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Grace, mercy and peace be to you …
Merry Christmas to you! Today is the Day of the Lord, the Day of the Lord foretold for ages … and now come to pass!! And so we let the vaults of heaven resound with the joy we share at His coming!!
You may have noticed from our readings for today … that we have moved on… from those words describing Jesus’ birth in Luke’s Gospel … that account so often re-enacted in many a Christian church, no matter what the denomination.
We have in our Gospel today what’s called the prologue to John’s Gospel … an almost poetic summary of what John’s gospel is all about. And that’s summed up pretty well in both the First verse and in the last verse, verse18… as John pulls no punches …
This Gospel, he’s telling us, is all about the fact that this baby, Jesus, born in Bethlehem this day, is God. Period. We hear in verse 1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John then goes on to tell us that this Jesus, the Word, took on human flesh and dwelt among us.
And if you were to study John’s Gospel further, you’d see an affirmation of Jesus’ divinity… in every chapter.
But for today, we’ll just keep it simple and look at one verse from the prologue … the final verse, where we read again: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
The One who has made the Father known is called ”the only God.” … That title is rendered in other translations as “God, the One and Only” … However you want to say it … those titles are clear references to the Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus, the Christ.
Or, what we are hearing in this final verse … is John saying that the Babe of Bethlehem IS God the Son … and through Him … He has made known to us God the Father.
And so, then, what follows in John’s Gospel is a first-hand telling of the events of Jesus’ life that do exactly what John said Jesus came to do… and that is … to make God the Father known to us.
And so… maybe that may be different than what we may have thought … the words of John’s Gospel aren’t so much a look and see at who this Jesus is …as much as they are a look at Jesus… to see Who God the Father is!
Now… John does also tell us in this verse that no one has ever seen God. Well, some familiar with the Bible would argue that Moses saw God’s hinder parts as Moses hid in the cleft of a rock on Mt. Sinai …
And other Biblicists would argue that if someone “saw” Jesus, they would have also seen God … as John clearly attests that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, and so, God.
And so, then… we’d have to conclude from John’s own testimony that when he’s talking about “seeing God”… he’s thinking of something more than “just having laid eyes on him.”
Here’s the simple illustration. If any of you have seen my brother on the Antiques Roadshow … you could say, you have seen, you have laid eyes on my brother. And so, if he were to join us in worship some Sunday … you could say … I know who you are… you’re pastor’s brother.
But what John’s saying here is that none of us have seen God in such a that way we would know him.
Moses may have “seen” God’s hinder quarters … but from that, he gained no knowledge of who God really is.
Until Jesus came … no one really knew God, in the sense having seen or experienced Him in such a way that God would be known to him. That was Jesus’ mission … to make God known … which would result in the salvation of mankind.
That’s how profound these simple words in John’s prologue are. They are simple and yet they tell a timeless truth. TODAY is a Day of the Lord of most important significance:
God was coming into the world as one of us … so that as a human being … we could SEE who God truly is … and know Him as best we are able with our limited human minds.
And so …the question for us this morning is: What do we SEE? What do we SEE when we look at Jesus through the eyes of those who beheld His glory … the glory of the One and Only … full of grace and truth ??
What do we SEE when we look at Jesus… not as a moralist … not as a parable teller … not as a faith healer … not as an adversary to pharisaical tradition … not as a lover of the poor, the down trodden, and the broken of hearted … But question comes flying right at us:
Who do you say this babe of Bethlehem is? Is He all of that and more? Is He Your Savior?
Or is He just a historical figure of some note… A person who doesn’t make any real difference in what happens in my life day-to-day, other than the reason for setting aside this day as a holiday…?
John’s telling us this morning that Jesus came to move God out of the background into the foreground of our lives… To destroy the misconception that somehow God is just watching us from a distance … and making a list of who’s naughty and nice …
Jesus was born on this day to make the Father’s Love Known. To destroy the Devil’s deception that God is a God of Judgment, retribution, vengeance and punishment. None of that is true.
You see … Jesus being born this day was a Great day of the Lord. As was also the day Jesus died on the cross, that day of tears and sorrow which we call Good Friday. That indeed was Judgment Day.
It was on that day, Good Friday, that all God’s judgment, anger, and punishment for all your sins… all your sins you ever committed … as well as all those you ever will … were laid on Jesus Christ … and in His death … they were declared forgiven.
Yes, your sins … and not just yours and some other people’s … but all people’s sins present and future … went there. And were forgiven.
So … come the end of the world … or come that day that you move from this life to the next, if that comes first … there will be no reading of your past indiscretions. All of them were buried at the foot of Jesus’ Cross … even long before you were born.
The question will be on that day … what is your relationship with God? … the God who has forgiven you all yours sins … without you even asking??
Do you have a relationship with Him based on faith and trust in the One who came to make God and His love and mercy and grace known to you? Or not?
That’s the pivotal question. It’s not really an intellectual question, like, say, knowing the capitol of West Virginia. It’s a question about who has been center-stage in your heart …the God who has made peace with you in Jesus … or something … or someone else?
That’s the judgment, if you will. Are you a child of God … or are you not? It’s God’s most fervent desire that you be His. But, He will never force you to that end. Your Love must be freely given … or it’s not love.
Truth is: God loves you … all He seeks is your love in return. Not that you clean up your act first … that you bury all your skeletons … not that you make up a full-page of good intentions …
No… just that you acknowledge your need for His mercy … And as you do … it’s yours… and in that gift of Grace, He… then… makes you His. End of Story. You let go … He takes over.
… God moves from the background into the foreground of your life. He’s now a part of all that happens for then on. He lives daily in you… and you in Him.
Life is different. You look at life differently. It’s like Christmas has come and set up residence in your heart.
No, the struggles of life don’t go away … but the guilt of your failures no longer holds sway over you … When you truly know God’s Forgiveness… you then know that Peace of which the Herald Angels sang … because now … you “know” Jesus … and in Him you See God.
Today … that Love of God be the hallmark of this Christmas for you … as you live “all for Jesus…”
In Him … Amen.
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