Micah 5:2–5
St. John 1:1–18
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
You can’t get much bigger, much grander than the first chapter of John’s Gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Not only does that imitate the opening line of Genesis—in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but John 1 goes back even further, beyond the beginning of creation and time, to when there was only God and nothing else, only the three eternal Persons in one God: the Father, the Spirit, and the Word—the Father’s eternally begotten Son. Then starting from the Trinity, from that grandest of beginnings, then John comes to creation. The Word was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
This is a truly epic story, on a higher level than any human myth—beyond the epic poems of Homer, or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, or any movie that might begin, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” We’re dealing with heavy stuff here: Life itself (capital L), the Life who makes all other things live. And the uncreated Light (capital L again), the Light who gives all other light meaning, the Light who cannot be grasped or understood or ever put out. This Word, this Life, this Light, is the Son of the Father, long before He was ever known by the name Jesus.
John’s Gospel takes us soaring higher than the loftiest of man’s philosophies. It strains our little imaginations to get such a bird’s eye view of the universe. John 1 gets about as close as we can get to God’s perspective. And so we hear in this first chapter about Christmas on a cosmic scale: the Word who is God from eternity, the Word who brought all things into being, that 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. This is the biggest, most epic of stories.
But on the other hand, we heard from the prophet Micah, and we got a story with one of the smallest settings. The cosmic story of Christmas zooms in from the perspective of God and the universe down to the little town of Bethlehem. Where John 1 might’ve left us a bit breathless and dizzy, in Bethlehem, everything gets simple and real, like dirt under the fingernails. Bethlehem—the name means, House of Bread. Not House of pastry or House of fine wines or House of exotic spices. House of Bread—can you get more ordinary than that?
Bethlehem, in the region of Ephrathah, humdrum, workaday, stinking with shepherds and dung, too little to be among the clans of Judah. But it’s the city of David, right? That’s got to count for something. It’s David’s hometown, but not his capital. He didn’t stay there when he became king. City of Jesse, is more like it—the place where his son David lived when he was still only a little shepherd boy.
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for Me One who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Ancient days? Try, “He is the One from before the ancient days began.” Ordinary, common, plain, little town of Bethlehem. Even with Micah’s prophecy, I don’t think they were really expecting it when the new King was born and laid in one of their mangers. The Word came there. The eternal Son of the Father, the Maker of the Cosmos, the Life, the Light, He showed up in little Bethlehem.
Why? We dare to ask. It boggles the human mind. But the answer is not so hard to grasp as the question. Because He loves us. He chose to be with us, one with us—common, ordinary humanity, with all our stink, with all our sin. He took us on as we are, not perfect, not grand, not even very nice or good. His love brought Him down to earth, down to our lowly level, even down into the lowliness of our sin and death. His love brought Him down so that His love could bring us up. He became as we are, so that we might become as He is.
This is the great cosmic Christmas exchange. The whole universe was turned upside-down at Bethlehem: we gifted Him our sin, our filth, our doom, and He gifted us with His Life, His Light, Himself. As one of our Lutheran poets put it:
Thou Christian heart,
Whoe’er thou art,
Be of good cheer and let no sorrow move thee!
For God’s own Child,
In mercy mild,
Joins thee to Him;
How greatly God must love thee! (LSB 372:4)
And not only does He love you, not only is He with you, but also He is FOR you. He’s on your side. * The Word became flesh, and the Word endures forever. No one can snatch the Word made flesh from us. Nothing can steal the joy we have in the Word made flesh.
In that sense, Christmas is eternal. Long after the decorations are taken down and the music is turned off and the crowds at the mall are gone, the Word they still shall let remain. This world may not care for it. They may even hate it. They may think as little about it as a little, nothing, one-stop-sign town like Bethlehem. But none of that matters. Because He is the Word that endures forever. He is that blessed Word that created all that is. He is that blessed Word that came to His own, and His own people did not receive him. Still, He came to save this miserable human race. He is that blessed Word made flesh, sent from God to reconcile us back by His own blood and to speak us back into fellowship with Him. * And so, to all who did receive this Word made flesh, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but born of God. In your Baptism, you were made a part of this grand, epic story. And nothing can change that.
And finally, this all-creating, cosmically powerful Word that was born a man in Bethlehem, He brings a little Bethlehem to you. He has built His Bethlehem, His House of Bread right here. And it’s a beautiful church. But as beautiful as it is, it’s still a bit ordinary. It’s a country church, by no means the greatest or grandest in the world or in the Missouri Synod for that matter. Nevertheless, this is Bethlehem for you here: a real House of Bread, where you eat and drink, not common food for common earthly life, but in this Bethlehem, you eat and drink the eternal Word’s very body and blood. So, you are given His very Life and Light.
What an epic Christmas story! And it’s not “once upon a time…” It’s happening right now. Word of the Father THERE (at the altar) in flesh appearing! O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!
Merry Christmas!
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
