Jesus of Nazareth: Incarnation

Jesus said in the book of Revelation, “Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” –Revelation 3:20

Today, we have reached the last Sunday before Christmas.  I feel like in a lot of ways Christmas comes rushing upon me each year.  I know this familiar visitor.  I know it comes but once a year, and I know it comes the same time.  And yet, I don’t think I’m ever quite ready in one way or another. 

So, this last Sunday comes sort of like that verse from Revelation, “Behold!  Christmas stands on the door and knocks.”  Are you ready to open the door and let Christmas in?

Part of the struggle is trying to figure out what is Christmas anyway?  Christmas is supposed to be the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  In our culture, it has become just a teensy weensy bit about some other stuff than Jesus.

We had a department Christmas lunch this week.  There are maybe 50 people who participated.  When we get started getting our food, a bit of a line developed.  I ended up behind a fellow I’ve known for years but don’t get so many opportunities to talk to.  We struck up a conversation about how prepared we were for Christmas.  I had no idea, but this guy and his wife are like super-organized early bird preparers.  They finished up all their shopping back at Veterans Day (November 11^th).  I put on a brave face, but at the end of that conversation, I felt pretty weighed down.  I’ve not done much to get ready, at least not buying gifts or decorating or even helping pack to go visit my family.  Ugh.

Then, there are other special things we do which are good things.  We had a Christmas party as a church and we visited, fellowshipped, worshiped by singing Christmas carols, and prayed together.  It was a sweet time.  And yet, there were preparations which we had to make.  Many of you prepared food.  Others helped to serve or clean up.  The Baum family had to get their house ready for 30 or more guests to descend on their home.  (Thank you for your sacrifice!)

Even this very good and blessed time can get you thinking about the sisters Mary and Martha in John 10 (v. 38-42).  It says there that “Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.”  More than anything, I think that one word describes our culture’s approach to Christmas best.  Distracted. 

I looked up a simple definition.  It said distracted means, “unable to think about or pay attention to something, unable to concentrate.”  Do you find it hard to think about or pay attention to Jesus in December?  Can you concentrate on Him, or is your mind filled with to-do lists and “preparations that have to be made”?

If you’re not distracted just now, that’s great.  Maybe you should be up here instead of me?  If you are distracted, let me encourage you to stop, take a deep breath, lay all your cares out in front of the Lord, and then, sit at his feet and listen, really listen.

Let’s pray and ask Him to speak to us, right now.

Lord Jesus, we are quite often, “worried and troubled” about many things.  We get weighed down by the preparations that have to be made.  And yet, You encouraged Martha to choose the better thing and come away from what we think is necessary and focus on You.  I pray for each heart here today.  Please enable us to focus on You now and throughout this week leading up to Christmas and beyond.  Teach us, lead us, heal us, we pray, in Jesus’ Name.  Amen.

The focus for today’s message is “the reason for the season.”  While the birth of any baby is certainly something to celebrate, the birth of Jesus has been celebrated for millennia because of Who He is and because of what He did.

We (and the church universal) use the word incarnation to explain that Jesus was God in human flesh.  Fred discussed this both/and nature of Jesus back in the message on November 29, 2015 titled “Jesus: God and Man.”  Jesus is both fully God and fully man.  The act of taking on himself a human nature is called the incarnation.  The word comes from the Latin and means “in the flesh.”

Matthew 1:22-23 says it like this:

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” –Matthew 1:22-23

This language is imbedded in familiar carols.

In the second verse of Hark the Herald Angels Sing:

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;

Christ the everlasting Lord;

Late in time, behold Him come,

Offspring of a virgin’s womb.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail th’ Incarnate Deity,

Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hark! the herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King!”

In the final verse of O Come, All Ye Faithful:

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning;

Jesus, to Thee be all glory given;

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.

O come, let us adore Him,

Christ the Lord.

In the interest of completeness of the doctrine series, it is helpful to talk about the understanding which underlies this language.  There are views which have been rejected by the church regarding how Jesus can be fully God and fully man.  I won’t take the time to expound them here, but just to make you aware that there are views which are not accepted.  In each case, there is some portion of those views which is contradicted by Scripture.  That is why they were rejected. 

The fancy name which is the accepted definition is called the Chalcedonian Definition.  This diagram helps to illustrate the definition:

This definition which is consistent with Scripture teaches that Christ had two natures, a human nature and a divine nature.  The divine nature is the same as the Father.  The human nature is exactly like our nature except without sin.  A simple picture conveys what complicated words try to express.

Jesus is one person within the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Through the incarnation, Jesus added something to His person which wasn’t there in the beginning.  He “took on flesh.”  He added a human nature to His divine nature.  He has two parts in one person.

The final thing I would like to share about the doctrine of the incarnation is what is called the communication of attributes.  We recognize that Jesus is fully God and fully man.  His human nature remains fully man and His divine nature remains fully God, but there are some qualities or abilities which are given from one nature to the other.

From His divine nature to His human nature, He gained the worthiness to be worshiped.  This does not belong to human beings outside of Jesus’ deity.  And we see in the Bible that Jesus was worshiped and received worship before He rose from the dead.

Perhaps more interesting to us, Jesus’ human nature gave His divine nature the ability to experience suffering and death; the ability to understand by experience what we are experiencing; and the ability to be our substitute sacrifice which Jesus as God alone could not have done.

I’ll share a glimpse of my faith journey.  When I first became a believer, I got kind of frustrated with the celebration of Christmas because I saw it had more emphasis or pop or pizzazz than Easter.  Isn’t Easter more important?  That’s when Jesus paid for our sins on the cross right?

I felt like focusing on Christmas might make it easier to miss the connection between our sin and our need for a Savior.  I thought that people liked Christmas better because it was safer when Jesus was “just a baby.”

As the years have passed (and I’ve sung Christmas carols again and again), I’ve worshiped Jesus at Christmas because of the incarnation.  I’ve marveled at His willingness to do the thing that He did not have to do.  I’m sure you’ve heard that expression when someone doesn’t want to bring up a bad situation.  They will say, “Don’t go there.”  In other words, don’t touch that or mess with it because it’s going to bring up even more trouble or problems.  Well, Jesus “went there.”  Or, from our view, He came here.  And it did cost Him.  It cost His life.

Wayne Grudem, a theologian, described the incarnation this way, “It is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible--far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing than even the creation of the universe.  The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join Himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”

So let’s rejoice at Christmas and at Easter and every Sunday and even at each and every moment.  Jesus, our Immanuel, has become one of us so that He could bring all of us to be with Him forever.

Let’s spend the remainder of the time that we have among the familiar words of the Christmas story.  May God open our ears, our minds, our hearts to wonder again at what He has done.

Let’s begin in Luke chapter 1 verse 26:

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.—Luke 1:26-38

If you’re following along in your Bible, turn to Matthew chapter 1, verse 18:

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.—Matthew 1:18-25

The faith and obedience of Mary and Joseph are both remarkable.  There was a sense of unique wonder that must have come with the angel’s visits.  At the same time, it must have created a difficult situation in their personal lives.  What will people think?  What will people say?  How will it affect [fill in the blank]?  But that’s not what Mary or Joseph decided to do.  They received and carried out their parts in the message that they received.

Now, let’s go back to Luke chapter 2, beginning in verse 1:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. –Luke 2:1-20

Here we are again.  The shepherds have gotten a singing telegram straight from the throne of God.  “Come and see.”  And that is what they do.  They go to Bethlehem that very night without stopping or waiting.  Are these shepherds the first evangelists? 

Let’s keep reading:

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.—Luke 2:21-38

Simeon and Anna those faithful saints, waiting as it says in verse 25 in the Spirit of the Lord.  How long had they been waiting?  Years?  Decades?  They were ready, but they were also ready.  Anna was ready to proclaim Jesus as Savior even from the very beginning.

And finally, let’s read a few verses from Matthew 2 beginning with verse 1:

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;           for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.—Matthew 2:1-12

Here we see Jesus worshiped from the very beginning.

I want to close with a couple of personal stories.  Strangely enough, both of them involve driving.  When I get done, maybe you will think twice about getting on the road when you expect that I would be on the road, too.

Back in November, we went to visit my parents during the week of Thanksgiving.  One night, we went down to a place called Broadway at the Beach which is really nothing more than a big outdoor mall with restaurants and a few rides.  Being November, the rides weren’t open, but they have a couple of cool shops.  We go to a couple of the shops and play with all the toys, and then leave.

That night, we were all together in one van.  My Mom and Dad were with us.  We wanted to leave this mall and go to Target before returning to my parents’ house.  Target is pretty much due south of Broadway at the Beach.  Now, I had driven around Broadway so that the car would be in the right spot when we wanted to leave.  Melissa and the kids had walked through the middle.  Since it’s kind of irregular in its shape, I lost track of how far around the circle I had driven.  To keep things simple, I originally parked on the east side and had driven around the north end and parked on the west side. So, now I want to go south.  It’s night, so no sun to help me out.

We all load up, and I start driving to what I think is the right way out.  My Dad is sitting shotgun.  We’re talking a little bit about which direction we need to go.  Now, I’m not directionally challenged.  In fact, I’m quite proud of my sense of direction.  If I travel with other people who have traveled with me before, they trust my sense of direction implicitly.  On the scale of directional ability, I consider myself significantly above average.

However, compared to my Dad, I cannot find my way out of a paper sack.  I have never met anyone who comes anywhere close to my Dad’s sense of direction.  God makes people with certain gifts.  My Dad is a decorated veteran combat helicopter pilot from the Vietnam War.  So, it was kind of important for God to give him an unbelievable sense of direction.  The worst thing that would happen to me if I got lost would be the embarrassment of it and then the “humiliation” of asking for directions.  If my Dad on the other hand had a lapse of directional sense, he would have jeopardized many lives by not knowing where he was, flying over the jungle, in the dark.

This whole encounter happens in a completely cool way.  There is no anger or frustration on either side.  But I start to turn out thinking roughly that west is south.  The exit that I chose bends around and will only let me go right when I think I need to go straight.  In fact, I needed to go left in the first place.  Long story short, I end up going exactly the wrong way.  I’m on a six lane road driving north.  At this point, I’m pretty confident that I’m wrong, but I’m still trying to play it cool.  Fortunately, there’s hardly any traffic, so we don’t have that added tension for making lane changes.  I do have to make a decision one way or the other because we’re coming up on an intersection.  As my Dad and I are talking about the fact that I’m not going the right way, I’m still thinking I’m 90 degrees off target, and he’s trying to tell me that I’m going in the opposite direction from where I need to go.

In the meantime, Melissa is sitting in the row behind us having a small crisis of her own.  On the one end, she’s incredulous that I would willingly choose to challenge my Dad’s sense of direction.  On the other end, she’s thinking that my Dad’s not as young as he used to be, and maybe just maybe he might be wrong.  (But, she might have just told me that to make me feel better.)

I cross three lanes and get in the left turn lane at the intersection.  It’s a really long light.  I have plenty of time to reflect on where I am and what my possible options are.  It doesn’t take the whole cycle of the light before I reorient the compass in my brain and realize that Dad was right all along.  I don’t need to make a left.  I need to make a U-turn.  Like I said, it’s a really long light so, I move on for some personal reflection.

I’m in the driver’s seat, and my Dad is in the passenger seat.  He’s right.  I’m wrong.  I still need my Dad to tell me which way to go.  In that moment, I’m carried back to being a teenager sitting in the car with my Dad.  One of the most frustrated moments in my life came when my Dad was driving and I was reading the map for him.  We were in Minneapolis, MN so it wasn’t a place he was familiar with.  I thought I was telling him what he wanted to know, but I wasn’t.  I can remember him not trusting my judgment.  I was so mad.

Fast forward 25 years, back in the left turn lane waiting for the light to change.  I’m inwardly laughing.  I’m thinking I’m 43 years old.  How old will I need to be before I’m no longer like a little kid?  I’m sorry if that pains some of you younger people.  I know some of you can’t wait for the day that you surpass your parents at least in some areas.  And you will surpass them in some things, but there might be some where you don’t.  So just keep that in mind.  Besides, pride goes before a fall anyway.  (Proverbs 16:18)

A couple of weeks ago, something brought this story to mind again.  It struck me that compared to God, even in eternity, I’m never going to catch Him.  He will always know which way is the right direction.  He might let me drive sometimes, but He’ll always be there in the passenger seat patiently waiting to explain to me that I’m making great time going in the wrong direction.

That would be a nice place to end the message, right.  But, I’ve got one more story.  Last week, I had an unpleasant shock.  I wrecked my car by plowing into the back of another car.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.  It happened Wednesday morning.  I was hurrying to make it to work for an appointment I had committed to.

Wednesday morning was bright and clear.  As I drove down Lebanon Rd., the road veered to the right and perfectly into the line of the sun.  The road is straight and there are no obstructions nearly to the horizon.  There was literally a ball of fire covering the middle of the road.  I figured that over ten years I have driven down that road 2,500 times going to work.  I thought I knew what would be on the road ahead of me.  I slowed down though just to be sure.  I thought I could see.  It was tough, but I was peering intently at the road and the lines.  And then, suddenly, where it didn’t belong was a car sitting completely still in the street.  I saw the car, I hit the brakes, I hit the car almost in that rapid of a succession.

I still reflect back on it with shock and even horror.  I thought I could see.  I thought I knew what was going on.  And, I was completely wrong.  I am so grateful to God that there were no injuries.

The lady that I hit knew I was going to hit her.  She could see clearly in her rearview mirror.  The lady behind me could also see because she didn’t hit me but stopped in time.  The lady behind her though did not.  She hit that car, so we had two separate wrecks back to back.  Another truck flew down in the ditch and drove out and around us.

If I had someone with me who could have seen, that wreck could have been avoided.  I did have my Dad with me when I got lost in November.  He saved us all some aggravation and delay by pointing out to me where I needed to go.

We started this message with Jesus’ words from the book of Revelation, “Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”  (Revelation 3:20)

I gave a parallel to Christmas standing at the door and knocking.  Because Christmas is the celebration of Jesus coming in the flesh to rescue us from sin, I think we can say Christmas is a time when Jesus is knocking.  I hope that you are prepared to lay aside distraction, recognize your daily need, and invite Him in.  He will be your guardian, guide, and friend.  Depend on Him.  Open the door and let him in.

Let’s follow the example of the shepherds, Simeon, Anna, and the wise men from the East, worshiping, praising, glorifying, and telling others about the arrival of the Savior for all people.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, this Christmas, may our focus rest on You alone.  Please come and sit with us, dine with us.  Please sit in the driver’s seat of our lives and guide our paths.  We often don’t have a clue where it is we need to go or what it is we need to do.  We can do nothing without You.  Thank you for going all the way for us.  We love You.  Amen.