Colossians 2,3 (4-5) 6-10 0623
Christfest 1 7
Nativity of our Lord
25. Dezember 2022
1. ℣ Thou art My Son:
℟ This day have I begotten Thee (Psalm 2,7).
O God-Man Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary; shine upon Your people Your Glory and Your Light, so that Your birth and the salvation it brings is marvelous in our eyes. Amen. (Psalm 118,27a Gradual)
2. »For in Him the whole fullness of Deity dwells bodily.«
3. The New Testament teaches that Jesus is fully God and fully Man: 2 natures in 1 person. The Athanasian Creed states it this way:
But it is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, it is the right faith that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man.
He is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages; and He is man, born from the substance of His mother in this age:
perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.
Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ:
one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God;
one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ (§ 27-35).
4. The Divine and human natures in Christ are personally united, so that there are not 2 Christs, one the Son of God, the other the Son of Man, but that one and the same is the Son of God and Son of Man. Luke 1,35; Romans 9,5 (Epitome VIII,5). Mary conceived and bore not a mere man and no more, but the true Son of God; therefore she is rightly called and truly is the mother of God (Epitome VIII,12).
5. Thus did Elizabeth confess when Mary visited her: »Mary, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the Fruit of your womb!« (Luke 1,42). At Christmas we confess: Virgin Bearer of God, rejoice Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the Fruit of your womb, for you have given birth to the Savior of our souls.
6. With the birth of Jesus, the Lord is now with us too. The Prophet Isaiah declared 700 years prior to Christmas: »Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel« (Isaiah 7,14). God is with us is the translation of the name Immanuel. The Apostle Matthew writes in his Gospel: »All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the Prophet«; Matthew then quotes the Isaiah 7,14 prophecy about the virgin. When the baby was born, Joseph named Him Jesus, as the angel had instructed him, for this son will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1,21.25). Jesus is the English variation of the Latin Iesus, which is a variation of His Aramaic name, Yeshua, or as it appears in the Gospels, His Greek variation, ‘Ιησους. His name is a variation furthermore of an older name, Yehoshua, which we know as Joshua. Jesus/Joshua means Yahweh saves or Yahweh is salvation.
7. The Christmas proclamation is God is with us; God is among us. His name is Jesus; He is God the Father’s anointed one who saves us. Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh. God among His people is a reality that goes as far back as our creation and the Garden of Eden.
8. Moses tells us that Yahweh God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed life into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2,7). Then, while the man slept Yahweh God took one of his ribs and from it He made into a woman (Genesis 2,21-22). Yahweh God was walking in the Garden in the cool of the day (Genesis 3,8). These stories in Genesis suggest the image of God bodily appearing to make man and woman with His very own hands and that He walked in the Garden as any human being would walk. Later in Genesis, Yahweh visited Abraham, conversed with him and shared a meal. Here we definitely are told that God has taken the form a a human being to visit Abraham. In Daniel we hear of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego thrown into the fiery furnace; but another appears with them who is described as »the appearance of the fourth is like a son of God« (Daniel 3,25).
9. Jesus is the fulfillment of God with us. And not just the fulfillment, but He is both fully God and fully Man in one person. So in Jesus, we have God and man together in a grande fulfillment of Immanuel who will be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
10. John tells us in his Gospel: »And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.« (John 1,14,.16-17). We celebrate and give praise for this in the birth of Jesus, the little Babe of Bethlehem.
11. Come, O ye faithful,
Joyfully triumphant,
O come, O come to Bethlehem!
Behold the Babe, born to us for salvation!
O let us worship, O let us worship,
O let us worship the King! (Herbei, o ihr Gläubigen elkg 363,1 2021 Friedrich Heinrich Ranke 1823/1826).
This is most certainly true.
12. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7). Amen.
13. Let us pray. O God, to whom glory is sung in the highest while on earth peace is proclaimed to men of goodwill, grant that goodwill to us, Thy servants, cleanse us from all our sins and give perpetual peace to us, and to all people. Amen. (The Week of the Nativity of our Lord, Vespers Collect 2. The Daily Office. Copyright © 1965 Concordia Publishing House.)
To God alone be the Glory
Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Septuaginta, Vol. I and II 2. Revised Edition © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Evangelisch-Lutherisches Kirchengesangbuch. Copyright © 2021 Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, Hannover.
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