Jesus Come in the Flesh (Christmas 2024)

Introduction

Last night I asked Reuben why we celebrate things. Why celebrate Christmas, or Easter, or birthdays, or anything else. Why do we do this? Why is it important? Are we just finding excuses to have fun, sing, and enjoy ourselves? Or is there something deeper?

These are important questions to think about because if we don’t know why we do something, we are going to become miserable in doing it and probably stop doing it altogether. For many, Christmas has become a celebration that ends up being more stressful than enjoyable, so why celebrate it at all? The other week I was in Costco and overheard a woman on the phone sarcastically singing a well-known Christmas carol but replacing the word Christmas with an explicit curse word; apparently, Christmas seemed to be more stressful for her than it was worth.

But I believe that without celebration, our lives and communities lose something very precious, and this is especially true for Christmas. There are Christians who believe that Christmas is based in the pagan holiday of winter solstice, a claim which has no historical evidence. Thus, they refrain from the celebration. This is their right as Christians to follow their conscience, but I think it is sad that they have become convinced of this because, in doing so, they have lost one of the majour celebrations of the Christian religion: the celebration of our Lord’s incarnation. Yes, it is true that we can celebrate the birth of Jesus every day and any day, but the Christmas holiday celebration connects us with a tradition that links us historically to all the Christians in church history who have found the incarnation worth celebrating.

But there are two other reasons that we celebrate, reasons more important than tradition. The first is a reaffirmation of the truth we believe. The second is thanksgiving we express in that truth together as a community of saints. Tonight we will look at the first of these reasons, and see why it is appropriate that reaffirming the truth of the incarnation, the birth of the God-man Jesus Christ, should lead us to enjoy celebration. God is not a God who wants our lives to be miserable and always serious, rather the fruit of the Spirit is the joy that comes from a heart of thanksgiving. We celebrate Christmas because we believe in the wonderful truth that God became a man so that God mas dwell with us.

Testing the True and the False

John’s first epistle mainly deals with separating truth from error, both in doctrine and in life, so that we may know that we are of the truth and that we know God. Again and again, he comes around to three majour ways in which we may judge whether we know God or not.

First, that we love God and keep his commands. Love for someone who is in authority over us is expressed in trusting obedience.

Second, that we love our fellow Christian. This love is meant to imitate the love of Christ, a love which gives our lives for each other as living sacrifices.

Third, that we believe the truth that God has revealed in Jesus.

Within these three categories, we are able to examine ourselves and be held accountable in the church against Satan’s devices and deceptions, and we may know with good confidence that we know God.

The Truth: Jesus Come in the Flesh

Earlier, John put emphasis on believing that Jesus was the Christ in 1 John 2:21-23

1 John 2:21–23 ESV

I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

We know, and it makes sense, that one must believe that Jesus is the Christ; that he is the Son of God, God himself, who has come to save us from our sins.

In our text, we see that John has put a lot of emphasis on Jesus coming in the flesh.

The early heresy of Docetism taught that Jesus was not really a man, because they thought it was impossible for a perfect God to take on lowly, evil flesh. They rejected that the created world was good, and insodoing rejected that God could take on physical form. Instead, they thought that Jesus has only appeared to be a man. For this reason, they refused to take communion because they did not believe Jesus had actually shed his blood at all for our sins, since he didn’t have a real human body.

For the Apostle John, the real human body of Jesus is as important to the Gospel message as his really being the divine Christ.

Why is this such a big deal? Are we just splitting hairs if someone doesn’t think Jesus had an actual human body? Yes, it matters.

Remember what the angel tells Joseph and the Scripture it fulfilled in Matt 1:21-23

Matthew 1:21–23 ESV

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

In what way is God with us? He is with us in that the Holy Spirit fused the deity of the Son of God with a real humanity in the womb of Mary.

In the OT, the Tabernacle and later the Temple symbolized God’s presence with his people, and yet that presence was always barred off so that only the priests could enter under specific circumstances. In the Garden of Eden, Adam walked with God but afterwards that fellowship was cut off. We are created to be with the creator, with the one whose image we reflect. But our sin and our weakness as creatures blocks off that presence from us, a presence even angels have to cover their face in. So it is that God must come down and step into his creation if we are to know him.

God does not speak to us as a king loftily in his castle to us peasants in the dirt below. His love is displayed in him coming into the dirt and even wearing a peasants clothes so that we might really know him. This is the beauty and love of the incarnation.

Jesus was not merely a messenger of God, a prophet, or even an angel to deliver us God’s words. In order to display his perfect love to us face to face, to show us his fellowship, he had to come down and be with us as we are. That is exactly what happened on the cross, and that is why the doctrine of Jesus should mean so much to us.

In the coming of Christ, we see God. In our final redemption, we will see him directly with out waking eyes. This is why this is so important to John, and he shows us this in 1 John 3:2-3

1 John 3:2–3 ESV

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Because Jesus became a man, he can take human beings into the presence of the Father. There, we shall see him and know him face to face, and not as in a darkened window. Then we will need no faith, for with our own eyes, in a reality more real than what we currently experience, we will see him and know him.

Conclusion - Christmas: A Celebration of Truth and Life from God

This is why we celebrate Christmas. If it is not clear to you that Jesus is God in human flesh, Christmas is nothing special. But in this truth is more than a creedal statement, in it is the proof of God’s love. In it is our ultimate hope and life. God has come himself to be with us, his presence remains in his church among those who have believed, and we rest in the hope that when we see him, he will be with us in fellowship in his humanity and will deliver us, by his divine power, into the presence of the Father. There, with undimmed, resurrected eyes prepared for glory, we will see him and be known by him. All because, one starry night in Bethlehem, God was a crying baby in a manger. He had arrived to be with us, so that we might be with him forever.

Have you believed on the God who became a man? Have you trusted in his righteous work on the cross and the power of God in the empty tomb? Do you wait in eager hope and expectation of his coming. If you do, come celebrate with us. Sing for joy and have a truly Merry Christmas. If there was ever something worth celebrating, it is this.