Good News is Divine

The Word Invaded The Real World

12.25.23 [John 1:1-14] River of Life (Festival of Christmas Day)

Grace, peace, and joy are yours, you who are born of God’s will.

In ideal circumstances, new life is met with hope and optimism, healthy expectations & significant celebration. In ideal circumstances, when a husband and wife find out the good news that she is with child, they prepare their hearts, homes, and lives for the blessing that is a child. In ideal circumstances, the birth is a quick, painless, and joyful union of a growing family. In ideal circumstances, their friends and family come together to celebrate this wonderful news.

But we don’t live in ideal circumstances, do we? It’s wonderful when little slivers of the ideal world poke through into our lives. But we don’t live in ideal circumstances. We live in the real world.

In the real world, children are born into families that are struggling. Every day, in the real world, children are born into poverty. Hunger. Dysfunction. Even warfare. We have not lived in ideal circumstances for far too long. We live in the real world. In the real world, children are born with diseases. Defects. Disorders.

But parents don’t dream about any of this for their children. They don’t plan on their child being born into a world-full of problems or to experience of a life-full of suffering. They hope their children will find friends and fulfillment, satisfaction and people who will love them. As parents we do this, even though we are foolish, selfish, and sinful. We cannot control everything. No matter how hard we try, we cannot give our children the ideal existence we long for. No one wants to send their children into a world-full of problems to experience a life-full of suffering.

Yet, it seems this is precisely what God the Father did in sending his Son into this world. He knew it was far from ideal circumstances. He knew his Son would be born into a world-full of problems and a life-full of suffering and even an excruciating death. How could he do this to his beloved Son? Yes, we know God so loved the world, but how could he do this to a Son he also claimed to love?

John 1 reveals that God’s loving plan of salvation was not something that the Father forced upon his Son, but rather something that our Triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit cooperatively planned and achieved. The Word became flesh because our Triune God is sacrificial love for sinners like us.

In Matthew and Luke, the Christmas story begins at a beginning we would expect, with Mary and Joseph being told the miraculous good news that they would serve as parents for their Lord and Savior.

John’s Gospel starts in the beginning. The beginning he is speaking of is the great beginning detailed in Genesis 1. In the beginning, when the Spirit was hovering over the waters, God unleashed his creative power. God said, Let there be light, and waters, and dry ground, and vegetation, and creatures and all of these things came to be by the power of his word. That Word wasn’t just an expression by God, that Word was God, the second person of the Trinity, the One who’s birth we celebrate today. This Word made all things. The Word brought light and life into this world. The Word made mankind, the crown of his creation, men and women in his own image. They didn't have to learn to think like the Word thought or love the things he loved or the way he loved. It was instinctual, natural, and joyful. The heart of the Word was within them.

But it didn’t stay that way long. Those the Word of truth gave wisdom to chose the foolish path of rebellion. Those the Word of Life gave life to chose life without him—physical and eternal death—instead.

Though he was the Word of Truth, they accepted lesser words—lies—and lost the life and light that he brought to all mankind.

The darkness crept in quickly. The world that the Word made perfectly was turned upside down. It was no longer the ideal, very good creation that the Word had made it. It was a world full of problems. It was a world full of lies. It was a world full of suffering and death. It was a world where people were hurting and hurt themselves and others in an effort to escape reality. This is what we call the real world today.

Yet, God the Word could not and would not walk away from the world that turned on him, that believed Satan’s lies over God’s truth, and chose to dwell in darkness rather than in his great light. That Word of God that made all things, himself became the flesh of man. He made his dwelling among those who walked away from him. He had conversations with those who believed Satan’s lies over and against God’s truth. He put himself alongside those who had only ever known darkness. And all the while, we are told he was full of the last two things people who have lived in real world would expect. Grace. And truth.

In the real world, this is such an uncommon combination. To love people without conditions or expectations or demands and to also speak to them in truth, with honesty and integrity.

But Jesus, the Word made flesh, who made his dwelling among us, who came from the Father, was full of grace and truth for his friends, his family, for complete strangers, for those who hated him, and for the world. Jesus, the Word made flesh, lived this way because he also loved the world that walked away from him.

So when he came into this world and was not recognized as God, when he came to his own people, and they did not receive him, he continued to demonstrate grace and communicate truth.

He warned the crowds (Mk. 1:15) Repent and believe the good news. He told individuals, like Nicodemus (one of Israel’s respected teachers), that although he had lived in a way that commanded the respect of his peers and his contemporaries, he still needed to be born of the Water and the Spirit. He told individuals, like the Samaritan woman, that although she had lived in a way that lost the respect of her peers and contemporaries, the God-made-flesh had come to offer her water that would well up within her to eternal life. Jesus spoke graciously and truthfully to teachers of the law and tax collectors, to proud Pharisees and embarrassed prostitutes. The Word made flesh made himself available around town. He found his way to the dinner table. He didn’t avoid the cries of the lepers or the tough questions of the spiritual leaders of his day. He was always full of grace and truth.

But it wasn’t an act. It was his life’s mission. He came not just to speak graciously or truthfully, but to live and die that way too. He put himself under the harsh truth of the Law in our place. He was stricken for our sins. Afflicted for our iniquities. The punishment we had earned was placed on his shoulders and he carried it perfectly. This, this was what he called his hour of glory. Where his grace shined forth boldly. Where he cried out it is finished so that we would know our sins are truly and fully paid for. And this is what redeems us from an empty way of life in this real world.

It is not that we do not have struggles or hardships. It is not that we do not face suffering and sorrows and even death. But because of the Word made flesh we have hope in the face of afflictions, we have joy in the midst of sorrows, we have peace that passes all understanding. Life in this real world is full of problems. But the Word made flesh has the final word. And this is what he has called and made you—children of God. You have been born of God, in the same way that you saw Jacob born of God this morning. Through water and Word. You have been given life that death cannot touch. You have been given light that darkness that cannot overcome. Because you have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, willingly, joyfully, sacrificially, full of grace and truth for you. Amen.