Sermon January 3, 1999 Word Made Flesh based on John 1:1-18

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Form of the Message

If you want to deliver a special message, how do you go about it? In the celebration of Christmas, we remember the very special way God chose to deliver His message to us. Our Christmas celebration continues today with this being the Second Sunday after Christmas. We remember the special message which God sent at Christmas.

Have you thought about all the different ways we can communicate in our day and age? You could send a letter. Other might send an email message. Some people still send messages through telegrams, though Western Union uses the telephone to send the message. There are singing telegrams, too, which deliver a message in a special way. You can even have an airplane pull a banner behind.

It you need to speak to someone else, the most common way is probably through a phone call. You could send a messenger to deliver a personal spoken message. The old standby, however, is to go in person to deliver the message yourself.

God delivered His message of salvation to us in a way different from even the large number of options we have today. God was just being God when He decided to send His message in a way more special, more original, and more caring than any way we could think up. God took His message and made that message into flesh. The Word was made flesh. God delivered His message, His Word, with flesh. He could have flashed some letters in the sky. He could have whispered it in someone's ear. Instead, He sent a person. He sent not just an ordinary person but a special person-Himself. He came himself, rather than delegating the job to someone else. He came Himself rather than trusting some other way of communicating. God came Himself, because He cares so much.

Hallmark wants you to buy their greeting cards, so that others will think you care enough to send the very best. They have taught us to look at the back of our cards for that Hallmark logo. God sent His message in a way that Hallmark could not top. God sent His best, when He came Himself in the person of the Son.

The way God sent His message is the best possible way. Other ways could leave us open to doubt. For example, some people are very worried about getting messages from God today. They will try to convince you that the hear God speaking to them. Whether or not this is true, I don't know. What we do know for sure is we can all rely on the best way for God to speak to us, and that was through Him sending the Word into flesh. He sent the Word, His message in the flesh of Jesus Christ. It was a message that was hard to miss. In fact, of the people who are opposed to Christianity, very few will deny that there was such a man as Jesus Christ. They know that Jesus existed, they just don't believe that He is God. They know there is a message, but they don't take that message as coming from God.

In sending the Word made flesh, God opened Himself up and showed Himself to us. When you receive a phone call, you cannot really see the expressions on your caller's face. You cannot tell if they are smiling or frowning. When we make a phone call, at least part of our self is still hidden. We do not reveal ourselves fully. However, if someone comes to see you in person, they are then revealing more about themselves in their conversation than they would over the telephone.

The coming of Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, was a message that revealed God to us. We get to see what He is like as He reveals Himself to us. The text said, "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." No one had seen God before Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. Sure, Moses and others saw manifestations of God, such as a burning bush or a pillar of fire or cloud. They didn't really see God in a full revelation. Our text tells us that in Jesus, God reveals Himself for us to see. He has made himself known.

In the Word made flesh we have the one and only God revealing Himself to us. "We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." This glory is revealed in Jesus Christ. He is not a plain, ordinary messenger, but rather He is the One and Only.

Our text reminds us in another way just who we have in the Word made flesh. God didn't just send some subordinate or a hired hand to pass along the message. God Himself came, and the importance of the one who came is spelled out in the reading from John. "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 men." The one who came to bring the message is the maker of all things. As we look at the world full of things that were made, we find that they are all made by God. The Word made flesh is the same Almighty Creator God.

Evolution would teach us that things make themselves; that there are random processes at work and the elements of our world just happened to come into existence without any intervention. This kind of thinking is what today's young people are growing up on. They are being programmed to think this way in schools, on TV and movies, and in newspapers and magazines. The idea that God created everything and still does create things can be strange to our scientific minds. Science tried to teach us that it has an explanation for the origins of all things. So, our minds are led to conclude that if science can explain where the things of our world came from, then it must be that God didn't put them there.

God's truth tells us something different. It says that all things that were made were made by God. It also mentions that life especially has its source in God. Life was in Him, that is God. Life began in God and that life continues to be the light of man. Man has no life and no light without the life which is in God.

Not only do we rejoice to confess that God created the entire world and every living thing, but we also rejoice to realize that this same God came to us in the Word made flesh, at Christmas, in the baby laid in a manger. The Almighty Creator of the Universe stooped down to give us a message which He sent by coming himself in the flesh of a human baby.

Our Response

We have this incredible message, delivered in flesh, being God Himself, the creator of the world. How do we respond to the message? If you get a message from a really important person, you usually will give that message your best attention. Sometimes we don't do that with God's message. Sometimes we slack off on what we know God wants us to do. We take it easy, and do what we feel like. Looking carefully, we see that we are slackers frequently. We go astray. We are constantly falling into sins. God, the Almighty, the creator, came to us and what is our response? It is less than the full obedience which God requires.

In short, we don't receive the message which is God's Son as we should. The text says, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him." Imagine that, the world was made by God, and then God comes to the world, but people did not recognize Him.

Grace

The message brought by Jesus Christ is, however, a message of grace. It is a message of a free gift. In the message, the Word become flesh, we hear that our sins are forgiven by grace, as a gift of God. We hear that we are restored as God's children, not based on what we do, but based on what He does for us. This is what we hear from the one full of grace and truth. He has an abundance of grace. He is full of grace and that grace overflows to us, to bless us over and over.

This is the month for the big publisher's sweepstakes. Send in your entry and they could show up at your door with an 11 million dollar prize. If you don't send in your entry, they won't come for sure. You must do something to earn the prize from these sweepstakes. The entries are often so difficult to complete, with stickers to put here, paper circles to tear out, and so forth, that you may feel they owe you the prize if you go to the work of completing the entry. If you don't do it the exact way the directions say, you can forget your chance at the 11 million dollars.

This is not how it is with God's prize to us, the forgiveness of sins. This is a gift of grace. The only one who is at work securing the prize for us is God. The text says: "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." When we become children of God, it is not our actions that accomplish it, but, rather, we are "born of God." Becoming children of God means we are again in His favor. This comes through our sins being forgiven. It all comes as a free gift, through grace.

In the Word made flesh, God has revealed Himself to us. We see just what He is like-full of grace and truth. We see Him blessing us over and over. We see a God who desires to give His gifts to all people. John was sent from God, so that all men might believe. God wants us to believe that: what He freely offers us-is ours. "To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." Believe in the name of the Word who came as flesh for us. Believe in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.