Download Pastor Dan Walters The Nativity of Our Lord Preached: 12/25/07 at

Pastor Dan Walters
The Nativity of Our Lord
Preached: 12/25/07 at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Springville, NY
Text: John 1:14
Veiled in Flesh the Godhead See!
Do you think he looked any different? Did Jesus look different from any other newborn baby? In the
quiet morning of that first Christmas day, Mary and Joseph probably spent most of their time looking,
staring at that child, as most new parents do. As exhausted as Mary was from just giving birth, as tired
as they both were from their long trip to Bethlehem and the drama of finding a place to stay, I think that
Mary and Joseph still found the time that morning to look at that new baby sleeping in a manger.
But did he look any different, this baby – this baby whose birth had been foretold for centuries, whose
name had been given to him by an angel – did he look strikingly different than any other baby? I don’t
think so. He certainly didn’t look like he later would at his transfiguration, crowned with shining glory.
He didn’t look like he would at his crucifixion, crowned with bloody thorns. He probably didn’t even
have the little halo that you see in all the Christmas paintings. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us
to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. No, he had nothing to make him stand out
from any other baby boy.
But looks can be deceiving. Because even though this baby was just that – a baby boy, a true human
being in every way – he was also much more. You see, Joseph, who undoubtedly looked so lovingly at
this child that morning, was not really the boy’s father, not biologically anyway. This boy was different.
Even though he was newly born, his origins were from of old, from ancient times. The hymn we just
sang puts it so beautifully: veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Yes he was a newborn baby boy, but he was
also, is also, the eternal God. What a gift! This child, Jesus, was the first and best Christmas gift ever.
And he didn’t come wrapped in paper that gets torn off and thrown away. He came wrapped in flesh;
he came as a true human being. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see! God had come for his people.
But why? Why would God do that? Why would the creator of all things decide to become one of his
own creations and enter the world he created? Why would he give us such a gift? To help us answer
those questions, we look at verse 14 of the first chapter of John’s Gospel: 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.
The gospel of John uses such simple language. John doesn’t use words that in themselves are hard to
understand, but when he puts his words together the meaning we get is beyond all human
understanding. John doesn’t tell the story of Jesus’ birth in the usual way, with the stable and the
manger and the inn. No, John tells us about the birth of Jesus Christ in a simpler, more profound way:
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
But what does he mean by calling Jesus “the Word”? Usually we think of a word as a few sounds put
together or a few letters on a page, not as a person. But this isn’t an ordinary word. At the beginning of
this book John told us that the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning. John uses the word “Word” to teach us about the Trinity. He’s teaching us that all three
persons in the one God, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, had always existed from the very beginning in time.
But John also used that word “Word” to show us the special purpose and mission that the second
Person in the Trinity has. After all, people use words to communicate, to get their message across, to
tell other people what they want them to know. God uses words in the same way. By his words, “let
there be light” he created light, and he used his words to create everything else in creation. He
communicated his will, and because he is God, his will came into being. And God also gives us his words
in his Word, in the Bible. He communicates with us and tells us the things that he wants us to know
about him through the pages of Scripture.
And in a similar way, God has communicated with us through the Word, the second Person of the
Trinity, Jesus Christ. God communicated to us through Jesus not with spoken words or with words
printed on a page, but by himself becoming a human being. The Word became flesh. Jesus, who had
existed for all time and eternity, became flesh, became a human being, by becoming a baby in Mary’s
womb who was born and laid in a manger.
And he didn’t just become a human being because it sounded fun or to prove that he could do it. No,
the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Jesus, the Word, actually came to live among
us as a human being. He lived with us as one of us. He was one of us, a true human being as well as
being true God.
But even as a true human being his life had one very important difference with ours. Jesus lived with no
sin. He lived every day of his earthly life, from the day he was conceived in Mary to the day he was born
in that stable to the day he was hung on a cross, without committing a single sin. Sure, he was tempted,
just like we are, more than we are since Satan appeared to him personally to tempt him. But unlike us,
Jesus never gave in to that temptation. He never doubted. He never faltered. He never stumbled into
sin.
And already there we start to see why God would send such an amazing gift into the world. Today on
Christmas, of course, lots of gifts are given. But many times gifts are given out of the worthiness of the
person receiving the gifts. “Have you been good this year?” “Do you deserve to get your Christmas gifts
this year, or do you deserve a few lumps of coal instead?” Those are common ideas in our world today
as we give gifts.
But that’s not the way that God’s gift of Jesus worked. His gift had nothing to do with the worthiness of
the person receiving the gift. Because of our sins, we didn’t even deserve to have God give us lumps of
coal, we deserved to have him condemn us to hell forever. So it’s a good thing God didn’t base his gift
on us. No, he based it on his love for us. He based it on his Son, who lived perfectly in our place. He
based it on the Savior who paid the price for what our sins deserved on the cross. Yes in giving us the
gift of his Son, God not only gave us something we didn’t deserve, he gave us many more blessings. He
blessed us with forgiveness, the wiping away of all our sins. He blessed us with life, not a sinful life
focused on ourselves, but real life, true life devoted to our Lord that we enjoy in part now and we will
enjoy in full in heaven. Yes, God has given us our eternal salvation through the gift of his Son Jesus.
There’s no better gift than that.
And John tells us even more about the Word made flesh. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One
and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John and the other disciples really had a
special advantage when it came to Jesus, didn’t they? They got to actually see Jesus with their own
eyes. They saw his glory in a special way. They saw Jesus glorified at the transfiguration, seeing the true
glory and splendor of his holiness as God. They saw Jesus miracles, turning water into wine, walking on
the water, raising the dead. They saw him go willingly to his life-giving death. They touched the nailmarks on his hands and put their hands in his side. They watched him ascend into heaven.
Wouldn’t that have been amazing? Sure, we hear about Jesus, but to actually see him would be so
much more incredible! Sometimes we think about the things that we do see with our eyes around us
and we just wish God would show us something else. Because even though Christmas is supposed to be
about joy and gladness, that isn’t always what we see around us.
In the midst of the decorations and the carols and the gift-giving, we see pain, don’t we? We see our
own pain that we feel because of sicknesses and injuries. We see our fatigue after working hard or
staying up late putting children’s toys together. We see unhappiness, broken relationships, shattered
dreams. We see our problems, the problems that don’t disappear when the Christmas decorations are
put away. And we wish we could see something else. We wish we could see some answers, we wish
God could show us some hope.
We wish for what John had, what the disciples had: they saw Jesus’ glory. They saw the Word made
flesh in the flesh with their own eyes. “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!” That sounds great, but we
can’t see him right now. Can we?
Friends, this Christmas, if you think you can’t see Jesus, I’d ask you to look again. No, not with your
eyes, you can’t see him that way now. Instead, we see him through one of the other gifts that God has
given us: our faith. Our Lord has put faith in us that really sees. Sure, we see things with our eyes, but
our eyes can deceive us. Our vision can deteriorate or disappear complete. But with the faith that God
has put into our hearts, we can really see.
By faith we see Jesus lying in that manger, we see him performing those miracles, we see him dying on
the cross. We don’t know what those things looked like, but through our faith we don’t need to. Yes
friends, by our faith we can say the same thing John does in our text. We have seen his glory, the glory
of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The problems and pain that we see with our eyes now will disappear. Those problems will vanish
forever—Jesus made sure of that. But the Savior that we see through our faith, he never leaves us.
Because God has shown us his glory. He has revealed his love to us. He has shown us that through his
Word – the Word that is written for us in the Bible, the Word that was made flesh for us on that first
Christmas.
Yes, this year, look and see your Christmas Gift. But don’t look under the tree. Look in the manger.
Look not with your eyes but with your faith. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see! God has come to save his
people! He became one of us to save every one of us. He came into this world for a little while so he
could bring us into the next world forever. May his grace and truth be with you always.