Christmas Day 2025 Sermon

Christmas Day  2025

John 1  “The Word became flesh.”

Ever since the Fall of mankind into sin, that is, virtually from the very beginning of the world, there was never a time when God did not plan that He would become man and dwell among us. [Indeed, the plan goes back before the foundation of the world.] God did not create the universe to exist apart from Him. The Word would become flesh and dwell among mankind. Scant involvement by God is recorded in Genesis during the first 2000 years after His promise that the woman’s Seed would crush Satan’s head. Man raged against God in rebellion and lawlessness until God called upon Noah to build an ark of salvation to save His faithful people from the destruction He would send upon the world. Despite Noah’s preaching and God’s call through him for the world to repent, immersed in sinful pleasures of sexual immorality and drunkenness, in selfishness, hatred and pride the world chose death and darkness rather than life and light. Yet even in that darkest hour God still planned that His Word would become flesh and save this world of sinners.

God became intimately involved with mankind in the call of Abraham, that over the next 2000 years His name might be known on earth and not forgotten, and the nations would be saved from eternal destruction through faith in God whose promise to send the Savior as Abraham’s Seed would finally be realized. The wickedness of God’s chosen people and their nearly constant rebellion against Him and the bearers of His Word to them, even as He showered His goodness upon them and protected them from all their enemies, did not deter God from keeping His Promise. Nothing could keep Him from sending His only-begotten Son into the world to save His creation. Therefore, despite having to visit Israel with His wrath and having put His people under foreign kings for over four hundred years, at the proper time God’s Word would become flesh. And so it came to pass under Caesar Augustus. The time was full when Cyrenius was governing Syria. For God had sent His angel to a virgin in Nazareth named Mary and the Holy Spirit came upon her and she was with Child. The Word was made flesh and God’s Son grew in her womb until she gave birth to the Christ Child in Bethlehem, as God had prophesied.

The Word became flesh so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” The knowledge of God made known to Adam and Eve in the Garden, passed on to Noah, revealed to Abraham and to Israel through all the prophets, was brought to man from heaven in the Person and teaching of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. “Hear Him,” God warned the Israelites through Moses. “Hear Him,” God declared to Peter, James and John at the Transfiguration. Jesus declared to His disciples His suffering and death for the sins of the people, and His resurrection on the third day. When Jesus had accomplished the world’s redemption by His death on the cross, our risen Lord sent forth the Twelve and Paul to preach publicly and to record in holy Scriptures the way of salvation through faith in Jesus to all the world.

Error is the result of all knowledge of God that does not “begin from below, from the Word and from the history of the Incarnate and Crucified One. Begin from below, from the Incarnate Son [of God, yes, from the Manger] . . . Christ will bring you to the hidden God.” (Luther WA, Logia, Epiphany '97, p. 9.)   Embrace Jesus Christ in the lowliness of His birth and death. Wrapped in His forgiveness, He will hold you in the embrace of His glory.

We do not construct our own ladder of ascent to God; rather, the humanity of Jesus Christ is the ladder by which we ascend to the knowledge of God and into His presence.

Luke 2:3-7  “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

This is the record of the Word made flesh. In those words is the true knowledge of God, for they declare: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men."  

Glory to God by the manifestation of God's love in the sending of His only-begotten Son. Peace on earth--by the birth of the Holy One, God's Son, of the Virgin Mary, in human flesh. The good will of God flows over mankind in the Gospel of Christmas.

Glory--by the free gift of forgiveness--Jesus is full of grace and truth. Peace--by the bestowal of life. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." Jesus' presence among us chases away the darkness of sin and death. For death lurks in man's sin. Oh, to be free of sin. But how sin clings to us. "Sin hates to be exposed. It often goes to work only when nobody is looking. It then conceals itself in the shadows of lies and half-truths. It attempts to burrow into the depths of the soul by whatever means possible, hoping--and even praying--that time will pass, that it won't go any further, that no one will notice, that it won't be exposed." (Brondos)

You who want to be rid of your sin; you who want to be rid of it in the worst way: pour out your sin. You who want to be freed from the stinking "body of death" which is our sinful flesh, be made alive through faith in the forgiveness of sins, accomplished and proclaimed by the Word made flesh.

Let the words of St. John and St. Luke comfort your hearts. The Christ-Child comes to take away sins. He comes to offer Himself as a Lamb for slaughter, to cleanse us by His blood, to cleanse us from our sins. SDG