“The Incarnation…”: Sermon Christmas Eve 2006
Pastor David Nicol
John 1:1-14
John gave us a rich accounting of him, not just as a baby born in a Middle Eastern barn 2,000 years ago, but as the Eternal Son, the Second person of the Trinity, Truly God. Year after year, century after century, in churches around the world, Christians have read and re-read these words at Christmas. At a time when we can be overwhelmed by materialism, we read these words to remind us that Christmas isn’t just about a Baby, even the most precious baby ever born, but about God’s embodiment, God’s becoming flesh – becoming material – so that our material existence could have the divine image restored to it. Christmas is the feast when we commemorate Jesus’ birth, but it is also the feast where we celebrate the Incarnation of the Word – the time when we remember the Word became Flesh.
Even the reminder that Christmas is the feast of the Incarnation isn’t enough. Incarnation is at the center of a process – the process of Creation. In an important way, today’s texts speak to us about Creation—as in Genesis God speaks creation into existence, through the Son, Jesus, the human being, the traveling rabbi, the man crucified like a common criminal by the Roman garrison in Jerusalem… He is God, the Creator of All Things, equal in all ways to the one he called Father, to whom he prayed, and to whom he taught his disciples to pray.
At Christmas, when images of the baby Jesus abound, John’s Gospel asks us to see Jesus as the Light of the world, “The true light, which enlightens everyone…” Listen carefully, these words bear repeating, because they speak to us about how this message could transform our lives: “He [Jesus, the Light] was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood [human lineage] or of the will of the flesh [our own broken and sinful desires] or of the will of man [because only God, not even the most righteous of human beings, can make children of God out of mere mortals], but of God.”
In this passage, John’s Gospel speaks to us about far more than the birth of an infant! In just 14 verses, John presents Jesus as the Word, spoken at creation, through which all things were made, the failure of the world to recognize its Creator, and Jesus’ gift of the power to become God’s children, through his incarnation, his embodiment. That power comes through Christ’s purification of our sins, as the passage in Hebrews makes more explicit… Sin is a difficult thing for many of us, especially at such a happy time as Christmas, but according to today’s lessons, the Incarnation is important precisely because it takes us as sinners, as people created by God but who have failed to recognize our Creator, and gives us power to become not just God’s people, but God’s children, by receiving God’s gift – the Word made Flesh.
John 1:1-14
John gave us a rich accounting of him, not just as a baby born in a Middle Eastern barn 2,000 years ago, but as the Eternal Son, the Second person of the Trinity, Truly God. Year after year, century after century, in churches around the world, Christians have read and re-read these words at Christmas. At a time when we can be overwhelmed by materialism, we read these words to remind us that Christmas isn’t just about a Baby, even the most precious baby ever born, but about God’s embodiment, God’s becoming flesh – becoming material – so that our material existence could have the divine image restored to it. Christmas is the feast when we commemorate Jesus’ birth, but it is also the feast where we celebrate the Incarnation of the Word – the time when we remember the Word became Flesh.
Even the reminder that Christmas is the feast of the Incarnation isn’t enough. Incarnation is at the center of a process – the process of Creation. In an important way, today’s texts speak to us about Creation—as in Genesis God speaks creation into existence, through the Son, Jesus, the human being, the traveling rabbi, the man crucified like a common criminal by the Roman garrison in Jerusalem… He is God, the Creator of All Things, equal in all ways to the one he called Father, to whom he prayed, and to whom he taught his disciples to pray.
At Christmas, when images of the baby Jesus abound, John’s Gospel asks us to see Jesus as the Light of the world, “The true light, which enlightens everyone…” Listen carefully, these words bear repeating, because they speak to us about how this message could transform our lives: “He [Jesus, the Light] was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood [human lineage] or of the will of the flesh [our own broken and sinful desires] or of the will of man [because only God, not even the most righteous of human beings, can make children of God out of mere mortals], but of God.”
In this passage, John’s Gospel speaks to us about far more than the birth of an infant! In just 14 verses, John presents Jesus as the Word, spoken at creation, through which all things were made, the failure of the world to recognize its Creator, and Jesus’ gift of the power to become God’s children, through his incarnation, his embodiment. That power comes through Christ’s purification of our sins, as the passage in Hebrews makes more explicit… Sin is a difficult thing for many of us, especially at such a happy time as Christmas, but according to today’s lessons, the Incarnation is important precisely because it takes us as sinners, as people created by God but who have failed to recognize our Creator, and gives us power to become not just God’s people, but God’s children, by receiving God’s gift – the Word made Flesh.
Labels: Christmas 2006, Christmas Eve, Sermons
posted by Rev. David Nicol at 8:00 PM
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