as the glory of Christmas—yards, trees, presents, meals, songs. The mass media present idyllic scenes, and our rose-colored memories may recall what might seem to have been better past Christmases. Maybe considering this present Christmas we envy other people, their families, or their churches, with better decorations and greater attendance. Maybe the thought of what future Christmases might hold is quite unpleasant or inglorious. To be sure, our past Christmases also may seem to have been (and this present Christmas also may seem to be) inglorious. We remember others’ and our own brokenness of sin, departed or estranged loved ones, the emotional or geographic distance that may separate us.
We may give very detailed lists and descriptions to family or friends in order to get from them the Christmas presents that we think we want, but no such list or description was necessary in order for God to give us the Christmas present He knows that we need. We could hardly even have dreamt up the wonderful gift He gives us: namely, the pre-existent Word made flesh to dwell among us and to reveal to us His and the Father’s glory, grace and truth! The truth of His Word reveals His grace to be the antidote to our sin. God knows better than we do the effects of our sin, how lost and estranged we are from Him, how distant we deserve to be, now and for eternity. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome or understood it. The Word was in the world; He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. So thoroughly are we corrupted by original sin, blinded by the god of this world, that on our own we cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4).
So, God sent men like John the Baptizer to bear witness about the light, that all might repent and believe through his testimony about the light. To the false penitents who think they have repented all they need to repent, and to the false saints who think they do not need to repent at all, John the Baptizer and those like him say, Repent and believe the Gospel (SA III iii:30-32)! This Christmas day and every day we all need to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin—from our sinful natures and from all our actual sin, including our sin of missing the true glory of Christmas, or whatever our sin might be. So, we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sin—He forgives all our sin for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus is the Word made flesh: the Word Who already was in the beginning, with God the Father, and through Whom all things were made. The Creator is needed to undo the damage of sin! In the God-man Jesus, creation is re‑created. That re‑creation is at the center of all of St. John the Evangelist’s Divinely‑inspired teaching in the Gospel Reading, teaching about the Trinity and about the Word’s becoming flesh. The Word was with God the Father and came from God the Father, in order to reveal to us His and the Father’s glory, grace and truth. As the only‑begotten Son of the Father—the one of a kind, unique Son—He was the perfect one to reveal the Father in the world, for He is the only One Who has seen the Father (John 6:46). God the Father so loved the world that He gave that only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). That Son, the Word, became flesh, with all that “flesh” entails: body and soul, heart and mind, and will. In that flesh of the man Jesus, God dwells, as He dwelled in the Tabernacle and Temple of old, with His glory. St. John’s Gospel account more than any other refers to the glory of God in Jesus, and St. John’s Gospel account makes clear that God’s glory is especially revealed in the lifting up of Jesus on the cross, which lifting up draws all people to Him (John 12:27-36).
In the Gospel Reading, St. John the Evangelist says, “we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” What about you and me? We did not live at that time, and have not for three years seen the God-man Jesus walking around on the earth, being transfigured and performing miracles that revealed His glory so that we could believe in Him (John 2:11)? Do we see His glory? If so, where? By faith we see God’s glory for ourselves in the work of the Office of the Holy Ministry, as it purely preaches the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins by grace through faith in Jesus and as it rightly administers the Sacraments that give us that same forgiveness of sins. Remember, God sent John the Baptizer and pastors today in order to bear witness about the light, so that all might repent and believe through their testimony about the light.
At Christmas time, people are fond of saying, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” However, there is a thought-provoking twist on that saying with this month’s issue of Lutheran Witness: on the cover is the headline “We are the reason”, and inside the headline is “You are the reason: Christmas is Jesus for you”. Jesus’s light is our light. By Holy Baptism, He enlightens and gives birth to us from above by water and the Spirit (John 3:1-8). We children of God are not born of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but we are born of God. (Today’s Gospel Reading rules out any and all of our deciding for Christ!) In Word and Sacrament, Jesus dwells among us, also. From Jesus’s fullness even we all have received, and we have received grace upon grace. As God’s grace is given in preaching and Holy Baptism, so also grace is given in individual Absolution, where God forgives the sins of those who confess what troubles them most, and grace is also given in the Lord’s Supper, where with bread we eat the flesh (or body) of the Word, given for us, and with wine we drink His blood, shed for us, and so we have life in us (John 6:53). Jesus was not born, crucified, risen, and ascended to leave us without His glory to fend for ourselves, but He continues to be present with His glory and power in Word and Sacrament and thereby to give us who believe fresh experiences of Himself.
We do not expect God’s glory to be revealed especially in the lifting up of Jesus on the cross, nor do we expect God’s glory to be hidden under words, water, bread, and wine. We do not expect our path to glory to go through suffering. Fixated on or distracted by yards, trees, presents, meals, and songs, we too easily can miss the true glory of Christmas. The true glory of Christmas is the glory of the Word made flesh, lifted up on the cross for us and still dwelling among us and revealing to us who believe His glory, grace and truth. That glory of the Word made flesh give you all peace and joy, this Christmas day and always.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +