Christmas Day

​Rev. Shemwell
John 1:1-18
12/25/23

Homily for Christmas Day

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him
nothing was made that was made. 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
Word was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not
know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as
received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who
believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and
truth. And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was
given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen
God at any time. The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has
declared Him.”
Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, our salvation
begins right here, this very morning, with the Word made flesh. Salvation was won a
cross, true enough. But it was begun in a lowly manger. The power of the saving cross
depends entirely on the Incarnation of our God on this day; and so this morning we
celebrate just that, the Nativity of the Creator Himself: the fact that the Almighty has
taken on the flesh to save us from sin, death, and the devil.

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This day is our greatest joy and hope, it is a remembrance of that occasion long ago at
Bethlehem when eternity itself pierced through time, when heaven broke through to
earth, when a wee Child was born of a woman, but a Child through Whom that very
woman herself was once made. The God through Whom all things were created,
including Mother Mary herself, a God of infinite and immeasurable power and might,
made his home in the womb of that teenaged girl. It is a profound mystery, friends,
which transcends space and time and logic. An apparent impossibility even. That goes
without saying. But this feast of Christ’s exceptionally mysterious Nativity is
simultaneously the commemoration of our fortunate redemption, the redemption of
our bodies from the curse of sin and our souls from the curse of the law. The labor
pains of the mother of God were a signal, you see, a signpost pointing far forward to
that future day when all pain will be undone forever, when sin and its consequence
will be eternally nullified.
The infant Who filled little Mary’s womb that night, the Holy Child born of
Bethlehem Ephrathah, Who was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger,
this child was the Incarnate Word, that Word Who was once with God in the
beginning, and indeed Who was God and is God. The divine Son Who has no
beginning nor end was passed through the birth canal of a young Jewish woman,
through the body of one of His own creations. And in that newborn Child once dwelt
all the fullness of God – and so it pleased Him to dwell, as St. Paul tells us. Our Lord,
the true God, He did not come in tremendous glory. He did not descend to earth in
splendor, in pomp and circumstance, with many trumpets, a marvelous ensemble of
brass, and the whole host of angels at His side.

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Instead, He came to us, He took up our humble flesh, by way of a peasant virgin’s
womb. He came down from heaven, from a place likewise without beginning or end, a
place of all beauty and peace and rest, and He voluntary entered into space and time,
with all its trouble and heartache, and rested in the belly of an unknown maiden. He
came in complete and utter lowliness, in near nothingness, for our undeserved sake.
The God Who rules the entire universe, Who reigns over both heaven and
earth, found Himself vulnerable for a time, willingly exposed in His mother’s arms.
The God Who sustains all things, Who cares for all things, for a while depended on
His cherished momma for the basic need of food, for sustenance, for the invitation of
a warm comforting breast and the sweetness of milk. The God of all things left His
mother’s nipples cracked and bleeding, His tummy desperate for earthly nourishment.
The God Who defeated the enemies of His people and safeguarded His chosen for
thousands of years needed an earthly father to watch over Him for a number of years,
to defend and guide Him, to show Him how to be a man. The Lord of all things above
and below was made lower than the angels for a little while. And yet, through this
lowering, through this humbling and humiliation and stooping down on His most
merciful and clement part, the Lord of Hosts has saved the flesh from itself, indeed He
has even esteemed, elevated, and exalted it, made it worthy of being sanctified and
one day eternalized.
As Jesus once promised, the heavens above and earth below will someday pass
away. However, He will never pass away, the Word made flesh will never pass away;
what was wrought by His incarnation, His birth, His life, His ministry, His passion,
death, and resurrection, these things will never pass away.

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All Who believe in Him shall not perish but will inherit eternal life. That is the
unbreakable promise. Christ, the Son of God, the Incarnate Lord, He came to His own
people, yet they did not receive Him. The Light shone in the darkness, but the
foolishness of darkness did not comprehend it. The God of all grace and perfection
was rejected and repudiated by this fallen and sinful world. And frankly, all this was
foreshadowed that night long, long ago when there was no room for mother and child,
for the Light Himself, in that country inn. There was no room for God in the rural inn,
and to this day, in the hearts of many wayward men and women, there is still
regrettably so little room.
Nevertheless, for the chosen, for those given the free gift of grace and faith, for
the baptized, the Light is now partly visible. The Holy Spirit has given us, the
spiritually blind, eyes to see, we are given to behold the truth of the life-giving Light.
God became flesh, He was betrayed, imprisoned, assaulted and scourged, His flesh
was flagellated, ravaged and ripped from His sinless and devastated body, His passion
was so incredibly acute, He was ridiculed and stripped naked and nailed to a tree of
torment. He was left to die. His flesh was left to waste away. He bled out for us, so
that by His blood we might be saved. And His sacrifice, His cross, that holy cross, the
crucifixion and burial, all this was necessary, the Lamb of God was to be slain from
the foundation of the world, as St. John writes in his Revelation. All this was
guaranteed from Eden, from Genesis 3:15 on, that the seed of woman would someday
crush the head of the serpent. And so He did, for us, He defeated sin and the devil, He
bound Satan and emasculated his minions and conquered death itself. Death has no
more sting; the grave has been robbed of its victory.

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And all this was done, promised and delivered, forever fulfilled, so that we poor
sinners might be given the right to become children of God. But it all began way
before that in a manger, with a baby boy. The cross was always that child’s fate, His
divine destiny. Its gruesome shadow always hung over His short life. And thanks be to
God, that God became a boy and then a man and then an atoning sacrifice hanging
helpless under heaven for our eternal benefit.
The child born of Mary was miraculously conceived, as we know and confess,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, and was born of a virgin uterus. The God through
Whom all things in the beginning were made was Himself made man, was given
human form and definition. And through His life, death, and resurrection, and by the
power of His Spirit, that same Spirit Who once hovered with Him over the face of the
deep at the dawn of creation and time, through that same Spirit, God now works for
you a miraculous birth, a rebirth through water and the Word. In your Holy Baptism,
you have already arisen to new life, beloved. God condescended to be born below all
so that through Him you might be exalted and born again from above. That is your
baptism, your miraculous birth, the forgiveness to which you return again and again
through the Holy Absolution spoken week by week in this consecrated place. You
weren’t once baptized, dear faithful, but rather you remain baptized, you are
baptized—present tense!—and forever will be, thanks to that blessed boy of
Bethlehem and His shameful cross three decades on.

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All this is a mystery, of course, dear faithful. How could God be man? How
could the God of all vigor and authority be a tiny creature wrapped in swaddling
clothes, the first century equivalent of a diaper? How could the invisible God be seen
and felt in pale skin? Well, it is simply a mystery. That’s all there is to it. But it is a
mystery we cling to eagerly, a foundational mystery of the faith. Salvation was won
on a cross, but it was begun in a manger. And that is the glorious mystery we observe
this morning. Today we cheerfully celebrate Christmas, but we furthermore celebrate
Christ’s Mass, which is what the word Christmas means, by the way. God once came
to us in body and blood at Bethlehem as a boy. But He comes to us again, even here
and now, from this altar, as a man. The God of the Universe condescends to the
current manger of this here sacred altar, into the unadorned form of bread and wine, a
tiny grainy host and a sip of the fruit of the vine. But such is our God: mysterious,
profound, and a God Who is pleased to be glorified in the seemingly contemptible, in
littleness and meekness. Through this heavenly meal, this Christ’s Mass here, we are
fed for life everlasting. The Light continues to shine through this bountiful Supper, to
bear us up for the coming church year, through all the darkness of this present life, to
forgive us our sins and to solidify us in the one true faith until we die or until our Lord
incarnate returns again.

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So rejoice, brothers and sisters. Your God is here. Receive Him, this day, as a
baby boy laid in a manger, as the Incarnate Son crucified for your sins, as the
resurrected and ascended One, and as the One Who comes to you perpetually to
bolster your faith in Holy Communion until the end of time. And someday soon, He
will be back, in the flesh once more, to take you to where He now is, to take you home
to His Father’s house in paradise. What good news this is to hear on a cold Monday in
December. Unto us a Child is born this day, a Son is given. And through Him we are
granted eternal salvation and all peace and joy here on earth. Merry Christmas, dear
flock. In the most holy name of our blessed Savior and King. Amen.