The Word Made Flesh - Christmas Eve - December 24, 2023 - Text: John 1:14

This year during the season of Advent through to New Year’s Eve our theme is “The Means of God’s Giving.” Today we rejoice in God’s gift of His Word, made flesh, that is we rejoice in God’s spoken Word of creation and promise of a Messiah, Savior, God’s written Word and promise of a Messiah, Savior and God’s Word of promise begin born in the flesh in the person of Jesus.
 

As you have heard me say many times, God lives outside of time, in the eternal present. For God there is no yesterday nor is there a tomorrow, only the eternal present, the eternal now, which is why God is omniscient, all knowing. On the first day of creation God created time for us when He created the light and night and day, the first day. Because God lives in the eternal present and because He is omniscient He knew even before He began creating that Adam and Eve would sin and that He would have to live, suffer and die in order to pay the price for our sin and yet, because of His great love for us He created anyway. Indeed, no greater love can one have than they would lay down their life for another, which is what was promised in Eden, a Savior, Jesus.
 

Just as an aside, please do not mistake God’s omniscience, His foreknowledge, that is His knowing all even before it happens as if He predestines or predetermines all that will happen, including one’s eternal death in hell or salvation in heaven. To know something before it happens does not mean it is or has been predetermined.
 

In the beginning, in Genesis, we have the history, the account of  God creating a perfect world. We have the account of God creating a perfect man and from his side, from his rib God created a perfect woman. Finally, we have God creating a perfect garden, a place for the man and the woman to live. God also created two special trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And God gave the man and the woman one rule, to not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God told them that if they did disobey Him and eat of the fruit of the tree they would begin to die a physical death and ultimately, without a sinless substitute, a Savior, they would die and eternal death in hell.
 

Of course, we know the history, Eve and Adam, tempted by the devil, Satan, Lucifer, the father of lies, they ate from the fruit questioning God and believing the devil and so their eyes were open so that now instead of knowing only good they also knew evil. In their defense I would suggest that because they only knew good and did not know what a lie was and because of their naivety, they sinned and their sin brought God’s just judgement and a curse.
 

Thanks be to God that because He already knew what was going to happen He had a plan and so He immediately stepped in and promised a Savior, One who would do what Adam and Eve could not do, be perfectly obedient, and who would pay the price of eternal death for them.
 

As time moved forward, God continued to remember His promise. After God washed the world with a flood, as the population grew, God chose a man, Abram whose name He changed to Abraham and God promised Abraham that he would be the father of the Savior, that is through his family line, his DNA, the Savior promised some thousand years earlier, would be born. Of course, God did not mention it would be about another two thousand years before it would actually happen. God’s promise to Abraham, as we have heard earlier in this series, was an unconditional promise, just as His promise was to Adam and Eve, who had all nations of peoples in their DNA.
 

Moving on in time, God chose Moses and reiterated His promise of a Savior through Moses. However, part of God’s covenant with Moses had a conditional promise, that is Moses and Israel would be given a land flowing with milk and honey and they would keep that land as long as they would be faithful and obedient to God, which we know they were unable to do, so the land was forfeited. Yet, God’s unconditional promise of a Savior never wavered, indeed, God’s ultimate promise always pointed to Jesus.
 

Once again, moving forward in time and history. Finally, when all things were just right, or better said, at just the right time, that is according to God’s perfect timing. As the world and the powers of the world were in just the right place, God began fulfilling the promise He made in the Garden of Eden, the promise He reiterated to Abraham, the promise reiterated to the Children of Israel.
 

Today we begin our celebration, once again, of God’s fulfilling His promise of a Savior for all people, of all places of all times, indeed, a Savior for you and for me. I would refer you back to the title of our message for this morning and remind you that the very first promise of a Savior God made was an oral promise, a promise spoken to Adam and Eve. At the time of Moses God told Moses and even moved in Moses to write down the history of His people and the history of the promise He made beginning in Genesis. So, the oral promise brought forth the written promise. In our text John expresses these promises as the Word, that is that now that oral and written promise take on flesh and blood in the person, the human being of Jesus. Jesus is the Word, the promise of God, made flesh in order to fulfill that promise. As we confess in the creeds, Jesus is truly God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. He had to be truly God in order to be born in perfection, so that He could trade His perfection for our imperfection.
 

Also, as we confess in our creeds, Jesus is truly man, born of the Virgin Mary. And Jesus had to be a true human because the price for sin was set in the Garden of Eden. The price for sin was death, human death for human sin, blood had to be shed. All the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, all the sacrifices truly did not bring forgiveness but simply were a reminder that the price for sin was death and pointed to the one ultimate sacrifice, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” Jesus Himself. And so Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s first promise in Eden and God’s reiterated promise to Abraham and to Moses and all Israel.
 

What does this mean? This evening we are reminded once again that the reason Jesus was born, the reason we celebrate the birth of this Christ-child is because God’s perfection and command were broken in Eden which brought sin and a curse on the world, which brought death. Indeed, as difficult as it may seem, we always celebrate Christmas in the shadow of the cross.
 

However, not only were God’s perfection and commands broken in Eden so too were God’s promises and commands to His chosen people, the Children of Israel. Because of Israel’s disobedience they lost the conditional part of God’s promise of a land. Yet, God’s unconditional promise of a Savior through their family line was never negated. And even though Jesus was not a one hundred percent Hebrew as He had Moabites and prostitutes and other ethnicities in His family line.
 

So, today we celebrate that God sent His one and only son, Jesus, God in flesh, to do what Adam and Eve could not do, what Israel could not do, what we cannot do, live perfectly according to all God’s laws, demands and commands. As you have heard me say time and again, the fullness of the Gospel is not simply that Jesus died and rose, but that Jesus lived for us, in our place, as our substitute, doing what we cannot do.
 

Today we begin our celebration that Jesus is the Word, the Word spoken in Eden, the Word written by Moses, the Word born of Mary. Jesus is the Word made flesh who dwelt, tented, lived for a short time among us a time short enough, but long enough to complete what needed to be done for our forgiveness and salvation. A time short enough and long enough to accomplish what we could not accomplish. As you always hear me say, we get it right when we point to Jesus. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot be perfectly obedient. We cannot choose Jesus as our Savior. We cannot dedicate our lives to Him. Thanks be to God that He has saved us. He was perfectly obedient for us. He chose us. He dedicated His life to us. He does it all for us and give it all to us. Jesus gives faith, forgiveness, life, even eternal life and salvation.
 

Today we once again begin our Christmas celebration and remember, our celebration lasts for twelve day, the full twelve days of Christmas. Our celebration lasts until Epiphany, the visit of the Magi, the Wisemen to see Baby Jesus and what is often referred to as our Gentile Christmas. Let the celebration begin and to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.