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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this glorious Christmas morn, the text is the gospel reading you’ve heard. You may be seated. Merry Christmas.
Try not to laugh. There he slept, all snuggled up in his swaddling cloths, his little chest rising and falling with each breath. Amen. If you’ve ever looked upon an infant as they slept, it draws you in, doesn’t it? Even though it’s a simple bodily function that all of us do, to see that little chest go up and down and the heart beat within its bosom, how beautiful and peaceful is such a sight. That was what was seen that Christmas morning.
And yet he who was with God in the beginning, who created the heavens and the earth, sleeps in heavenly peace, wrapped in that swaddling cloth, nestled into Mary’s bosom, that little chest going in and out. He, through whom all things were made, must rest, must rest, because just like you and just like me, he was in the midst of a great amount of physical growth and development within his flesh. And just as you had to sleep and I had to sleep in our mother’s lap or our father’s lap wrapped up, so our Lord Jesus; and yet he is the one who creates everything.
He is the life and the light of men, and there he rests, sleeping in heavenly peace, entrusting himself into his heavenly Father’s hands, the same Father’s hands that will will us His sacrifice on the cross. Same Father’s hands that withdraw their presence from him as he takes upon himself the sin of the world, yours and mine. He entrusts himself into those hands.
He has chosen to come to us as we are, in his flesh and his blood, just as we share the same flesh and the same blood. And he has chosen to come and take our consequences, bear the result of sin within us. And yet we look at him watching that chest rise and fall, and he was the one who knit us in our own mother’s womb. He is the one who placed in us in our mother’s womb at the moment of our conception an eternal soul. This infant who rests in this manger wrapped in a swaddling cloth.
And yet we cannot know him by faith except by the Holy Spirit. And yet we cannot receive him except by faith and not without the Holy Spirit. For he is outside of us and this revelation comes from outside of us. It does not gurgle up from within. It does not come about by our own reason or strength.
And the reason being is because within us it says, it is still the damnable ignorance that infected our grandparents that infects us. It is what causes us to actually think God comes to us according to our definition and not according to the revelation we’ve heard this morning. That the word who was with God in the beginning became flesh and blood. That cannot be believed except by the Holy Spirit. That is an article of faith, not of knowledge.
And who is truly more enlightened? God. Someone with a very high IQ or someone with a very simple mind. For I see them smiling far more than I see myself smiling. I see them not worry but entrust themselves into the Father’s hands, and I see myself worry. And I see the lines on my face just like you do when you look in the mirror from worry and fretting. That’s why we cannot know this baby born in Bethlehem except by the Holy Spirit.
And that’s why that ignorance is damnable. But it’s not just that; it’s also the unforgivable blindness. The vanity that we think we can see and understand God. God. That we think we can figure out how to posture ourselves by doing this good thing to expect this good result at some point in time in our life. And if he doesn’t give it to us, we must have miscalculated somewhere along the line.
And if by chance that something did happen to us that is good, we say, I didn’t realize that what I did was good. Ah, what a grand man am I. Such blindness leads people over a cliff into hell. And it is unforgivable unless we repent. And finally, it is a terrifying darkness that dwells within all of us. You know that darkness. It doesn’t raise its ugly head often, maybe in your life, but when it does, it terrifies you.
It overwhelms you and drowns you in self-pity. And such darkness is what is always there with us. We carry it with us. It is not outside of us to be completely apart; it is in us, a part of our very sinful nature. And it is there. We may be able to keep it at bay, but it is always barking at your door and mine. And it’s terrifying. It terrifies me, and I know it terrifies you.
So like the lost coin, we don’t search for the lantern and say, “Here I am.” No, no, we don’t. As the lost coin, it is the lantern with its light that seeks and finds us. And this infant came with a broom and with a lantern to sweep the whole world looking for you in every corner of this world, no matter how dark, no matter how dirty, no matter how unbelievably black it may be.
And he found you and rejoiced over you and shouted to the rooftop, “I have found my lost coin. Rejoice with me.” Such an infant that breathes like this, wrapped in swaddling clothes, found you. Such a helpless infant—the power of God to seek out and save that which was lost and damned. God be praised.
He does this tirelessly and never stops looking for you and never stops finding you, for he is steadfast and immovable. But you remember this revelation; this saving faith does not come bubbling up from within. For John said it is not born by the blood, like some family heritage—”we’ve been Christians all of our lives. Our parents were Christians. Our parents before them were Christians.”
There are too many people who have no Christianity in their background that are praising God in this congregation and outside of this congregation to say, “It’s not by blood.” It’s not by the will of the flesh, not because we can figure it out or come to this realization. And it’s not by the will of man, someone else’s abilities, someone else’s je ne sais quoi that seems to reach certain people.
It is by the miracle of the Holy Spirit. It is by that lantern that that infant uses with a broom to find you. That’s how you and I come to this faith which we are gathered here to celebrate, to rejoice in, and revel in. For you were born by the will of God.
And this revelation of the Christ child doesn’t just gently come into your world, does it? It crashes into your world like a bull in a china closet, shattering things that were precious to you, lifting up things that you were not thinking to be so precious, and holding forth before your eyes the very reality of who you are and who you are in Him. He comes crashing into this world, not quietly like that baby in Bethlehem, but crashing into your world.
It doesn’t always seem like that, though, does it? And that’s probably a good thing. We couldn’t handle it, could we? It would overwhelm us, wouldn’t it? It would cause us to tremble in our own boots. No, he gently comes to you, all the while reminding you of a Lutheran Christian sermon. No, he actually allows these things to occur in your life to enable you to shed the old skin of the old man that’s clinging to you and to cling rather than to the faith that God has given you so that you are renewed with the new skin—a baby skin, soft, smooth, and no sin forgiven.
It is a constant, isn’t it? For like a reptile, like a snake, do we lose that skin daily. And like a reptile and snake, do we have the new skin underneath daily, constantly. For that is how God works on us until finally we are rid of this reptilian skin that sticks so close to us.
We have beheld his glory, but it is glory to be received only by faith. Anything not from faith is from Satan, and Satan dwells in darkness, but not you. You dwell in light. You believe his revelation. It has come unto you. You have been found.
Therefore, this glory, which is beheld by the eyes of faith, sees in this infant, whose little chest is moving up and down, a different chest on that cross that is riven, flowing from blood and water out of. And though he’s wrapped in this beautiful cloth in that manger, he is naked on that cross to cover your shame and my shame.
And it has been revealed to you that the flesh on that cross is the very flesh in that bread, and the very blood that flowed from his side is the very wine in that supper that you and I feed upon and are sustained in this life of shedding of our old man and the new man coming forth. Rejoice.
Rejoice on this Christmas day for he has been born for you. He has been given to you that you may be born again. And being born again, you will never die. That is what this infant has come to do. Remarkable, astounding, and amazing that this helpless child is the Lord of your soul.
And that this frail infant is God Almighty who lifts up those who are lowly and thrusts down those who are proud. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
