Hebrews 1:1-9 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Christmas Day Sunday, December 25, 2022 “Hear God’s Christmas Voice”
Do you recognize Christmas voices? My family has been playing a bit of a game as we did some Christmas decorating this year. We had a “Christmas Classics” playlist playing through the phone and a speaker, and we would ask each other, “Who is this singing?” Some we recognized or came to know after hearing their songs multiple times either there or on the radio: Michael Jackson with the Jackson five leading “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” Elvis Presley singing “Blue Christmas,” some Michael Buble and some Bing Crosby and a few others. And from time to time, we wouldn’t recognize the singer. We would look it up and try to remember for the next time. We had a little fun with that game, but I wouldn’t call it a very important exercise. In the long term, it is not an urgent thing that we recognize those Christmas voices. It is very important, though, among all the many voices we hear at Christmas, that we recognize and listen to and hear God’s Christmas voice. This morning we are reminded how important this is through the first 9 verses of the book of Hebrews. This book was first written to a group of Christians facing suffering and persecution. We don’t know who the human author was whom God used to share these words with them, but we do know that God inspired these words to be written, just like he did the rest of the Bible. And we know that he used these words for the benefit of those Hebrew Christians, just as he still uses them for our benefit today. He says, “In the past, God spoke to our forefathers by the prophets at many times and in many ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.” God’s voice has been sounding for centuries. For many years and in many ways, God spoke to his people through prophets. He had spokespeople who shared his word with others. But it was certainly God’s voice. It was his message. It was him speaking. The fact of God speaking hasn’t changed, but the method has. There came a time when God did not need a prophet to share his word with others. Instead of speaking through them, he has spoken through his Son. This is God’s voice. It speaks about his Son and it speaks through his Son. And this vocie has some amazing things to say about him. “[H]e has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.” God’s voice once called all of creation into existence. And the Son, the second person of the glorious and unfathomable Trinity, was present and active in creation. Hebrews here reminds us of what we heard from the beginning of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him everything was made, and without him not one thing was made that has been made” (John 1:1-3). This same Word, the same voice of God, has spoken again in a new time. God himself has come to dwell among people. They no longer need the prophets to speak for God. They no longer need to hear predictions about him. People have seen God face-to-face and have heard his messages from his own mouth. In one person, he is a true human being, and he is also true God. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of the divine nature. He sustains all things by his powerful word. This is the Son. He is everything that God is. He is eternal and almighty. He sustains the world that he created. He is radiant in glory. And I realize that none of these words speak directly about the Christmas story that so many of us know so well. These verses don’t discuss the long journey to Bethlehem or the stable that was the only place for Mary and Joseph or the manger into which Mary’s baby was laid. They don’t talk about the angels who appeared to the shepherds or the shepherds who ran to bow down before the little baby. But they do talk about that baby, Jesus. They talk about God sending his own Son into the world. And these words have us look closely at him, focus on him, and see what our eyes would not have seen. That in the tiny newborn baby we find the God of the universe. In a humble manger bed we see the king of all creation. Prophets for long years had described him. That was the voice of God. And God’s Christmas voice has told us that he has come just as they said he would. God’s angels worship him, just as he commanded.