God’s Glory Required Him to Give Himself as One of Us
Exodus 33:18-23; 34:5-7
What? Not what you were expecting for a Christmas Day reading? Hearing about Moses and God calling people to account for sin? Moses lived a millennium and a half before Jesus was born! Moses received God’s condemning Law and gave it to the people! Are we really hearing about God condemning people for generation after generation?! This isn’t Christmas Day kind of stuff!
Christmas Day is about the reality of what Jesus did by coming into this world sinking in after being awed by his birth and angels and shepherds last night! So, while at first it might seem like a strange reading for this morning, trust me, it’s not.
Moses wanted assurance that the LORD would be with him as he led the people to the Promised Land. The back-and-forth between Moses and the LORD that leads up to our reading is really interesting—you should read it! Moses was asking for things from God assurances, direction, for God to go with them. Moses got what he asked for: God would be with them.
But it might seem that Moses was pushing it a bit when he then asked to see God’s glory. But he said “please,” and God is gracious. There was just one issue: no sinful human being which is every human being can see the fullness of God’s glory and live. But God made a way. Moses would see God’s glory, but not all of it. His full glory would be hidden, but the passing flash of God’s glory that he saw was enough. It brought comfort and reassurance that God was with him and his people. If you didn’t notice it at first, maybe it’s making more sense for us to think about these words from Exodus today Bethlehem hosts the holy, glorious God wrapped in human flesh, but not just wearing human flesh like a coat truly human in addition to being truly God. His full, divine glory hidden beneath his humanity.
The only way for sinful human beings to look at him and live was for it to be like we sang last night: Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th’ incarnate Deity! Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel (Hark the Herald Angels Sing, CW 350 st. 2) Immanuel means “God with us.” Just as Moses begged the LORD to be present with him and his people and God was sinful people longed for the promised Savior to come to them. And he did.
Like the LORD did with Moses, Jesus passed by in this world…but not quickly. The Glory of God Required Him to Give Himself as One of Us. He had to be born the way he was so that he could live under the expectations of God’s law as we do. He became one of us in order to live the life God demanded that we live—a perfect one. He lived and grew 33 years in this world…living sinlessly…pleasing the Father. Then, the life he offered on the cross was in place of the life we needed to offer but couldn’t. This was necessary. This was required if we were to be saved.
Jesus came to show, in the greatest way, who he is the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and overflowing with mercy and truth, maintaining mercy for thousands, forgiving guilt and rebellion and sin. Those who reject him tend to influence their children and their children’s children, which is why the LORD said what he said to Moses.
He is a just God who condemns eternally those who reject Jesus and what he has done for us. But those who see the baby in Bethlehem for who he is and trust what he went on to do for them, will have an eternity of seeing the full glory of God in the promised land of heaven
God Gave Himself as One of Us
John 1:1-18
You ever do that Christmas present thing where you wrap a gift in an unusual way so that the person you’re giving it to can’t guess what it is? Maybe a small piece of jewelry in a large box or a t-shirt wrapped in a tube? If you can trick them, there’s more surprise and, presumably, even more joy.
Now, the Father had different reasons when he sent his Son into the world as one of us and looking like one of us, but with divinity under the wrapping of his humanity. He wasn’t trying to fool anyone. There was still that “No one can see my face and live thing!” The holy God of the Old Testament is the same God who came to earth on a Bethlehem night and the same God that we worship and praise today. So, it was necessary for his brilliant, all-consuming glory to be veiled, just as it was when Moses wanted to see God’s glory.
But he didn’t just look like one of us, he was one of us. When the shepherds looked over into the feeding trough and saw the tiny face peeking out of the strips of cloth he was wrapped in, he looked like any other baby they had ever seen! Cute, I presume messy, I would guess…hungry, I’m sure…his little nose scrunching his eyes squinty…the little baby noises. Despite him looking no different than any baby in their own families, they believed what the angel had told them!
When God Gave Himself as One of Us, it meant that he didn’t just look like a person, he was truly human. So, he sat down and ate with everybody else. He got tired and I’m sure, occasionally exhausted. There were tears in his eyes when his friend died. He had to buy new clothes when the old ones wore out. He had to get haircuts. He came as one of us. But unlike the shepherds, sometimes that’s all people saw. So, many sinful people reacted like this: (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not recognize him. He came to what was his own, yet his own people did not accept him. Here he was, the light of mankind, rejected by mankind.
Any person, Jew or Gentile, would not have recognized him by his outward appearance, just like Isaiah said: He had no attractiveness and no majesty. When we saw him, nothing about his appearance made us desire him (53:2).
His very own people, the Jews, got stuck on his humanity too: Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother named Mary? And aren’t James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas his brothers?And aren’t all of his sisters here with us (Matthew 13:55-56)? And they said this despite his teaching and miracles They rejected those flashes of divine glory that they should not have. They had opportunity to see him not only as a man, but as the Savior promised to them.
Again, Jesus’ purpose in coming as one of us was not to confuse people, it was so that he could live and die for us. That couldn’t happen unless he came as one of us. To be human means that death will come. But there’s where the difference is. The one way Jesus is not like us was his perfection. He had no sin. That made his death no less human, but it did mean that our imperfection had been paid for by his sinless sacrifice Then the one who died rose to live on Easter morning, promising that same victory over death to all who trust in him.
And so, we remember today that the manger led to the cross which led to the empty tomb the baby…the man…the victorious Christ. What we see and celebrate this morning was just the beginning of salvation’s work. It was just the start of what Jesus did to forgive all your sins and give you eternal life. So, you have to pay attention beyond the manger to see that the baby Jesus became the Savior of the world. This is why we don’t just have church on Christmas. We have it every week so that we can hear all the things Jesus did after he came! Hearing about Jesus makes the difference because the Holy Spirit works through the Word to give us understanding and faith in Jesus. That’s how we see his glory, the glory he has as the onlybegotten from the Father. Jesus, the glorious Son of God, is the gift given to you and to me. He’s wrapped a little differently, but he’s the best gift you’ll ever receive!
God’s Giving of Himself Proves His Love to Give Us Even More Romans 8:31-32
If you really like your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or if you love jam on your English muffins in the morning, did you know that for just $185 bucks, you can get a different jelly or jam delivered right to your house every month! What an exciting gift that would be for you to get at Christmas! The Jelly of the Month club—the gift that keeps on giving!
I don’t exactly live under a rock, but I had no idea that there’s a ton of “month-clubs” that will keep you stocked with chips and salsa or BBQ stuff or pickles or…just so many things! Every time the calendar flips from one month the next, you don’t have to worry, because the new BBQ sauce will be there at your door! That’s the greatest gift ever, right?!
For something a little more serious, let’s think about what Paul said to the Christians in Rome when talking about God giving the gift of his Son for us. This is what he wrote:
What then will we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along with him?
Romans 8 is an incredible chapter of the Bible a favorite of many Christians. In that chapter, right before these words, you’ll find God tell you that he picked you out before you even existed and called you to be his child! He gave you faith to trust that Jesus came into the world to save people from being eternally condemned by God because of their sins. He gave you faith so that comfort and joy and peace are yours all year round when it comes to your relationship with God.
So, when the Apostle Paul says here, What then will we say about these things? He’s setting you up to understand that God has this gift-that-keeps-on-giving. Since God was willing to give up his Son for you to send him as a vulnerable little baby into a cruel world and a land with a murderous leader who would try to kill him already as an infant or toddler, to have him endure temptations throughout his life caused by those around him, to be exposed to Satan’s vile attempts to defeat his efforts to save sinners, to have him die on a cross with your sins loaded onto his back if God was willing to do that, what in the world (literally) would he withhold from you?!
God proved his love for you by giving you his Son and that love moves him to keep on giving to you! God gives us all that we need and usually much more. Christmas gives evidence of this for many people. We eat more food, and more kinds of food, than we need. We receive gifts that we don’t have to have. Family and friends and people who don’t even know us are nicer to us than at any other time. Days off from work can be a bit of a luxury. And these are the mundane things of life compared to his ongoing forgiveness of our sins in Christ…or a beautiful church family…or opportunities to serve him and others…or Christian friends to lean on…and so many other things.
God’s giving is not a “gift of the month club.” We don’t wait for the next month to come around for new blessings to land at our door. God’s giving is continuous; it is every day and all the time. His amazing generosity stems from this great love he has for you the love that moved him to send his Son. That gift lying in the manger proves that God loves you and will take care of you in every way until you see him face to face in heaven and give him your thanks and praise forever. Amen.