The Nativity of Our Lord—Peace in Christ, Our Brother
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Brethren, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:1–4).
Tonight is about peace. It’s about a peace that the world cannot give. It’s not a peace of silence, distraction, or pretending that things are just fine.
It is about the peace that remains when Satan accuses you for your sins, when the circumstances of this evil world and evil people make you afraid. And when affliction presses in on your life in ways that threaten to rob you of all rest and confidence and peace before God, that peace is only found in one place: the eternal Son of God taking our human nature into Himself. That’s where that peace is found that endures.
“O Jesus Christ, Thy manger is,” says it clearly.
“O Jesus Christ, Thy manger is my paradise at which my soul reclineth; for there, O Lord, doth lie the Word, the eternal Son of God, made flesh for us” (John 1:14).
“Here in my grace forth shineth.”
The manger is our paradise, not because it looks peaceful or gives us that sentimental feeling of old times, but because the Word, the eternal Son of God was made flesh and is lying there in a feeding trough—because that is what a manger is—lying there in a feeding trough as the Bread from heaven, which God the Father will give for the life of the world (John 6:33, 51).
The Son of God, true God from eternity, is born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Romans 1:3). He takes on real human flesh and blood. It isn’t pretend. It isn’t just an appearance. He truly takes on human flesh and human blood. He—the Divine—is not changed, but the divinity takes into itself true humanity.
This matters because when humanity was first created, God made man in His image (Genesis 1:26–27), in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:24), with true and perfect knowledge of God and dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28). Mankind was like God. There was already a distinction between God and man. God was God, man was man, but the difference was natural and good.
But the fall changed everything. The devil told the lie: “If you eat from the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). In irony of all ironies, they didn’t realize they were already made like God from the beginning. And so they ate from that tree (Genesis 3:6).
And they were utterly separated, infinitely separated. A great chasm was set up between them and God—not just the natural difference between God and His creation, but a huge wall of sin, unbelief, hatred, war, violence. Sin turns that good distinction into a chasm that could never be crossed.
Humanity didn’t simply remain creaturely. Humanity became guilty, afraid, hostile toward God. Instead of walking in the garden with God in joy, now they covered themselves, covered their shame, and ran away and hid from God (Genesis 3:7–10).
Even if you question the fairness of inheriting sin, death, and unbelief from our first parents, Adam and Eve (Romans 5:12), each of us needs to admit that we know deep down what is right and what is wrong. And yet we are unable to fulfill what we know to be right.
If we’re honest with ourselves, oftentimes we don’t even want to try to do what is right, even though we know deep in ourselves what is right. Even if you’ve never read the Bible or heard the Ten Commandments, you feel this truth in the core of your being.
Scripture says, “For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law. And as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law, for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts, accusing or else excusing them in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Romans 2:12–16).
So we know this right and wrong deep in our hearts, and we are either accused—if we’re honest that we don’t live up to it—or we excuse our behavior.
Even those who want to claim that there’s no God, no objective morality, always seem to feel the need to justify their actions. The most evil things done to other human beings, the people doing them don’t say, “Well, I’m doing it because there’s no objective right and wrong.” They have to explain, “Well, I’m doing this to this group of people because they’re basically animals. They’re lower than me. They aren’t entitled to the same things that my family is entitled to.”
Even they, in the most wicked examples of human behavior, justify themselves. They excuse themselves because even their conscience bears witness to what is truly good, right, and just.
You know what is right, but you do not carry it out. You do what is evil (cf. Romans 7:19).
And God, who is perfectly loving and perfectly just, will judge each of us for what we have done in the body, whether good or evil (2 Corinthians 5:10). He will execute judgment against those who treat their neighbor shamefully and commit idolatry in all manner of wickedness, because He is perfectly loving and perfectly just and will not let injustice ultimately have the final word.
That sounds like a beautiful thing, but for the sinner, it is a scary thing. Apart from Christ, nothing evil and unholy can dwell in His presence and live, and no evil deed will be left unpunished (cf. Habakkuk 1:13; Romans 2:6).
This is where Satan works in our conscience, accusing us for violating the Law of God written on tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18) and written in our hearts (Romans 2:15), speaking the righteous wrath and judgment that stands against us for our sins (Romans 1:18).
Like the hymn of Jesus Christ says, Satan’s only ruse is to accuse and keep us in our inborn sin. Engaging Satan, he accuses you with what is real: your sin, your failures, your guilt—and your conscience knows it’s true. So peace disappears because the accusation sticks.
But God does not answer that accusation by redacting your sins from the files before they are released or giving you a blanket pardon on His way out of office. He doesn’t sweep it under the rug and let bygones be bygones.
He answers these real accusations against you for your sins with the incarnation, the enfleshment of His Son, the eternal Word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Creator of heaven and earth (John 1:1–3, 14).
The Son of God bridges the chasm, not by ignoring or painting over sin, but by taking humanity—human flesh and blood—into His divinity and to work through it judgment, death, and resurrection, humbling Himself, taking the form of a slave, a little poor baby in a feeding trough, taking the form of a slave, making purification for sins in His human flesh and blood and rising from the dead to be exalted in that same human flesh and blood in the same way that He already was exalted as the eternal Son of God in His divine majesty (Philippians 2:6–11; Hebrews 1:3).
And that is what St. Paul means when he says that Jesus is declared to be the Son of God with power through the resurrection (Romans 1:4).
Not that He wasn’t already the Son of God, but that when He rose from the dead after making purification for sins, God the Father exalted the humanity of our Jesus, the eternal Son of God.
“All authority in heaven and earth have been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18). He says He already had that in His divinity. He declares it to the disciples as He ascends into heaven of His humanity—His human flesh and blood exalted to the right hand of God (Acts 1:9–11).
“Sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies Your footstool” (Psalm 110:1; Hebrews 1:13). That is not about His divinity. He already had all of that according to His divinity.
It is about Christ’s humanity. He is declared to be the Son of God with power through the resurrection.
That is what Paul Gerhardt means in this hymn when he says, “Thou highest Good, dost lift our blood up to the throne of God, Thy heavenly Father.”
Our blood relations are at the right hand of the Father—our Brother. The flesh that lay in the manger is the flesh now seated at the right hand of God. The blood that would be shed on the cross is the blood that makes peace between you and the Father, and that blood is exalted at the right hand.
This is why Satan’s accusation fails.
“Be still, O foe, dost thou not know my Friend, my flesh and blood in heaven is seated—my big Brother.”
Think about that. Some of you maybe have an older sibling. I don’t, but I have seen older siblings. Give me a little picture of what Jesus is like.
They fight a lot, but I’m sure some of you have seen older siblings—maybe your own or your children—do things all of a sudden that shocked you: sharing some dessert they loved without even giving it a second thought, defending their sibling when their sibling was in trouble and was going to get a whooping, trying to step in and say it wasn’t their fault, it was mine.
Imagine that to an infinite degree in the Lord Jesus as your Brother, your High Priest standing before the Father (Hebrews 4:14–16), a Brother who is beloved by your Father, who has never done anything wrong, who is the apple of His Father’s eye, who His Father listens to about everything.
And all He does night and day is not advocate for Himself. Your Lord Jesus, your big Brother, is constantly begging the Father to show you mercy, to show you good, to silence Satan (Revelation 12:10), to let Him come back right now so He can raise all the dead and bring us all to be with Him in the kingdom forever (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).
That’s what your big Brother is constantly doing before the Father.
Now lifted up—His human flesh and blood that He shares with us—up to heaven at the right hand of the Father, your flesh and blood assumed by the Son of God has passed through death and judgment and has been raised and exalted in Him.
There is no longer war between you and God (Romans 5:1). Heaven and earth are joined together in the flesh of Christ (Ephesians 1:10).
Scripture plainly tells us that Christ Jesus bore our sins in His body on the cross to make peace by His blood and purification for our sins (1 Peter 2:24; Colossians 1:20). God the Father raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come (Ephesians 1:20–21).
And He put all things under His feet and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22–23).
That is what He’s done in His human flesh and blood.
Jesus has—and we who share in that same human flesh and blood through which the Son of God accomplished these great and mighty acts—Scripture says, “You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which we once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
And this is also why the fear that the circumstances of this evil world can induce in us—a loss of peace—do not get the final word. You look out at the world and you see chaos, instability, violence, injustice, the wicked prospering and the innocent suffering. You see nations raging and peoples imagining vain things (Psalm 2:1).
You see how fragile life is, how quickly everything can be shaken, taken away, and your heart is tempted to be weighed down in all sorts of harmful ways to cloak your despair over how powerless you are in the face of all that is coming upon you and those you love.
But this hymn tells us to lift up our heads in such times. “There dost thou see in front of thee thy flesh and blood which steer the clouds of heaven.”
“What then can rise to steal this prize and leave thy soul by fear and sorrow driven?”
How can you be afraid when your big Brother, your blood Brother, Jesus Christ governs all things? Even the wind and the sea obey Him (Mark 4:41), and consider how He loves you. Everything that is happening to us we know is for our good (Romans 8:28). The peace cannot be taken from us.
Because our beloved blood Brother is working all of this for our good—every last bit of it. The world may look out of control, but it is not ruled by chaos. It is not ultimately ruled by the devil or powerful humans, either. It is ruled by the God-man, Jesus Christ the righteous, your Brother (1 John 2:1).
And when fear gives way to suffering, when affliction becomes personal, when weakness, sickness, and grief and sorrow press in on you, God’s Word does not tell you to look to power, wealth, prestige, pleasure, and the glory of this world to help you.
It tells you where to look.
“So turn thine eyes down from the skies and find thy comfort in a lowly manger,” where the eternal Word of God dwells in human flesh and blood in the form of a slave (Philippians 2:7), so that you might be exalted in Him—to the right hand in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). That He might draw you into Himself just as He drew humanity into His divinity, that you would have communion with Him and be in His Kingdom forever.
There lies your comfort.
There lies your Creator and Redeemer.
There lies your Brother—your perfect Brother—the Star-Child, the Father’s favorite, constantly putting in a good word for you (Romans 8:34).
There lies the One who knows suffering in His own flesh. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
“So though plagues thou bear, do not despair. Thy Brother will not spurn thy grief and sighing.”
He knows the pangs of hell. He understands the sinner’s conscience. He cannot see our suffering without compassion, without tears.
God, who in His divinity has no body, is Spirit (John 4:24), and so has no eyes to cry. In Christ, your God has tears. And He has compassion and weeps to see you suffering and is with you in it and knows what it’s like even to lose a mom and a dad (John 11:35).
Your God has that and shares it with you. For this reason He was born. For this reason He bled. For this reason He bore the cross, bore our sin on the cross in His body (1 Peter 2:24).
The world may keep its wealth and gold, but you keep Christ as your true treasure, because the Child in the manger is God in true human flesh and blood.
The accusations against you are silenced.
Your fear is stilled.
Your affliction is a manifestation of God’s fatherly, divine goodness and mercy toward you, whom He saved by giving up His only Son for you (Romans 8:32), and whose prayers He gladly hears on your behalf.
Peace is made for you in this little Baby, whom even the wind and the sea obey—your blood Brother, the eternal Son of God.
Let us pray. O eternal, most powerful and only wise King and Lord Jesus Christ, how deeply You have humbled Yourself for the sake of our salvation, that You not only joined our flesh and blood to Your divine nature, but You have also shown Yourself to us with such great poverty and such long-lasting patience in the midst of our misery, that You, O Creator and Lord of all, take on swaddling cloths in a little crib and in a stall out of love and show Yourself kindly toward us. Be welcome among us, O highest Guest and Well of life. Make us rich through Your poverty and protect us from eternal distress, anguish, and misery. For You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
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