The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Matthew 1:16 Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. (NASB)
The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God is eternal. The Son of God always existed, just as we confess in the Athanasian Creed. Jesus the Christ was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary of human substance just as we confess.
We believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world; Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
Over the past four Wednesday Advent services we have followed Matthew’s genealogy. We have seen the story of God’s plan of salvation is not a testament to mans’ glory, but rather God’s grace. It’s a story that shows any celebration of Christmas as a celebration of human natures potential for goodness, is very misguided.
The genealogy of Jesus isn’t the only aspect of the birth of the Son of David that seems a bit out of step with the ways of the world. Take for example, the selection of a virgin from Nazareth to be the vessel of God’s entry into humanity. Since David’s Son was expected to be born in King David’s royal city, Bethlehem, a pregnant girl in Nazareth wouldn’t have seemed like the most efficient choice. Were there no virgins of child bearing age in Bethlehem at the time? Why bring in an outsider from a less well known village 80 miles away?
That wasn’t the only oddity associated with the birth of the Christ Child. People at the time would have expected that the one called “Lord” by King David to be born in a more befitting place, like a palace, not in a stable. Instead of swaddling cloths, the a new born king should have been wrapped in silk or cotton.
But the faithful would have seen God’s choice entirely consistent with His normal mode of operation. 1 Corinthians 1:27-29; “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the insignificant things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no human may boast before God.”
As for the Son of God Himself, “Although He existed in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7)
Think on this over the next few days. The Son of God, God Almighty from eternity became a fetus, a very little one of flesh, was born a baby boy, then a toddler and an adolescent, and finally a man. Miracles of miracles, Wonders of wonders. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit dipped God the Son in the human flesh by way of Mary, a Nazarene, a descendant of King David and King Solomon. She was the virgin who had been chosen from old, prophesied by the prophet Isaiah 7:14.
Martin Luther wrote of Mary and the Magnificat: “When the holy virgin experienced what great things God was working in her despite her insignificance, lowliness, poverty, and inferiority, the Holy Spirit taught her this deep insight and wisdom, that God is the kind of Lord who does nothing but exalt those of low degree and put down the mighty from their thrones, in short, break what is whole and make whole what is broken.” (AE 21:299).
In assuming flesh, God the Son was making whole that which was broken by sin. We are the broken. We are the humble, hungry, and lowly. There’s wasn’t and isn’t anything we can do to restore ourselves to our intended glory. We cannot make whole that which our sin has been broken.
By the way that’s what the Hebrew word “Shalom” means. “Peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare, and tranquility.”
From Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Judah and Tamar, Salmon and Rahab, Boaz and Ruth, David and Bathsheba, to Mary and Joseph we see how God was at work redeeming and working in history right up to Mary for one purpose. So that Virgin Mary would become pregnant and the Son of God would become flesh.
Jesus had to be conceived by the Holy Spirit to be of the same substance with the Father, to be truly God, without sin and holy in every way. Jesus also had to be born of Virgin Mary. He had to be flesh and blood, born covered in blood so that He would die covered in blood. Because the name given to Him was Jesus, the one who saves His people from their sins.
The Son of God, the Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the Son of Scandal, the Son of Joseph, the Son of Man’s flesh came by way of the humanity of a virgin of low degree from Nazareth. This we call the incarnation.
The Incarnation means that what is said of one nature can be said of the other. God cannot die, but Jesus did, so we can say that God died– a mystery but true. God has no mother, but Jesus did– a mystery but true. Jesus is God in the flesh, therefore we can say that Mary is the Mother of God and the Son of God is also the Son of Mary.
God became man to bring about the redemption of humanity. In the person of Jesus, God bound Himself to us in order feel our temptation, to die our death, to trample down death, to give us new life, and to redeem our entire lives in Him. “That which is not taken up into the flesh of Christ, is not taken up into the heaven of Christ.”
In order to understand the crucifix and the empty tomb, we must return to the Annunciation and the nativity because the work of redemption is undertaken by the One who is truly God and truly man. Conversely, we are to look upon the nativity as the prelude to the crucifix because this is why Jesus was born in the first place.
We are born into this world to live. That’s the purpose of our birth, life with God. Jesus was the only human being ever born whose purpose was to die. Once dead He rose from the dead to give us His new life.
The Son of God is not only ‘God with us,” but also He is one of us. “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:5)
Isaiah hath foretold It In words of promise sure, And Mary’ s arms enfold It,
A virgin meek and pure. Through God’s eternal will This Child to her is given
The Prophet gave the sign For faithful men to read: A virgin, born of David’s line, Shall bear the promised Seed. Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the God-head see, Hail th’ incarnate Deity! Pleased as Man with man to dwell; Jesus, our Immanuel!
To you, in David’s town, this day, Is born of David’s line A Savior, who is Christ the Lord; And this shall be the sign: The heavenly Babe you there shall find To human view displayed, All meanly wrapped in swaddling-clothes And in a manger laid.
To you this night is born a child Of Mary, chosen virgin mild; This little child, of lowly birth, Shall be the joy of all the earth. This is the Christ, our God and Lord, Who in all need shall aid afford; He will Himself your Savior be
From all your sins to set you free.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, The cross be borne for me, for you. Hail, hail the Word made flesh, The Babe, the Son of Mary Born that man no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth; Born to give them second birth.
Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen