In the manger we see the Word

Sermon for Christmas Day

Hebrews 1:1-12  +  John 1:1-14

Last night, on Christmas Eve, the Word of God from Luke’s Gospel enabled us to “look” into the skies to see the angel hosts, and to “look” down into the manger to see lying there the Savior, who is Christ, the Lord. Today, on Christmas Day, the Word of God from John’s Gospel puts a magnifying glass on the Child in the manger, enabling us to look even more deeply into the identity of that Child and the saving purpose for which He was born. In the midst of all the excitement of Christmas and the gifts you’ve given or received, calm your mind and your thoughts this morning and marvel at the gift God has given to all men, and especially to those who believe.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

You and I begin to exist when we’re conceived in our mother’s womb. That’s when our body and soul, the essence of who we are, begins. But as we look down into the manger, what we see there is Someone special. His body and soul also came into existence when He was conceived in His mother’s womb. But that body and soul have been joined to a “Person” who existed already in the beginning of time, to a Person who is simply called “the Word,” the perfect expression of who God the Father is, what He thinks, what He wills. Or, as the writer to the Hebrews put it, He is the radiance of the Father’s glory and the express image of his being. The Word was not created. He “was” already in the beginning, when all things were created. He was with God the Father, and He Himself was God together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So what we see in the manger truly is the One whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting, as the prophet Micah said. The human nature of Christ wasn’t there in the beginning, but the divine nature was. The human nature of Christ had a beginning, but the divine nature had no beginning, just as the Father had no beginning. In the beginning, He was already there.

All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that has been made.

There are only two categories of existence. There is the uncreated, eternal God, and there are the created things of the universe, the things that had to be brought into existence through the work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The divine nature of Christ is in the category of God, the category of Creator. He, the Word of God, was the living tool God the Father used to create all things.

So the mystery of the baby wrapped up in cloths and lying in the manger is that He is both uncreated and created, born eternally of the Father and born in time of His mother, both God and man, joined in one inseparable Person. How that is possible is beyond our understanding. That it is true is clear from Holy Scripture and is the foundation of the Christian faith. We worship a Christ who is both true God and true man, a Christ who is the very Creator, the One responsible for this universe and for each one of us being here, the One to whom we owe our obedience, our love, and our worship.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Already in the beginning, life was in the Word. Life was in the Son of God. There is no life apart from Him. You can’t reject Him and still pretend to have the life that is truly life. His life, like a light, was always what guided mankind, not visibly, not magically, but in the Word of God that was revealed to mankind. What does the Psalm say? Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. And Jesus once said, The words that I speak to you are spirit and life.

So long before the baby in the manger could speak, He, the Word, had already guided Adam and Eve and Noah and Abraham and Moses and everyone to whom God spoke in the Old Testament, because He is the Word of God who was in the beginning. And when that baby grows up, you had better listen to everything He says. Because the word of the Word is still life and the light that guides us and helps us to overcome the darkness of ignorance, and the darkness of sin, and the darkness of damnation, because the darkness cannot overcome the light that is Christ.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came to bear witness, to testify concerning the Light, that all people might believe through him. He was not the Light, but was sent to testify concerning the Light, that the true Light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

Since the apostle John will start his narrative about the life of Christ with John the Baptist, he introduces him here in the introduction of his Gospel. And he shows us the night-and-day difference between John and Jesus. John was sent from God. Jesus was God. John was not a light, but a light-reflector, like the moon reflects the light of the sun. Jesus, whose birth we celebrate today, was the light-giver, like the light of the sun. And John had the momentous task of announcing that the true Light was coming into the world, coming onto the scene, as it were, to shine into the world’s darkness with His preaching, with His perfect life of love, and, ultimately, with the giving of His life on the cross, so that people could actually see what God was like and know that He had truly come to save them from their sins.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.

He was in the world already from the time of His conception, but no one could see Him, not until He was born into the world. Once He was born, Mary and Joseph knew Him. The shepherds knew Him, too, through the word of the angels. The wise men would know Him when they arrived. Others would come to know Him. But “the world,” as a whole, did not, would not know Him. The vast majority of mankind did not, does not, and will not recognize Jesus as the Word who was with God in the beginning, who was God and is God, who is the true Light that gives light to every man. “The world” remains in darkness. And you need me to tell you that. You can see just how dark this world remains

He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

“His own” can refer to the Jewish people. Jesus was born a Jew, and the Jews, as a whole, did not receive Him. But it also refers to humanity in general. All people are “His own” in that He brought them into existence and sustains them still by His power and by His providence. And yet, most of His own have not received Him. And even of those who claim to have received Him, how many of them actually listen to the word of the Word and believe the word of the Word? To call Jesus “Lord” and then to ignore what He says, is not to receive Him, but to mock Him.

But all who did receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.

This! This is hope of Christmas. This is the hope of the Christian faith. This is why we celebrate today, and why we still invite the world to celebrate Christmas with us. Christ came into a world of sinners, into a world of people who already belonged to the devil, who were already children of the devil, into a world of people who were already condemned and trapped in hell, in order to save us, in order to set us free. Christ became a child of man so that we might become children of God, so that we might be forgiven, so that we might have life.

Which sinners are forgiven? Which children of the devil become children of God? Which people who are dead in sins and trespasses are made alive? All who receive Him. All who believe in His name. All who are born again, not by their own decision, but born of God, brought by God to receive His Son in faith, to trust in Him as the Light and the Life. And it’s the very message of Christmas that God uses to bring people to the manger and to the cross, so that we may kneel there in repentance and trust in the Man who is God the Word.

And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh and dwelled among men for a time. And those who received Him beheld His glory. We have not seen Him. We have not beheld His glory with our eyes. But through the word of the Word, the Holy Spirit is allowing us to look down into the manger to see the reality, to see more than a little baby, to see the eternal Son of God and our Savior lying there. And through the word of the Word, we are also allowed to see more than bread and wine here in the Sacrament, but the very body and blood of that Child who once lay in a manger and who once died on a cross. See your God in the manger! See your God on the cross! And rejoice! Because your God took on human flesh so that He might offer it up as a sacrifice, so that, through Him, you might be reconciled to God. Behold His glory in that sacred truth! And let earth receive her King! Amen.