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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.
Arguably unlike the Divinely-inspired St. Matthew and St. Luke’s Gospel accounts that essentially begin with the conception and birth of Jesus, the Divinely-inspired St. John’s Gospel account, as we heard in the Gospel Reading for the Nativity of our Lord, Christmas Day, begins long before the conception and birth of Jesus. St. John’s account arguably begins before the beginning of creation itself, with the eternal existence of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, even if the Holy Spirit is not explicitly mentioned by name in the Gospel Reading. Certainly at the beginning of creation, God the Father created the heavens and the earth, speaking most things into existence and sustaining them, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (Hebrews 1:1-12), by His Son, the Word, with the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:1-2). After the newly‑created man and woman were tempted and sinned, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God (Genesis 3:8), and the Lord God pronounced judgment on the tempter but deliverance for the man and woman by the ultimate victory of the woman’s Offspring (Genesis 3:15). So, as the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, when the fullness of time had come, God the Father sent forth His Son, born of woman, to redeem all people, and God the Father also sent forth the Spirit of His Son, to lead us to call out to God as our Father (Galatians 4:4-6; confer Hebrews 2:14). Or, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (confer Colossians 2:9), and, considering the Gospel Reading this Christmas Day, we can say “The Word made flesh dwells among us to forgive us”.
An important thing to realize about the Word made flesh’s “dwelling” among us is that the Greek verb for that “dwelling” is related to the noun for “tabernacle” or “tent”, and so the verb, with its idea of abiding in a tabernacle, recalls God’s having the Israelites make Him a sanctuary in order for Him so to dwell in their midst (Exodus 25:8). The glory of the Lord was associated with His presence both at that tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-35) and at its later more‑permanent replacement, the Temple (1 Kings 8:10-11). And, by way of faith and the sacrificial system, people who came to that tabernacle and Temple where God dwelled sought and received forgiveness of sins (1 Kings 8:30). So, we can say, “The Word made flesh dwells among us to forgive us”.
As descendants of that first man and woman, who were tempted and sinned, we are by nature sinful and unclean. The devil, the world, and our own sinful nature tempt us, and we also sin. Though we are made through the Word, on our own we do not know Him or receive Him or believe in Him. We do not become children of God by the will of the flesh or by the will of man but by the will of God, when He, through those whom He sends, calls and so enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to stop sinning. We are full of works and falseness, but the Word made flesh is full of grace and truth. From His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace, the Gospel Reading says; for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
In the beginning was the Word, distinct from God the Father as another Blessed Person of the Holy Trinity, yet sharing the same Divine nature. The Word was an agent of creation, and He was an agent of re‑creation. The Word, Who always was, in time became flesh. That incarnation we celebrate especially today! Without ceasing to be what He was, the Word became what He was not. He assumed the human nature that He was going to redeem. The Divine and human natures are personally united in Him. He, Who was with God, came to dwell also with us. He is the long-promised “Immanuel”, which means “God with us”. And He did not dwell among us briefly, like on an overnight camping trip, but He is still with us, and He will be with us always, to the end of the age (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:22-23; 18:20; 28:20).
Where God is present, there is glory, a manifestation of His presence and power. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, the Son is the radiance of the glory of God, what the Proper Preface will call “a new revelation” of God’s glory, glory that to some extent was evident in the miracles that Jesus worked, which glory‑manifesting miracles were intended to create faith (confer John 2:11), but glory more than that of an ordinary man’s working miracles, for the Gospel Reading describes His glory as “glory as of the only Son from the Father”—not created glory but divine glory. Yet, somewhat ironically, as the Divinely-inspired St. John tells it, perhaps Jesus’s greatest glorification was His death on the cross (John 12:23-32), for us, in our place. The Jews and the Romans destroyed the temple of His body, and in three days He raised it up (John 2:19-22; confer Matthew 26:61; 27:40; Mark 14:58; 15:29; John 10:18). The resurrected man Jesus was confessed as Lord and God (John 20:28), and, as the Epistle Reading said, after making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Yet still, “The Word made flesh dwells among us to forgive us”. He desires for all to believe and so not be condemned (confer John 3:18). By the Father’s great love we are called and so are His children (1 John 3:1). We children are born from above by water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism (John 3:3, 5). We children are forgiven our sins in Holy Absolution (John 20:21‑23). And, we children eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. Especially there “The Word made flesh dwells among us to forgive us”. Especially there we are united with Christ and so also with all believers of all times and places. And, especially there, eating His flesh and drinking His blood, we have life in us, abide in Him and He in us, and will be raised up on the Last Day to live forever (John 6:53‑58). Yet, already now, we have seen with our eyes, we have heard with our ears, our hands have touched, and we have otherwise been touched by the Word of life, Who was from even before “the beginning” (1 John 1:1-4). So, we join the crowds who witnessed Jesus’s forgiving sins and performing miracles in glorifying God Who gives such authority to men (Matthew 9:7).
Such great gifts that God has given us with the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, lead us not only to give token gifts to our loved ones and others in connection with Christmas, but such great gifts that God has given us with the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, also lead us to do good works in keeping with our various callings in life all year. As we believe that Jesus is the Christ and are born of God, we love the Father and whoever has been born of Him (1 John 5:1). As God became human, we also share in His Divine life. And, as in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 52:7-10), those who bring good news of salvation, peace, and happiness lift up their voice and together sing for joy, and those who hear their message break forth together into singing, for the Lord has comforted and redeemed His people, and all the ends of the earth see the salvation of our God.
Having considered the Gospel Reading this Christmas Day, we say, “The Word made flesh dwells among us to forgive us”. God Who existed from eternity and once dwelt with His people in the Tabernacle and the Temple finally dwelt and still dwells with us in the human flesh of the man Jesus. We have looked back, at the present, and to the future. Interestingly, the vision of Jerusalem that the prophet Ezekiel was given included a Temple that was home to the glory of God (Ezekiel 40-43), while the vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven that was revealed to Jesus’s disciple John did not include a separate temple, he said, because its Temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb (Revelation 21:22). On the Last Day we will more‑fully experience what we already experience in part now, what the loud voice from the throne in John’s revelation said: the dwelling place of God is with men; He dwells with them, and they are His people, and He Himself is with them as their God (Revelation 21:3).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +