Sermon: Christmas – 2022

25 December 2022

Text: John 1:1-18 (Ex 40:17-21, 34-38, Titus 3:4-7)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Merry Christmas, dear friends!

When the children of Israel were wandering in the desert for forty years under the leadership of Moses, they had no building to worship in.  They were all living in tents.  And so God established a sanctuary for them, also in a tent.  This tabernacle could be taken down and put up whenever God told the people to set out and move to another location.

This tabernacle was a portable home for the Presence of God, and “the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.”  God’s Presence was hidden by a cloud. 

Fifteen hundred years later, the “glory of the Lord” once more came to His people in the person of Jesus.  Our Lord is the Messiah, the Christ, who was prophesied of old.  And we learn that He is also God.  And this time, His tent, His tabernacle, is not made of fabric by human hands.  Indeed, He is tabernacled with us in flesh and blood.  And like the days of the Israelites in the desert, the “glory of the Lord” is in a portable form that moves about with His people. 

This time, instead of a cloud, His glory is veiled by the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth.  The Glory of the Presence of God is there, dear friends, but it is hidden to the eyes.

The Evangelist, St. John, begins His account of the life of Jesus not with the announcement of the angel Gabriel to the virgin Mary that she was to give birth to the Son of God, the Christ, the King of Israel.  Nor does He begin His Gospel on the day of His birth, when “clothed in flesh [He] came to earth.”  Rather John begins at the creation of the universe.  Like Moses’s Book of Genesis, John’s Gospel begins with the words, “In the beginning.”  And “in the beginning,” Jesus was already there, long before His birth, long before His conception, long before His divine presence with the children of Israel – Jesus was there, the Word “by whom all things were made.” 

The glory of God was not hidden in a cloud at that time, because there were no clouds.  There was only God in His three persons that existed “in the beginning.”  But it was the Word that spoke, “Let there be light, and there was light.”

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John’s Gospel begins.  Jesus is both with God and is God.  “All things were made through Him.”  Jesus is the Creator of the universe, whose Word brings everything into being.  The entire Old Testament is about Jesus and His creation, His covenant with His people, and even the sacrifices in the tabernacle and temple point to His cross: the shedding of His blood as the payment for our sins, making peace with God, restoring our broken creation.

But before the Creator could become the Redeemer by dying for His people, He had to take flesh.  He had to become incarnate.  He had to veil His glory yet again, coming to us with His glory hidden behind ordinary forms.  And so once again, the Word comes in the form of a tabernacle, a tent: His flesh.  And so what “a great and mighty wonder” it is, dear friends, that God should become human – and all in order to die.  This was an act of love to save us: the ultimate heroic action to drop into a combat zone surrounded by hostile enemy forces in order to carry out an impossible rescue mission.  And it would be impossible for anyone else other than God, the Word Made Flesh, dear friends.

For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  The word translated as “dwelt” literally means “tabernacled” or “tented.”  John is drawing a direct line from the Old Testament portable sanctuary in which was found the Presence of God, and the baby Jesus who grew up to be the Crucified One.  And of course, John connects Jesus to the Creation of the world.  He is the Word who created us, and the Word who tabernacles among us.  He is the Word that saves us.  He is the Word in whom we see God’s glory, even if it is veiled by earthly forms.  There will come a time when we will see Him in His full glory, dear friends.  But for now, we all live in frail and imperfect tents not made by human hands.

His true glory is not in His power and might, not in His creative brilliance, not in His dazzling appearance, but rather in His love.  Love caused Him to tabernacle among us.  Love caused Him to be laid in a manger.  Love caused Him to be nailed to a tree.  Love caused Him to be laid in a tomb.  Love caused Him to rise again for our justification.

And “when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us,” says St. Paul, “not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.”  This is His glory, dear friends, “glory as of the only Son from the Father.”  And He saves us, “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Jesus took flesh, was born, ministered, died as a sacrifice, rose again, and sent out apostles to baptize, to administer this “washing of regeneration” and to proclaim the Good News.  We have been baptized by the ordinariness of water combined with the supernatural power of words – words of the Word Made Flesh!  And so indeed, even as Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the wise men saw God’s glory veiled and tabernacled, we too see His glory veiled and tabernacled in Holy Baptism.

Our Lord also commanded the apostles to administer His tabernacled glory in another way.  Calling to mind His birth in Bethlehem, which means “House of Bread,” and remembering that when He was born, He was laid in a manger – a food box – Jesus took the Twelve aside, took bread and wine, and by the creative power of His Word, said, “This is My body” and “This cup is the New Testament in My blood.”  And it is so.  And Jesus commissioned them, “This do in remembrance  of Me.”

And so we also see His tabernacle glory under the veiled forms of bread and wine, dear friends. 

The first witnesses of the Word Made Flesh saw a baby.  But with the eyes of faith, they saw the Word of God tabernacled among us, fulfilling prophesies, our Christ and King: the one who rescues us by His love.

And today, dear friends, we see His glory, “glory as of the only Son from the Father” veiled in the Word of God proclaimed, and the Word tabernacled among us in Baptism and the Eucharist.  We have seen one greater than Moses, and we have seen a greater tabernacle than the people of ancient Israel. 

For “from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.  For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Merry Christmas, dear brothers and sisters!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.