Sermon - Christmas Day 2021 - John 1:1-18

Nativity, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, 1714-1789

Merry Christmas!

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” What a joyous message it is to hear that we’re not alone and that God is with us! The desire to not be alone is a strong one. Many people live in cities or towns, many people hope that aliens are real, many people spend too much time on social media, all because we don’t want to be alone. 

It’s a sad reality then that so many people are extraordinarily lonely these days. We’ve got email, telephones, text messaging, video chats, and yet people feel more alone than ever before. Why? The simple reason is that God created us to be with other people in the flesh, not just virtually. It isn’t only other people we long to be with, but it’s God we desire to be with.

When God created Adam and Eve in the garden, He walked with them! Adam and Eve didn’t initially know God as an invisible spirit, like we do, but as One who spoke to them face to face. It was a result of sin that Adam and Eve were separated from God; after they sinned they hid from Him! 

After the fall the best that man could do was pray to God, remember His Word, and offer up sacrifices to Him. Even though they were terrified of Him, they wanted to be near Him, but it simply wasn’t possible. It wasn’t until much later when the tabernacle was built and then the glory of the lord filled it; God dwelt on earth with His people. But even in the tabernacle or the temple, God’s glory was too great for people to approach; not even Moses could enter the tent of meeting when God’s glory filled the tabernacle! 

God was with His people, but the people couldn’t come near Him. But then “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only begotten Son from the Father, full of grace and truth!” When the incarnation happened, the division between God and man was destroyed. “He gave the right to become children of God.” He made us His children not through flesh and blood or the will of man, but of God. “He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior!”

Instead of being God’s enemies, unclean and hostile, God has made us His friends, yes even His children! In the blood of Jesus our sins were washed away and we were given new living hearts. Our debt against God was forgiven and He looked upon us through Jesus.

No longer does He keep us at arms length, restricting us from coming into His presence, but He draws near to us. Jesus came to dwell among His people in the flesh! Jesus’ birth from Mary is a fantastic illustration of how close God desires to be with us. There is no closer relationship on earth than that of the one between a mother and her child. For nine months the entire child lives inside of the mother’s womb. Afterwards, the separation process, childbirth, is agonizingly painful, both physically and emotionally, to mother and baby. After birth the mother continues to feed the baby from her own body, and the milk she feeds actually changes based upon the needs of the baby. Even the simple act of a mother cuddling her infant has the power to help the baby grow and mature in a healthy way.

That intimate relationship between mother and baby is the same relationship that Jesus and Mary shared. Yet even more importantly, God didn’t just come to have that close relationship with Mary, but He came to be even nearer to all of us! Think about it! As amazing as the relationship is between mother and child, God came to have an even closer relationship with us through the incarnation of Jesus Christ!

Church cannot be virtual, there is no such thing as going to church on the internet, TV, or radio. Those things can be good blessings when it’s simply not possible to attend church, or they can be good supplements, but they cannot replace the Divine Service. Christianity is incarnational, it is in the flesh, and the Divine Service requires that Christians assemble in the flesh to be with their Savior Jesus in the flesh.

Our lives as Christians began when He saved us by the washing of regeneration; when He baptized us! Through Baptism we were reborn! Your mother didn’t virtually give birth to you, it was a very fleshy and graphic experience. Likewise, your rebirth by baptism was a very real physical experience in which God drowns you and brings you back to life.

Following Baptism, our lives as Christians doesn’t only consist in reading, learning, and praying, but we’re sustained through the sacramental eating and drinking of Jesus’ body and blood. When you have your Christmas feast at home, you’re not just pretending to eat food, or talking about it, or watching it on a screen, but you’re chewing and tasting and swallowing that food. Jesus’ death on the cross wasn’t merely imagined or symbolic, but it was gory and painful, it was real. Likewise, you really do eat and drink Jesus' real body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. There’s no such thing as “virtual communion.”

The loneliness which runs so rampant in our world today, the cult of virtual reality and screen addictions, all find they’re answers here in the Christ Mass, the incarnation. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God is near to His people, He is near to you. Forget about the screens and the social media, Jesus is on Mary’s lap, on the cross, in the tomb, in the Baptismal font, and on the altar. Here is your God! You are not alone! The goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior has appeared, “so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Merry Christmas!