“Infinite Gifts in Finite Wrappings” (John 1; Ex. 40; Titus 3) Christmas Day ‘21

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word this glorious Christmas Day is taken from John 1; Ex. 40, and Titus 3. It’s entitled, “Infinite Gifts in Finite Wrappings,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                When you awake on Christmas morning, you know that the stocking hanging by the fireplace doesn’t contain a new car, and by the size of each box under the tree you know a whole host of things that can’t be inside. Early in childhood, your brain figured out that even on Christmas you can’t pour the whole gallon of milk into your juice glass and that an infinite amount of cookies won’t fit into your stomach. A thing can hold only what will fit inside.

3.                It’s been said, “The finite is not capable of the infinite.” It seems a good rule of thumb. A new car, a whole host of things, a gallon of milk, and an infinite amount of cookies simply can’t be where they please to be. So why do we so often reason about God as if he were an infinite amount of cookies, and rule out his being in packages that seem too small? The truth is God is “big” enough to make himself small. For the truly Infinite, he who was before space and time were, and who is, and who is to come—the infinite can be where it pleases Him to be and do what it pleases Him to do there.

4.                It is not only at Christmas, of course. He once put his glory in the tabernacle of old, over the Mercy Seat, between the cherubim (Exodus 40). His name is wonderful (Judg 13:17–18). His name is above all names, but he gives it in human syllables. He puts it in our ears and mouths, as he made it to dwell in the dust and clamor of old Jerusalem.

5.                But all this is perfected at Christmas. For the Word, John says, who was in the beginning with God, who was God, without whom nothing that was made was made, and through whom all things were made—in whom was life, and the life was the light of men—this Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1).

6.                John introduces us to Jesus, born of Mary at Christmas and laid on straw, as the God we can see and look, touch with our hands—and seeing him, understand everything God is about. With his human mouth, Jesus will say, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (Jn 8:58)! And he will tell a doubting Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9), and Thomas, “Put your finger here . . . do not disbelieve, but believe” (Jn 20:27). He who hears and sees Jesus hears and sees God as he is, as St. Paul says, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9).

7.                This mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of Christmas—that in Jesus the whole fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, transforms all the mysteries of life under almighty God. The Word at the beginning who made all creation and governs it still—he was made flesh, to dwell with us, and we’ve seen his glory. The cloud and thick darkness and veil of the tabernacle are stripped away, and we see the glory of God in the person of Jesus, the glory laid in a manger, the glory hung on the cross for sinners, the glory raised from the dead to say, “Peace be with you.”

8.                It is not that this takes all the mystery out of God, but it does fit all the mystery of God into Jesus. And this changes all the mystery of God we too often worry about—what’s he up to “up there” with his almighty power, into the sort of mystery we marvel at in faith, for we know now that God with all his power is always aiming at what Jesus is about. For “the Word became flesh, . . . and we have seen his glory” (Jn 1:14). And that is a great gift in a small package of swaddling cloth—the gift of faith.

9.                But, like other great gifts in small packages, it’s often overlooked among supposedly bigger things. God is bigger than the world, we reason, and Jesus, just one man, a blip in it. It is obvious to the whole world that there is a god. His divine majesty can be known through the greatness of the things he has created (Romans 1). But who is this God, this Creator, and how does he feel about us?

10.             This most important knowledge of God, the only kind that fosters faith, we can’t deduce from the Created world. Will you figure the rain on your land makes you good in his eyes or your drought makes you his enemy? Hopefully not, for his Word says he makes the rain to fall on just and unjust alike (Mt 5:45). Does health mean blessedness, and illness and death that you are cursed? No, for Abel lived by faith and preaches and Cain had the mark that none should touch him, but his deed was judged (Genesis 4; Hebrews 11). Men have been known to say, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” (Jer 12:1) and, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years” (Lk 12:19) when the Lord has blessed, but what did they know? As John says, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” (Jn 1:10).

11.             If you want to see God and how he feels about you, if you want to know what promises he’s made, then here in one man the finite does contain the infinite. Jesus, the Word made flesh, so completely contains who God is that there is nothing to know about God that isn’t revealed in Jesus.  John writes, “No one has ever seen God, [But] the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (Jn 1:18). And Simeon held this baby and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation” (Lk 2:29–30). And even “doubting” Thomas, seeing in Jesus’ flesh the wounds of his cross, needed nothing else; he could say, “My Lord and my God” (Jn 20:28)! God’s glory, truth, and grace are all stuffed entirely into Jesus, to be seen, grasped, and believed.

12.             Jesus puts the infinite in the grasp of our finite minds and fledgling faith. Ideas like glory, grace, and truth come down to earth and take definite form in the person of Jesus: God’s glory, grace, and truth slept in a manger, hung on a cross, were tucked into the tomb, and rose from the dead. God’s glory, grace, and truth are forever in this man risen from the dead for you, and even ascended to God’s right hand to reign for you with infinite power in finite, simple things. What God is up to and how he will do it is no longer complicated, for “the Word is made flesh.”

13.             “Make disciples!” he tells his Church. Make me a people for my own possession, to live with me in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. How will we ever do that, we wonder. The infinite God ignores the “rule” of men that “the finite cannot contain the infinite.” He comes and fills a simple thing, a bit of water and a few words, with his infinite saving power, to wash away all sin, to give eternal life in Baptism. What man dares to say God can’t, God says he does. If he can stuff himself into a baby by his Word, “You will conceive” (Lk 1:31), can he not by his Word make water save? So, “Baptize them,” he says, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). Give them this “washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit . . . so that being justified by [my] grace [they] might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5, 7).

14.             And he goes on to teaching, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:20). So, the Word made flesh now makes himself words again, to communicate the fullness of him, in the Scriptures preached, in repentance and forgiveness of sins preached to you. If the Word can go in the ear of Mary by the Spirit, take on flesh, and be born a man, surely the Word can by the same Spirit make us new! Finite water and words do contain and deliver infinite forgiveness.

15.             Then there is his Supper, in which mere bread and wine, by his Word are made to contain the body and blood of the God man, Jesus Christ our Lord. How can a bit of bread and wine forgive sins and give eternal life and salvation? Our little minds stumble at that, until we admit that this is what the infinite God, wills to do with his body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. If the eternal Word becomes flesh and blood so that the whole Godhead fits in him, he can surely do this if he wills. His bread and wine, his body and blood, his forgiveness, life, and salvation—and he can do with his what he wants.

16.             Learn this Christmas, then, not to doubt what God can fit in the packages he sends you. We’ve run off after the world and left behind Jesus, seeming small in the manger or powerless in the darkness on the cross. But in that swaddled flesh is the Word that made it all, the light and life of men—and in that flesh lifted upon the cross is the glory of God revealed to be seen and to save. We’ve spent thousands of dollars and hours in how many ways trying to be made something better, when by faith Jesus we are made children of God, born not by the will of flesh but of God himself. We’ve neglected the little packages in which God saves through His Word and Sacraments in favor of those big packages that always prove empty in the end.

17.             But thanks be to God, the one little package remains—wrapped up in swaddling cloth and purple robe and shroud, to be wrapped up for us in Word, water, bread and wine—so we can find the one infinite gift. Jesus, the Word made flesh, testifies that the One who is infinite can be where he wants to be: in his Word and Sacraments. He can do what he wants to do there, that is, save you. Don’t rule God out because you think he’s too big to fit where he’s told you he is. He fits where he wants to and that is here in these things. The Word who made all things and became flesh says so. In these little packages we can grasp, all the mystery of God is wrapped up in his will to save you. This gift be yours to your everlasting joy this Christmas. Amen. Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.

 

“But Deliver Us This Day Our Daily Evil” (Psalm 90) New Year’s Eve ‘21

 

1.                Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. As we look back on a year nearly spent, let us begin this evening in prayer to our God, who turns the pages of the calendar: Eternal Lord, make us glad for all our time, even now the years of toil, because with You all our time is worth remembering forever. Amen. The message is entitled, “But, Deliver us This Day Our Daily Evil,” and it’s focused on Psalm 90.

2.                At first blush, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly Christian about New Year’s Eve. What’s really different about 2021 New Year’s Eve that 2020 didn’t have? It’s the same old thing where we remember what happened this year and move on to the next. We can sound like King Solomon: Vanity of vanities. It’s all meaningless. The sun comes up, and the sun goes down, and pretty soon all our days will be forgotten anyway (Eccl 1:2–11). As Psalm 90 says: we fly away. And what was the point of it all? Time seems so trivial. Does stopping and remembering 2021 do us any good?

3.                In Psalm 90, the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to pray: “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (v 12). Moses isn’t disagreeing with Solomon. Moses acknowledges our years are like grass to God. He’s eternal. If it seems as if our years pass by without meaning to us, how much more so for God? A thousand years are like yesterday to him. What is time to God?

4.                And yet God says, “teach us to number our days.” And God does a good job of counting. God counts all the years of Adam’s life and the generations after him. God counts the years of life and reign for all the kings of Israel and Judah. God counts all the people delivered from Egypt and all those who entered the Promised Land. God counts all those exiled to Babylon, for how long, and when they returned. God counts all of Jesus’ human ancestors and the generations between Christ and Abraham. And here’s the point: God doesn’t have to count all those years, but he does.

5.                It seems as silly as going into our yards and counting each blade of grass. That’s how personally God knows our days and years. Even though he’s immune to time, still he pays closer attention to it than we do. In fact, God enters time to know the passing of a year just as we do.

6.                The King James Version begins the nativity of our Lord like so: “And it came to pass.” That doesn’t mean it came to pass and nobody cares. Instead, something came to happen, and it’s worth remembering. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Gal 4:4), born in time. Jesus, the eternal Son of God lived observing time. He remembered every Sabbath. He kept track of every day. Even though time is little to God, he knew time and paid close attention to it. He felt nails pierce through his flesh for six full hours of time until he gave up his last breath.

7.                Jesus was born, died, buried, and rose from the dead in time. And Jesus has redeemed your life in time. Since God knows how you spend your time, he sees each one of your sins. He counts them one by one but then sweeps them away in the flood of your Holy Baptism. He’s aware of your secret sins, but they pass away to the cross of Christ Jesus. So that, though your earthly life comes to pass, it’s worth remembering as a redeemed child of God. He has come to you with his Word, during your life, and he has redeemed you. He has made your life worth living. He has made your time worth reflecting.

8.                Whether you’re 7 or 8, 70 or 80, with the Lord your time matters. So we, along with Moses, pray: “establish the work of our hands” (v 17). In a sense, “Lord, help us make the most of our time.” “Lord, make us useful to our neighbors.” “Lord, help me use my time not just for personal reflection but also to love and serve my neighbor.”

9.                New Year’s is a wonderful time to stop and see what God has done for us this past year. If nothing else than to see that this whole year, has all been redeemed and forgiven through Christ. A redeemed year is a good year. A redeemed year is a year God has used you to love and care for others. It’s a great year with the Lord.

10.             It’s a good thing to celebrate New Year’s. But our joy isn’t found in reveling in the debauchery of New Year’s as we see on television (Gal 5:19–21). The reason why many of us don’t correlate New Year’s with Christianity is because we see New Year’s like our society sees birthdays. They’re fun until you’re 21, but after that we’d rather stop counting. The carnal pleasures of our youth aren’t the reason to celebrate New Year’s (Eccl 12:1).

11.             We believe our time matters even if we’re older. We don’t with Moses pray “Make us glad” because we’re young (Ps 90:15). Moses lived 120 years. We don’t know when he wrote this psalm. But, take a moment to put yourselves in Moses’ shoes during a certain time of his life. In Numbers 13–14, God is ready to send his people into the Promised Land. But they fail to fear, love, and trust in him. Instead, they fear the Canaanites, and they reject the Promised Land, praying to go back to Egypt. So, God punishes them: everyone who’s over twenty years old at that time will die before he or she ever enters Canaan. That means for the next forty years all those older Hebrews will simply be waiting to die so that their children can receive their promise.

12.             All the older generations whom God brought out of Egypt will never have a roof over their heads. They will never step foot in the land God has worked so hard to give them. Imagine that. Those Israelites knew they were going to die in the next 40 years, and the rest of their lives will be spent in the desert. 40 terrible years?

13.             Knowing that was the plight of the Hebrews, hear Psalm 90:14–16 again, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.”

14.             What a prayer! This was the reality for Moses’ last 40 years as well. Make us glad—not because we’re young. Make us glad—not because we get a rich party tonight. No. “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.” This is like combining the 4^th and 7^th Petitions of the Lord’s Prayer like so: “Lord, deliver us our daily evil.” It doesn’t mean the Hebrews wanted to be in the desert. We don’t want to see evil. But we can be glad that God delivers us from it.

15.             This is the perfect prayer for the older Hebrews wandering in the wilderness. They have nothing to look forward to in this life. Even though they know there’s no earthly home for them, still they know God promises to give their children the land they rejected. And in that land of Canaan, outside Jerusalem, Christ will hang on the cross praying these words: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love” (Ps 90:14). And, on the morning of the third day, he rose from the dead. And with Christ rose the favor of God upon men. And with Christ rose the hope of a resurrection like his (2 Cor 4:14).

16.             Whether Moses wrote that prayer at the beginning of the wilderness wandering or not, it certainly applies to his life then. And it applies to us now. Even though we may be old, we can still be glad. Even if our days feel like they’re cursed where we see evil every day in the world, we can still be glad. God is with us. God has made himself our dwelling place through Christ. Whether it’s 2021 or 2022, we’re baptized into Christ. Whether we’re young or old, God promises us a resurrection. Whether we lost a loved one this year or gained a new grandchild . . . whether this year we felt the sting of divorce in our family or rejoiced at a family wedding . . . whether our bodies are breaking down or maturing into adulthood, through it all, the Lord is our dwelling place. God doesn’t have us waiting to die in an evil world, without him. He hears our prayers and never departs from us.

17.             Luther called these kinds of toil tentatio; that’s Latin for affliction or suffering. And this affliction isn’t something that’s useless. It’s useful. Because with suffering, we see our dependence on God. Each affliction is an opportunity to pray and trust in God. And he’s there. Immanuel: God with us.

18.             What faith the Hebrews displayed in the wilderness for 40 years. Each day they’d wake up, eat their manna, face their toil, and wait to die. They knew they’d never step foot in Canaan, but they trusted in the Lord’s promise of eternal life in the resurrection. Each day he gave them daily bread and their daily toil that pointed them to life after death through Jesus. So, they kept praying, through all their tentatio, “make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us” (Ps 90:15). They weren’t praying for toil. But they were praying for gladness in the suffering. Because each day with the Lord was a day, he was bringing them closer to the Promised Land of heaven. So, God gave the Hebrews gladness even during their years of toil.

19.             That’s how we end our collects, “one God, now and forever.” We pray believing we live with God—now and forever. We pray to God now and forever because when we’re with him we have a dwelling place for eternity. It’s the same thing we pray in the Seventh Petition: deliver us from evil. This means that God “would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven” (SC, Seventh Petition). Even now in all the years we see evil, God delivers us from it all forever.

20.             Our earthly time comes and goes, but it’s so worth it to stop and see how God has redeemed all of it. It’s a good thing to reflect on how God has established the work of our hands to love and serve our neighbor. It’s joyful to see how God even permits suffering in our older years to drive us back to depending on him. It’s a happy New Year, because we’ve been given faith in Christ, who promises us a blessed end—now and forever. Again, we pray: Eternal Lord, make us glad for all our time, even now the years of toil, because with you all our time is worth remembering forever. Amen. The peace of God that surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.