[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon THE NATIVITY of OUR LORD 24 December 2009 "Look What the Power of Love Has Done!" Matthew 1:18-25 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

How far will love go? How far can your love go? Couples vow their undying love in marriage but we know the statistics of those who divorce. Some even taste this bitter pill themselves. And parents and children who no longer love each other, sometimes resort to violence and murder of their own flesh and blood.

All these stories ran on the same day, 15 December 2009, a somewhat typical news day.
First:

Family Members Found Dead in Calif. Home
Tuesday , December 15, 2009

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.
Members of a family living in Southern California were found dead Monday in a home inside an upscale gated community in Orange County, authorities said. . . [A woman] who lives next door, said the family who lived in the home had visitors - another family involved in some sort of court dispute. "They had something going on in court - I don't know the details - and the outcome was not what this family wanted," she said.

And then the second:

Virginia Man Sentenced to Life for Killing Wife Over Christmas Lights Dispute
Tuesday , December 15, 2009
LOUISA, Va.
A Louisa County man who pleaded guilty to killing his wife after an argument over Christmas lights has been sentenced to life in prison. . . The man told investigators that he had wanted to take down their Christmas lights, but that his wife had opposed the idea.

Then this one:

North Carolina Mom Sentenced for Putting Toddler in Boiling Water
Tuesday , December 15, 2009
WAYNESVILLE, N.C.
A 22-year-old North Carolina woman who put her toddler in boiling water and burned his foot with a cigarette has been sentenced to prison. She was given 25-39 months in prison.

Why would God want anything to do with people like them? Or with us? Perhaps you don't see yourself as wicked as these people but God doesn't judge on outward appearances. He judges also thoughts and words. He condemns the hateful thought, the failure to do good to our neighbor. Why didn't/doesn't God simply blast this sin-sick world to bits? Burn it and everyone in it? Destroy all the sinners, present company excepted, of course!? Truly, it is a mystery why God hasn't done this except for what God himself has said and done. God took pity on his fallen creatures immediately after Adam and Eve fell into sin. He promised a Savior, a Savior who would also be human so that he could redeem this fallen humanity. [Genesis 3.15.] He promised a Savior for us, too.

What explains God's patience with his chosen people, Israel, when Israel fell into disgraceful sin over and over and over again? What explains God's love for this world?-"God so loved the world". . . John records in his Gospel [3.16]. How incredible that he should want anything to do with us, let alone become one of us!

But that is exactly what the Nativity of Our Lord proclaims. It proclaims that the Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the sustainer of the whole universe, has gotten his hands dirty with his rebellious creatures. It proclaims that God humbled himself beyond human comprehension, being born of the Virgin Mary, a true man. God became one of us! That is the mystery surpassing all mysteries! Just as the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy:

"Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh . . " (1 Timothy 3:16, ESV)

And what is more, his birth is less than spectacular! He is conceived in the Virgin Mary without a human father. Joseph, however, believed what the angel told him and did not divorce Mary. Luther said that the real miracle was not that God the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus in Mary through a word placed in her ear, but that Mary believed it. And it is true also for Joseph! He, too, believed that which is completely improbable, impossible. Yet, it happened exactly as the prophet Isaiah had foretold it would.

The eternal Son of God became the son of Mary, a true human being. He became one of us. He became our elder brother. The humiliation of it boggles the mind if one considers it all. Many people get hung up in the "how" when they should really be asking "why."

Why indeed? When the prophet Isaiah was called by God, God revealed himself in a mighty vision in the temple. God revealed himself in majesty and power.

"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"" (Isaiah 6:1-5, ESV)

Isaiah believed that he would be lost because he had seen God in his majesty and he was a sinner living among sinners. How could God dwell with them, except in judgment? Yet God cleansed Isaiah's lips and made him fit for service. Isaiah would announce God's judgment on human sin and he would also announce good news, the way that God would dwell with mankind. He would do it by means of the Virgin's Son.

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14, ESV)

God would dwell with man! God would live among us, sinners that we are! He would become one of us! God does not want us to be afraid of him but to believe that Christ became incarnate in the Virgin Mary precisely so that he could rescue us for all eternity! Later on Isaiah would describe Christ's life, passion, and death in the familiar words of chapter 53.He would be wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. All God's wrath over human sin, our sin, he would bear in his own body. "Look What the Power of Love Has Done!" God offers up his Son!

Only love can explain God's mysterious actions. Tonight we dwell on that fact. God loves us! God loves us in Christ! And so, there is no reason to fear God because we have an elder brother who is just like us except that he has no sin. The fruit of his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension belong to all the world. God loves the world in Christ!

Later this evening we shall hear Luke's more familiar account of the birth of our Lord. We'll hear how the angels in heaven worship him. Oh, the songs of the angels sweetly singing o'er the plain! Heavenly music, indeed! At the same time, down here on earth, this Jesus has become our servant and lies in our sins and sinfulness. He takes on himself all of our fallen humanity. He lies in the manger on the straw, feed for animals. He has no royal clothes, just strips of cloth in which to be wrapped. He is there in a stinking animal stall. It really is a wretched scene, one which we would not tolerate today. No woman gives birth in a stable!

What explains it all except a love that we cannot fathom! It is a love which has such strength as to endure all the worst that our world has to give. It is a love that will not be deterred even by the deepest degradation and humiliation of this birth nor by an even deeper degradation and humiliation, the cross. It is a love which sends God's only-begotten Son to the cross. The hymnwriter Paul Gerhardt says it eloquently, LSB 438.3.

438 A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth
3 "Yes, Father, yes, most willingly
I'll bear what You command Me.
My will conforms to Your decree,
I'll do what You have asked Me."
O wondrous Love, what have You done!
The Father offers up His Son,
Desiring our salvation.
O Love, how strong You are to save!
You lay the One into the grave
Who built the earth's foundation.

Text: © 1941 Concordia Publishing House Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, number 100010193.
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

"Look What the Power of Love Has Done!"

It makes no sense that we should enjoy eternal life, rest, and peace, while Jesus endures such poverty and humiliation here. But that is what the Holy Gospel proclaims once again tonight. It proclaims The Power of Love so great that we can only marvel at it, falling on our knees that God has honored us so much by becoming one of us. God must really love us!

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:10-11, ESV)

Jesus propitiated God for us, that is, he has made peace with God because of our sins by offering himself as the payment for them. He satisfies God's wrath over human sin so that the barrier between man and God is removed.

""Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"" (Luke 2:14, ESV)

God makes peace with us through Christ. Christ absorbs God's punishment in himself-for us!

Here the love of God has come to the world in a person, the person of God's only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, this baby in Mary's womb, this baby in the manger. "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!" The title of this sermon I adapted from one of Bach's Christmas Cantatas. Bach wrote the music to the text written by Martin Luther and another anonymous writer. Specifically, the focus is on these words:

The only child of the eternal father,
Das ewge Licht von Licht geboren,
the eternal light born from light,
Itzt man in der Krippe findt.
is now found in the manger.
O Menschen, schauet an,
O humanity, behold
Was hier der Liebe Kraft getan!
what here the power of love has done!
In unser armes Fleisch und Blut,
In our poor flesh and blood,
(Und war denn dieses nicht verflucht, verdammt, verloren?)
and was this then not cursed,doomed, lost?)
Verkleidet sich das ewge Gut.
eternal goodeness has clothed itself.
So wird es ja zum Segen auserkoren.
Thus it is chosen for blessedness.

"Look What the Power of Love Has Done!"

The Father has sent his Son to the world to be its Savior and Friend. The eternal Son of God has clothed himself in our flesh and blood so as to bring us eternal blessing and life! What Love! And that love Christ conveys to us especially in the Sacrament of the Altar where he gives you his true body and blood, the same flesh and blood with which he clothed himself while here on earth, the same body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. That priceless gift he continues to give you, especially this night. For that reason The Nativity of Our Lord has gone by the name Christmas, literally Christ=Mass, Christ's Divine Service, the place where he gives himself in the Sacrament. Here then, in this hour, is the real Christ=Mass! Here the power of his love is demonstrated yet again for you. Here again is where he comes to you to assure you that the barriers of your sins between you and God have been removed by him. The door of heaven stands open once more because he is Jesus, the Savior. There in the manger lies the love of God in a person.

And the world responds in hymns and songs so beautiful that our hearts are stirred. We marvel in the "wonders of his love" [Joy to the Word, LSB 387.4].

389 Let All Together Praise Our God

5 He is a servant, I a lord:
How great a mystery!
How strong the tender Christ Child's love!
No truer friend than He,
No truer friend than He.

6 He is the key and He the door
To blessèd paradise;
The angel bars the way no more.
To God our praises rise,
To God our praises rise.

Text: © 1969 Concordia Publishing House Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, number 100010193.
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

God does not hate our world! God does not hate you! This baby is the proof of his love! Christmas proclaims the love of God in Christ for you!

"Look What the Power of Love Has Done!"