There’s a story from the late nineteenth century about two young men who had sailed along the coast of Scotland. Having landed and disembarked from their boat, they decided to go for a scenic walk. However, after a few hours they had become hopelessly lost. Night soon fell while they were deep in the woods, without a map, or any lanterns. After a while, they saw a farmer’s cottage. “At last!” they cried out in relief. “This farmer will help us, and feed us, and point us in the right direction.” They knocked on the door but the farmer refused to let them in. Although they pleaded with the farmer through the shut door, telling them how hungry and cold they were, he kept the door closed and sent them away.
The two men had no other option but to continue walking, but after another mile or so they came to another cottage. By now it was well past midnight, but this farmer gladly woke up and helped these two strangers. He fed them and gave them a place in his home to stay for the night. The next morning, he accompanied them back to their boat.
It was only as the two young men thanked the farmer and prepared to go on their way, that the farmer became aware that one of these two lost, cold, and hungry young men he had welcomed into his own home was none other than the prince, who would later become King George V of England.
Can you imagine how stunned he would have been? Imagine unknowingly welcoming the future King into your own home! If only the first farmer had realized who it was who had come to his home and knocked on his door, but he did not receive him in.
As we celebrate Jesus’ birth as the Saviour of the world, today’s reading from John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was with God in the beginning, the One through whom all things were made. He is the King of heaven, the true Son of God from eternity, having the same divine nature of his Father. Yet Jesus is also fully human; the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.
After God rescued his Old Testament people from slavery to the Egyptians, he dwelt among his people. As they walked through the wilderness on the way to the land God had promised to give them, he commanded his people to construct a huge portable tent in the wilderness, called the Tabernacle. Wherever God told them to go, they would pack up the Tabernacle and take it with them to the next location. God would go with them, and when they set up the tent and all its furnishings the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle (Exodus 40).
God was with his people to blot out their sins by the blood of the sacrificial system so that they could remain in his presence and receive his blessing. He would be with them to provide for his people, protect them from their enemies, bless them and guide them. The families of each tribe would camp in their tents in the wilderness, and God was in the centre as the tents of the families in each tribe surrounded him on each side. The unseen God of all there is dwelt on earth and literally camped with his people (Numbers 2).
Now God dwells with his people in a new way. In today’s Gospel reading John tells us that in the Person of Christ, God became flesh and made his dwelling among us—the word literally is “to pitch a tent”; “encamp” or “tabernacle”. The God of the Old Testament has come to earth in the Person of Jesus, being housed in human flesh, camping amongst us. Jesus is now the Most Holy Place; the place where God dwells among his people and his glory is seen. John writes: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The image of the invisible God is revealed to us in the flesh and bone of a human being; a human baby wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger in Bethlehem. He is the long-promised Saviour: “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:11).
He is the One John refers to as ‘the Word’—the Word who was in the beginning; the Word who was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. But although everything that exists was made through him, the world did not know him. He came to that which was his own—God’s Old Testament people Israel who were waiting for their Saviour—but his own did not receive him—just like in the story of the first farmer refusing to welcome the future King into his home.
This is not a problem restricted to one ethnic group. This is a human race problem—all people cannot see Jesus as the Saviour—our King from heaven. We live in a world darkened by sin and captive to the powers of the devil, death and hell, and our default spiritual condition as human beings is one in which we cannot see Jesus or receive him as our King ourselves.
But God did not want to leave us in that state. He did not want to leave you in that state. He wanted to make his home with us. On this day when the world receives many gifts wrapped in colourful paper, bright bows and ribbons or packaged nicely in gift bags and boxes, the best present comes from God himself; wrapped in simple strips of linen; a present that will never wear out, break or need more batteries. God so loved the world that he gave—he gifted the world—his one and only Son. Jesus is your gift from God and in him was life, and that life was the light of humankind. Jesus came to give what it is impossible for anyone to have of themselves—true life in him; abundant life, fullness of life, as Jesus would say later on in John’s Gospel: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10). Jesus says of himself: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12).
Jesus identified with the vulnerable when he grew in Mary’s womb as a fragile embryo. Jesus identified with a messed up world when he was born in the midst of mess; a cramped stable surrounded by barnyard animals, dirt and faeces. Jesus identified with the poor and homeless, born in a cramped and borrowed stable, laid in a mere feedbox. the Word become flesh. Wrapped in strips of cloth, laid in straw, later rejected and ridiculed, Jesus knows what living in the real world is like. That is what Christmas is all about—God among us—God still among his people. Because Jesus is fully human as well as true God, Jesus knows exactly what you are going through. He knows what you fear, what your limitations are. He knows what you hope for. He knows how you hurt. He experienced pain and suffering like you do.
For the Word of God became flesh and tabernacled among us. God’s love is present in Jesus, who reached out to people—even unlovable people. He drew near to sinners; He touched people who were hurting and brought them the forgiveness of God. He still does today.
The word became flesh and dwells among us. For he is the One who said: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you, to the very end of the age.” Jesus is still among his people. Full of grace and truth for you, Jesus comes to share his own life with you in a cup of wine, a wafer of bread. He comes to you in this precious meal that the darkness will not overtake your life, but you will receive from him the forgiveness for all your sins and live in the light of Christ forever. He comes to minister to you in his Word and Sacraments, to make his home in you, that your heart might be the new Bethlehem stable where the Kingdom of God reigns forever.
God is among us—in the world as it really is, despite the pride and greed, the vanity and ambition, the inhumanity and racial hatred. He is with us despite the world’s strife, ruthless violence, and senseless deaths. He came to this world where the innocent are crushed, where the weak are tossed aside. From the time Jesus was born, his life was directed toward saving us. He is among us—the Word made flesh in real people like you and me. Through his powerful word—his word full of grace and truth—Jesus continues his work of re-creation; recreating us to be bearers of truth and grace to the world around us. There can never be too much grace and truth as we live in our messed up, broken, breaking world and our frail fleeting lives with troubles never far away each day and wrongs we do to others and others do to us.
But Christmas is the birth of the One in whom real grace and truth overflow, for the life of the world—for you. The story I told earlier, illustrating the farmers’ different responses to letting the future King into their homes, falls down in other ways. You see, the prince and his companion got lost. They wandered in darkness. They could not find their way.
But God is not lost, we were. We were walking in darkness. We couldn’t find our way back to our Heavenly Father. But on the very first Christmas, God left his home in heaven to make a home on earth and a home among his people. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. He has come from his Father to you, full of grace and truth. God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in your hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, so that what John says is indeed true for us: “to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”
So, children of God, dear to him: may we be like the second farmer and open our homes—our hearts to Jesus. For Jesus is God’s gift to you who came to make his home in your heart, that you might have light, life, pardon peace blessing, wisdom, and love from God, so that you will surely see his glory; the glory of the One and only, forever and ever. Amen.
