Sermon - Christmas Day - John 1:1-18 - 2017

Merry Christmas! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 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.” Last evening at our Christmas Eve service we read the quintessential Christmas narrative from Luke 2. We heard all about Mary and Joseph, Bethlehem, and Jesus being born and laid in a manger. 

But this morning, on the actual Christmas Day, in our readings Mary and Joseph are nowhere to be seen, the setting is not Bethlehem, and we’re not talking about Mary giving birth to a sweet little baby. Instead we read about Moses putting up the tabernacle, and John giving a theological lesson about the Word having become flesh.

That’s really the difference between our readings last night and this morning. Last evening we focused on the historical narrative of Jesus’ birth. Today however we learn the theological significance of what it means that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us so that we would be reborn to be children of God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God,” but the Word was not yet made flesh. The second person of the Trinity, the Son, has always existed together with the Father and the Spirit. At creation, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters... And God said.” All three persons were present to create the cosmos, even the Son of God. But not in the flesh. 

Yet, even in the Old Testament God dwelt with His people. “Moses erected the tabernacle. He laid its bases, and set up its frames, and put in its poles, and raised up its pillars. And he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent over it, as the LORD had commanded Moses… Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”

The Lord God dwelt with His people in a tent made with human hands. A cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. As long as the cloud or the fire was upon the tent, so the Lord dwelt with His people “throughout all their journeys.” Whenever the cloud or fire left the tent, the people packed up and followed along so that they could be in the presence of the glory of the almighty God. So long as the cloud or fire remained there, so the Lord’s glory dwelt with His people in that place, in the tabernacle, the tent made with human hands.

But today “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.” Or quite literally in the Greek, the Word became flesh and tabernacled or tented among us. Jesus is the Word of God become flesh. He is the glory of the almighty Lord God in the flesh. 

No longer does the Lord dwell with His people in tents made by human hands, but today the glory of the Lord has been revealed to His people in the flesh, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the manifestation of the glory of God who has come to us as the light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome. 

As the Lord dwelt with His people Israel in a tent erected by Moses, so Jesus dwells with us today in a body born of the fully human virgin Mary. Jesus tents with us today, not in a tent made with base and frame, pole and pillar, and cover set over it, but He tents with us bodily. In a tent made with bone and cartilage, blood and organs, and flesh set over it all, Jesus tents with us.

In the virgin birth Jesus has come to dwell with us. We who dwell in the darkness of sin and unbelief, have seen a great light! Our nation is constantly becoming more and more secularized, not just in the cities but in our small towns as well. Though the true light has come into the world and all the world has been made through Him, “yet the world did not know Him.” Still today, we gladly place our blinders over our eyes to shield us from His light. 

We may complain about people not saying Merry Christmas while we tout the old slogan Jesus is the Reason for the Season. But what does that matter if we still bask in our works of darkness with delight? Or we go to church one day a year or even once a week, yet reserve all the other days for ourselves and our passions of the flesh? What good is merry Christmas if we despise the mass of Christ, that is the Lord’s Supper, by wishing it didn’t take so long? Who cares if Jesus is the reason for the season, if all it is for us is a means of political activism?

Why Merry Christmas? Why is Jesus the reason for the season? For that matter, why was Jesus born of human flesh and blood? Why has Jesus come to dwell with us? “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.”

Last evening we heard about Jesus being born of a human birth, of our very flesh and blood. Today we hear about another birth, not Jesus’, but ours. Jesus was born of blood and flesh, of man, so that we could be reborn as children of God, not born of blood and flesh, not of man, but of God. Jesus was born of a human birth so that we could be reborn of a spiritual birth.

Jesus has come to take away our spiritual blinders which block the light. When Jesus tents among us, “when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us.” Jesus was born so that we could be reborn and rescued from our sin. Jesus was born to save us from our evil words, our quarrels, our harshness, our foolishness, disobedience, our slavish passions, our envy, malice, and our hatred. Jesus has saved us. Not because we have done better and found the light, but “according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus’ virgin birth is the birth that makes you pure again in the waters of Holy Baptism. From these waters you emerge as a newborn child, regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit. You entered the waters blinded by darkness and Jesus has pulled you from these waters, now “being justified by His grace that we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

When Jesus was born of flesh and blood, He was born to a carpenter, into a life of labor. His inheritance was not only a pittance, but it was to be crucified by the very people He came to save. But by your spiritual rebirth in the waters of baptism you have been born to a king, to an inheritance filled with the grace of God. “For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace… grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Though His inheritance was death upon a cross, your inheritance consists of grace upon grace.

The birth of Jesus has brought about the full manifestation of the light of God’s glory which has shown to all people, even us. The flesh and blood that Jesus was born into is given to us this day in the sacrament of the altar. Here in this holy of holies does Jesus tent with us, here He dwells with us not in a tent made with hands, but in His flesh and blood.

His glory for you this day is not hidden in a temple that not even Moses could enter, but God’s glory has taken on flesh and blood in the birth of Jesus. Upon this altar do we eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus. At this font Christ’s birth is made our own. From the words of this Bible the grace and truth of Jesus is made our own. The Word has become flesh and dwells among us today in the word and the sacraments. We have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, as it dwells in the tents of water, spoken word, and bread and wine. In these tents today the glory of the Lord has enlightened the darkness of our hearts, and these tents are full of grace and truth.

“No one has ever seen God,” this is true. But today in your presence, “the only God, who is at the Father’s side, Jesus the incarnate Word, “He has made Him known” to you in these simple tents, these means of God’s grace upon grace: the word and the sacraments. Today we have been saved, “richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” Merry Christmas.