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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. (Amen.)
“In the beginning,” the Divinely-inspired author of Genesis tells us, “God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:1-4.) “In the beginning,” the Divinely-inspired author of today’s Gospel Reading tells us, “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 was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The darkness has not overcome—or understood, or mastered, or absorbed—the light. But, in fact, since the beginning, the opposite is true: the light has overcome the darkness (confer Delling, TDNT, 4:10). So, we can say this morning, that “The Light of the Word—that is, the spoken Word of God from creation (Procksch, TDNT, 4:99), the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Divine Revealer of God’s wisdom and power (Rienecker-Rogers, 217)—“The Light of the Word become Flesh Overcomes Your Darkness”.
You may be keenly aware of your darkness. A darkness of mind and heart may leave you feeling depressed and alone. Even during this holy season of light and peace and joy, you may feel darkness and conflict and misery. Unrealistic idyllic ideas of church services, gift exchanges, and family meals are prompted more by Norman Rockwell and the Hallmark Channel than what we know of the people around us and of ourselves, especially what we know about them and us from God’s Word. In today’s Gospel Reading, the Evangelist St. John tells us that the True Light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world, that the True Light even was in the world, and that, though the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. Something is seriously wrong when creatures do not know or recognize their own creator (confer Kretzmann, ad loc John 1:10-14, p.407)! Some creatures go so far as denying that they even have a creator and thinking that they came into existence some other way! In today’s Gospel Reading, the Evangelist continues by saying that the True Light came to His own things, and His own people did not receive Him. They did not accept Him as what He was witnessed to be. On account of their sinful nature, they were not in a right relationship with Him, and, on account of our sinful nature, neither are we in a right relationship with Him. On our own, we do not know or have a right regard for God (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration II:10). As Jesus Himself describes later in St. John’s Gospel account, we might love the darkness rather than the light because our works are evil, for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come into the light, lest his or her works should be exposed (John 3:19-20). As sinners, we deserve temporal and eternal death, to be banished away from the light of God’s nearer presence, into the never‑ending outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (confer, for example, Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). We need to be re‑made as children of God, but we cannot make that happen for ourselves; we cannot be re‑born, as today’s Gospel Reading put it, of the will of the flesh or of the will of man.
But, as John the Baptizer was sent from God to bear witness about the Light, that all might believe in the Light through John, so also Jesus Himself, the Word become Flesh, identified Himself as the Light of the World (John 8:12) and said that He had come into the world as light so that whoever believes in Him may not remain in darkness (John 12:46), and so also today pastors sent by God preach God’s Word that we might turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives us all of our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for the sake of His Son, the Word become flesh, in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
This past Wednesday was our hemisphere’s winter solstice, the start of astronomical winter if not also meteorological winter, the day of the year with the longest period of darkness and the shortest period of light. Some people think Christians’ celebration of Jesus’s birth takes place on December 25 in order to take the place of other pagan festivals associated with the winter solstice, though another explanation links the December 25 date of the Lord’s birth to a March 25 date of the Lord’s crucifixion (Reed, The Lutheran Liturgy, 471). To be sure, the Lord’s birth and crucifixion are at least linked in other ways, as the Son of God took on human flesh in order to die for the sins of the world. The one and only unique Son of God the Father from eternity, the Word was, in time, by the power of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, conceived in and born of the Virgin Mary. Though He humbled Himself in His becoming flesh, the Word remained the Lord, both in the womb and in the manger, on the cross and in the tomb. He did not always of fully use His Divine powers or show His Divine glory, so that He could die for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. Even the darkness around the cross (for example, Matthew 27:45) could not overcome the True Light, Who after three days rose from the grave. Because of the love, mercy, and grace of God, He gives light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:78-79). By the power of the Holy Spirit, God the Father delivers us from the domain of darkness and transfers us to the Kingdom of His Beloved Son, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14).
Preachers with more rhetorical flourish and better delivery styles than I have can completely miss the point of Christmas as the birth of the Savior. Even the Apostle Paul disclaims any lofty speech or plausible wisdom in order to preach only Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). Today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 52:7-10) describes as beautiful the feet of messengers who bring Good News precisely because they bring Good News of happiness and publish peace and salvation and say that the Lord reigns. Of course, such messengers do more than preach. As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, John the Baptizer was authoritatively sent from God in order to bear witness about the Light, but John also baptized as part of his bearing witness about the Light. At the Baptismal Font, we are born from above by water and the Spirit (John 3:3, 5). Baptism has long been regarded as “illumination”, and so we give a lit candle to those who are newly baptized. They believe in God’s Name and are made to become His children, and, when sins particularly trouble them, they privately confess their sins to their pastors for the sake of individual Holy Absolution in the same Triune Name into which they were baptized. So absolved, we are admitted to the Altar and its Rail to receive in the Sacrament of the Altar bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we receive the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. Here we receive the same Word become Flesh that was laid in the manger, hung on the cross, and raised from the tomb. As Jesus Himself said, unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have no life in us, but whoever feeds on His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, and He will raise them up on the Last Day, for His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink (John 6:53-55). If we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sins (1 John 1:7). And, in that cleansing blood we have fellowship not only with God and with one another here and now, but we also have fellowship with all those who have gone before us in the faith. Hidden in all of these Means of Grace, but visible to believers (Strathmann, TDNT, 4:499; confer John 11:40), is God’s presence and power, His glory (Rienecker-Rogers, 219, citing Dodd, 207), glory not as of a created being but glory as of the only Son from the Father (Chemnitz, Two Natures, 326).
In the Old Testament, the presence of God and His glory were especially associated with His Temple and before that with His Tabernacle and the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, even referred to as the angel of God (Exodus 14:19), that led the people in the way that they should go and did not depart from them (Exodus 13:21-22). The way that God is present with us may have changed, but what has not changed is His guidance in the way that we should go and His not departing from us. Compared to the True Light, all other lights seem dim and shadowy (Rienecker-Rogers, 218). As we follow Jesus, we walk not in darkness but have the light of life (John 8:12). We walk as children of the light, and we reflect His light into the darkness of the world around us (Matthew 5:6). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 1:1-12), He upholds the universe by the word of His power, and so all the more does He uphold us, no matter the afflictions that He is in His wisdom permits us to face. We may struggle against the cosmic powers over this present darkness (Ephesians 6:12), but Jesus has already won the victory, and that victory is ours as we are in Him (1 Corinthians 15:57; confer Romans 7:25). And Jesus says that, even if we die, yet will we live (John 11:25).
“The Light of the Word become Flesh Overcomes Your Darkness”. We may feel darkness and conflict and misery this Christmas and at other times, but we know that in Christ we truly have light and peace and joy. As we were called to do in the Old Testament Reading, we break forth together into singing, for the Lord has comforted and redeemed us, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +