The Mystery of the Manger
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Yes! Let's go! - So Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. So glad you guys are here. Welcome. Thank you everybody who's joining us online. I know we got a lot of people out that are sick and we love you, but we love you from afar. We don't want that sickness here, amen. But we pray that you restore health and get back to 100%, be back here as soon as you can. We miss you. We're not the same without you. So we are this morning gonna kick off our Christmas sermon series. And this year we're going a little different. I know we're not technically taking the traditional Advent route, but don't worry. This Advent will come back, we promise. But we wanna do something a little bit different this year. Pastor Andre and Ari had taken some time earlier in the year and really prayed through kind of, what does God wanna share with our church family this Christmas? What does God wanna teach us this Christmas season? And the more we talked about it, the more we focused in on what Christmas is about, we just kept getting drawn back to the manger and get back to this place where Christ first came that first ever Christmas and was placed and laid in that manger. And that changed the trajectory of the world. And Christmastime is awesome. There's so much excitement and joy and fun that happens at Christmas, whether it's presents on Christmas morning, and maybe it's a favorite food that you cook or bake only at Christmas time, or maybe it's a family tradition that you have wrapped around Christmas that you only do during that Christmas season. And I love those. And they can be so much fun and excitement in that with lights and music and food. But it's important for us to even in the midst of all of that, to still celebrate when Jesus came, what that meant for the savior of the world in Jesus Christ. And I think for us, unfortunately, we live in a world where there's really two polarizing opposites when it comes to Christmas, right? Either you have on one side, maybe it's all about just the stuff. And you don't necessarily hear about Jesus. You hear about the North Pole, you hear about Santa, snowmen, elves, reindeer, you fill in the blank and they miss Jesus. And sometimes on the other side, for those of us who have been in the church, it seems like forever, we hear the story of Christmas and go, "Oh yeah, I remember Christmas. The wise men and the shepherds and the manger scene and the donkey and Mary and Joseph and everybody else, the angels. Yeah, I remember Christmas.
But I think even there it gets lost because we forget truly what Christmas is about. And this awe and this majesty, this mystery that we're gonna talk about this morning that comes with the manger. And I want to encourage you this year, that as you walk through Christmas, now through the next 30 days until Christmas morning, that you might have fresh eyes. You might have a renewed perspective, a renewed outlook maybe on what Christmas is about. That in the message of the manger, there's mystery, there's miracle, there's majesty, there's Messiah. And as we look at the manger scene and baby Jesus that was wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the manger, that in that very moment, the world changed. Let us not forget that, that when we look at that baby in the manger, we look at the savior of the world. So we're gonna be in John chapter one this morning, and we're gonna go deep today. We're jumping into some deep, deep theology. So I want you guys buckle up. It's gonna be some heavy stuff. I actually took a course, a class in college. It was all about Christology, which is just the study of Christ. I've never had a class in my life hurt my head so much. The book that was involved in this class was one of the thickest books I've ever owned in my life. And I remember times sitting in my dorm room reading this and I would just have to stop and I would literally start to have a headache because these theologians and these people that had giant IQs, way smarter than myself, would take paragraphs upon paragraphs upon pages upon pages to just take one little sliver of who Christ was and try to explain it in normal people terms. And you still couldn't fully understand. It was just like, oh my gosh. So this morning, if you walk away and going, I don't even know what Pastor Chris said today. Hey, you're in common company. I don't know what I'm saying today either. So it's all right. And if you walk out of here going, that makes sense. I understand it all, you're preaching next week. So you come and tell me.
No, but we're gonna start in John chapter one this morning And we're gonna start all the way at the beginning. It said, "In the beginning was the one who was called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God. From the very beginning, the Word was with God. And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word. Everything that was created received its life from Him, and His life gave light to everyone. The Word became a human being and lived here with us. We saw his true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From him, the complete gifts of undeserved grace and truth have come down to us. Jesus came that very first Christmas. And in that, John here starts his gospel account on talking about this Word. And this word translated, if you were to dive a little deep into this, is translated as logos. And that word in the Greek means basically God. This logos, this word, this God came. And that term, if you wanna write something down this morning, big term here would be incarnation. And the incarnation here is God becoming man, fully God still, and yet at the same time, fully man. And we at Christmas time are invited by God to further understand this mystery. It's something that for centuries, the church has talked about and yet still doesn't fully understand. That's how big God is. I love that about God, that we can sit here and talk about it and try to understand it and to learn about who he is. And yet we still kind of fall short. 'Cause that's who God is. And we on our humanity are limited. And that this mystery is okay. Because this mystery pulls us in. It draws us in to see the miracle of Jesus. It pulls us in to point to his majesty of who God is and truly shouts that he is the Messiah. That's what this mystery does. And when we come into this place of seeing Jesus coming to earth, we're faced with this struggle of two. Of Jesus being fully the person of God, and yet fully a human. And so we struggle in this because sometimes we sit here and we try to wrap our minds around this thing and go like, okay, he's fully God, but he's fully human. He's fully human and he's fully God. How does all of this come together? And John here is pointing us in the direction of helping us to understand.
So let's unpack this a little bit here. Unpack this. It says in the beginning was the word. What is this beginning? Well, this beginning is actually even before time came into existence. This is pre Genesis 1, 1. This is time before when there really was no time when God was there. There was no world, there was no creation, there was no night, there was no day, there were no nothing out there and yet God existed. And at that time, all things were originally created. This logos was already in continuing existence. Clear as mud? This term here, I'm gonna have a four of these. I'm gonna call them the four essentials of Incarnational Christology. Okay, we're gonna have four of these this morning. The first of which is this, yes, good word. This first one is one eternal person, the logos, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit have always existed and will continue to always exist. And this is what John here is saying, "In the beginning was the Word." God has always been, will always be, and will forever always continue to be. That's how God is. John continues on, he said, "The Word was with God." The Logos was already in face-to-face relationship with God. They were close, tight relationship with one another. That's where God being there with the Logos, with the Son, with the Holy Spirit, all together have this incredible relationship that you and I get to have just tiny glimpses in our earthly relationships. This is where we say God is an incredible relational God. This is his nature, this is who he is. And we see that even before time began. And the word was God, John continues on. The Logos was already existing with the same characteristics of God itself. John talks about this, talking about the deity of the incarnate Christ in verse 18 of John that says this, "No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son who is himself God and is in closest relationship, remember, relationship with the Father, has made him known. Paul also talks about this in the words of, not Paul, John talks about this. When Jesus has died and he's risen again and he appears before the disciples and Thomas shows up, and Jesus says, "It's me." Thomas, come touch my side, touch my hands. I am here, I am risen. And Thomas literally says, my Lord, my God. These are the same words that are used in the original manuscripts that talk about Thomas at that moment going, Jesus, you are God. You're not some separate entity. You're not some lower thing. You are God. And there was a never a time when this word that John talks about that was separate from Jesus, they have always continued to exist. And then John says, the word became a human being. You might remember it as the word became flesh. And this is Jesus. That very first Christmas, the word became flesh. This logos changed his way of living to be fully conformed to concrete humanity, just like Adam and Eve. And this is what we call the incarnation. The word literally means in flesh. God entered the world as a human man, Jesus Christ. So that's Christ divinity. That's his God side.
And then we have Christ's humanity, his human side. And it says this in Philippians chapter two, who being in the very nature of God, do not consider equality 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 and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. And at the name of Jesus, every niche about in heaven and on earth, under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to glory of the God, the father. So God himself emptied of him, his own plans, his own agenda, his own desires. I'd be curious to see how that conversation went in heaven. God walks over to Jesus and goes, "Hey, I got a plan." And Jesus goes, "Yeah, I know. "I gotta leave, don't I?" And God goes, "Yeah, it's gonna be tough, "but it's gonna be worth it." Finally, to the point, the plan of redemption, of salvation for the entire planet, is gonna happen and it's gonna be through you, Jesus. And Jesus empties himself. It says in verse six and seven, see this existence in the form of God that Jesus had is translated as morphe theo, a God form or a God being, a person. Is it an essence? Anybody drinks sparkling water? You have those cans where it's like the essence is like they just rub the fruit on the outside of the can and hope that something tastes like it. (congregation laughing) Or they had the giant batch of water and some guy with like a spray gun went, "Psst, psst, psst, all right, bottle that." You guys know what I'm talking about? This isn't what God here is, is with Jesus. This isn't just a man that has a little spritz of divinity over him. This is a whole divine lifestyle. one that is in lockstep with God. We just finished a series in Romans. I thought about getting them this morning. All right, turn your Bibles to Romans 1, one. It'd be like, oh, just kidding. But Romans, I gotta go back to Romans. It's just so good, right? The power of the gospel. Romans talks, Paul talks about this in chapter 12. He says, "Do not conform to the power of this worm, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what's God's will." His good, His perfect, His pleasing will. Jesus has a morpheiau with God. It is in lockstep with who God is. And so God then, He humbles Himself in Jesus and takes on the status of a human. But this isn't a thing where Jesus is now separated from God, if you're taking notes, our second point of our super deep theology, essentials of incarnation Christology, is God and Jesus has the same eternal deity as the Father. So when Jesus took on the form, as it says in there in the Greek, morphandalo, the form of a bondservant, Jesus did not walk away from his divinity. Jesus wasn't just a good guy here on earth who performed some tricks and pulled the great escape artists after his death on the cross. Jesus was and continues to be to this day, God. He takes on this form of a bond sermon Another way would be saying that Jesus then devoted to another, to the disregard of his own interests. Jesus took on the calling and accepted God's great salvation plan in him and became a servant to come here to earth, to go to the cross for you and for me so that our biggest problem in life, our sin problem would be put away with and our relationship with God could be once again restored with him. Amen. That's what we celebrate at Christmas. That is the mystery of the manger. And so Jesus takes on this human likeness, this homatoia, a forefront, and this brings on himself these physical traits of a human person. Jesus looked like an everyday ordinary dude in Israel in that day and age. I'm sorry to tell you, Jesus didn't have long blonde hair, wearing a white robe with the blue sash. If you grew up in church, you knew that flannel graph figurine. Jesus looked like a normal person in that day and age. You wouldn't have been able to go, "Oh, there's God." He looked like a regular guy. And yet what? He was God. He was God. Our third incarnational Christology point is Jesus then had the same temporal humanity as us. The same temporal humanity as you and me. And yet what? He was still God.
So how does that work? How does all of this work? How does all this come together? Well, these two natures are united in what we call Christ's fullness. These two natures are pulled together. A big term for this, you ready? Is hypostatic union. I told you you're getting some good stuff today. A hypostatic union. This is the union of Christ's human nature and divine nature. See, they don't just merely coexist and take turns leading from time to time, nor are they blended together to create a third nature. The human and divine are united as one. Jesus had one fully divine nature and fully human nature. They were not mixed and they didn't create something new. Instead, they coexisted in perfect unity while retraining full attributes of both. This is important, okay? This is super important because the reality here is remember that Jesus' human nature was not a fallen human nature. That's where this born of a virgin Mary comes into play here is that Jesus comes through a sinless line. He was free from sin. He was free from any corruption. And yet he lived as a human with divine nature. There was no transfer of one to the other. So if we were to say it like this, another way would be the divine, if you were to take divine godly deity attributes and put them onto a human, the human would cease to exist, right? And if you were to take a human and to give it character and nature of God to make it a God-like figure, it would cease to be a human. God brings this mystery of this unity together to where God walks this line that no other human has ever walked. Perfect, blameless, full step of God's will. of God's will and yet not losing his divine character. The scriptures teach us that the human nature of Christ remained in its integrity after the incarnation and that the divine nature remain divine. Our fourth point of incarnational Christology would be full unity of the person of Jesus. a perfect harmonious being, fully God and fully human. And this union was incredibly personal. Again, reflecting this nature of God, incredibly relational. God, Jesus did not have a split personality. Some might say he had split personality disorder. That was not who Jesus was. It wasn't like when miracle time happened, The God side took over and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, bread and fish, water into wine. But then when Jesus was hungry, which says in scripture, when he was tired, when he was worn out from travel and being with people, it wasn't like the God side went away and he never experienced some of our physical struggles that you and I face every single day. He was still God, even in those moments and yet remain blameless. The two natures didn't take times being in control over him. He was one whole person with two natures that were perfectly united with him.
I love this quote from Dr. Jerry Bercheres. Maybe this will help bring some understanding here to this. He says, "The Logos, the second person of the Trinity, who was fully equal with God in every way, emptied himself of the divine role and lifestyles and prerogatives, I'll get there, and took a fully human nature, living as a perfectly spirit-filled human, submitting himself to the will of the Father and the leading of the Holy Spirit in order to reveal the Father, redeem the world, and become the Messianic King.”
This is the of the incarnation. This is the purpose of Jesus coming that very first Christmas, to be laid as a babe in the manger, to redeem, to reveal the Father, to reconcile the world, and to become our Messianic King. So all of this to say, we could take weeks and talk about this. You just got the speed version. But all of this to say, as we look at the manger, I don't want you to get frustrated and go, I don't understand this God. I don't understand how this perfect union coming together fully God, fully man, born without sin, born as a baby, not as a human coming together. I don't want us to get frustrated with that, but rather might we stand back and marvel at this mystery. To stand back and to look and to hear this message of the manger that even from the beginning, when the heavens and the earth were not even created before time even existed, when there was nothing but God, the Word, the Logos, existed and it was there. And the Word came to us and made flesh and dwelled among us. This isn't some fairytale that we tell every Christmas. Jesus, God, deity, walked among us humans on earth, as a servant, to love us, to show us there's a better life to live, to show us that this feeble, fragile thing that we think we know as love isn't really true love, but a fraction of the real thing that God wants us to experience, that fake peace that the world tries to sell us isn't true peace, that fake hope isn't the true hope that we have in the cross. And that grace and mercy that we might try to share with each other isn't the full picture of what God desires for our lives. And that this message from the manger is a mystery. Pastor Andre and I have studied this for a long time and we still don't fully get it. But that makes us step back and go, "God, you are incredible." That you somehow fixed a problem that we didn't know we had and yet you figured it all out to the tiniest detail. And you did it through a baby in a manger? That's incredible. And that God took on flesh and he dwelled among us. We'll invite our worship team up. We're gonna close in the song this morning. But as we think about Christmas this season, we think about the manger and the baby. Don't get caught up in this mystery, but to remember what God did, that the Word became flesh, the Word was God, and the Word dwelled among us. It's not something we can fully understand. I feel there's days when I wake up and I understand it a little bit, and then the next day I can wake up and go, I have no clue what happened. (laughs) But let's marvel in that this Christmas. So when you look at a manger scene, you look at a manger, you see those throughout the season, these next 30 days, let's marvel at this mystery. Let's marvel at this idea of how God came that very first Christmas and changed the trajectory of the world. And let that grow our faith. and let that flow over us and consume our heart with this beautiful picture of what God did.
Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you. Jesus, to come in the way you did that very first Christmas. God, we are so grateful of how you gave up your rightful place on the throne in heaven and came and took on flesh and dwelled among us, God. May we revel in that mystery this Christmas season to hear the message of the manger with a new perspective this year, that Jesus, you would be reminded us of your Messiah person that you are. God, don't let us get caught up in the hustle and the bustle of Christmas, but to focus back on what you did that very first Christmas. We thank you, Jesus, we love you. In your name, we can only pray this. Everybody said, amen.