Christmas Day, Year of Our + Lord
Our Redeemer Lutheran
Church
Custer, South Dakota
The Mystery of the Word
John 1:1 and 1:14
Audio of Sermon available HERE In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the 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.
Words are all around us. We can communicate without words, to a certain extent. But for me to really get my point across will
normally take words. For us to truly
understand each other will require a conversation.
We need words. Manipulating words is the lifeblood of human
society. In our information age, images clamor
to displace words, but they cannot. Images
flicker and distract, but gain much more power combined with words. Words still retain their importance. We can speak with people all over the world,
instantly, from our homes on our computer, or from anywhere we are close to a
cell tower. We can send and receive
words, written and spoken, over radio waves, to be produced on a printer in the
next room, or to be heard on another continent, or to be seen on a million
different screens, all at the same time.
And these new communication medium carry real information. It’s tremendous, if you stop to consider it a
bit.
Of course, plain old human speech is just
as amazing. I pass air over vibrating
cords in my throat, and then shape the resulting waves with my mouth. They pass through air, and if those waves hit
your ears, you hear sounds that mean something.
Something that my mind intends.
Something that may well cause you to react in the way I want you to
react. My greeting may elicit your
smile, my warning may make you duck, my question may make you answer. Words are powerful.
Words have even more power when they are
set to music. The music is most people’s
favorite part of Christmas services, for good reason. Music carries a message of its own. Just hearing the first four notes of Silent
Night can bring about a change in our physical posture and mood. We will choose our music carefully, if we are
wise, for when music is joined skillfully with words, hearts can be warmed, or
they can be hardened. Beliefs can be confirmed,
or destroyed. Emotions are aroused
without our consent, and the words you hear stay with you longer because of the
music that carries them. True words set
to a memorable and fitting melody bless us.
They can be the Spirit’s means to save a soul.
We don't have to look far to see that
words are powerful. What is harder to
understand is how this is so. How is it
that sound waves, electrical charges running down a wire, radio waves, and
patterns printed on a page, how is it these mediums can convey specific
meaning, meaning that guides people's actions and shapes our lives? Words and communication are so common that we
may not ever stop to think about how they do what they do. If we do stop to ponder, we quickly realize
that the how and why of words are deep mysteries.
But we do not often stop to ponder, perhaps
because we are drowning in a sea of voices.
Waves of words constantly washing over us, deafening our ears and
blurring our eyes. Words that sell,
words that excite, or frighten, or entertain.
A kind word can lighten our burden.
But so often it is a pretense for manipulating words to come, so we
learn to be on our guard. We all know
how kind words can be cynical emotional preparation to make us susceptible to
the coming sales pitch or political mantra.
The mystery of communication, one of the highest gifts of God to
humanity, so often gets debased to mere marketing for someone else’s campaign
to get ahead, or make a few extra bucks.
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Now this is a different word. A special word. The Greek behind it is logos, and it does
mean word. But logos is a deep word, it means
a lot more. In Spanish this word from
the beginning of John's Gospel is translated Verbo, that is verb, action word. That captures another aspect of logos. The meaning of Logos is very deep: Word, Idea, Intelligence, True Statement that
establishes Truth, Reality. The Action
word. The Logos is the Mind of God, the
thinking that is behind everything else, the whole universe.
John teaches us that the Logos, the Word,
which is God, is the source of power for every other word. The Word that is from the beginning is the Truth
from which every other truth proceeds.
The reason we earthly creatures cannot fully understand how words can do
what they do in our world is that their source is not of this world. The source of all words is God, the Creator
and Sustainer of this world. For in Him we live
and move and have our being. Our ability to use words comes from Him.
Words can be used to build up and comfort,
or to tear down and depress. Words can
be kind, or brutal. So during this
season of Peace on Earth, we normally all agree to do our best and make this
Christmas a good one, which mostly means minding our tongues. We dedicate ourselves to serving each other with
our words, and deeds, to finding joy in this life, at least for a little while. We may even accomplish a happy holiday. But God wants more for us.
And
so, the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us. Christmas is the
arrival of God's Word, Jesus Christ, the message of love sent from God, not in speech,
not in a letter, e-mail, text or meme, but in a Baby. Words spoken into the air or sent over the
Internet can change things. But the
change that God desires takes more than what human words can accomplish. So God's Word became a human.
Our words and actions can make things
better, or worse, they can ruin or cheer the holiday. But what we cannot accomplish with our words
to to make a Holy Day. This is why the
Word became flesh, not to give us a brief bright spot in darkest time of the
year, but rather to make holy that which has become profane. To create a new day of lasting peace found in
a sure and certain hope.
We can watch what we say and do all we
want, and we should. But true holiness
in word and action is beyond our ability.
And yet holiness, purity of thought, word and deed, this is what God
wants for us. So, the Holy Word of God
became flesh, the eternal Son of the eternal Father became an infant, poor and
lowly, in order to be God's message of love to the world. The Logos, God’s message, that
Word, made flesh, invites us to stop listening to other voices.
Those other voices of the world offer all
kinds of solutions and distractions.
Many worldly words promise that we can find holiness and happiness by
our own striving after God. Other
voices, having crashed into the brick wall of that lie, run in the opposite
direction. These words declare that
holiness and goodness are just ideas made up by people, people trying to
control you. They say holiness and
goodness are human inventions without real meaning. Material success in this material world is
all that matters. A tempting
life-philosophy, but in the end, it is a screen, hiding another brick wall,
ready to crumple all who pursue this lie.
Of course, sometimes, most of the time,
the noise does not pretend to offer any profound truth. Much of the time, the world just drones on. In this droning lies an implicit admission that
nothing being said has any lasting meaning or value. But no matter, the noise drones on, in an all
too effective attempt to keep us numbly paying attention, so we don’t stop and
consider how pitiful our conversations are.
The droning distracts us from bitter truths, and flashing and flickering
images help to keep our eyes and ears tuned into the meaningless banter. And so it prevents us from hearing God’s better
Word, the Logos, that first spoke to us through the cries of a Baby.
God in Christ invites us to stop listening
to the droning, to stop listening to everybody else. Stop and listen to Jesus, the Word made
flesh. For the cry of the Baby in the
manger carries more power than all the words of wisdom in the world. He cries out: here is wisdom, here is life,
here is joy, in this male child, who already in the first days of His life was
taking the sins and sorrows of all humanity onto Himself. This is the glory revealed in the Word made
flesh, the glory of the Cross, where Jesus proved the wonder of His love, and
glory of the Resurrection, where Jesus' victory is revealed to be your
victory. The Cry of the Christ means
sins forgiven, and new life with God, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So many souls dismiss this Cry, this Word
of pardon and peace. But our dismissal
or disregard do not change what God has said, what He has done. The completed work of the Christ Child, the
Logos, the Word made flesh, His loving and forgiving victory is reality, the
highest reality. And that reality, that
meaning, is God’s gift, for you.
The Word that had to come in the flesh to
be the Savior still comes to you in more than just sound waves. He comes in the water, washing away sins,
giving new birth. He comes under the
bread and wine, in His Body and Blood, given and shed to set you free. He comes, and declares your sins are
forgiven. Holiness and never-ending happiness
are yours, in the Word made flesh. Of
the Father’s love begotten, ere the worlds were made to be, Infant Holy, Infant
Holy, David’s Son and David’s Lord, Oh come let us adore Him, Jesus Christ the
Lord. Amen.
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