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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.)
Popular Christmas music has been ubiquitous throughout Advent, in some ways romanticizing and idealizing Christmas Day and its season, in some cases setting unreasonable and even unknown expectations of our celebrations, which expectations conflict with the reality that we experience and so leave us disappointed. For example, some of your homes undoubtedly are more decked with things like boughs of holly than other homes, and, while you might still put on your happy, colorful, festive clothing, in today’s politically correct society, you probably would not say that you had donned your gay apparel. With high temperatures forecast in the 70s and 80s, we can hardly expect for Jack Frost to nip at our nose, much less for snow to glisten on the lane, allow for building a snowman in the meadow, or provide a snowbank in which we could get upsot. We never may have heard a warning bell on a bobtail ring, and, perhaps due to a shortage of volunteers, at least I this year have not heard a single silver Salvation Army bell ring. Not the shoppers but the Post Office, U‑P‑S, and Fed‑Ex drivers, if not A‑I‑driven drones, rushed to our homes with our Amazon or other internet treasures. All of that is hardly like the picture prints by Currier and Ives, Normal Rockwell, or whomever we might think has succeeded them in popularizing a picturesque Christmas.
Writing decades after the other evangelists, the Divinely‑inspired St. John certainly was aware of the Gospel accounts of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, with their content such as their respective genealogy, beginning of the Gospel, and canticles. Yet, in today’s Gospel Reading, St. John the Evangelist arguably goes back before the beginning, when the Word—that is, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity—already was, and was distinct from God the Father but shared God the Father’s Divine Substance, not to mention the Divine Substance of the Holy Spirit. All things were made through the Word, and in Him was the life that was the light of people, and when He shined that light into the darkness, the darkness did not “overcome”, or “understand”, it. When He was in the world the world did not “know”, or “recognize”, Him; even His own people did not “receive”, or “welcome”, Him, and that is where we can find ourselves.
Like the Word’s own people, by nature also we are not in a right relationship with the God Who created us. We are hostile to Him, having been corrupted and lacking righteousness and holiness. And, our sinful nature leads us to all kinds of sins of thought, words, and deeds. Because of our sinful nature and our actual sin, we deserve death here and now and torment in hell for eternity. Apart from God’s revelation to us, to some extent we would not know His Commandments and so know our sin, and not at all would we know His Gospel of the free forgiveness of sins for Jesus’s sake. Based on our fallen reason and senses, we would think Christmas was only about the kinds of things that the traditional pop songs promote: syrupy sentimentality and fleeting feelings. And, even if we saw a depiction of Jesus in a manger surrounded by His mother Mary and guardian Joseph, we would not see in the humble family scene the glory of the God Who loved us by sending His Son in order to be born and to die for the sins of the world, including your sin and my sin, so that we and all, who by the Holy Spirit’s leading repent and believe, would not perish but have eternal life. But, by the leading of the Holy Spirit we do see the glory of that God, what we might call “The Greatest Glory of Christmas”, the Son of God born for you for the forgiveness of your sins.
The re‑creation of fallen humanity needed our Creator in our flesh. For all that St. John the Evangelist says about the eternal pre-existence of the Word, the key point for us on Christmas Day is that at a point in time the Word became flesh and “dwelt”, or “tabernacled”, among us, as God was present in and manifested His glory from the Old Testament tabernacle and temple, especially in order for His faithful people to receive the forgiveness of their sins. When the Word became flesh in the Virgin Mary, we could say that the Word is now Jesus and that Jesus is the Word. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit were involved in the incarnation of God the Son (Luke 1:35), but only God the Son is incarnate in Jesus, and all of God the Son is incarnate in Jesus, that is to say, there is no part of God the Son that is not personally united with Jesus’s human nature and so capable of doing things that otherwise are impossible for a human nature. More to the point, the Word needed to be Jesus in order to die for us, and Jesus needed to be the Word in order for His death to be sufficient for the sins of the world. As St. John the evangelist makes clear later in his Gospel account, Jesus is glorified particularly in His death on the cross in our place (John 12:20-36). How counter‑intuitive! Humiliation is glory! Jesus may have been lower than the angels for a time (Hebrews 2:7, 9, with reference to Psalm 8:4-6), but, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, Jesus is exalted above the angels (Hebrews 1:1-12). During His earthly ministry, Jesus did miraculous signs in order to show forth His glory so that His disciples would believe in Him (for example, John 2:11). For example, after seeing the Resurrected Jesus, Thomas confessed Jesus as His Lord and God (John 20:28). And, St. John the Evangelist wrote that He wrote about the miraculous signs that He wrote about in order that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we might have life in His Name (John 20:31). That life is given to us through the ministry of God’s Word and Sacraments.
In today’s Gospel Reading, St. John the Evangelist tells about St. John the Baptizer’s being sent and bearing witness so that all people might believe through him. Similarly, God sends His servants today to so that we might believe through them, through the things that they do that we hear and see. We become children of God who are born not of human blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God. We are born from above of water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism, which under normal circumstances is necessary for salvation (John 3:3, 5). When we confess to our pastors the sins that we know and feel in our hearts, the sins that particularly trouble us, they as called and ordained servants of Christ and by His authority absolve us (confer John 20:21-23). And, so baptized and absolved, they admit us to the Sacrament of the Altar, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us, and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us, which under normal circumstances also is necessary for salvation (John 6:53). The same flesh and blood of Jesus laid in the manger and hung on the cross is here present on the altar, distributed by the pastor, and received by us Christians to eat and to drink. Where Jesus is present, there is His glory. How counter‑intuitive! Humble means are glorious!
As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 52:7-10), the humble messengers themselves are in some sense glorious because the Good News that they bring is so great. The watchmen sing for joy, and those who receive the Good News with repentance and faith also break forth into singing because the Lord has comforted His people and has redeemed Jerusalem. As we recall in the singing of the Gloria, God’s peace with sinners on earth leads to glory in the highest (Luke 2:14). As we recall in the singing of the Nunc Dimittis, Jesus is a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people Israel (Luke 2:32). We all play our part in reflecting that light and glory into the world around us. And, the glory that the Word had before the world existed Jesus prayed the Father that we will one day see with our own eyes when we are with Him for eternity (John 17:5, 24).
“The Greatest Glory of Christmas” is not chiefly lights or other decorations in the yard or outside or inside the house. “The Greatest Glory of Christmas” is not chiefly presents either under a tree or in stockings, or food on the table, or family gathered around to open the presents and eat the food. “The Greatest Glory of Christmas” is not chiefly a full, elaborately‑decorated church, four‑part harmony singing faithful hymns and brass instruments producing their tunes, or even a rhetorically‑polished sermon. While all of those things can add to our experience of Christmas Day, they are not the essence of the holy day. Rather, “The Greatest Glory of Christmas” is the Son of God born for you in a humble manger, crucified on a humiliating cross, and freely given to you for the forgiveness of your sins, by His humble servant, in humble water, touch, and bread and wine.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +