Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-18

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Family is more than blood. I’ve heard many people utter such a phrase. There are those people in our lives that we treat as if they were our own flesh and blood. Friends that become like brothers or sisters. Elders that become like second parents or grandparents. For family is meant to be those whom you can trust in, count on, will be there for you through thick and thin, for better or worse, no matter your circumstance. 

For as I contemplate the very birth of our savior, these words mean a little more to me this year. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” John 1:14. Christmas is the miracle that God himself comes to dwell with man. He sends his own Son to be born of a virgin, to Mary and to Joseph (his adoptive father). Jesus had his own family when he was born, which we show in our manger displays. Mary and Joseph were his parents. Jesus had brothers and sisters too. But his family wasn’t just these.

Christmas is the crux of human history. It marks a change in our relationship to God. God stood over us as our creator, our judge. That was our relationship to him. It wasn’t personal. We as man, operated as a creature before our creator. We had no say, no place, no home before our Lord. When we came before him, we came under the Law, that is, we came before him as sinners being judged. So, we were. We were dust of the ground standing before the Almighty.

Unto us is born this day, a brother. Jesus enters our flesh and blood. He joins our family through his birth. This is the amazing thing that John is telling us in his Gospel. Your creator, the Word of God, now comes to be with you, in flesh and blood. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God,” John 1:12-13. In Christ’s birth, God brings all people into a new relationship with him. For no longer are we mere creatures, but children of God!

Who more can we count on than Jesus, our own flesh and blood? Jesus is the one whom we can approach, count on, trust in through all of life’s circumstances. He gives us grace upon grace. Just as Jesus was born and placed in a wooden manger, he would grow up to take up a wooden cross. He would enter our family history that he may redeem our history and bring us into a new, everlasting family. So, he does, through his birth, his infancy, his adulthood, and especially through his death on the cross. He redeems us from the darkness of our sins that we may be made holy children of God. To him, then, let us bring all of our difficulties, all of our challenges, all of our joy and celebrations. For this Christmas, unto us is born our brother and friend, even our Savior, Christ the Lord! Merry Christmas!

Pastor Sorenson

Prayer:

Almighty God, grant that the birth of Your only-begotten Son in the flesh may set us free from the bondage of sin; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen!