December 5, 2013

John 1:1-14; Isaiah 7:10-14

In Nomine Jesu

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. This is a sign against Ahaz. This is a sign against all fallen flesh. This is a sign against our self-centered will. We recoil at the thought of Immanuel, “God with us.” We do not need God. Most of us are doing just fine without Him. Life is good on our own terms. Even when the night of affliction comes we, through the devils wiles will often conclude that God doesn’t really care, that He is not “with us.” And so sprouts from our deceptive hearts our foolish decisions which seem wise in our sight. The virgin birth of Jesus Christ is a sign against our inability to do anything right. Everything we conceive is full of sin and death, even, our children. Everything conceived in the image of Adam, in our image, dies. We celebrate our life with the old bread, the bread of malice and evil, with the bread of death and we feed this to our children. Yet, like Ahaz we are too afraid to ask for a sign of life, too afraid to trust God, to afraid of what God may say or too afraid of what His Word may demand of us. God’s price, our obedience, our life, is too high. 

Ahaz had his plans. He was afraid for his life and for his country. But he had a strategy. He would play his enemies off against each other. He would outsmart them. He figured he needed real and sensible things. The steel of Syria’s swords was not imaginary or hypothetical. So he refused the sign of God. He rejected God’s Word and gracious invitation. He didn’t believe that God could do anything real, anything substantial, and anything to change the impending outcome. To think and to act in this way is to deny the enfleshment of God, to deny His incarnation, to deny that He is Immanuel, God with us. God wearies at His creatures that fake their life and give lip-service to Him. God wearies when we rely on philosophical and human wisdom to excuse ourselves for our lack of fear, love and trust in the promised sign of His salvific and resurrection coming. God wearies of we who twist His Word for our own ends, who try and make it relevant for old creatures to hide in new clothing. The Judge of heaven and earth comes. He comes calling us to repentance. He comes calling us unto Himself, the only Faithful One.    

What Ahaz would not ask, God gave, and He did far more abundantly than Ahaz could have imagined or hoped. From heaven above to earth He comes, to a royal yet lowly city of ancient prestige, the city of David. In the darkness of night, where ox and ass are feeding, where the painful screams of Mary pierce the night air, where human flesh is saturated in blood and water, and in the most un-sterile of places comes the very eternal Son of God, flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone. He rescues us not merely from the sweat of our brow, from the pain of child bearing, from the irritations and unsettling experiences of life. He comes and goes much further. He rescues us from ourselves. He rescues us from the powers that bind us, that suffocate us, that shadow us all the days of this present life. He redeems us and all things from everything, giving us immortal life by becoming mortal, giving us heaven, by coming down to earth. There is no “leap of faith,” as is popularly held, as if God will not break into the world of space, time, and matter, and therefore we must jump to Him with some sort of nebulous spiritual spring board. No. There is only His leaping into our flesh, into our sin, into our death. This is what the Christian faith is all about: God for us and in us, by the sign and means of the virgin. “From heaven above to earth I come/ To bear good news to every home/ Glad tidings of great joy I bring/ Whereof I now will say and sing” [LSB 358:1].

Confession and doxology they are intimately tied to one another. We say and we sing. We sing and we say. We confess and we praise. We praise and confess. Why? Because this sign has come to pass in the little town of Bethlehem. By Mary’s flesh and the Holy Spirit’s dwelling He now wears our flesh. By Mary’s flesh He is our Brother. He moves about with muscles, bones, and cartilage just like we do. His body is destined for humiliation and crucifixion so that our bodies would be destined for resurrection and exaltation. He is one of us. He is with us. He dies our death. He lives our life. Though through Him all things were made, to the eyes of the world, to the lifeless heart of Adam, the signs of His coming are see as foolishness. When the Word becomes flesh earth does not receive her king. The wonders of His light, life and love, are drowned in darkness of sin and unbelief. The sign is against us, and yet, in gracious fashion, it is also for us. Sent by the Father, He has come willingly to fight our battle with sin and Satan, with death and hell, not with sword and spear, but with wood and flesh, with blood and water. These are signs of His victory for us.  

Everything conceived in the image of Christ, in the image of Him who redeemed us, lives and is ever-living. He crushed the serpent’s head. In dying, He has broken down the prison bars that held us captive. In rising, He has paved the way, and opened the gates of the New Eden. Not because we asked. Not because we wanted. Not because we prayed. Not because we believed—but because of His very nature of goodness, mercy, and love. He loves us not because we strive to be good enough, not because we don’t commit certain sins that others commit whom we point fingers at, not because we come here more often than others, not because we put more in the collection plate. No. He loves us simply because that is who He is. He is love. And this is what His love looks like: flogged and naked flesh, pierced hands and feet, wounded and bleeding side, bowed and finished head. His love to us is His death. For in death He brought forth our resurrection from dead and elevated our nature in His ascension to the Father’s right hand. He is not confined in the heavens. No. He is forever Immanuel. He is with us.  

The Son of the Father, through whom glory, truth and grace came, remains forever God. He is now and forever man, and forever He is with us. He comes physically in His own Supper for His wounded, bleeding, and dying children. His flesh/bread and blood/wine is truth and sincerity, the sureness that yours sins are truly forgiven, the past and all its brokenness thrown into the depths of Sheol. This is His New Testament, not only that you love one another, but that Christ is love, and has loved you from beginning and will love you unto the end. The Word He gives into the mouth of His “sent ones” is His very Word, a proclamation of His love, our adoption as beloved sons and daughters of the King, and His eternal fidelity. He carries our prayers to His Father. He joins us with the company of heaven, in a feast that transcends the divide of death, uniting all in heaven and on earth to worship, receive, and confess the goodness and love of this sacrificial and eternal God who has blest us beyond imagination.

All sons of God, all believers, are conceived in this watery new birth from above—not born again from our mother’s womb or born of human decision or born of a husband’s will, but born of God. For all who are born of Christ go the way of Christ. By our Immanuel’s grace you are virgin pure, even as He, your Bridegroom and your Brother is. And you shall follow Him. Not just in the way of the cross, though you will drink the cup that He drank, sips of suffering for you, and for Him all the way to dregs of the cup. In this Advent season, in this time of waiting, let not your mind and heart sit idle. You shall mark and receive the signs of you’re life, the life you were given in the beginning and the life you will be given where waiting gives way to fulfillment, where hope gives way to love, and where faith gives way to the sight of the new heavens and the new earth. Beloved mark these signs well; the swaddling clothes and the manger dark. There you will find the infant laid /By whom the heav’ns and earth were made” [LSB 358:5]. The little child of earthly manger, cross, and empty tomb shall lead you to the heavens above.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son [+] and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

--The theme and outline of sermon are taken from From Heaven Above to Earth I Come (St. Louis: Concordia, 2006). The flesh of the sermon I have written