Wonder at the One who is the Word

Sermon for Christmas Eve

Hebrews 1:1-12  +  John 1:1-14

Some of you may know what those Greek letters say on the front of your service folder. The first letter is an omicron. Omicron has been getting a lot of attention lately. But it’s just a letter of the Greek alphabet: “little o.” That little mark above the omicron puts an “h” sound in front of the “o,” so, “ho,” which just means “the.” The next five letters, lambda, omicron, gamma, omicron, sigma are the English letters L O G O S. “Logos,” which is the word for “Word.” Ho Logos. The Word. The Word became flesh. The breathtaking truth of Christmas is that the baby Boy who lay in Bethlehem’s manger was the Word, Ho Logos, who was in the beginning, and who was with God.

He’s called the Word, like the word that is born from a person’s heart and mind and mouth. Now, sometimes our words don’t reflect what’s really in our hearts. Sometimes our words are false, lying words, spoken to cover up sin rather than to express the truth. But “the Word,” Ho Logos, isn’t like that. He is the perfect representation of who God the Father is, the express image of His person, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it. Whatever we see Jesus doing in the Scriptures, whatever we hear Him saying, whatever anger or indignation, whatever compassion or love we see in Jesus, expresses perfectly the character and the will of God the Father. So when we see Ho Logos, the Word, lying in a manger, we learn to what great lengths our God is willing to go in order to save us from our sins. He who was in the beginning and was with God, He who is the true Word of God, became flesh, and was born, not in a king’s palace or in a celebrity’s mansion, but in a place where animals came to feed.

But Ho Logos wasn’t only with God. St. John tells us that the Word was God. And he explains that relationship a little later, saying that Ho Logos is the Only-Begotten of the Father, or, as He’s simply called throughout the New Testament, He is and always has been the Son of God, eternally born of God the Father, so that there was never a time when He didn’t exist. He was in the beginning, true God from true God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. But as to His human nature, He was born in time, born of a virgin mother who miraculously conceived by the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit.

As God, the Word is responsible for the creation of all things. All things were made through Him. But now the Creator has joined Himself to His creation, has taken on human flesh. The Author of the story has entered the story, so that He might save His fallen creatures.

And fallen we are! Every one of us! The human race is corrupt, twisted. We have some memory of what is right and wrong, some nebulous sense of who the true God is. But by nature, no one truly knows Him, or truly worships Him as God. No one, by nature, fears or loves Him or trusts in Him or listens to Him. Our Creator has revealed Himself in the holy Bible, but who takes it seriously anymore, much less literally? Our Creator has told us what is good and right in His Ten Commandments, but the world rejects them, or keeps the ones it feels like keeping, when it feels like keeping them, and even then, it’s only superficial obedience. Like condemned criminals waiting for execution, our whole race had been cast into darkness and death.

But, St. John writes, in Him was life, and that life was the light of men. Life was lying in the manger, as a present from God the Father, not to His children, but to His enemies. To all who stood condemned before God, to all who were dead in trespasses and sins, He offered life! He offered His own life! One day He would literally offer it up on a cross in payment for the world’s sins. And now, risen from the dead, He offers life instead of death to all who believe in Him. To all who were trapped in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief and the filthiness of sin, He was a light shining in a dark place, even from His birth, offering sure and unchanging truth about who God is and how alone God can be reconciled to sinful man, only by entering His light. Only through repentance and the forgiveness of sins. The light shines in the darkness.

And the darkness has not comprehended it. Most didn’t want the light. His own human race, His own Jewish people didn’t want Him, or His light, or His life. Most still don’t. The truth of Christmas, the meaning of Christmas is being preached here this evening and at faithful churches around the world today and tomorrow. But the seats are nowhere near full. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. And why not? St. John reveals the answer just two chapters later: This is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

But the rejection of Christ isn’t the whole story. But all who did receive him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, children who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God. Christ the Word who was with God, Christ the Word who is God, Christ the Creator, the Life and the Light of men, was received by some. He was received first by Mary herself, then by Elizabeth and John the Baptist and Zacharias, then by Joseph, then by the shepherds, then by Simeon and Anna, then by the wise men, and on and on through the ages. The Christmas story has been told and believed, together with the Good Friday story and the Easter story. And those who believe are invited to be baptized and to be accepted as children of God, born again of water and the Spirit.

The Word became flesh and dwelled among us for a time. Those who believed in Him when He was here on earth beheld His glory, not only on the Mount of Transfiguration where His face shone like the sun, but also in the little Child in the manger and in the bloody Man hanging from the cross. The glory of God, the glory of Ho Logos was seen with the eyes of faith, just as it’s seen now with the same eyes of faith whenever the Gospel is preached. We see the glory of God in His relentless desire to save fallen man by becoming Man. We see the grace and truth of Ho Logos, lying in the manger.

Tonight and tomorrow, we celebrate the birth of the Word of God into the world, given to us, spoken to us by the heavenly Father. Oh, come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord, Ho Logos of God! Amen.