Sermon for December 20th

At this time of the year, at this time in my life, with the baby Jesus and his cousin John the Baptist still in their mothers’ wombs in our Sunday texts, and a baby on the way for me and my family, I find my mind wandering at times to consider what it means to have a Savior who once drank amniotic fluid and had the hiccups. What does that mean? Throughout most of the year, Jesus Christ is portrayed as a religious stud, the most magnificently mature of all, who calls people to repentance, forgives their sins and heals their diseases with a Word. He is the only one who has the wherewithal to speak out against people’s personal sins as well as against injustice and oppression whenever he comes in contact with it. But in our text today from the first chapter of Luke, Jesus just recently grew a backbone, literally. The lung that will speak God’s good news to the poor are still forming. Jesus was once an embryo. I find that difficult to imagine, but it’s a fact. If he wasn’t really an embryo he couldn’t really be human.

I spend a couple of days a week with my son, Malachi, at home. We play games, put puzzles together, read books, go grocery shopping and watch Batman movies when we think we can get away with it. I usually have a pretty good grasp of his moods and I know what he likes. But a few days ago, I was thinking about what he looked like when he took his first steps and I couldn’t remember. Our video camera has been broken a little over three years now and we’ve never bought another one, so I can’t really look to double check what happened. I’ve been thinking about his first words too and, honestly, I can’t really remember them either. I guess I am a really horrible father. But, for the most part, I don’t really think about the times when he wasn’t able to do much, I just focus on what he does now: sword fighting, running and dancing around the house, talking to me or playing ball. I know the other things happened, it’s just hard to remember them. I don’t think about it too much.

You see, there was a time when my son also didn’t have a backbone and mostly floated around aimlessly in the darkness of his mother’s womb. We all start out that way. Very humble beginnings. But today’s text reminds us about something very important: Jesus started out that way too. The Lord of all, our Savior, the kings of kings, was once an embryo. He would grow up to defeat all sin, death and the devil, to create saints out of sinners, but there was a time when, perhaps, he simply created nauteous feelings in his mother, Mary. It’s interesting to think about, perhaps even funny to imagine what may have happened to this baby who would grow up to be a Savior, but it’s even more than interesting: it’s important.

Martin Luther once pointed out that if you want to see the Lord of the Universe in all his glory, you need not look any further than the baby Jesus, nursing at this mother’s breast. It’s important that we understand that God’s glory is made perfect in weakness. We read Bible verses about this topic a lot and I preach about this topic a good deal, but it is something else to look down at a baby, or your child, or your niece, or your grandson, or your pregnant belly and realize that Jesus was once just like that: small, weak, and humble. I can talk about this all I want and try to get you to understand and believe in Jesus’ humanity, but the next time your child burps loudly in polite company, you’ll get the point much better, I think. Jesus was just like that.

God’s glory is shown most spectacularly when he is just as simply human as the rest of us. In today’s text, John the Baptist jumps in his mother’s womb; I wonder what Jesus was doing to his poor mother’s insides? Jesus could have begun his ministry as a 30 year old man, just appearing in all his humanity out of the sky one day. But God chose instead to have the Lord of the Universe be found in a manger, nursing at his mother’s breast.

Once Christmas is over, it will be a fast downhill ride into Lent and then Easter. Often, when we talk about Jesus’ humanity, people refer to the cross, showing that God suffers just like we suffer, he felt pain just like we do, he experienced temptation and weakness in the garden of Gesthemene, he felt abandonment and despair screaming out for help to his Father in heaven. Knowing that your God knows you and knows what it is like to be you is more than interesting, isn’t it, it’s important. But you don’t need to only look to the cross, you can look to the cradle or even before that. God experienced death through Jesus, but he also experienced birth through Jesus.

Do you know how offensive Jesus’ humanity is to many people? It really bothers them just as it may bother you. How can God, the Master of the Universe, the one who is All in All, fit himself within the skin of a man, let alone in the few cells of a zygote? About the only thing people dislike more than having to hear that Jesus died on a cross is to realize that Jesus had bowel movements. But do you see that if he did not, he couldn’t have been truly human! Like it or not, none of us can escape either going to the grave or going to the bathroom. No human being can.

A Catholic bishop in the early 5th century named Nestorious is probably the most notorious theologian for his frustration with this topic. He argued that we could talk about Mary being the mother of Jesus, or even the mother of Christ, but that we could NOT say that Mary was the mother of God. It wasn’t fitting to have God come out the birth canal! Nestorious argued that God was too holy and righteous for that! God couldn’t get THAT close to humanity. But, once again, if Mary is not truly the mother of God, and yet Jesus Christ is still her son, then Jesus could not be God. The miracle of Advent is that before God is truly born on Christmas day, he was truly carried by a human mother and that this very human being learning to live and breathe and eat and hear and see is also truly God in the flesh.

When I visit nursing homes or assisted living residences, it is a common occurrence to see women and men lifted to and from their beds into wheelchairs to take a bath or maybe to attend some recreational event. It must be a very humbling experience to be carried, as a grown adult, in order to get to where you want to go. The Lutheran reformers maintained that being a Christian is not best described as standing before God in righteousness, in a state of grace, but that it is to be carried, by one who is righteous, that is, to be carried by Jesus Christ through life.

It makes a difference to know that Jesus was carried once as well, for ten months, forty weeks, in his mother’s womb, and then for who knows how long swaddled in her arms from that point forward. Only a God who knows the tenderness of a mother’s love is the kind of God you can trust to suffer with you through the years of being carried from your bed to your wheelchair and back again day after day with no end in sight. Only a God who knows the strength of a mother’s love is the kind of God you can trust to carry you through life knowing that nothing, not even God’s judgment against you, could possibly snatch you out of his hands.

It’s not Christmas yet, we’ve still got a few days of waiting, but Jesus Christ is already here, in the story, waiting along with us. Just like his cousin, John the Baptist, Jesus, who will be born the Savior of the world, is bladder jumping, kicking against his mother’s ribs and sleeping upside down on his head. We all started out this way and so did he. Why? So that you might know that even the beautiful baby Jesus is truly the kind of God who knows what it is like to be just like you. He knows you. He loves you. And he will come again soon to carry you before his Father, through the gates of death and into eternal life. Amen.