Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
More than eleven years ago, my parents gave me a copy of what apparently was one of the last collectable Christmas icons (or images or pictures) produced by Rolan Johnson, a renowned Central Illinois printer and artist. This beautiful mosaic print looks like stained glass, and it depicts the baby Jesus in a brown manger, surrounded by two silver heavenly creatures, against a dark-purple night sky, all with a gold border. In some ways we can more easily see that picture of the baby Jesus in the manger than we can understand today’s Gospel Reading’s message and meaning of “The Incarnate Word Dwelling Among Us”.
The Gospel Reading tells us that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Word is simply the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity; the Old Testament Scriptures give us that expression for the divine revealer of God’s wisdom and power. The Gospel Reading tells us that the Word—the Word that was in the beginning, that was both with God and was God—became flesh. So, sometimes we might call Jesus the “Enfleshed Word”, or, using the Latin root word, we might call Jesus the “Incarnate Word”, just as we call the whole of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity’s taking on human flesh the “Incarnation”. (Carnis is the Latin word for “meat” or “flesh” or “the body”, just as carne asada is “roasted meat”, which you might know as a menu item at Mexican restaurants.) The Word, Who had always existed from eternity, before God created the heavens and the earth, became flesh. That development is what this day is all about: “The Incarnate Word Dwelling Among Us”, and not just among us but also for us.
Think about the following for a moment: being born into and living your whole life in a room that is completely dark. If you were without any light whatsoever, you would have no idea what darkness was, let alone what light was. Our being in such darkness of sin, unable to understand the Light, is only one of the ways today’s Gospel Reading describes our dreadful situation. The Gospel Reading also says that we by nature do not know the Word. Can you imagine not knowing your own parent or creator? All things were made through the Word, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. No, the world comes up with the Big Bang Theory for its existence, and the world holds to human evolutionary theory for how we became who we are. In essence, many people worship false gods who did not make the heavens and the earth. The Gospel Reading also says the Word came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. Many people think that those who do receive Him do so by themselves deciding to receive Him. The Gospel Reading rules out such a “decision for Christ”; the Gospel Reading says those who believe in Him are given to be children of God; they are born not of human blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. In darkness of sin, ignorant of our creator, and unable to decide for Christ—so dreadful is our situation, and, because of it, the Word became flesh to dwell among us.
When we become aware of and realize our dreadful situation, what do we do? Today’s Gospel Reading says John the Baptizer was sent from God and came to bear witness about the Light, “The Incarnate Word Dwelling Among Us”. As prophesied, John the Baptizer called for people to “Make straight the way of the Lord”. In other words, John the Baptizer called for people to repent: to turn in sorrow from their sins and to trust God to forgive their sins. We have been talking about such repentance throughout the penitential season of Advent, and, though Advent is over, our need for daily repentance and faith in this lifetime never ends. Today as every day, we put to death the old sinner in us, with both sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin, so that a new saint rises to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.
The icon that I mentioned at the start had more or less been in storage until I sort of rediscovered it during my recent move. A little more than one week ago I took it to Tyler in order to have it framed. At first I told the framer at the gallery where I stopped that I wanted a purple metal frame to match both the purple night sky in the icon and the other purple frames and such in the room where I am going to hang it; instead, she suggested a silver and gold wood frame to match the silver heavenly creatures and the icon’s gold border. We both looked at the samples of those two frames next to the icon, and then I asked her and myself what was most important in the icon. What was most important in the icon was not the purple night sky, not the silver heavenly creatures, and not the gold border. What was most important in the icon is the baby Jesus in the brown manger.
Today’s Epistle Reading calls Jesus the exact imprint of God’s nature. (Though the Greek word is different, we could almost say that Jesus is the “icon” of the Father.) The Epistle reading also says Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. No surprise! Jesus is “The Incarnate Word Dwelling Among Us”, and glory is usually associated with the dwelling place of God. As we will hear in the communion liturgy, “In the mystery of the Word made flesh [God has] given us a new revelation of [His] glory.” The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, in company and relationship with God the Father, may have in Old Testament times appeared in the form of human flesh, but in His birth of the Virgin Mary He becomes flesh. God the Father so loved the world—you and me—that He gave His only Son to share our flesh and blood, so that by the Son’s death He could destroy the devil who holds the power of death. Paul Gerhardt’s Advent hymn says simply:
Love caused Your Incarnation; / Love brought You down to me.
Your thirst for my salvation / Procured my liberty.
The Incarnate Word, our Savior Jesus is the true light by which we see God. To be sure, what we see of God with the naked eye does not appear to be all that glorious: a newborn Jesus in a brown manger, a crucified Jesus hanging on a wooden cross, a risen but ascended Jesus, Whom we do not visibly see at all.
To be sure, we do not visibly see Jesus with our naked eyes now in the same way that the Gospel writer and the other apostles saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Yet, we believe, and so we see beyond what is visible, with the eyes of faith. At its beginning, St. John’s Gospel account tells us that the Word was God, and, at the account’s end, St. Thomas believed and confessed Jesus to be his Lord and God. We who repent have that same belief and make that same confession, and so we are forgiven—forgiven of all our sin and forgiven of our sinful natures. The Christmas Day Collect’s petition “for the birth of the [only Son] in the flesh to set us free from the bondage of sin” is granted. The glorious presence of God dwelling among His people is usually connected to His forgiveness of sins, whether that glorious presence of God is dwelling in the Tabernacle, in the Temple, or in the flesh of the God-Man Jesus Christ. Thus, the story of Jesus’s birth is also the story of our birth, for the Gospel Reading makes clear how the Word’s becoming flesh leads to our being born of God.
We are born of God and fed by God through things that unbelievers think are inglorious: ministers, water, bread, and wine. “The Incarnate Word Dwelling Among Us” spoke and acted, and thereby He showed forth the presence and power of God to all those who believe. His disciples saw life in Him and so testified to it and proclaimed it. Like John the Baptizer, those disciples-turned-apostles and their successors are the messengers of today’s Old Testament Reading, the ones whose feet are beautiful because of the Good News they bring. And, Jesus makes clear that receiving Him includes receiving those ministers whom He has sent with His authority to forgive and retain sins—authority exercised in such ways as preaching the Gospel and absolving sinners individually. Sinners are born of God most clearly there, at the Baptismal Font, where we are born from above by water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to Spirit. Holy Baptism is the washing of re-birth by the Holy Spirit. Everyone so born of God overcomes the world. On our way through this world, though, we are sustained and fed on “The Incarnate Word Dwelling Among Us” in, with, and under bread and wine. With John the Baptizer, I can point to Christ, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. There on the altar is the same body and blood that was born in the manger, hung on the cross, and rose and ascended into heaven. He Who has life in Him is the Bread of Life, Who we as God’s children eat to make our way through this life.
Of course, children born of God and sustained by His body and blood still endure discipline and experience their own crosses in this life. We hold not to a theology of glory but to a theology of the cross, which means that things are not always what they appear to be, that God works behind masks, as it were. This day or this season, you and I may be especially feeling our own brokenness and disappointments. I am not talking only about gifts that may already be broken or have disappointed, but I am also talking about things like failed or nonexistent relationships, major or minor illnesses, and distant or more recent losses of loved ones. Amid our brokenness and disappointments, despite what we may subjectively feel, we can still rejoice for the objective reality that is ours. The Old Testament Reading tells us how the watchmen sing for joy and call for others to break forth into singing, for the Lord has redeemed and so comforted His people.
The baby Jesus in the brown manger is the most important thing in the icon I am having framed. In the end, the framer and I agreed on a simple frame made of a speckled, sort of distressed wood that highlights the icon’s representation of baby Jesus in the manger and makes one think of the cross. That picture may be easier to see, but today’s Gospel Reading has revealed so much more. The baby Jesus in the manger is our Creator God, Who as the Epistle Reading reminds us, also upholds the universe by the Word of His power and so controls everything for our good. The baby Jesus in the manger is “The Incarnate Word dwelling Among Us”. Thanks be to God that in Him He has brought us life and light.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +