[AI translation] It is God's unspeakable grace that today the Christmas Gospel, the Christmas message of joy, can again be heard among us! But somehow I would like to feel and make us all feel today that this Christmas joy, which has been spoken of so much, is not just an emotional thing, not just a passing mood, but a life-forming force, a mandate, a service! It is not, therefore, a question of rejoicing for two days because we can celebrate Christmas again, but of a message of joy that commits those who hear it to a lifetime of commitment. A great gift has been given at Christmas, God has given the world His Holy Son, but at the same time this gift is also a sacred duty for the one who receives it!And the two cannot be separated. That's why I would like to talk together about these two things: the gift and the task of Christmas, based on the Word that many of us already know without a book, but which has taken hold of us with new power, especially in view of Christmas today! So let us take some of the statements of our Word!
It begins, "The true light had already come into the world" (Jn 1,9). There are many ways of expressing the majestic miracle that happened in that little stable in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. We know these expressions from the Bible: 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son' (Jn 3,16), or so: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1,14), or: "I proclaim to you a great joy, which shall be to all the people, for to you is born this day a Saviour, who is the Lord Christ in the city of David." (Lk 2,10-11). The same majestic miracle, the same joyful fact, is expressed in our basic hymn: "The true light was already come into the world!"
Each of these expressions is a fragment of the God who created and governs the world, a person of the one divine Being. He has come into this world from another world entirely, shrinking into the form of a little child, nestled within the confines of the life of a human person. God has come among us, and precisely in order to understand, here, rotating among us, talking to people, holding hands, the invisible mystery that God's presence on this earth is not figurative, not symbolic, but quite real, actual, real! The birth of Jesus means that God, at a point in time and space, some 1951 years ago and in Bethlehem, gave material proof of the otherwise spiritual truth that God's personal existence and presence with us is a tangible reality! He gave this proof precisely so that we could rest our faith on the historical fact that God is here among us, even if not physically as He was then, but spiritually as real as He was then!
So, "The true light had come into the world", says our fundamental hymn. Jesus himself calls himself, "I am the light of the world." (Jn 8,12) Jesus: light, a ray of light from heaven, the light of the heavenly light, the lighted tapestry of God's world on earth. A piece of that radiance which is over there, in the immediate vicinity of God, which is in God. At the end of the book of Revelation we read of this heavenly radiance, "And the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and the Lamb is its lamp." (Revelation 21:23) From this eternal, holy light, a ray of light has burst upon the earth in the person of Jesus Christ! Let us take it literally, that Jesus is the true light, the heavenly ray of light through whom the healing power of God is poured out on the many people suffering from all kinds of cancer. We remember how the sick were healed by his presence, how sinners were cleansed by his gaze, how the devil fled from him! Indeed, the pain of mourning at the gates of Nain, for example, was dispersed like the darkness in which a candle was lit! Yes: that is the most precious gift of Christmas, that God has placed a source of true light in this world, our world, to heal, purify, comfort, lift up, sanctify, save human souls! To shine a true light in the darkness!
That's what we need, this healing, empowering, comforting, cleansing, sanctifying heavenly ray! This is what our weary, disappointed, sad, sinful hearts need right now! If this heavenly ray of light could be projected upon us now, it would be real Christmas joy in concrete terms, and not just a fleeting feeling of well-being! But how can we benefit from this healing effect of this light? "The true light has already come into the world, enlightening all people" (John 1:9).
It illuminates: I might say it reveals, it shows man as he is. In darkness and twilight, you can't see the mess and the messiness of a room, but when the sun shines, so much the better! It is even more so with the heart: all the old and new rubbish and all the accumulated disorder is revealed when the light of true light is thrown upon it! So this is how Jesus heals, comforts and strengthens me, by illuminating me: by showing me my faults, by exposing my sin, by shedding light on my failings. And this is very unpleasant, no one likes to have the spotlight on something in their life that they want to cover up! And yet, now he does it to all of us, because listen, it goes on. He came among his own, and his own did not receive him." (John 1:10-11) The unpleasant thing about these two verses is that they are connected. So: the world He created did not know Him because His own, among whom He came, did not receive Him!
As you know, there is only one way for the world to know Jesus: through the lives and testimonies of Christians! The world knows the Christ that Christ's followers live before it! And if this is so, is it any wonder that the world does not have a very high opinion of our Christ?! It is not the fault or sin of the world, but our own. Do you see that the cause of the Gospel has in fact only one enemy: the disciples! They alone hinder the conquering way of Christ in this world. So it is not the blasphemers, not the anti-Christian forces, but the disciples, the unfaithful followers of Christ, those who, although they have known Him, have not received Him, or, even more dangerous, have received Him only in appearance. And that is why the world hates Him, because it has noticed that everything in His life is a sham: love, and selflessness, and self-denial, in other words, all piety is a sham! And this is more harmful than honest denial of God! Yes, here I feel very painfully that there is an invisible "because" in verses 10 and 11, so: the world has not known Him because theirs have not received Him!
And in this reproachful, painful statement, let us not think that He had no place in the inn, that He must have been born in a ragged stable, that He had no place to lay His head, that He was cast out from among His own, that He was wickedly crucified. Let us not think of this, or at least let us not think of it only until now, but until now: can I accept that we, I, am judged by this Word, and can I say with all honesty that I have not received Him as I should have? We have not received Him, because we are "His"!
How much we have not received Him is most evident in the way we celebrate Christmas. I have heard it said in recent days, "I have little joy now because I have little money! What a miserable joy it must be to be measured in money! Certainly not Christmas joy! Or I have heard such a statement from Christian people: Let's call a truce, let's not quarrel with each other, at least on these two days, because it's the feast of love! Such two days of peace are worth as much as two days of loyalty! This has nothing to do with the meaning of Christmas either. It's just a mood! What does Christmas mean in practice? Mostly just things like baking, shopping, spending money, finally getting a rest from all the horse-running before, a festive lunch, company, bridge-party...
Tell me, if we look only at the way we celebrate Christmas, does not this statement of our Word, "He came to His own and His own did not receive Him", apply to us completely? (Jn 1,11) How many Christmases have we had, and what good has it done this world that we have celebrated? But what good has it done this world if Christians celebrate Christmas? That if we truly embraced the true light, the world could come to know the Lord Jesus through us! For human life cannot be divided into two parts: a life in this world and a life in the next, and it is not possible to receive Jesus only with a view to salvation in the next world, but only in such a way that he will then sanctify my life on earth, my life in this world.
Thus says our foundational hymn, "And to those who receive him, he gives power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name." (John 1:12).
It is a wonderful thing: the Son of God became man so that man might become the Son of God! The Son of God descended into the abyss so that man might ascend to the heights of his original destiny. The Son of God died a cursed death so that man might live in glory. The Son of God took man's life that man might be a partaker of the life of God. But again, not just over there, but in eternity! Of course there too, and there indeed! But also here on earth! He who truly receives Jesus must live as a son of God, walk as a partaker of God's life, here on earth! In the world! How true this is is evident from the fact that Jesus not only says to Himself, "I am the light of the world" (Jn 8,12), but He also says to His disciples, word for word, "you are the light of the world" (Mt 5,14).
Do you know what it means to receive Jesus? To continue to radiate to the world all that we have received from Him: peace, forgiveness, love, patience, sacrifice, kindness - in short, to shine, to be the light of the world wherever it is dark, that is to say, in the world, to radiate something of that sunless light, that healing, purifying heavenly ray of light that came into the world there in Bethlehem! What the world could not know because its people did not accept it, or if they did, they hid it under a bushel, kept it to themselves, used it internally, and so it slowly became like a candle flame that has been thrown out: it outlived its oxygen and went to sleep! Well, that is the real Christmas, when one not only accepts the gift, but also takes on the task that comes with it: to continue to shed the light that has been received! Jesus didn't leave this world on Christmas, but He came, He came to shine into the world! Because God so loved this world - the world we often hate, despise, want to turn away from - yes, God so loved this world that He gave His only begotten Son for it. Whoever receives this Son, this only-begotten Son given for the world, must love the world, the man in the world, with great responsibility, must himself love this world so that the world may know the true light, the only-begotten Son of God through the sons of God!
In other words: to receive! This is the true joy of Christmas! Christmas is an occasion to receive Jesus, or to receive him again! Don't think that by singing a hymn to end a sermon we have done all we can! No! This song shows us what to do, how to pray and how to open yourself to the Light:
O my loving Jesus, my sweet Christ the Redeemer!
Come, make a quiet bed, In my heart a house for thyself!
Oh, dear guest, stay with me, Be not afraid of my sin,
Come in to me, thy servant, Thy poor convert sheep!
To the hiding-place of my soul, Lock thee in thy closet,
That I may not forget thee, and praise thee for ever.
Canto 316, verses 12-14
Amen
Date: 25 December 1951.
Lesson
Lk 2,1-20