Christmas Day
Hebrews 1.1-12 + John 1.1-14
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In times past, God sent prophets to His people, men in whom the Holy Spirit dwelled, men whom the Holy Spirit inspired to preach and write the divine word God revealed to them. God also sent angels to His people to communicate His word to them. But the child whom we celebrate today is not a prophet, at least not in the sense that he is a regular man whom the Holy Spirit indwells. Nor is He an angel. The child born today is the eternal Son of God Himself. This is the point the author of Hebrews makes in the epistle. God speaks to us now, in these last days, not by prophet or angel, but by His Son. As God’s true Son, He is the heir of all things. He is the One through whom God the Father created all things, meaning that He Himself is not part of the creation, making Him a creature. He is God’s only begotten Son, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person. He to the God the Father as brightness it to the sun in the sky. He the exact image of God the Father, the only one who truly knows God the Father and reveals Him to those whom He wills. He is not an angel. The angels worship Him. He sits on the right hand of the Majesty on high. The angels are his ministers to serve Him. The One whose birth we celebrate is God’s true and only begotten Son.
John calls Him the Word who was with God in the beginning, by who all things were made, so that without Him nothing was made that was made. We see this in the opening verses of Genesis. How does God create the heavens and the earth? He speaks, and the Word He speaks brings into being the things that did not previously exist. We see this in Psalm 33:6 where David confesses, “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Not only was the Word the One by whom God the Father made all things, John says that in the Word was life, and the life was the light of men. The Word is the creator. He is the sustainer. The author of Hebrews and John the apostle, the author of the fourth gospel, are saying one and the same thing: God the Son, God the Word, who exists eternally and partook in the work of creating all things—this is the one who became flesh and dwelt among us.
Why? The author of Hebrews says, “God . . . has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.” He has come to speak God’s Word to us, to reveal God the Father’s grace and goodwill toward us. As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. All the teaching of God the Son, all His doctrine, has this aim in mind: that people might become children of God. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,” John says, “the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Word becomes flesh. He takes on our entire human existence—body, soul, spirit, mind, everything except sin—so that He might redeem humanity from the corruption of sin in this life and eternal death in the life of the world to come. He becomes flesh, a Son of Man, so that sons of men might become sons of God.
Father Adam was created as son of God. In Luke’s gospel, the evangelist traces Joseph’s genealogy to “Adam, son of God.” Adam was not a son of God in the same way the Word is. The Word was God by nature. Adam was “son of God” by adoption. God created him righteous and with knowledge of God and His will. But Adam lost this when he corrupted himself with sin. Even though God had given him everything he needed and made him in His own image and likeness, Adam chose to become a son of the devil instead, and with that choice, lost his sonship, his original righteousness, and his knowledge of God and God’s will. Adam even passed on his sin, his guilt, and his darkened spiritual understanding to his children. Moses says, “Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen 5.3). Adam was restored to his status as “Son of God” by faith in God’s promise to send the Seed of woman, the Messiah. By faith God began to renew Adam in righteousness and the knowledge of God. But that could only begin to be restored in this life. The completion would have to wait until the resurrection of the body on the Last Day, when the sinful flesh is no more. Yet Adam was restored, by faith in the promised Seed.
Just like you are, for that is the point of all Jesus’ teaching. As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Adam received Christ by faith when he believed the promise that the woman’s Seed would crush the serpent’s head. He looked forward to Christ the Lord. He hoped for it, along with the patriarchs, prophets, and the faithful of Israel. But you have heard that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. You do not look forward the promised redemption in the Seed of the woman. God has already accomplished that in the conception, birth, life, suffering, death, and resurrection of God the Son in human flesh. It is faith in Jesus’ teaching, which is all about His suffering and death, by which you are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
The Holy Spirit rebirths you through the gospel of Christ, as it comes into your ears and penetrates your hearts. The Holy Spirit rebirths you through the waters of Holy Baptism as well. By faith and baptism, God forgives your sins for Jesus’ sake. By faith and baptism, God counts you as perfectly righteous in His sight with the righteousness of His Son, Jesus. By faith and baptism, you are reborn as sons of God, who have the Holy Spirit so that you may begin to live and grow in righteousness and the true knowledge of God and His will. This rebirth is not your own doing. Not only is it not of blood, so that you are born into it. It is not of the will of the flesh nor the will of God. For the faith to believe in Christ, the faith that rebirths you as sons of God is the work of God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). This faith receives Jesus. This faith believes in His name—His teaching, His promises, and all His benefits. He accomplishes this in you in the same way He accomplished the creation—by His almighty power as the eternal Son of God.
And as sons, you are heirs. As God the Father appointed His only begotten Son heir of all things, so you, as children of God through faith and baptism, are heirs of all things that belong to God, sharing them with your elder brother in the flesh, Christ Jesus. You are an heir to eternal life. You are an heir to everlasting blessedness. You are an heir to what St. Peter calls “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4). As sons of God by faith and baptism, you even rule with Christ in the heavenly places, though we only have this by faith now in this life. Just as Christ—according to the flesh—had become so much better than the angels and obtained a more excellent name than they, so you receive a better name and inheritance than the angels, so that St. Paul can even ask the Corinthians, “Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” (1 Cor 6:3). All of this—and whatever else the Son has—we have now by faith and will have it by sight when He comes again in glory.
On this day we celebrate the birth of Christ, the birth of the eternal Son of God in human flesh. God the Father gives us, not a prophet, and not an angel. He gives us His only Begotten Son, in our nature, so that He might redeem our nature and exalt it to the highest heavens, not for Himself, but for our sake. He becomes flesh, a Son of Man, so that sons of men might become sons of God, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. For His birth in the flesh, we give God thanks and praise. For our new birth of water and the Spirit, for our adoption as sons of God, for being made heirs of all things with Christ and receiving His most excellent name, we give Him thanks and praise. Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds Christ Jesus. Amen.
