the readings:
the sermon:
Happy fourth day of Christmas!
If I’m honest, I’m a little disappointed that my true love didn’t give to me four calling birds today. I really had my heart set on that!
Seriously though… I recently learned that each of the gifts in the 12 days of Christmas song actually represent something. The 4 calling birds is representative of the 4 Gospels, going out and proclaiming the Good News. And that’s a pretty cool gift!
But here we are, we’re through the season of Advent, the time when we anticipate (in one sense) the coming of the birth of a Savior and (in another sense) the return of Christ.
And for most of us, with the gifts all unwrapped, the lights may still be up, but Christmas Day has passed.
Yet for all our anticipation, the world hasn’t suddenly changed. I’ve been checking the news, and I can confirm… It’s still much the same.
We celebrate that Christ has come.
Yet the world is still broken.
It leaves us with a lingering question…
Has God really restored us (as promised), or are we still waiting?
That’s a tension that I’d argue most of us live in at some level.
We are living in the in-between.
And today’s readings have this amazing arc that runs through them that goes directly at this question.
The move from Isaiah through the John’s Gospel and into Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, takes on this incredible journey right into the heart of this tension we live in.
Isaiah: God Speaks Identity Before Completion
First, let’s take a look at our reading from Isaiah today. This part of Isaiah (chapters 61-62) is looking ahead to the time after the Babylonian Exile, and even far beyond that into the future. So the audience is a people who were restored from exile, but not yet fully renewed.
God is talking to an in-between people.
They would have been free from the rule of the Babylonian Empire, but still looking around at a Jerusalem in shambles. It would have been a generation who grew up, their entire lives, in exile. Hearing from generations before them about the greatness of their God who would bring restoration. Imagine their surprise as they entered Jerusalem only to find it far from the great, holy city they were expecting.
And this passage, written to them, doesn’t instruct or correct them.
It announces.
It speaks to their identity, long before He completes their restoration.
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
God tells these in-between people that He clothes them in salvation and righteousness. This is relational language, not moralistic or corrective. And it’s God acting first, speaking to the core of who they are.
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
This is wedding imagery, filled with delight and joy! And a little further down…
her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
The image here is of light, a light that breaks the darkness of night.
These words in Isaiah are incredible!
Spoken to a people so filled with the hope of restoration, but still living in a world where it would’ve often been difficult to see… To them, God speaks identity before He completes restoration.
And likewise for us, as we live in the in-between, with all of our sure hope in Christ’s redemption, yet still living in a fallen, broken world…
We, too, are clothed before we are corrected. God has already declared it.
Isaiah tells us what God intends to do. Christmas shows us how God actually does it.
John: The Word Pitches His Tent Among Us
Now let’s take a look at our Gospel reading from John 1. I feel like this is one of the most brilliant pieces of writing in the entire Bible. In it John doesn’t just start with the birth of Jesus, he takes it back to Creation, His ultimate origin.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.
John ties Jesus to the Creation, the beginning of all things. And then he ties it to the Incarnation…
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
The Eternal Word enters time.
That phrase “The Word became flesh and lived/dwelt among us,” carries this idea that’s more like he “pitched his tent.” It carries echoes of the tabernacle and God’s presence.
God moved into the neighborhood!
This is the Emmanuel, God With Us that the people were waiting for. This is God in the flesh, come to restore all things and make everything right. He came to live and walk with us.
And there’s this one little line in there…
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
And just a little side note here… don’t forget the imagery of light that we saw in Isaiah too.
But this line is significant, because it doesn’t say that everything is instantly fixed. The darkness is acknowledged, not denied.
When Jesus came, He stepped into a broken world. And His presence didn’t just magically make the brokenness go away once and for all (at least not yet).
This… this is an idea that blows me away. When we’re feeling the brokenness and pain and everything else in our lives, Jesus doesn’t just whisk it all away. Rather, He walks through it with us.
And that’s what John is showing us through his version of the Christmas story… Christ (the One from the beginning) has come, and He’s pitched His tent among us…
And the fullness is still unfolding.
John goes right at that big question of ours…
Has God restored us, or are we still waiting?
His answer is, yes… and yes.
Galatians: From Guardian to Family
And now, let’s look at what Paul has to say about this. Our reading from his letter to the Galatians starts with this…
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
In the original Greek, when Paul speaks of the law here, the words he uses carry this idea of the law not as a teacher, but more as a household guardian. It’s more like someone tasked with escorting a child safely until maturity. And once maturity comes, the guardian’s role ends.
In other words, the Law was never meant to be permanent.
Paul continues, saying…
when the fullness of time had come
God’s action isn’t rushed. It’s not delayed. It’s intentional, not reactive. It’s perfectly timed.
Paul continues…
God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law
This is incarnation language. God Himself, fully human… fully under the same constraints as Israel. Jesus doesn’t bypass our human condition, He enters it. The Word pitched His tent among us.
in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.
Here we see that redemption leans not just to freedom, but to family.
And that idea of adoption is a big one to me being an adoptive dad. Historically (in Roman times) and today, it means the child is given full legal status. It’s irreversible. And the child is granted inheritance.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the heart behind adoption. With our biological kids, love is assumed. We’re responsible for their existence, and therefore responsible for their care.
But with our adopted kids, there was a moment when we looked at them and said, “Yes, I want you in my life, and I promise to give you everything that my biological kids get.” We didn’t have them through a regular pregnancy, but through a pregnancy of the heart. And we said, “I choose you.”
In the same way, God does that with us. He looks at us, even with all of our mess and brokenness and says, “I choose you, and I grant you all the rights of my own Son.”
And I love how Paul includes this too…
because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Being children of God, we have the Holy Spirit inside us crying out to the Father. It’s our identity in Christ being confirmed from within.
And that term, Abba… it translates technically as “father,” but it carries a more intimate, personal tone… more like, “daddy!”
I can’t hear that without thinking about coming home after a long day and my kids running to the door, shouting, “Daddy, Daddy, I missed you!”
That is the cry of the Holy Spirit inside of us for the Father who sent His Son, Jesus, to be born as a human to redeem us into His family.
And while this world may still feel upside down, we are not defined by what is unfinished.
Christological Center
So as we continue to celebrate this season of Christmas, let me summarize this journey we’ve just been on through these readings for you.
In Jesus Christ, God doesn’t wait for the world to be ready, or for His people to be fully healed.
The eternal Word becomes flesh and pitches His tent among us. He enters our in-between, a world restored and yet still broken, and speaks a new word of belonging.
He doesn’t simply promise light; He becomes our light.
He doesn’t merely offer freedom; He adopts us as children.
And even as we continue to wait for the fullness of renewal, we do so clothed in grace, named by love, and held fast by the Spirit who cries within us, “Abba, Father!”
This is what Christmas means when the decorations come down and the waiting continues.
Sending: Clothed in Light
So what does this mean for us, here and now?
It means that even as we continue to wait, we don’t wait empty-handed.
We don’t wait unnamed.
We don’t wait unloved.
Isaiah tells us that God has already clothed His people in salvation and righteousness.
John shows us that the Word has already pitched His tent among us.
And Paul assures us that we’re no longer slaves, but children.
That’s why our Collect prays that the light of Christ, already enkindled in our hearts, would shine forth in our lives.
Not a light we create.
Not hope we manufacture.
But grace already given.
So even in the in-between, we live as people clothed in light, named by love, and held fast by God.
Amen.
0 Comments