The text this morning is from the Gospel according to John, the first chapter:
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 was not any thing 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. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Luther called the Gospel reading for today the highest of all Gospel readings, but by no means an obscure or difficult one, if one takes it all by faith. That’s the thing. The historical fact of the matter is that all of history testifies that there was indeed a Jesus Christ of Nazareth, that He was crucified by the Romans at the Jewish Passover, and that He even rose on the third day. These things are beyond dispute.
All honest historians must admit these things, else they lie, or are, at the very least, very bad at their jobs. It’s not surprising. Many are of the world, rejecting the very God who created them. The world will not receive Jesus, either from the cross, or even the 8 pound, 6 ounce baby Jesus we celebrate today. But we are not of the world, and we see that all of history, all of creation, speaks to the reality of this man, Jesus.
And to believe that this man, this Jesus, was God in human flesh, that He was truly Immanuel, God with us, well, that is something that is required to be believed, not by historical fact, but by faith. It’s true, and just because we have to accept these things by faith doesn’t make them not-true. In fact, to believe something by faith is the best thing you can do. God said it, so it was, and I believe it with His help. There you are relying solely on Him and what He has said.
Believing something by faith is to believe according to God’s will for you, according to His power. This is great! We hear God’s Holy Word and we trust it, believe it, according to His power. He provides all that we need for our body and life, including the ability to believe Him.
But, this isn’t just about the idea that we believe God’s Word by faith, or that we believe just “something” by faith. We are called this Christmas Day to believe that the very God who spoke the universe into existence, the very one who formed Adam and Eve with His hands, the very one who has all power and honor and glory and might and blessing, came into our flesh, and did so by taking on the flesh of a baby, whose birth we celebrate this day.
You see, we do not take this text lightly, for it speaks of the King of the Universe who takes on human flesh. We open wide our hearts and our understanding to look at these words, not as the insignificant, perishable words of mankind, only to be trotted out once in a while, but to contemplate them as the great words they are, which speak of the Word made flesh. We take these words to reveal a part of the great mystery of the Incarnation, that God loved you so much that He sent His Son into your flesh so that He may redeem every aspect of humanity.
There was a saying in the early Church, “That which Christ did not assume, He did not redeem.” This was a warning to those who would limit what Christ redeemed in His sacrificial death for you. If He did not have a human soul, He couldn’t redeem yours. If He didn’t have flesh, He couldn’t redeem yours. If He didn’t feel sorrow, or grief, or pain, He couldn’t redeem yours.
But, our Lord did have all those things, and He felt all those things. The Word made flesh, who dwelled among us, experienced all of human life, literally from the moment of conception unto His death. He felt satisfaction and pleasure. He probably had fun and made jokes. He loved His mother, His father, His friends, His family. Jesus Christ, the Son of God from all eternity, felt all these things, went through all of human life, so that He may redeem it all… for you.
In His death, all of the human experience was, well, it was like He was one of those air mattresses. You hit the switch one way, and it sucks in all the air from the room to fill itself up. Then, you open the valve and all the air is expelled in a single moment of swoosh. Our Lord took into Himself all of human life and experience upon the cross, and at His death, as the wrath of God poured down upon His head, as He was counted as the greatest sinner of all time, at the moment of His death, as He spoke the words, “It is finished,” all of your life, all your experiences, all your grief and sadness and pain and happiness and joy flowed out of Him, redeemed, made holy for you.
The Light of the World, come into flesh, made all things good for you in His death. And more than that, He gives these things to you eternally in His own resurrection from the dead, which is your resurrection. You will never run short of these things, even though we sometimes feel forsaken as we continue to live in this sin-filled world. He does not forsake you. In fact, you are called, by Jesus, the Son of God, a child of God.
Jesus is God’s Son, of the same substance as the Father and the Spirit, and Jesus doesn’t lie. If the Son of God calls you a child of God, then a child of God you are. And children of God, just as the only-begotten Son of the Father does, children of God live forever. And if they live forever, then they will have, for they already do have, every good gift from the Father.
You already have every good gift from the Father. You do. And they were given to you in the place where you were first called a child of God; they were given to you in your Baptism. For, in the font, the Holy Spirit delivers the redemption Christ won for you upon the cross. In the font comes the cross the you. And there, you are washed, you are made clean in His blood, so that you might be adopted as the children of God, snatched out of the hands of our father of the world, Satan himself.
And, as that cross comes to you, you are claimed as a child of God, covered over in the blood of Jesus Himself. And Jesus, the Son of God, who spoke all things into existence, the one who literally owns all things and rules over all things, in His name, God, His Father and your Father, gives to you, as a co-heir with Christ every good thing. In Christ, in the Word made flesh, you are an heir of all things.
But, it doesn’t stop there, for the flesh of this child, Jesus, the same flesh that He has as He grows into a man, and is crucified for the forgiveness of your sins, that same flesh and blood is even given to you today, strengthening you unto life everlasting in His name. You feast today on Christ, who is the bread of life come down from heaven. And you are strengthened, and you are forgiven, and you are preserved in the one true faith unto life everlasting.
And that’s all because you believe. You believe, not in the spirit of Christmas, not in the feely-good feelings of the season, not in Santa Claus, not in just being a good person. You believe in Jesus Christ, the object of your faith. You believe in His name, the Gospel of John says, and through that faith, given to you as pure gift from God Himself, God gives you the right to be called His child, whether you are as small as the 8 pound, 6 ounce baby Jesus, grown into an adolescent as Jesus was in the Temple, or fully grown as the adult Jesus we see even as He bled upon the cross. Jesus gives you the right to this all by faith, which believes His Word.
This is not hard for us to understand, but is simple, if one believes. We see our Lord, celebrate His birth, His coming into our flesh this day, and we believe this. We remember His blessed birth, His life, His cross and passion, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension into heaven, from which He will come back to judge the living and the dead. We celebrate it all by remembering our Baptism and by eating at drinking at His altar and hearing the Word of God preached, read, and proclaimed to us, that our sins are forgiven and we are His.
All of Christ’s life, we weren’t there to see any of it, but our Lord is living and reigning even now, and you are living in the very day where our risen Lord lives. Still though, we weren’t there back in Israel, on that night 2000 years ago when the angels proclaimed the Lord’s birth. We weren’t there to watch Him grow, to hear Him teach, to see His death, to witness His resurrection, to marvel at His ascension, but the story was told to us through the ages, even unto today, given to us through the very Word of God, so that you might believe in His name and be His child.
And so you are, today, His child. You have been washed as His child. You have been fed, and you will always be fed, as His child. And you will live forever as His child for you believe in His name. His resurrection is yours, and life eternal has come to you by His name, His work, His will. Immanuel, God is with you, our God is with us this day, and every day. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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