Christmas Day, 2022
Rev. Thomas Van Hemert
St. John 1:1-18
Christmas Day
December 25, 2020
In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus, the Son of Mary, is God. How God can become a human being is a mystery. In fact, there are many mysteries contained within Holy Scripture that, in our fallen flesh, we simply cannot understand or know the answer—that’s why they’re called mysteries. How can the man named Methuselah in the book of Genesis live to be 969 years old? How can Lot’s wife who was made up of cells, molecules, and DNA—hardly the ingredients to synthesize sodium-chloride—be turned into a pillar of salt? How is it that in the book of Joshua, the Lord causes the sun to stand still in the sky for about a day? How can bread and wine become Christ’s Body and Blood? They’re miracles, first of all. Thus, they are mysteries.
There isn’t a scientific formula that we can apply that would allow us to explain these things. We aren’t able to prove through a double-blind experiment exactly how these mysteries work. This is the essence of the Christian faith. The author of the Book of Hebrews writes, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the people of old received their commendation. By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
Now there are two specific mysteries that Christians must believe in to be called Christian. The first is the Holy Trinity. How can there be three persons in one God? How can one person of the Holy Trinity become man and take on human flesh? Well we don’t know. And we ought not worry about being able to articulate these things so that others would perfectly understand. Because confessing that these two mysteries are a reality makes one a Christian according to the Athanasian Creed. What is required of us is not a perfect head knowledge of how these mysteries work, but simply faith and belief that they are a reality. The Incarnation happened. The Virgin Birth happened on Christmas morning. The Holy Trinity is a present reality—that’s who our God is. Faith in these things separate us Lutherans from every other non-Christian religion and even some Christian denominations. Because unfortunately, there are certain Christian denominations that officially don’t believe in the Virgin Birth, or that Jesus is Himself God and man, or that God is Trinitarian. So in this life we will have to face false teachers and blasphemers.
The great mystery and doctrine of our faith is what we remember with great joy and celebrate today: the Incarnation. God has become man in the person of Christ. The babe who is laid in a manger is fully God and fully man. Just because God becomes man does not mean that He ceases to become God. He was and is always God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” In the beginning. This is a cosmic reality. The Christ was, even before time and creation. He has no beginning because even at the beginning, He already was. He already existed.
“All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” He is life itself. Before time and also before matter existed—molecules, protons, neutrons, electrons. Carbon, hydrogen, any element, all matter—before all of it was formed, He is the one who designed it and formed it.
This Word—when reading John 1, we should always capitalize the word “Word.” Because John is speaking precisely of Jesus. Jesus is the Word of God who is sent forth from His Father. For this Word who was in the beginning with God and who is God, who made all things that were made, this Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. How this all happens is a mystery. We cannot explain it. The Apostle John already explained it that it happened because He was inspired by the Holy Spirit and so, we confess it. We confess this: the Word became flesh and dwells now among us in His actual Body, in His Body and Blood. He does not stop dwelling among us.
These two mysteries, the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are directly tied to the Doctrine of Justification. God became man in the person of Jesus Christ so that God Himself might make atonement and be crucified for the entire human race. For this sacrifice to benefit the human race, God needed become a man. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That’s precisely what He did after taking up residence for nine months in the Virgin Mary’s womb. Then on Good Friday, Jesus, who is God and man was lifted up from the earth and was made to be the propitiation for the entire human race so that all human beings would be justified.
How all this happens is a mystery to us. Yet it is by faith that we receive these blessings. It requires no work, no deeds, no effort on our part to receive this gift of justification because that’s just what it is: a gift. We believe that Jesus Christ, Son of God, yet born of the Virgin Mary is our propitiation, our sacrifice. No other sacrifices need to be made. Jesus says that no one comes to the Father except through Him. That’s all the explanation we need. We cling to the faith that has been given to us in Holy Baptism and trust in him as our loving Lord.
Because of this, it isn’t important for us to know how Jesus became man or how the Holy Trinity works. Nor is it important for us to know how Jesus was raised from the dead after being lifted up on the cross for the sins of the world. Nor is it important for us to know perfectly the circumstances of His descent into Hell, as we confess in the Creeds. But because Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, purchased and won us from all sin, death, and the power of the devil, when we enter into heaven and pass through those gates of pearl, then we will see how all the mysteries of God work. We will speak with Methuselah and he can tell us all he did during his 969 years on earth. We’ll have the opportunity to speak to Lot about being rescued from Sodom and Gomorrah and about his wife. And we’ll be able to ask Joshua what it was like when the sun stood still in the sky for nearly a day. We will fully know the love that God has for us because we will have been called home.
That is the telos, the end, the goal of our faith. We trust now in things unseen. We receive the babe lying in the manger as our Lord and our God. But soon, the veil will be pulled back and we will behold God in His glory with full clarity.
In +Jesus’ name.
