December 25, 2024

Today's Reading: John 1:1-14 (15-18)

Daily Lectionary: Isaiah 49:1-18; Matthew 1:1-17

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. 

There’s a curated charm about Christmas Eve that just doesn’t transfer over to the morning. Christmas Eve is prettier, but it’s fragile. If you speak, you can break the moment. Christmas Eve will always be the bigger deal, but Christmas Day dares to ask, what if it all actually meant something after the candles are blown out? What does it mean for you who sing about stables you've never knelt in outside of towns you've never visited? On Christmas Eve, we make a pilgrimage to Bethlehem but find no nativity. Just words. On Christmas Day, we find out that’s how it’s supposed to be. On Christmas Eve, the words describe shepherds and angels and a baby Christ child in years past. On Christmas Day, the words take shape in the now.  

We like baby Jesus more because He doesn’t do anything obnoxious. Like talk. So, when Jesus is introduced as the Word and not the infant, it makes us nervous He’ll open His mouth and break the charm of last night, even though we know it’s well on its way to fading already. It’s why we need the word. It’s what gives the shepherds in the field meaning. It’s what connects the miracle of then to the quiet desperation of now. A religion divorced from meaning is quaint, like turning off LEDs and lighting candles, but doesn't combat the darkness. It doesn't save. It just lets us pretend for a little while, which is our go-to solution to problems we can’t actually fix. But it’s dark today. So today, we are given the Word. 

You don’t have a God of charming moments. You have a God who speaks. You have a Word made flesh. The living, breathing promise made to you. It tells you, “You have the right to become children of God, born of His will.” It means He saved us, not by works done by us in righteousness, but by incarnation. By making the promise real. With the infant Christ, Words don’t stay words. They become flesh. They don’t just call us to try harder, be more, love. They wrap themselves in weakness that cannot. It’s what real light looks like. Not a time free from problems or a world free from darkness, but a God bearing them to their end for us. A light that even the darkness cannot overcome. The Word made flesh can bleed. God made man can die. And He promises it’s for you. Christ crucified is the light that darkness cannot overcome. We celebrate the birth of a savior; we sing of the God made flesh to be light even when all we can see is darkness, because the darkness cannot win. It has already lost. Merry Christmas. May you have the peace of Christ Who became like us that we would be like Him. And indeed, we already are.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

What makes a church "good?" Come join the fictional family as they test out eight different churches in their brand-new town and answer this question along the way. Will the Real Church Please Stand Up? by Matthew Richard, now available from Concordia Publishing House.