Sermon: The Second Sunday of Christmas [John 1:10-18]
Well,
we’re three days into it now and it already is starting to really feel like
January isn’t it? Christmas
decorations are being packed away, Champaign corks have been popped, New Years
dinners have been eaten, and resolutions have been made. As you all know, making resolutions at
New years is popular. Folks want to make improvements in their lives and
resolve to do so. They make promises to themselves and others in many and
various ways. It might be to lose that belly fat, start a new diet, start a
running routine, spend more time with the family, maybe even, go to church
more.
With initial great enthusiasm folks go about
fulfilling these resolutions. The scene is played out a hundred times over. The
forty-something rookie jogger awakens before sunrise, dawns his new water-proof
outfit, squeezes into new, expensive, but slightly uncomfortable running shoes,
and hits the pavement. Some will keep this routine going. Most won’t. Most
likely, one morning, maybe after several days of torturous trips around the
block, that same jogger will get up look out the window, stare at the soaked
pavement, and the rain beating down upon it, and make that crucial
decision—“forget it, I’m going back to bed”. Those running shoes which need
breaking in will get broken in to be sure, but in other ways, involving barely,
if any, physical exercise. But hey, there’s always next new years Eve. The fact
of the matter is that most New Years Resolutions are not kept. Most of those promises to self or others are broken. But
then again, how many human promises are kept at any time? How many politicians
keep their election promises? How many married couples maintain their wedding
vows? How many human beings in the course of human history are let down by the
broken promises by others? Promises are kept, to be sure, but , standing back,
looking at the overall picture, it isn’t harsh to conclude that human beings
are pretty good at breaking their promises.
Christians
break promises. Every Christian is a promise maker, but also a promise breaker.
The promise breaking comes in the form of sin. The promise we Christians make
is to follow God faithfully, and to trust in God and God alone. The First Commandment is very clear: "You shall have no other gods”. It’s meaning is
unmistakable. Luther’s Small Catechism
tells us it means that we are to fear, love, and trust God above all things”.
Every time we sin, we choose not to trust in God, but instead in ourselves.
Every time we sin we tell God, “you are not God, I am”. That’s a broken
promise. This self will of
humanity is the original sin, and is the path of eternal death. When we break
our promise to God, we choose death. That’s
the bad news.
The
good news is that while human beings are unable to keep this ultimate promise
to God, God has kept His promise to humanity. When God makes a promise; it is a promise. If you read Genesis in
the Old Testament you read about that promise, the promise God made to Abraham,
the Hebrew desert Nomad. God promised Abraham that he would make a great nation
of his ancestors, and that his ancestors would be more numerous than the stars
in the heavens. This promise was carried down through the descendants of
Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through the sons of Jacob, but the
promise was not simply intended for the Israelites or for the Jewish people,
but for all of humanity. God made a promise to humanity, rebellious and sinful
humanity—a humanity sentenced to death by their own rebellion, a humanity who
chose not to be children of God, who sold their birthright, and lived east of
Eden. God made this promise to bring them back, and make them his children.
But,
as you know, promises are not usually easy to keep. Resolutions require work
and effort, and sacrifice. So, it doesn’t take a theological genius to realize
that the greatest promise ever made, which was God’s promise to Abraham, would
require the greatest sacrifice ever made.
God himself would do that; God himself would make that sacrifice. God
himself, The Word which brought all reality into being, would enter the human
scene, and take on human flesh.
In order to make all humans his children, God would
give his only begotten son. God would give Jesus Christ so that all may be
given the gift of eternal life. God made a promise through Abraham, and has
fulfilled it through Christ.
The
story of God’s promise made and fulfilled is a larger than life story—it’s
magnitude is beyond human comprehension. But it’s a personal story. It is about
you. It is about God’s promise to you; it’s about God claiming you. You see.
God’s promise is extended to the whole world, at the universal level, but it is realized in the
particular—at the personal level. God works to communicate that promise to you. God communicates that promise through
the good news of the gospel. Its simple, it’s direct, and it is communicated to
you.
Through the Word of forgiveness and eternal life God
is reaching out to you. So trust in the
promise. Through the sacrament of baptism, God claims you, marks you,
communicates the gift of eternal life to you. So trust in the promise. Through the sacrament of the altar, holy
communion, God communicates to you the forgiveness of sin and the gift of life
with him in eternity. So trust in the
promise.
Living the life of Christian faith can be simply
defined as living in trust of God’s promise. When we live in trust of that promise—when we trust in that
Word of life and love, we are liberated. We are liberated from the yolk of doing it on our own, of trying to be
good people, of trying to please God with works and actions. When we live
trusting that promise, we can truly live, live even knowing that we are
fallible, that we are sinful. We don’t need to cover up; we don’t need to
rationalize. We don’t need to do any of that because we can trust. We can
confess our sin and trust in the mercy of Almighty God. Regardless of how
mature your faith, ho long you have been a Christian, how many good works you
carry out, if your faith is true, you never move beyond this simple trust,
because you never move beyond needing to hear the words of eternal life, the
words of forgiveness.
Yes, today is the last Sunday of Christmas. Soon the
decorations will be taken down and packed away. New Years resolutions will be
forgotten. The rainy and sometimes dreary Vancouver winter weather will be a
constant reality. But remember the heart of Christmas. The heart of Christmas
is a promise, the Word of God made flesh, who came into the world as an infant,
to live among us, to claim us, to transform us, and make us the children of
God, the children of God’s promise. Amen.
