[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel of John you heard read amongst yourselves. You may be seated. Luther hit that one out of the park. Now in the manger we may see God’s Son from eternity, the gift from God’s eternal throne here in the world, clothed in our poor flesh and bone. The very Son of God, sublime, entered into earthly time to lead us from this world of cares to heaven’s courts as blessed heirs.
This is a little bit different text than the very familiar Luke 2. Luke 2 seems like it almost has to be read in the darkness of an evening service with candles and everything. This text needs the sunshine and the light of a morning because it is light, glaringly, blazingly bright. On the front cover of your bulletin, it’s very obvious who that is. That’s Jesus lying in the manger, but the Greek word underneath it is pronounced Ha-Lagos, and it’s Greek for The Word. Capitalize the letter W in the word, word. The Word. Because there in that manger is the Word made flesh, and around the world, though it may not seem we’re full up, Christians have been celebrating this and will continue as the sun moves through its stages through the rest of this great globe. How God has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all nations and has shown the salvation of His doing.
We’re bearing witness to this salvation today, but it’s wrapped up in some marvelous mystery. This Word made flesh. If your loved one wants to know what’s inside of your heart, all they need to do is to listen to your words. For out of your mouth comes what’s inside of your heart. Now, the problem with your loved one listening to your words to determine what is inside of your heart, for out of your heart comes who you are, is that out of that same mouth comes blessings and not so much blessings. But regardless, it still reveals what’s inside of your heart. This seemingly contradictory personality that dwells within you, sinner-saint.
Out of your lips comes kindness and gentleness and sweetness and forbearance and long-sufferingness and forgiveness. And out of the same mouth comes cursing and unfulfilled expectations and disappointments and hurts. But it’s all from inside, isn’t it? Well, in a much more profound and more comforting way, does out of the heart of your Father in heaven come the Word: Jesus Christ Himself. But not before Jesus is clothed with flesh and bone. The Son is the Word that comes forth from the Father’s lips. He first came forth from the Father’s lips at creation when He was proclaimed out of the Father’s lips, and nothing that was made could be said to be anything other than that four-letter word, GOOD. Because everything that flowed from the Father’s lips through that word made good things, not sinful things.
Sin, as you know, did not come until Adam and Eve decided to counter that good word from the Father’s lips that only made good things. And now Adam and Eve knew both good and evil. That’s the contradiction that dwells within your and my bosom. That’s what flows from your and my lips that sends contradictory words and messages to our loved ones who say, “You say you love me, and yet you say this.” There’s a disconnect. And rather than pull an Adam or pull an Eve and blame someone else for us, we have to confess so that the word which flows from the Father’s lips can make it good again.
Amen. But the word that flows from the Father’s lips can’t make it good again unless it is enmeshed and enfleshed with your poor flesh and bone, as Luther said in that hymn. That’s the mystery of that statement that John proclaims: the word was made flesh. Abstract became concrete. Ethereal became something that you could touch and corporal. That’s the mystery of this day. That’s different than the mystery involved with shepherds and angels and a night in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes.
John is not trying to be highly intellectual. John is really trying to make it extremely simple. It’s we who try to muss it all up with our “how can this be?” and “what does he mean by that?” When John proclaims that the Word was made flesh, it looks like what Luke 2 describes: a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. In poverty, he comes to fix the impoverished soul of flesh and bones that you and I have. He returns the glory that was ours at the beginning when God said it was good and the Word created nothing but good.
But the Word cannot make good again something without His taking on the problem. Our God is not a God that waves a wand from a distance. Our God is one who dives in, not knowing what He is diving into or how deep, although of course, He is God. He knows all of that. But unlike you and I, who are afraid or who are hesitant, He boldly steps into humanity and into time. For He said, “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. Because if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Adam and Eve had to tell their children over and over again, “Mommy, Daddy, you said God made everything good. How come there is…?” It’s the same thing that you have to answer. It’s the same question you pose to your parents. If God said that it was all good and God is good, why is there…? We can keep that seeming contradiction at a distance until it comes crashing in our life with suffering and sorrow and disappointment. But at the end of the day, we still have to answer that contradictory question. And that’s why God said the Word became flesh. He fixes the contradiction. He enters into this world full of contradiction and makes it good again.
Amen. Not that this world is good, but that you become children of God, born of God, no longer having to be claimed by death, no longer having to inherit what Jesus said, dying in our sins, but not without the word being spoken over you. In the same way that God created the heavens and the earth with that word that came forth from His mouth, so did that word come forth from His mouth in your baptism when you were made a child of God.
Where the word spoken over you, because it is Christ Jesus spoken over you. Where flesh and blood Christ Jesus, who lived and died and rose again, is given and put into you, is good made good, and evil is good. But it couldn’t happen without that flesh and blood going to that place. The glory of which God speaks that is in that enfleshment has its most profound revelation in the glory of death for you.
We love to think of glory as finally winning the game, like the underdog as it were. No, the underdog must suffer pain. And that’s the glory of God. “Mommy, Daddy, why are there these things that happen when you say that God is loving and gracious?” Yes, God is loving and gracious. And that is what it looks like. That is as loving and gracious as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, for both are the same Word, both have the same flesh and blood, and both are consumed by you in the supper.
The Word made flesh. Jesus has made it clear through John’s epistle. He said, “What you heard from the beginning must abide in you, this truth of the Word made flesh. And if it does, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. There is this dwelling, abiding, and this is the promise He has made with us: eternal life.” Finally, John said, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, even though it may not look like it. We are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know, by faith, we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him. We shall see Him as He is, in flesh and blood.”
And you can’t see anything without your flesh and blood. That’s the fix that the Word made flesh brings, so that all of this world and all of its sorrow shall see the bared arm of the Lord showing forth to the world the salvation of the world, though the world does not recognize it. He comes to His own, and His own receives Him still in meek hearts in the name of the Word made flesh: Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.
Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
