✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
Galatians 4,4-7 0618
1. Sonntag nach dem Christfest 09
✠ Eve of the Circumcision of Jesus. W ✠
Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, ✠ 335
31. Dezember 2017
1. О Christ Jesus, the Bright Star of Your Heavenly Father, as we transition from one year to the next, remind us to rejoice in the celebration of Your holy birth, so that in Your Light we see light. Amen. (Starck 64)
2. But when the fullness of time had arrived, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying: „Abba! Father!“ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
3. The Apostle Paul gives additional insight to his words in today’s Epistle lection: »Have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Although He was God, He did not consider His being equal with God as a prize to be displayed, but He emptied Himself, made Himself a slave, became like other human beings, and when He appeared in the form of a man, He became obedient and humbled Himself even to the point of death on a cross« (Philippians 2,).
4. Christ became man when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. Jesus humbles Himself by becoming a man; our Holy God takes the manhood into God. And what this means, then, is that Jesus, the Son of God, received a true human body and soul in the Virgin Mary. By arriving in the likeness of a man Jesus receives a body and a soul just like we have, and this means that Jesus can relate to us on a very earthly, physical and temporal level.
5. Our God is not One to always dwell in heaven never to become involved with men and women. The Son of God descends to Earth, born into this world just as we are and lives a life like ours. Jesus went to learned a trade, studied, did chores, worshipped His Heavenly Father in the synagogue and at the temple, He ate, drank and slept, He worked and played, He made friends, He laughed and cried. Jesus lived and died on this Earth just as we do; He was completely human, body and soul. Everything that makes us a human being, Jesus has in His physical body.
6. How does the Divine Son of God become human? The Gospels of Luke and Matthew tell us, respectively: The Holy Spirit des ended upon Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. And, Joseph son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ conception is a bit different from ours. He had an earthly mother, but no earthly father. His father is, and always shall be, God the Father. So Jesus’ conception was Divine: Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. However, we aren’t given many specifics of this Divine conception save what the Scriptures tell us. The Archangel Gabriel tells Mary: Nothing is impossible with God. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, we believe the fact of Christ’s Divine conception, while rejecting all humanizing theories and attempts to detail how it happened.
7. Saint Paul tells us: When the time finally arrived, God sent His Son to be born of a woman and to be born under law, in order to pay the price to redeem those under law so that we might be adopted as His sons. Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem 2017 years ago was not by chance or circumstance, but very deliberately planned by God the Father. We lose a bit of the Greek flavor and emphasis in our English translations of Galatians 4,4. What the the Apostle Paul more fully tells us here is that when the time was exactly right and perfect God sent His Son. Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, God the Father, like a global master strategist, had been preparing the world for His Son’s arrival. When everything was in its proper place, then Jesus was sent.
8. In order for God to redeem fallen humanity, He had to be more than a burning bush or a pillar of cloud; God had to become human. This is why Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. And for God’s plan of redemption to be effective for us it was necessary for Jesus to be fully man. First, Christ acts in our place under the law and fulfills it for us. This is what Paul tells us: But when the time finally arrived, God sent His Son to be born of a woman and to be born under law, in order to pay the price to redeem those under law so that we might be adopted as His sons. And also in Romans 5: »For in the same way, as through the disobedience of one man, everyone was proclaimed to be sinful, so also through the obedience of One Man, everyone will be proclaimed righteous« (Romans 5,). Second, Jesus was also fully man so that He could suffer and die for our guilt because we failed to keep the law. The Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 2 tells us: »Now since all these children share flesh and blood, Jesus also took on flesh and blood to be like them, so that by His death He might take away all the power of him who had the power of death (that is, the devil) ... and so in every way He had the obligation to become like His brothers, so that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in representing them before God and thus pay for the sins of the people. Furthermore, because He Himself experienced testing when He suffered He is able to help others when they are tested« (Hebrews 2,).
9. And yet, being fully and truly Man, Jesus was without sin. Jesus was born sinless; He was not cursed with original sin, nor did He ever commit any sin. Jesus’ humanity is pure, holy and blameless. This is a major difference between Jesus and us. Jesus has a fleshly body, soul, mind, feelings and emotions: everything that make one a human being. According to His human nature, Jesus has no sin, for sin is not a human quality. God did not create sin, nor were Adam and Eve sinful at their creation. Sin is inhuman, and thus we are not fully human because we have something in us that was not to be a part of the human equation: sin. When Christ is conceived and born, He does so according to God’s original intention for humanity: He is born sinless, just as God had created Adam and Eve.
10. Not only was Jesus fully and truly Man, but He is also fully and truly God. Through His Divinity, Christ’s fulfilling the law, His life, suffering and death would be a sufficient ransom for all people. St. Paul writes: »Christ paid the price to free us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.« (ref). Through His Divinity, Christ triumphed over death and the devil for us. As God, only Jesus could fulfill the old testament and institute the new testament that we now live under.
11. Christ suffered, was crucified, died and was buried to redeem us from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil. John the Baptizer says in John 1: »Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world« (John 1,)! Christ has redeemed us from all sins because He took our guilt and punishment upon Himself on the cross. St. Paul says in 2. Corinthians 5: »God made Him who did not know sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become righteous before God« (ref). Christ has rescued us from death, for through His suffering, death and Resurrection, He has triumphed over death. Since He now gives us eternal life you need not fear death. St. Paul beautifully writes in 1. Corinthians 15: »Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ« (1. Corinthians 15,). And Christ has rescued us from the power of the devil for He has completely conquered the devil. Therefore the devil can no longer accuse us of our sins, and we can resist his temptations. The Apostle John writes in 1. John 3: »The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work« 1. John 3,). All of this was done for us by Christ’s substitution. He took our place under God’s judgment against sin. By paying the penalty of your guilt, Christ atoned for our sins. The Prophet Isaiah writes in the 53. chapter: »Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed« (Isaiah 53,).
12. These are the great and wonderful blessings God has poured upon us through His beloved Son. Christ has redeemed us and made us heirs of God. As His heirs we receive the full rights of sons. We have access to all of God’s heavenly riches and blessings. May God continue to bless each of us with the assurance of our forgiveness and uplift us with His grace and mercy. For all of us have been saved by faith, a gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
13. Let us pray. O Lord, You remember Your steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel; send forth the Holy Spirit to enlighten the Gentiles so that all the ends of the earth may behold the salvation of our God. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
All quotations from the Book of Concord are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 12. Edition © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Starck, Johann Friedrich. Starck’s Prayer Book. Copyright © 2009 Concordia Publishing House.
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