December 25, 2011
Dear friends in Christ.
Did you know that there is a website on the internet
called “Whois.com”? Whois.com. It’s a very simple website where you can
enter a web address and find out who is the owner of that site. Now I realize that not all of our members are
necessarily surfing the internet on a regular basis, and for many of you this
information is particularly useless. But
for internet users this website is like the phone number 411 when you want to
find out who the owner of a website is.
For in the same way that you can dial 411 and find out the phone number
of the person you are trying to call, so also you can find out who is the owner
of a particular web address. Well, this
morning, as we have gathered in worship, we have come not to find phone numbers,
addresses or website owners. Instead, we
have come to find out who this Jesus truly is.
We have to find out everything we can about that baby born in Bethlehem
so many years ago. We have come to
answer that burning question, “Who is this Jesus anyway?”
So, who is this Jesus anyway? Do you know?
I’m sure that you do. After all,
many of you were here last night to hear the children and join with them in
reciting those beautiful passages that speak about Jesus’ birth. In fact, when it comes to the Christmas story
in Luke 2, I wouldn’t be surprised if most, if not all of you could still
recite it in its entirety, simply because you learned it as a little
child. In fact, it is because of things
like this that we know exactly who Jesus is!
We know that he is our True God, the only begotten Son of the Father,
begotten before all worlds, as we used to confess in the Nicene Creed. In fact, this is the very truth that Jon
conveys to us in the first two verses of our lesson this morning. He writes, “In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning,” (John 1:1-2).
Now, when John sat down to write the words we have
before us, there were many people who were beginning to subscribe to the
religion of Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a
religion where knowledge was prized over faith.
It was a religion where people spoke about Jesus in glowing Christian
terms, but they did not believe in Jesus as the Savior of the world because
they had their own knowledge that told them that Jesus was nothing more than a
man. They believed that Jesus was
nothing more than a man who had a very powerful religious experience when he
was baptized in the River Jordan because the “Christ Consciousness” descended
upon him. Though this “Christ
Consciousness” was supposed to give Jesus a spark of the divine, as the Gnostic
knowledge religion taught, Jesus was nothing more than a great teacher who
taught a moral way of life. At best he
might have been thought of as “a son of God”, but according to their teaching, when
Jesus died he was just a man. According
to the teaching of Gnosticism, Jesus died as a man because the “Christ
Consciousness” had fled from before his death on the cross. So, accordingly when Jesus died, he was
nothing more than a martyr.
Does this sound familiar? It should.
These are the same attitudes that are currently being broadcast on the
History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and many
other channels like this. These are the
very same attitudes that are regularly proclaimed groups like the Jehovah’s
Witnesses. For if you ask a Jehovah’s
Witness about Jesus, you will most likely receive an answer telling you that
Jesus was at best a son of God, rather than speaking of him as the Son of God
the Savior of the world. You will even
find ideals like this coming from those who belong to the Mormon Church. Though
they will proudly proclaim that they believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God the
Father, what you learn later is that the point of Jesus’ life was not to forgive
sins, but to teach us how to become gods by our own actions.
Though these are but a few ways that others view
Jesus today, we know who Jesus is! We
know, confess and believe that when Jesus came to the earth as a little baby,
he was then, as he had always been, our True God. This is the very fact that John puts forth in
the opening 2 verses of chapter 14. He
writes: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. He was with God in the beginning,” (John 1:1-2).
With these words, John gives us great comfort and
assurance. For with these words, John is
assuring us that Jesus is and always has been our True God. Jesus is the Word who was with God in the
beginning. In fact, it was because of
all the false teaching that John began his gospel with the words, “In the
beginning.” Rather than starting with
Jesus birth, John began his gospel all the way back in eternity to demonstrate
that Jesus who was born on the earth to be the Savior was first and foremost
our true God from eternity. Though as
John tells us, the Word became flesh, we know, believe, and confess that there
has never been a time that Jesus has not existed! In short, Jesus is our True God from the
beginning of time, and yet, while he is our true God, begotten of the father
from eternity, we also know, believe and confess that Jesus is not only our
true God, but he is also our Lord incarnate, the Word who became flesh, true
God and yet at the very same time, True Man.
Just as we confess each week in the Creed! Every week, as we stand before the Lord in
worship, we confess our faith that Jesus Christ our Savior is both true God and
yet true man. We confess that he is the
Lord incarnate who was born of the virgin Mary just as the prophets foretold
that he would be. We gathered last night
to hear that very message proclaimed to us from the lips of our own children,
and we who have gathered here today will hear that truth proclaimed to us one
more time by the prophet John! For John
writes in our text: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We
have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father,
full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14a).
With these words, John reminds us of the very thing
we already know, believe, and confess.
He is reminding us that it was the Lord Jesus who took on human flesh
and blood, humbling himself to be conceived by the Holy Spirit, and then go
through all the hardship of being born in the normal way. He was born just as every other child on
earth has ever been born, yet he had no human father, and he was with out
sin. But even though the Lord Jesus was
missing these two components common to every other person on the earth, by his
conception and birth, the Lord Jesus became a true flesh and blood human being
just like you or me. He took on our
human flesh so that he could be born under the authority of the law just as
each and every one of us is. He was born
without sin so that he might fulfill every aspect of God’s Holy Law which we
could not do. He was born as a human
being so that he might be tempted in every way, just as we are, yet resist
every single temptation and remain sinless in God’s sight. He became a man so that he could be the Lamb
of God who was to be sacrificed on the cross for our sins. He became a man so that as he was whipped and
beaten, as the crown of thorns was forced on his head and the nails were driven
through his hands and feet his blood would be shed to pay the price of our
sins. For just as the Lord demanded the
sacrifice of a lamb each year on the Day of Atonement, Jesus was the Lamb of
atonement; just as that lamb was to be slaughtered and its blood tossed against
the altar, Jesus was slaughtered and his blood spilled against the altar of the
cross to appease God’s anger.
This was the glory of Jesus’ sacrifice for us! His divinity made his sacrifice acceptable to
God on our behalf, and his humanity caused that sacrifice to be applied to
us. This is the glory of Jesus Christ
our Savior, who is true God and true man.
We have seen that glory! The
glory of the One and Only who made his dwelling among us. We saw his glory on
the night the angels visited the shepherds in the hills of Judea. We saw his glory when the Wise Men came and
worshiped him. We saw his glory as he
preached the Gospel to his people in Israel, healed the sick, and raised the
dead. We saw his glory when he went to
the cross to pay for our sins. We saw
his glory Easter morning when the cry rang out, “he is risen!” And we will see
his glory again when he returns on the last day. But until then, we live in the glory and
splendor of our risen and living Lord Jesus Christ each time we read and study
his Word.
What a comfort John’s words are for us today! For with them he has reminded exactly who
Jesus is. We didn’t need a special
website or a special phone number to find out the information we needed. Instead, we learned it from the Lord our God
who proclaimed it to us through his servant John! For today, we have been reminded that this Jesus
is our God from eternity who took on human flesh and blood to save us from our
sins. He is the one whose glory we have
seen, revealed to us in that baby born in Bethlehem. This is who Jesus is, our Lord, our Savior,
true God and yet True Man, the Lord our Salvation.
Amen.
Pastor
David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
