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25 Dec 2023
Text: John 1:1-18
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
The four Gospels introduce us to Jesus. But only two of them include Christmas: Matthew and Luke. Mark makes no mention of Christmas, and begins his biography of Jesus at His baptism. John makes no mention of Christmas and begins His biography with the creation. It might seem odd that the church fathers decided that on Christmas Day, we would read the beginning of John’s Gospel, without the narrative of our Lord’s birth.
But St. John – who was part of our Lord’s inner circle in His earthly ministry, and appears to be His closest friend – wants you, dear friend, to know who Jesus is. We all need to know who Jesus is. The world needs to know who Jesus is.
For even unbelievers want to claim Jesus as their own. They want Jesus to approve of their politics and lifestyles. They desperately want a Jesus who rejects Christians. They want a safe Jesus, meaning a Jesus who has been dead for two thousand years. They want a Jesus that they can put words into His mouth. They want a Jesus that only reflects the parts of the Bible that that they like, but a Jesus whom they can reject when He says inconvenient and hard things that they don’t like. They want a philosopher Jesus, a nice-guy Jesus, a hippy Jesus, an accepting Jesus. They want a Jesus who is their sock puppet, and their weapon to use against the church (the same church that is Jesus’ beloved bride).
And this is nothing new, dear friends. This is why we read John at Christmas, and the world reads “Rudolph” and “Frosty.” This is why, at the end of the first century AD, John began His Gospel not with a pregnant Mary, but rather with a yet-to-be created universe. John wants you to know that Jesus is more than a baby in a manger who grew up to be great; John wants you to know, right off the bat, in the beginning of his Gospel, that Jesus is God.
And that, dear friends, is the wonder and the miracle of Christmas: not a cartoon about a talking snowman, not a Santa on 34th Street, but rather the historical reality of the birth of God in human form. The first thing that John wants you to know about Jesus is that He was “in the beginning” at creation, and that He is the “Word.” The Greek word used here for “Word” is the word “Logos.” It means that before the universe was created, there was a Logos: an already-existing intelligence. “Logos” is where we get the word “logic.” The universe was already planned by Jesus before anything existed. It didn’t happen by accident.
The very first thing that the apostle John wants you to know about His best friend Jesus is that the universe is not an accident – which means that you are not an accident. The first thing that John wants you to know about Jesus is that Charles Darwin was wrong. There are some Christians who insist that all of the rules of logic be followed, and so, for example, they reject our Lord’s presence in the Lord’s Supper – since, as they say, “the finite cannot contain the infinite.” Or to put it more simply, God cannot be contained in a wafer. That is normally true. Just like it is normally true that God cannot be contained in the little town of Bethlehem (which means “House of Bread”). It is normally true that God cannot be contained in a manger (which means “Food trough”). It is normally true that God cannot be contained in the body of a newborn (whose name “Jesus” means “God Saves,” and whose nickname “Immanuel” means “God With Us.”).
But there is both nothing normal about Jesus, and there is everything normal about Jesus. Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the wise men saw a baby boy. The prophets and John the Baptist saw a King. Pontius Pilate saw an innocent man rejected by His own people (who did not receive Him), a prisoner who would not cooperate with the judge who wanted to halt His execution. The apostles, including John, saw a miracle-working God-man who died on a cross and rose again. Through the lens of the Gospels and the rest of the books of the New Testament, we see the finite containing the infinite. We see a God who is the Logos, who is not bound to the rules of logic that He Himself established. We see God contained in the flesh of the man Jesus, and yes, contained in a wafer of bread and a sip of wine that He Himself declares to be His flesh and blood. Jesus is the almighty Logos, and He is not limited to anything safe or reasonable or politically acceptable. He is the King of everyone – including the unbelievers. John wants you to know that this baby we celebrate at Christmas is God Almighty.
For John not only saw Jesus fishing and teaching and eating and weeping and hungry and thirsty and cold and tired, he also saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain in His full, frightening, divine glory, beaming with uncreated, radiant light. That’s why John says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Every generation has its own darkness, dear friends. Mary and Joseph lived in dark times of the political oppression of the unbelievers, and their own nation and religious leaders being corrupt hypocrites. Adam and Eve lived in the darkness of being deceived by the devil and left in the darkness of the shadow of death. Noah lived in a world so overcome by darkness that God destroyed it all except for eight people. The prophets lived in such darkness that God had to speak through a handful of men who were usually abused and killed for speaking the Word. And even after Jesus established His church, we see the church lapse into disbelief and error, again and again: corrupted by wealth and led around by the nose by the forces of this world’s darkness. And yet, through it all, there is a Light that the darkness simply cannot overcome. There is the Word. There is His promise to be with us to the end of the world. There is His body and blood and the preaching of the Word that delivers the Word. There is His Word that you are baptized and forgiven by the power of the triune God Himself.
For as John teaches us – which is His only hint at Christmas: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This miracle, this most illogical happening that we call the Incarnation, is why the ministers kneel in the creed at the point where we confess: “And was made man.” It is appropriate for you to kneel or bow as well, dear friends, when you say those words: “And was made man.” All of the heavens and the earth kneel before King Jesus at His Incarnation. “And was made man.” It is appropriate for all of creation to worship the man Jesus, for as John wants you to know, this man is unlike any other man who has ever lived. For He is the Word who was there at the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
This baby in the manger is God almighty. He is here on earth with us for a reason: to die as a man in order to bear the justice that we deserve for our sins. Jesus has come on a mission of love to those who receive Him. For “to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
But He is also here on a mission of wrath against His enemies, against those who hate us. And all of humanity is one or the other, dear friends. If Jesus is your King, if you believe that He is the Word Made Flesh who has come to redeem you, then He is your Savior: your King who rescues you. So repent of your sins, and come to where your King is every chance you get. Read about Him in His Word. Listen to His Word read and preached in the church that He promises to be with. Eat His body and drink His blood, and enjoy a mini Christmas every week of your life as you are able. For “from His fullness, we have received grace upon grace.”
Merry Christmas! Christ is King!
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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