Christmas Eve Homily 2025
HOMILY
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
The Bible says that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. It says that we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. It says that this Word made flesh was full of grace and truth.
Of course, we know that the Word made flesh is Jesus Christ. He was the one who was with God in the beginning but at just the right time, He was made man and dwelt among us.
What is so glorious about the incarnation? Why does it matter the Jesus become flesh and dwelt on the Earth as a man?
It matters because it reveals the Father’s character, willing to send His only begotten to live and die for the world that He so loves. It matters because Jesus was a little baby, fully reliant on the love and care of His young mother and His poor stepfather. It matters because Jesus was a 12-year-old boy, left behind by His parents in a big city for three days but was found alive teaching the teachers in the temple, His Father’s house. It matters because His own brothers, filled with envy, thought little of Him. It matters because He was an excellent wine maker. It matters because He grew tired and thirsty and sat by a well by a woman, even willing to be misunderstood as to His intentions. It matters because He loved the blind, and the sick, the lame and the unclean. He touched them and they did not make Him unclean. He made them clean and whole. It matters because He got angry, tossed over tables, made a whip and attacked wicked men to drive them from His Father’s house of prayer for all nations. It matters because Jesus wept.
Why does the incarnation matter? It matters because Jesus had questionable friends and loved them anyway. It matters because His friends at first loved Him for advantage and then learned to love Him for His love for them. It matters because Jesus understands the pain of betrayal, even betrayal by a friend’s kiss. It matters because Jesus knows that the best of men, chosen men, are prone to fear and failure, denying the very one who came to save them from their sins. He does not desert them but gives everything for them and they return to Him, weeping in repentance.
The Incarnation matters because Jesus sweat great drops of blood as He became sin for sinners, the sacrificial lamb, the center of the Father’s wrath against sin and death. It matters because Jesus knows the pain of suffering, even suffering on a cross. It matters because in His agony He loved a thief and promised him forgiveness and rest in paradise. The Incarnation matters because sin and death cannot hold the sinless man in their grasp. It matters because Jesus rose bodily, eating and drinking after His resurrection. It matters because Jesus’s resurrected body ascended into the heavens to the place of honor, majesty and power. It matters because Jesus, who is God, was a man and is a man and will always be a man. It matters because the first representative man failed man and the last representative man saved man.
The Glorious Incarnation, a reason for great rejoicing at Christmas. In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.