A Sermon for Christmas Day
Isaiah 52:7–10 • Psalm 98 • Hebrews 1:1–4, (5–12) • John
1:1-14
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of the
messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news, who announces salvation,
who
says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
— Isaiah 52:7
God Entered the World Quietly
Well, today’s the day, the day we’ve been waiting for, the
day we’ve been preparing for, the day we’ve been anticipating, the day of our
Lord and Savior’s birth…. Well, not exactly. Because the birth happened last
night; it happened in the middle of the night while we were sleeping. We missed
it; the whole world missed it, save for a few shepherds who received an angelic
birth announcement.
You see, God entered the world quietly. God didn’t want the
world to know he had arrived. But not even God could keep a secret, not this
secret, not when it came to the birth of his only Son. God just had to tell
somebody. And look who he chose: some homeless guys who lived out of doors, who
worked at a job that nobody wanted, and who nobody was going to believe anyway.
And so, God’s little secret is safe, for the time being at least.
But why would God want to keep his arrival on earth a secret?...
Because God didn’t want to frighten us away. You see, something is wrong with
us; something inside of us is broken. And that something is something only God
can fix. But here’s the dilemma. That something which is broken in us also
makes us terrified of God, so terrified that God has a hard time getting close
enough to heal us with his gracious and loving presence.
Original Blessing
It all began a long time ago [in this galaxy], in Garden
far, far away. God created a man and a woman. He created them in his image; he
created them to be the bearers of his image, to be the creatures who would
reflect the glory of God in creation. In the beginning, this man and this woman
are one flesh. They are united to one another and to God. They are naked and
unashamed. This is the Original Blessing.
Original Shame
But then something goes wrong. Adam and Eve eat from the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree that God had warned them about
and something happens. In an instant, their eyes are opened wide, and they
become acutely aware of their own nakedness—their vulnerability, their
weakness, their dependence—and for the first time, they experience shame. They
are naked and ashamed, so much so that they cannot bear to be in one another’s
presence, for the presence of the other person simply serves to make them all
the more aware of their own nakedness. So they attempt to cover their shame,
but fig leaves can only do so much.
And it gets worse. In the afternoon, they hear the sound of
God in the Garden. They hear his approaching footsteps, and they hide
themselves. While their makeshift clothing provided enough coverage that they
could stand to be in one another’s presence, it couldn’t shield them from the
shame they felt in God’s presence. And so they, like we, hid themselves from
God. Something about the fruit of that tree had changed them. It rendered them
incapable of being comfortable in God’s presence. For Adam and Eve—and for all
of their unborn children—God’s presence was no longer a blessing, but a curse.
This is what we might call, Original Shame. And it is this
shame—a deep sense of our own vulnerability, a debilitating sense of our own
unworthiness—it is this shame that underlies all our human brokenness. It is
this original shame that lies at the root of all human sin and violence, all human
suffering and death.
God’s Dilemma
And there is but one remedy. Only God’s presence can heal us
of our sense of shame and alienation, but therein lies the rub. God cannot get
close enough to his children to heal them. When God appears, his children head
for cover. God’s presence holds the key to their deliverance, but God’s
presence is too much for them to bear. We see examples of this throughout Scripture;
and we might even know of such examples from our own lives.
So God is faced with a dilemma. How can he draw close enough
to his people, to heal them when his presence reminds them all the more of
their brokenness, when his love and grace triggers feelings of unworthiness? It’s
a dilemma any parent can appreciate. You who are parents, how often have you
gone to a son or daughter in order to love them, in order to forgive or comfort
them only to find that your presence intensifies their pain, their feelings of
embarrassment, guilt, or shame? They need you, yet your presence is too much
too bear. This is God’s dilemma.
The Mystery of the Incarnation
The Word Becomes Flesh
So how did God resolve this dilemma? By slipping into our
world in the dead of night under the cloak of humanity. Our reading from John
says it all: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14a). The Word,
who was with God in the beginning and who is very God of very God, this Word
became flesh. More precisely, this Word—through whom all creation came into
being—this eternal Word of God became a particular flesh-and-blood human being,
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary.
This is the great mystery of the Incarnation. In Jesus, or
better yet, as Jesus, God was able to draw close to humanity, close enough to
heal us of our shame and guilt, close enough to remove whatever we have placed
between ourselves and God. Had God appeared in all of his glory, humanity would
have scattered in fear. As it is, God appeared in the garb of humanity, which
made it possible for God to operate undetected in his creation, long enough at
least to set in motion the restoration of humanity.
The Word’s Flesh conceils and Reveals
But the mystery of the Incarnation is even greater, for the
flesh that allowed God to get close to us because it cloaked God’s glory, also revealed
God’s glory. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his
glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John
1:14). The flesh of Jesus served to both conceal and reveal God’s glory. But
how is that possible? God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. To
become a creature within his creation, God had to empty himself, God had to humble
himself. And yet, it is in God’s humility, in the humility of the incarnation,
that God’s glory is most fully revealed. When—in the person of his Son—God became
a flesh-and-blood human being, this was something new for God, something God
had never done before. Yet, in becoming a particular human being, God did not
do anything that was alien to God’s character; for God is by nature humble; God
is by nature self-emptying love. So the incarnation is an act of humility, but
this is precisely what makes it an act of revelation.
This Mystery of the Incarnation is critical for our
understanding of who God is and for the whole enterprise of human salvation. To
say that God emptied himself is not to say that God left some of his divinity
behind. God did not have to abandon any of his Godness to become human. When the
Word became Jesus, it did not cease being the Word. So with Jesus, we are not
getting some abridged or some watered-down version of God, we are getting God
in all of God’s fullness. So writes the author of Hebrews:
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being (Heb 1:1–3a).
I will say it again, with Jesus, we are not getting some truncated,
diluted version of God. Jesus is the full and final and decisive revelation of
who God is. In Jesus, we are getting God in all of God’s glory. Yet that glory
comes to us in a form that we fearful, shame-filled human beings are able to
bear. For in Jesus, in the Word-become-flesh, God has come close enough to heal
us with his gracious, loving presence. As St. John writes:
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known (John 1:16–18).
Happy Christmas
The Mystery of the Incarnation is the remedy to all that
ails us. In Jesus, God in all his glory has drawn close to us, and in Jesus,
God makes it possible for us to draw close to him without shame or fear.
Now I don’t know how successful you were this holiday season
in drawing close to God. This time of year, our world makes this very difficult
with all of its busyness, which is simply the world’s way of distracting itself
from the pain of the shame that it clings to. And unfortunately, even we
Christians can get caught up in it all.
But let me leave you with a word of encouragement. God knows
how hard it is for us. God lived as one of us. So God understands.
And let me say this as well. If in your busyness and
distractedness, you feel that you missed Christmas this year, I will let you in
on another little secret. You haven’t missed Christmas at all; you only missed
Advent. Christmas has just begun. Today is the first day of Christmas, and
there are Twelve more days of Christmas to come. Plenty of time to enter the
Mystery of the Incarnation.
So rejoice for today “breaks a new and glorious morn.”
Happy Christmas.
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