I probably don't need to prove to everyone here that Christmas
is a very busy time for many of us planning services like this.
We've got to fit in this bit of information, that bit of
information. There's a lot going on, and
that's across our culture in many ways.
In this country, there are houses to decorate.
I don't know if anyone else had arguments this week while
putting up their Christmas tree. It was a beautiful moment in our
households. I was right, but there's houses
to decorate. That's a big job.
There are presents to buy and worry about.
There are people to see, whether family or friends or work
colleagues, some of whom we are really looking forward to
seeing, some of whom it is difficult to see.
There is food to prepare. There are so many things to
think about. And then if you're a follower of
Jesus, churches like Ave. add more on your shoulders by having
this like Carol services and ways that we need you to serve
to make those happen and Flyers to deliver and friends and
family to invite to them. And in the midst of it all, it
can be a real struggle to remember what the Christmas
season's meant to be about for us.
So at the end of a very full and first half hour or so, I want us
to press pause for a moment to stop and to take a breath and to
slow down as we walk through this bit of the Bible, John
chapter 1, and consider the good news of the incarnation and the
incarnation. That is for a fancy sounding
word Christians have used for centuries to describe what John
chapter 1 is describing for us. The moment in history when the
eternal Son of God was sent into our world to become the Jesus of
history. The moment when the Son of God
came and made his home among us so that we, if we trust in Him,
can make our home with him. The incarnation.
It's hard to sum up better than the way John does.
In verse 14. The Word became flesh and made
his dwelling among us the incarnation.
CS Lewis called it the grand miracle that makes all the other
miracles possible. Because God has entered into our
world. He has drawn near to us the the
good news of Christmas, that name given to Jesus by the Angel
in Matthew chapter 1. And they will call him Emmanuel,
which means God with us. So just for the next few
minutes, I want us to think, why is this truth of the incarnation
worth celebrating? Why is it worth singing about,
as we're going to be doing in the coming weeks?
Why is it worth proclaiming to the people around us, as we're
going to be doing in the coming weeks?
The word became flesh. Why is that good news?
I think the first miracle at the heart of the Christmas story is
this, that the Son of God chose to become one of us.
At the heart of the Christmas story is a choice made by the
Son of God to enter our world and become one of us all in
order to rescue us from sin and death and reconcile us to the
God who made us and the God who loves us.
And when you when you listen again to John chapter 1, we've
had it read in two sections. When you look at how the writer
of John's Gospel, one of the one of the apostles, Jesus
disciples, a man called John, he's grappling with the truth of
what he's trying to describe to us.
And it's at the very limits of what human language can
communicate. So John introduces us in verse
one to someone called the Word. In the beginning was the word
and and at first glance the word could refer to any number of
things. The word could be a creative
power or a concept or an idea. The Greek logos was it was a
commonly used word by philosophers at the time.
But then just a few lines later, John is clear with us.
The word is a he. The word is a person.
He tells us the word was with God and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
And notice how John is treading carefully here.
John the Apostle, he was a Jewish believer.
He trusted the Jewish scriptures, what we call the Old
Testament. And the Old Testament is clear.
There is only one God here. O Israel, the Lord, your God.
The Lord is 1 God, says Deuteronomy.
And the nations around ancient Israel, well, they believed
there were lots of different gods, Gods linked to particular
parts of creation. So the gods of the sea or the
land or the mountains, gods who would fight each other, who was
her similar power to each other, gods who were basically just
bigger versions of us. It was basically like a soap
opera. If you look at some of the Greek
myths. People sleeping with each other,
murdering each other. That's who the gods were.
And the nations around ancient Israel.
And it's against that background that the opening words of
Genesis, the beginning of the Old Testament is so radical.
Genesis one verse one in the beginning, gods created the
heavens and the earth. One God, one creator, 1 Lord.
There weren't lots of gods fighting each other.
There was one God and he alone created all things.
And yet John chapter 1 here we learn that alongside the one
true God, the moment of creation was this person called the Word.
The Word was with God. John says in fact he was God.
He was literally begotten from the Father.
Verse 14, or as the end of he puts it, the one and only Son
who came from the Father. John saying something amazing
here, that the one God of the Old Testament has a son, and
that son's not a separate God. That son is God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made.
Without Him nothing was made that has been made.
In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
See, John is sketching out for us here what would later come to
be known as the doctrine of the Trinity, that the God of the
Bible, the God who created each and every one of us, is 1 God in
three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The God Christians believe in is a loving community, a God who is
love, a God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And what's all that got to do with the good news of Christmas?
Well, at the heart of the true story of Christmas is a free
choice made by the eternal Son of God, in full agreement with
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit to enter our world to
rescue us. The Eternal Son of God looked on
our world, He saw us in our need, and He chose to come near,
to become flesh, to become one of us, in order to save us.
And that is the heart of Christmas, a choice made by the
Son of God in full agreement with the Father and the Spirit.
Here's another bit of the New Testament puts it Philippians
chapter 2. Christ Jesus being in very
nature God, did not consider a quality with God something to be
used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human
likeness. I will need to get this about
the Christmas story. Jesus didn't have to enter our
world at all. He didn't have to become one of
us. But out of his great love for
sinful, fallen humanity, God was determined to save a people for
himself and the Word. The eternal Son of God entered
our world to do just that. He saw us in our need, and he
stood low to become one of us. The staggering truth at
Christmas is this free choice the sun made.
Instead of walking away or abandoning us or remaining at a
safe distance from us, he chose to come near and make his
dwelling with us, ultimately to go to that bare tree, the cross,
in order to save us. The Son of God chose to become
one of us. That's the miracle of the
Incarnation and a precious truth linked to that miracle.
It's amazing. The Son of God knows what it
feels like to be human. In verse 14 again, the words
became flesh. Now for many Jewish and Muslim
believers, this is the Christian message at its most offensive,
that we believe that the eternal holy perfect God became flesh,
became a human being just like you and me.
It sounds impossible, it sounds irreverent, it sounds even
blasphemous. But John couldn't be any
clearer. The words he's told us this is
the eternal pre existent creator of all things, the Son of God
begotten by the Father, became flesh, took on a body, flesh and
skin and bones and became fully human while remaining fully God.
The word in the Greek that John uses here translated flesh is is
sarks. And John could have said, well,
the word just became a human being and we would kind of
understand that. But by using the word flesh,
he's emphasizing the physical nature of Jesus body flesh
brings with the idea it's physical, it's it's weak, it's
vulnerable, it's limited. Flesh gets tired, flesh can get
bruised, flesh can bleed. The Word flesh tells us the Son
of God humbled himself completely, entered into our
experience. He identified with us totally in
our weakness and frailty and vulnerability, in our bruises,
in our wounds. And I see, never more so than on
that first Christmas when he entered the world as a baby,
completely dependent on his mother, like to sleep in a
Manger in Bethlehem. The eternal Son of God became
the Jesus of history, Jesus of Nazareth, the Gospels called
him. He's got a hometown, He's got a
haircut, he's got a job, He's got friends and family.
He became flesh Jesus. He experienced hunger and
tiredness, sorrow and joy, friendship and betrayal.
He exchanged the perfection of heaven for the darkness of this
world. And that makes all the
difference in the way we relate to God through him.
Because the Word became flesh, Jesus can show compassion to us
in our weakness and our frailty. Jesus can draw near to us and
help us when we are feeling weak.
The book of Hebrews in the New Testament is really strong on
this. Just a few passages from that.
Hebrews 4 verse 15. We do not have a high priest,
Jesus, who's unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but
we have one who's been tempted in every way, just as we are.
Yet He did not sin. And Hebrews 2, Because He
himself suffered when He was tempted, He's able to help those
who are being tempted. What have you ever felt alone in
your suffering, in your struggles?
It's a common experience, actually goes no one else really
understands you maybe even tell some people, but they don't
respond well or they seem to forget the next time you see
them. One of the worst things about
suffering, whether physical, emotional, spiritual, is that
the isolation. The writer of Hebrews says,
actually we have a high priest who can sympathize, who does
sympathize, who has been there ahead of us.
We have Emmanuel, God with us. And even more than that, we
have, we have the word became flesh so that we can know what
God is like. The message of Christmas is the
living God has gone to infinite lengths to make himself known to
us and so that we can know him personally.
And it's so hard to grasp the immensity of what Jesus has done
for us in revealing the glory of God to us.
A really imperfect illustration I was thinking of this week.
I used to own 2 goldfish. They were called Les and Kevin.
They when I married Lily they were from a previous
relationship of mine but she took them in as the her step
goldfish and and Les and Kevin were with us for a few years.
The fishbowl we had was bigger than the one pictured.
Because this is cruel. But imagine that I had Les and
Kevin, and I hear that every fish in the world is in danger
from a terrible disease. I want to warn them from it, but
of course I can shout as much as I can from outside the fishbowl.
They will not understand me. They will not hear me.
Aquarium owners tell me that's very dangerous and stressful for
fish. But I imagine I am able to
shrink down and become a fish and enter the fishbowl.
Then I could speak to the language they would understand
and I could tell them here is this terrible disease and here
is how to avoid it. Now there will be a cost to me
in doing that. I would leave behind my loved
ones, my home, my comfort. But if I did it, I'm sure I
really love my fish, and it was also pretty special.
The heart of Christmas is God himself shrank down and became
one of us. And in so doing, God gives
humanity an astonishing dignity. The incarnation shows that human
beings, ordinary men, women and children like us, matter
enormously to God. Jesus gives huge dignity to our
species by becoming one of us. He affirmed the value of human
life. The Word became flesh and made
his dwelling among us so we could know just how loved we are
by God, So we could we could learn how we can be healed from
that terrible disease of sin and selfishness.
So we can know who God is and what he is really like, and that
is the transforming power of the incarnation.
Jesus shows us the living God is good and loving and can be
trusted. Verse 14 John writes.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
We've seen his glory, says John. Now once it's that's John
speaking as an eyewitness. He was one of Jesus closest
friends. He spent three years with Jesus.
He saw Jesus crucified. He saw Jesus risen from the
dead. But another level, every single
follower of Jesus in this room can echo that statement.
We have seen his glory. Why?
Because we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
If we want to know what God is like, we look at the face of
Jesus. And then we learned that God is
good and God is loving and God can be trusted.
When we look at Jesus walking around ancient Israel 2000 years
ago, relating to people, speaking, doing amazing things,
we are looking at God in action. And we see a God who is
compassionate, is gentle with the weak and the struggling, who
raises up the humble. He treats the weak with dignity.
We see a God who's powerful enough to save us.
He can calm storms, walk on water, drive out demons, raise
the dead. We see a God who hates pride and
hypocrisy. He is full of grace and truth,
says John here. And we see that throughout his
life the truth matters to Jesus. Grace matters to Jesus.
We see a God who gets his hands dirty saving sinners like us.
The night before the cross he he Stoops down and just washes the
mud off his disciples feet, ours, before he goes to a cross
to wash them clean. The word became flesh so we
could bleed and die to win our forgiveness.
He entered our world to live the life we couldn't live and die
the death we deserve to die again.
As amazing as the incarnation is, Jesus becoming one of us
doesn't in and of itself save us.
No, Jesus came to live the life we couldn't live.
Jesus was perfectly obedient to his Father.
Jesus was free from sin. He was everything that we should
be but aren't. And then He came to die the
death we deserved to die, so we can share that perfect
obedience, that perfect relationship with God, with
everyone who calls Jesus Lord. Look at verse 12 again of John
1. To all who receive him, to those
who believed in His name, He gave the right to become
children of God. The Word became flesh so we
could swap places with us so He could take our punishment, so we
would be free from that, so He could live that perfect life of
love and justice so that we can share in that perfection of love
and justice when God looks at us in Jesus, the Word became flesh.
We could swap places with us on the cross, and that all starts
with the incarnation. Here's how the English pastor
John Stott puts it. He says the essence of sin is
man substituting himself for God, while the essence of
salvation is God substituting himself for man.
Man puts himself where only God deserves to be.
When we reject God, we think, I don't need God.
But God responds by putting himself where only man deserves
to be. Man claims prerogatives that
belong to God alone. God accepts penalties that
belong to man alone. This is the solid ground on
which Christians can stand that Jesus has lived the life we
couldn't live, died the death we deserve to die, and He shares
his victory with us. He entered our world, He shared
our nature, He took our place, He bore our sin, He received our
judgement so we can be forgiven and accepted and washed clean
and welcomed home. Is that great exchange, the Word
becoming flesh that begins in the Incarnation and culminates
on the cross of Calvary? It's all linked Christmas.
That the story of Christmas feels like, well, that's a nicer
end of the gospel. That's babies and stars and nice
songs and Easter. That's the gruesome bit that
people get turned off by. But it's all part of the same
story. The Word became flesh so we
could give that flesh for us. So the beginning of the
Christmas season, what difference does the incarnation
make? What difference does the Word
become flesh make to us? If you're a follower of Jesus
here this morning, I can think of a few things that we're going
to finish on the 1st is this. You are loved by God.
That's not just wishful thinking.
That's not Wouldn't it be nice if the God of the universe loved
me? No.
You look at the incarnation and you see the eternal Son of God
loves you so much He came looking for you.
Your life is not an accident or a mistake.
You're loved by God so much the Word became flesh and made His
dwelling with us. And again, if you put your trust
in Him, you are accepted by God. That is the key to our
salvation, to our assurance, to our hope at Christmas time.
It's not how well you're doing at the moment, it's not how
obedient you're doing, how spiritual you feel, how good you
are. It is US resting in all that
Jesus has done for us, His obedience and His atoning death
for us. The Word became flesh and He
took our place so we can be washed clean.
Amazingly, actually, you're, you're now free from slavery to
sin. If you trust in Jesus, if you
trust in Jesus, you can change those those things you struggle
with. Well, Jesus obedience becomes
our obedience. God the Holy Spirit comes to
live in US. You can fight the good fight.
You will not win every battle. There'll be times when you will,
you will lose it. You will lose your temper.
You will give in to cowardice. You will do so many different
things, you will win every battle, but the war has been won
for you by Jesus, so you can keep fighting.
And that again is the message of the incarnation.
The Word became flesh so that He could give us His righteousness,
His obedience. And the Word became flesh means
you are never alone. They will call him Emmanuel,
which means God with us. Jesus hasn't left you alone to
live for him. He now lives in you again,
amazing New Testament language. Every believer in Jesus can say
Christ lives in me and I live in him.
We are. I'm as close as it's possible to
be to Jesus until that day when I get even closer, when Jesus
returns and brings a new creation about at the end of
human history. And Jesus therefore, is always
with us. The end of Matthew's Gospel.
Behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age.
He became one of us at Christmas, and He's one of us
still. There is a human being sitting
at the right hand of the Father, praying for us, listening to us,
helping us. And He is near to us by His
Spirit in us as we are in Him. The Word became flesh and made
His dwelling among us. Christmas is busy.
There's loads going on, loads of sheets to sign up to.
But let's remember at the middle of all this busyness that we're
not alone, that Jesus has come near.
Jesus has even become one of us. He didn't have to.
He chose to out of His love for us and out of His love for us.
He then invites us to live with Him and follow Him in this world
and live as His witnesses in this world which is dark and
needs His light. Let's receive the light that
only Jesus can give to us this Christmas and let's share it
with the people around us. Let me pray for us.
Let me pray. Father God, we thank you that
you're so determined to save a people for yourself, that you
sent your Son into this world, the eternal Son of God, to
become the Jesus of history and to live the life we could not
live, die the death we deserve, to die and rise again to share
his victory with us. Father, thank you that you and I
are Father every bit as much as you were Jesus.
Father, in all eternity, thank you.
Father, we do not live in this world alone.
You are near to us by your Spirit, sent after the death and
resurrection of your Son. Father God, this Christmas, help
us just to hear more of what you have done for us and strengthen
our love for you, our trust in you, and give us them the
courage and the love to live as your witnesses in this world.
Thank you for not abandoning us. Lord, thank you for drawing
near. Lord Jesus, thank you for living
and dying and rising again. So this Christmas we can
rejoice, we can adore the God of all grace.
He's welcomed us home. And we pray this in the name of
the Word, become flesh. Jesus, Amen.