The Son of God

By the Rev. Lee Woofenden
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, December 24, 2000
Christmas Eve

Readings

Isaiah 59:9-20 The Redeemer will come to Zion

Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We wait for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

For our transgressions are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning away from following our God; talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart. So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth stumbles in the public square, and honesty cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil becomes a victim.

The Lord looked, and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene. So his own arm brought him victory, and his own righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as in a mantle. According to their deeds, so will he repay: wrath to his adversaries and retribution to his enemies, and he will repay the islands their due.

So those in the west will fear the name of the Lord, and those in the east will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up stream that the spirit of the Lord drives on. The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from their transgressions, declares the Lord.

Luke 1:26-35 He will be called the Son of God

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."

But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?"

The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God."

True Christian Religion #92 The Son of God

The human nature through which Jehovah God brought himself into the world is the Son of God. The Lord often said that the Father sent him, and that he was sent by the Father. He said this because "being sent into the world" means coming down to be among people. He did this by means of a human nature that he took upon himself through the virgin Mary. This human nature really is the Son of God, because it was conceived of Jehovah God as the Father. . . . What was divine in him was from his Father Jehovah, and his human side was from his mother; the union of these two is the Son of God. . . . The Divine Trinity--God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is in the Lord. The Father in him is the divine from which he came, the Son is the divine humanity, and the Holy Spirit is the divine flowing out from him.

Sermon

The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)

Throughout this Advent season we have been confronting issues of light and darkness, of struggle and pain, and the comfort and joy that the birth of the Lord Jesus offers to us in the midst of all the difficult passages we go through in life. It is precisely when we have experienced the pain of loss, the anguish of broken human relationships, and the depression of facing the darkness within our own souls that we become open to the Lord's presence in a way that we are not when we feel strong, confident, and self-sufficient.

This evening, as we draw near to our celebration of the sacred event that took place two thousand years ago, I would like to focus on that event: the birth of Jesus Christ, whom the angel said would be called "the Son of God."

The secular world prefers, for commercial reasons, to soft peddle the birth of Jesus as the origin of our Christmas festival, and to entirely ignore the powerful issues of darkness and light, good and evil that swirl around that birth. But the Scriptures have no commercial interests to pursue. They testify to the truth. They clearly delineate the life and death issues that have their focal point in the birth of the one who was to be called the Son of God.

Our reading from the prophet Isaiah is not the type of cheery, "comfort and joy" reading that we would expect hear on Christmas Eve. "Justice is far from us," we read, "and righteousness does not reach us. We wait for the light, but all is darkness. . . . For our transgressions are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us." This is the darkness into which Jesus was born. Though we celebrate Christmas at the coldest, darkest time of year, it was the darkness and coldness of human ignorance, folly, selfishness, and greed that confronted the Lord when he looked to this earth. In the words from Isaiah made famous by Handel's Messiah, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6).

That's where it gets personal. If we are honest with ourselves, then as we look over our lives we will recognize that often we have not even lived up to our own ideals, let alone traveled the higher, spiritual path that God calls us to follow. And looking around us at the world, and at the circumstances surrounding our own lives as we grew up, we know that there is a great deal of spiritual, ethical, and moral darkness that confronts us, and that has shaped our lives in ways that can cause us great pain.

Again we read, "The Lord looked, and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene. So his own arm brought him victory, and his own righteousness upheld him." God had sent priests and prophets, sages and Scriptures to try to reach us, but still we turned away. You've heard the saying, "If you want it done right, do it yourself." This saying was fulfilled in the ultimate way by the Creator God in the birth we are celebrating this evening. The angel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God."

Who is this Son of God? According to the Gospel story, he was born without a human father; God was his Father. He did, however, have a human mother: Mary. So in Jesus, the divine and the human met and mingled. In Jesus, God became human. In Jesus, God came to us in person to show us the path back to God by traveling the same journey of life that we do, facing all the struggles and sorrows, all the trials and temptations that we face. And unlike us, he never gave up and gave in; he never lost his way or took the lower path; he always chose to follow the higher path toward God. As it is expressed in the Letter to the Hebrews, "He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet he never sinned" (Hebrews 4:15).

This is why we can now turn to the Lord Jesus whenever our own efforts are not enough to pull us through. This is why we can turn to the Lord Jesus whenever every human means we have tried has not been enough. Counseling, therapy, personal study, exercise, good nutrition, confiding in close friends and family members, the power of positive thinking. All of these are good--as are many other ways we seek to better our lives. But all of these are also limited. They may help us to deal with many of our issues and problems. But the very deepest roots of our struggles in life are always spiritual, because we ourselves are spiritual beings inhabiting material bodies in this physical world. We have all come from God, our Creator; and only by turning back toward God can we find the answers to our deepest questions, and the comfort we need in our times of deepest pain and struggle.

This is what God was offering to us when he came to us as Jesus Christ. The angel said to Mary, "He will be called the Son of God." And this is what he was called while he was here on earth. That has caused much confusion among Christians for, oh, about two thousand years now. Each one of us is a son or daughter of our parents. And while we each take many of our personality traits from our parents, we differentiate ourselves from them, and become our own unique, individual person. Because of this analogy, Christians have thought that Jesus, the Son, was a separate person from God, the Father.

But Jesus was unique in all history. Yes, he had God as his Father. That's unique. And yes, he did become differentiated from his Father by being born with a human heredity from his mother Mary. But in the course of his life, while continually distinguishing himself from Mary--whom he never referred to as his mother--he was continually drawing closer and closer to his Father, who was the divine Soul within. Instead of becoming differentiated from his Father as we do from our parents, he continually joined together with the Father by always following the leading of that divine Soul within. As a result, not long before the end of his life he could say, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).

Through the many trials and struggles of his life, Jesus, the Son of God, grew to be more and more at one with the Father that was the soul within him. By the time of his resurrection, he had completely re-united with that divine soul. So there is no further need for confusion. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all one. And we know that One God as our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who continues to be God's personal presence with us.

Why did God come to us as Jesus Christ? The Gospel of John gives us the reason: "God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life." This is the wonder of the Christmas story. God loved us so much that he came to us personally to show us the way of love. If we believe in God's way of love as shown to us by Jesus Christ, and if we show one another the same love that he showed to us, then we, too, will find eternal life and eternal joy. Amen.