Sermon Tone Analysis

I love this time of year.

And this year has, for some reason, been extra special.

I think the months of planning leading up to the nativity are maybe some of it for me, but I’m not sure.

Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday (Thanksgiving all the way), but this Christmas season has been something, even losing this entire week to the stinking flu.

Something about this time of year… the kids’ school Christmas concerts, the ritual watching of “Home Alone,” “Christmas Vacation,” “The Family Stone,” and the dozen or so Hallmark Movies I’m contractually obligated to watch with my wife…

I know some of you are on the more “Bah humbug” side of things or a little more Grinchy this year than normal.

And that’s okay.

Life gets in the way, doesn’t it?

You don’t have to feel happy if you aren’t.

But, for the Christian, there’s always a refrain—maybe distant from our hearts and faint to our hearing—but there’s always a refrain of unending joy and hope that doesn’t waver.

Repeat the sounding joy, yeah?

There’s something about this time of year…

The Biblical passages which give us some information about the birth of Jesus are fewer than you might think.

We tend to find ourselves in Matthew, Luke, John, (possibly Isaiah, and once in every blue moon Revelation to catch a glimpse of the Christmas dragon), and then we turn around and rotate through them again.

So we’ve heard it all before.

Every December we take at least one Sunday (usually 2 or 3 or 4) to preach something Christmas-related.

For the last two weeks, and today, Christmas morning, we’re looking at the Gospel according to John.

John is writing about the light—the TRUE Light—which is coming into the world.

John writes about another fella named John who came as a witness to the light.

This morning, on Christmas, we will focus on Jesus; today, we look at What He Did.

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to John 1.

If you are able and wiling, please stand for the reading of God’s Holy Word:

May God add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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In the prologue to his book, John’s writing about who Jesus is and what the people did with Jesus when He came.

There’s a pretty sad statement of fact: Jesus came to His own people and they didn’t recognize Him or receive Him; they rejected Him.

Here at the start of John’s Gospel, we’re presented with the problem.

The True Light came into the world, and the world looked the other way.

The Son of God, who made Himself nothing, was rejected and unrecognized by those who should have received Him most eagerly.

When John wrote this letter, in the early-mid 1st Century, in and amongst the Israelites, the majority of people would have been familiar with the OT (the only part of the Bible there was at the time).

They knew the OT, and would have understood just exactly what John was saying.

Literally, what it says:

Jesus Tabernacled Among Us

Most of us don’t use the word “tabernacled” day to day.

Can’t remember the last I used it outside of church or conversations about the Bible.

I might make that my New Year’s Resolution: use the word “tabernacled” more often.

Likely because tabernacled isn’t a word that’s part of our vocab, those who translated our Bibles swapped it out for a word a little more common, a little more easily understood.

Instead of “tabernacled,” they chose “dwelt” or “made His dwelling.”

A few versions simplify it to “live” or “take up residence.”

Eugene Peterson translates verse 14:

John 1:14 (M:BCL)

14 The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

I kind of like that, but we miss the bigger picture if we take the word—ἐσκήνωσεν, tabernacled, lit.

pitched His tent—and don’t consider what that means and why John used that particular word here.

This, that God Himself, in the Second Person of the Trinity, tabernacled among His people is something that God has done before.

In the past, God had made known His presence to His people in/through the tabernacle and temple.

It was there He met with them, the place God would dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.

Before there was a temple, it was a tent that went before the Israelites as they made their way to the Promised Land.

Within the tent/tabernacle was the most holy place, the altar of sacrifice; the tabernacle was the center of worship, where worship was directed.

There the glory of God hovered above the Ark of the Covenant.

This—the tabernacle—was where God came to meet with mankind.

Just as God came to meet with man in the tabernacle, He came in Jesus to meet with us—He, the Word, Jesus, took on flesh and tabernacled here among us.

When the temple was built, the tabernacle ceased being the place where people met with God.

And then, when Jesus burst onto the scene of history, the temple was no longer the place or the object of worship.

Jesus was.

And is!

Jesus tabernacled among us.

It was before this baby, the One lying in a manger, all swaddly and smelly—this baby, the shepherds worshipped, glorifying and praising God.

It was this child, the One hanging at home with Mom and Dad, this child both Divine and drooly—to this child, the band of Wise Men came and presented gifts.

Jesus tabernacled among us.

In the OT times, you couldn’t think of the tabernacle without being reminded of the glory of God (that’s where the glory of God resided).

As Israel marched through the wilderness, the glory of the Lord appearing like a cloud went with them, regularly descending upon the tabernacle.

That glory was the “visible manifestation of the excellence of God’s character.”

The glory of God, in other words, is the greatness of God seen visibly.

The tabernacle was, for all it’s grandeur and awe-inspiring touches, just a partial and incomplete picture of the glory of God.

What John does here in verse 14 is teach when Jesus came to earth as a man to dwell with men—to tabernacle among us—the glory of God was seen in all its fullness.

The truthfulness of God to keep His promises and the grace of God to rescue His people found their ultimate expression when God sent His Son.

As John was writing this, he could say, “Our fathers experienced the grace and faithfulness of God, but if you want an even greater demonstration of it, look to Jesus—the true and better tabernacle!”

This “tabernacling” of Jesus, the incarnation of Christ, Jesus born unto us is one of the top-three events in all of history.

The eternal, all-powerful, ever-present Son of God took on human nature and living among humanity as one who was both God and man at the same time, in One person.

Max Lucado writes this:

“It all happened in a moment, a most remarkable moment that was like none other.

For through that segment of time a spectacular thing occurred.

God became a man.

While the creatures of earth walked unaware, Divinity arrived.

Heaven opened and placed this most precious One in a human womb.

God as a fetus.

Holiness sleeping in a womb.

God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen.

He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother.

God had come near.

[Now] it is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation.

But don’t do it.

For heaven’s sake, don’t.

Let Him be as human as He intended to be.

Let Jesus into the mire and muck of our world.

For only He comes to us can He pull us out.”

Jesus Tabernacled Among Us.

It’s the main part of Christmas—God come down.

Reflect on that today, Christmas, for sure.

But don’t stop.

Think about it tomorrow, and the next day.

And every day after that.

Wonder and Worship.

Be amazed that He would do this and adore Him for doing it.

>We’re going to look at one more comment John makes.

For the sake of time and we’re going to skip over verses 19-28.

It’s the story of John the Baptist, who we were introduced to in verses 6-8, denying that he himself was the Messiah.

The day after that interaction is some 30-years removed from the “tabernacling” of Jesus, but John puts the stories together, so then, we can, too.

This is what John says in John 1:29:

This is another deeply OT theme, something the people to whom John was writing and something everyone listening to John the Baptist’s preaching would have understood immediately.