https://app.dropwave.io/episode/9b8bc187-75f6-4dc5-82f0-b0cf10677a03/christmas-day-ad-2025.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I already have one. That’s not what I asked for. This is boring. I’ll probably never use it. Is this all?

That’s not just what kids say at Christmas. At some point in your life (maybe even today!), you received a gift you didn’t want. Maybe it was the wrong color, or it wasn’t what you hoped for.

But sometimes you begin to understand why it was given. And when you see the love that motivated the gift, you begin to appreciate it. It was unwanted. Now it’s treasured.

The whole Christmas story is full of unwanted and un-asked-for gifts. From the beginning of His life in this world, no one wanted Jesus. Mary didn’t ask for a surprise pregnancy. She didn’t ask for the embarrassment of being pregnant before marriage. Joseph didn’t ask for his betrothed to become pregnant with the eternal Son of God. No one wanted Caesar to make a decree for a very pregnant Mary to travel ninety miles for a census. No one asked for the inconvenience of showing hospitality to Mary and Joseph; no one received the gift of caring for them. No one wanted a newborn baby put in an animal feeding trough.

And yet we now treasure and delight in those parts of the Christmas story. We delight to hear the story over and over.

Jesus grew up and began His ministry. He taught and healed and blessed and helped. But He was still rejected. Many of His own people refused to receive Him. His hometown dismissed Him. His brothers scorned Him. In fact, the closer people were to Him, the less they seemed to receive Him.

God had placed salvation in the manger. He was the gift for all. Yet He was refused, unwanted, scorned. Salvation? Oh. I already have one of those. Forgiveness? I didn’t ask for that. A Savior who gives me His Word? That’s boring. I’ll probably never use it. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him (John 1:11).

We should have received Him. This Second Person of the Holy Trinity lying in the manger is our Creator. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. He formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He created man in His own image. He blessed them. And behold, it was very good.

Yet when this Creator appeared as the Savior of the whole world, He was unwelcome. Not just at His birth. But His whole life. Even when He died, we were still His enemies.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. What is this darkness? It’s the opposition of all sinful men toward God. Our inborn and innate hostility toward Him. We aren’t good ‘deep down.’ Deep in the heart of man is hatred toward God.

So men loved this darkness instead of the light, because their deeds were evil. Darkness is in the world because darkness lives in the heart of sinful man. 1 Corinthians 2 — the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. John 14 — the world cannot receive [the Holy Spirit], because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.

People who reject God don’t need more evidence or proofs of information. They reject Him because they have a deep spiritual problem that can only be healed by the light of Christ and the Holy Gospel. Only the Holy Spirit can change their hearts. It’s not an intellectual problem. It’s a spiritual one.

Only when we see how dark the darkness is —. Only when we see the truth about this world — how angry and hostile it is toward God—. Only then can we see the depth and profundity of the love of God for us. Jesus, the Word Incarnate, came to earth. But His own received Him not. He was met with no thanks, no love, no honor. He was rejected. Despised. He received hostility and contempt.

If that were me —. if I came to help someone who desperately needed help —. if I was told to go away, to not come back —. if all my attempts to help were met with hatred and scorn — then I would leave. I’d go back home in disgust. And probably most every one of you here would do the same thing. But Jesus didn’t leave. He had every right to. No one forced Him to stay. He could have given up. He could have considered the cost not worth paying. But that thought never entered His mind or heart.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. I think we get confused about what ‘glory’ means. Glory isn’t just strength and perfection. The glory of a thing is its purpose — it’s why the thing is there. So the glory of the sun is that it gives us heat and light; and that it has a kind of beauty in itself. The Bible says that woman is the glory of man; and an excellent wife is the crown of her husband. Children’s children [that is, grandchildren] are the crown of old men, and the glory of children is their father (Proverbs 17:6).

But what about God? What is His glory? You might think His glory is in being powerful and exalted. But that’s not what we heard from the angels last night. The glory of God is that He would send His Son to take our flesh upon Himself, to bear our sin, to suffer and die for us, to give us life, to make us His children. That is God’s glory. It’s the same thing that John declares: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Even more than that, before sin had entered the world —. Before the world was created —. From eternity and before the foundation of the world, the Father planned to send His only Beloved Son to be born into our world, to be placed in a manger. This love and desire so moved God’s heart that He set the whole world’s history to center around this singular event. This is the compassion of your God! This is the love of your King!