The Spoken Word - First Wednesday in Advent (Midweek 1) - December 6, 2023 - Text: Gen. 1-3; John 1:1-15

This year during the season of Advent through to New Year’s Eve our theme is “The Means of God’s Giving.” We will be answering the questions: “How does God give us the gifts He has to give? What are the means He uses? And what is the power behind the means God uses?” This year we will look at the power of God’s Word and how His Word is what gives power to the other means of grace. We will hear how God’s Word effects, that is how God’s Word actually does what it speaks. Today we begin with “The Spoken Word.”
 

In the beginning, the very beginning, Genesis one, we hear and see the power of God’s creating Word. In Genesis one we are told, “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light” (Gen. 1:3 ). Simply by speaking, “God said,” all things were brought into being. Indeed, in this very first book and first chapter of God’s Word we are witnesses of the power of God’s Word. And I do not necessarily believe it was that God said, “let there be,” but perhaps He simply said, “light.” As we hear the cliche, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” so indeed, God’s Word is mighty in creation.
 

In the beginning we are told that all was chaos, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:2a). In the beginning there was no time, there was no yesterday, or tomorrow, only the eternal present. Thus, in the beginning God began by creating and giving us time. He gave us time when He gave us light, night and day. “God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Gen. 1:5). You may have noticed that this light was not the Sun which was not created until day four. Yet, at this very moment God gives us time, a twenty-four hour day.
 

Very much like the temptation of Lucifer, to believe himself to be like God such that he rebelled against God, so too today, too many people think more highly of themselves, thinking they are smarter or mightier than God such that they elevate their own reason over God’s Word. In so elevating themselves they deny the Word of God and elevate human reason which truly amounts to idolatry, a belief in themselves and their own reasoning. Thus, we have such outlandish unprovable theories as “molecules to man evolution,” but I will not delve into that topic any more for today.
 

Later in Genesis chapter three after God had completed His creation, having created the man and the woman, the crown of His creation, and given them a perfect garden home, Lucifer, Satan, the light bearer, the one who rebelled and for which hell was created, the one who is the father of lies and hates everything that is of God and from God moved in to tempt Adam and Eve. His lie was that God was holding something back from Adam and Eve. He convinced them that God was holding back their knowledge of evil. Most assuredly they knew good as God had created them in perfection. Perhaps they were easy targets because they were naive and did not know what a lie was nor what was evil and so they did as Satan tempted and ate from the fruit in the middle of the Garden the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. That one sin brought God’s Condemning curse into the world. But it also brought God’s saving Promise.
 

From this one account, here so early in Genesis, we see that God’s Word is truth, including His warnings and threats. God’s gave Adam and Eve one rule, not to eat from the one tree. They failed. They believed the lies of Satan. They believe their own reason over God’s Word and their sin brought death. Oh, they did not die immediately, but they would most certainly die a physical death as we all will. But their sin also brought eternal death, or would have brought hell if God had not stepped in.
 

Notice how doubting, testing, and questioning God’s Word brought a curse. The curse was such that now man’s own ability to reason and think have been tainted. We no longer have perfect reasoning. Our reasoning is tainted by sin and the curse. Our thoughts are such that “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).
 

Thanks be to God that He immediately stepped in with His Word of promise. God promised that He would take care of the sin of Adam and Eve. He would send One who would be perfectly obedient, in other words, One who would live as He expected Adam and Eve to live. He would send One who would pay the price for their sin, that is One who would die the eternal death penalty of hell for them.
 

In our Gospel reading we hear God fulfill the promise He made to Adam and Eve and to all people. We hear and see God’s Word becoming flesh. Yes, what was spoken, what was written, the promise of a Savior was born in flesh. John tells us, “1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:1-5).
 

Notice how John tells us that Jesus is truly God as He was there in the beginning, in Genesis, with the Father and the Holy Spirit creating the world. Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness, that is He is forgiveness shining in the darkness of our sin-filled world. And the darkness, sin, death and the devil cannot overcome Him, they cannot and will not defeat Him. Interestingly enough, there are some translations that say “the darkness cannot comprehend it,” that is those sitting in the darkness of sin in our world cannot comprehend how God can love His sinful, corrupt people so much that He would die for them, but as we know, such is God’s love for us.
 

The four Gospels continually bear out the facts, the history of Jesus fulfilling all of God’s Word and promises. What Adam and Eve could not do, obey one command, what the whole nation of Israel could not do, obey Ten Commandments, what we cannot do, be obedient to God’s Word, Jesus came to do and did, perfectly. As true God Jesus was born in perfection. As true man Jesus was born to be our substitute, to live for us and He did. Jesus lived in perfect and complete obedience.
 

So, as John bears out, “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” (John 1:14). Jesus, the Word, the spoken promise, the written promise, is the Word in flesh, bring forgiveness, life and salvation.
 

What does this mean? As we begin this series concerning the means of God’s giving us the gifts He has to give I hope and pray that we will see how God’s Word is the power in all things. How does God give us the gifts He has to give? We believe, teach and confess, according to the Word of God that first and foremost God gives us His gifts through the very means of His Word. As God speaks it is done and given to us.
 

I pray we will see that God’s Word is the power in Holy Baptism. As water and God’s name are put on us by God using the hands of the pastor and the voice of the pastor, so we are given faith and forgiveness. Our names are written in the book of life and we have eternal salvation.
 

I pray that we will see God’s Word is the power in Holy Absolution. As we confess our sins each and every Sunday and as we hear God speak through the mouth of the pastor announcing that our sins are forgiven that we know and believe that is exactly what has happened, our sins have been forgiven.
 

I pray that we will see God’s Word is the power in the read and preached Word. As the pastor reads the Word and expounds on the Word from the pulpit in the sermon that we will know that was is said is what God gives and accomplishes. We are forgiven, our faith is strengthened, we are ready to go out into the world, the mission field and live lives as priests in the priesthood of all believers, living in our vocations always being ready to give an answer for the hope that we have in our faith in Jesus.
 

And I pray that we will see God’s Word is the power in His Holy Supper. As the pastor gives us the bread and the body of Jesus in our mouths and the wine and the blood of Jesus we will know for certain that we are partaking of Jesus’ body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins such that He actually becomes a physical part of us so that the angel of eternal death will pass over us.
 

So, once again, what a great God we have. What a loving God we have. What a gift giving God we have. What joy we have to know and understand, to believe, teach and confess the power of God’s Word and the means through which He gives us the gifts He has to give. What joy to know our sins are forgiven and that we have life and salvation in the Word made flesh, the Word in Holy Baptism, the Word in Holy Absolution and the Word in the Holy Supper. To God be the glory for Jesus’, the Word in flesh, sake. Amen.