It is a rare privilege to preach the Gospel on a Sunday Christmas Day, which occurs only every five or six years. The last was 2011 and the next will be 2022. The birth of Jesus is the central focus. His incarnation – the Word becoming flesh and taking up residence in the midst of humanity – gets our full attention. Traditionally Sundays are little Easters, a reminder that the highest point of our faith is Christ’s resurrection, the keystone of his triumph over sin, evil, and death, so that all who call on his name may rejoice in his everlasting love and eternal rule.
The opening verses of the Book of Hebrews, give us the opportunity to think beyond the coarseness of a manger’s straw and the earthy aroma of a stable. While his celebratory birthday may attract great attention on the secular calendar, on the church’s liturgical calendar it must never be separated from the immense story of all that is disclosed to us in Christ—in birth, life, death, atonement, resurrection, and exaltation. There is life after birth, purpose and power during a life of witness, and everlasting joy and peace in resurrection and reign.
With that as foundation, these three verses make an astounding claim that the Word becoming flesh makes connections: between God and flesh, body and spirit, the universal and the particular, the temporal and the eternal. This claim comes in verse 3: “The Son is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being.” Academic theologians pounce on this text to declare the absolute deity of Christ. Without diminishing the importance of that understanding of Christ, our Hebrews author also presents his solid humanity. This combination allows us to receive and rejoice in an unabridged Christ.
The full meaning of incarnation frames not only our knowledge of God, but also our knowledge of ourselves and of the theological significance of our bodily existence. The birth of Christ sheds a powerful light on creation, on human beings – you and me – and on God.
Michael Granzen writes that several years ago he spent the winter at Iona, a one by three mile rocky island in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Scotland. St. Columba brought Christianity from Ireland in the 560's. He used Iona as his base to evangelize Scotland and Scandinavia. Since then various monastic communities, crofters, fisherman, seagulls, and Presbyterians have clung to this bleak but beautiful isle.
Iona contains some of the oldest black surface rock on the earth and some of the worst weather. Huge storms with gale force winds blow in from the North Atlantic and rage for days. Granzen says that during one five-day storm the ferry from the island of Mull was cancelled for the week, and the fifty permanent and temporary residents lived off the larder of endless tea, oatmeal, thick stale bread, and old yellow pudding.
Twice daily people trudged though the darkness and cold to gather for worship in the abbey. There was no heat, only candlelight, and no organ, just the sound of the wind howling outside. Granzen remembers singing with that small company, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel, to ransom captive Israel, who mourns in lonely exile here... Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” Strangely the severity of weather and life seemed to contribute to the warmth of the Spirit and community. Acknowledging the existential darkness allowed the Light to truly shine.
Wondering why that was, Granzen thinks that the more we acknowledge our hurt and brokenness the more we may receive the divine-human light. And the inverse is equally true: the less we acknowledge our hurt, fear and hostility (and project them onto others), the less we are open to the true light of forgiveness, justice and hope. In the very things that we ignore, reject, and even despise as dirty and strange, God’s incarnate light and presence is shining deep in the flesh.
In other words, says Granzen, “God is in the wound.” The prophet was right, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in a pitch-dark land, light has dawned.”(1)
We may not live on an isolated island ravaged by the elements. Yet we live in a wounded world which is beset by the darkness of evil, despair, grief, fear, hatred, greed, poverty, and inequality. It seems like a never-ending solar eclipse but without its eerie half-light. It is like the ear-splitting roar of a tornado, the repeated lightning flashes of a violent thunderstorm, and the constant pounding of a typhoon. Event after event darkens human existence. Words insensitively bantered about walls, prisons, arms buildup, and bombing, or words filled with racist, sexist, ethnic, elitist, or gender slurs caulk the chinks in life where light could shine in.
“The Son is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being.” David Woods writes,
To proclaim that in Jesus the glory of God was revealed and that Jesus (in body and spirit) was nothing less than “the exact imprint of God’s very being,” is to declare that flesh can no longer define existence that is not-God. Flesh is God’s territory no less than spirit. The world of bodies, time, and space is God’s world through and through.(2)So Christmas is not just about a special child born in unusual yet ordinary circumstances. Christmas is about us.
You and I often need to have documents notarized. This process verifies that you are who you say you are and willingly sign the document. Centuries ago, when everything was written out in longhand by scribes, a king would sign a document and press into a glob of warm wax his signet ring to verify that the contents of the document was the lawful order of the king.
The Hebrews author wrote, “In these final days, [God] spoke to us through a Son...[who] is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God's being.” Not only is Jesus the radiance of God’s glory, but he is also the signet ring imprint, the exact representation of God’s being. Jesus is God himself—the very God who spoke in Old Testament times. The Greek word for “being” (hypostasis) means the very substance of God; the Greek word for “imprint" was used in ancient times to depict an image. Thus, Jesus is the visible expression of God’s invisible being. We get a perfect picture of God when we look at Christ. Jesus explains God; he came to the world and portrayed God to people by his words and actions. We know God by knowing Christ. God reveals God’s self through Jesus. The prophets could only tell God's people second-hand what they saw and heard. Jesus was God himself—his message was firsthand; there were no intermediaries.
Christ “maintains everything with his powerful message.” Christ not only created the universe, he preserves and delivers the universe. Christ spoke the world into existence and he supports the world, not physically like the mythical Atlas, but by guiding the world toward its appointed future—the time when he will receive it as his inheritance. Because Christ sustains everything, nothing in creation is independent from him. All things are held together in a coherent or logical way, sustained and upheld, prevented from dissolving into chaos. In him alone and by his word, we find the unifying principle of all life. He transcends any and all other powers.
“After [Christ] carried out the cleansing of people from their sins, he sat down at the right side of the highest majesty.” Here the Hebrews author gives a precis of his sermon’s two main themes about Christ: his sacrifice and his exaltation. Jesus cleansed his people from the ugly stain of sin. Sin destroys our ability to know or approach God, but when God purifies us from our sins, our record is expunged. God regards us as though we had never sinned and clothes us in the righteousness of Christ himself.
After paying that penalty with his death on the cross, Christ sat down. This means that his work was complete and declares that his position was exalted. Earthly priests in the temple would stand and keep offering sacrifices. Their work was never finished. Christ’s sacrifice was final and complete. The author is thinking of the opening verse of Psalm 110, which is the only place in the Bible where anyone other than God is described as enthroned in power. This verse became a main text for the early church to use as an argument for the deity of Christ, an image which had a greater ability to persuade the Jews of Christ’s authority than did his resurrection. Jesus said to high priest Caiaphas when he was being tried, “You’ll see the Human One sitting on the right side of the Almighty and coming on the heavenly clouds” (Matthew 26:64).
In these three verses, the author of Hebrews gives us the unabridged Christ, who is proclaimed in the words of the Nicene Creed:
One Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, He came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.For us and for our salvation. Thanks be to God.
General Resources:
Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, “Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12),” Year A, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration.
Life Application Bible Commentary - Hebrews (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001.
(1) Michael Granzen, Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/michael.granzen/posts/10211686328980264.
(2) David J. Woods, “Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12): Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) Year A, Vol.1, 136.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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