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“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.”

Merry Christmas!

᛭ INI ᛭

What makes for a glorious Christmas? We have all sort of ideas about what makes for a glorious Christmas: the perfect present; the decorations just so; the meals and drinks wonderful; and the company, too. There’s the chairs we wish were filled. All such things fill our trees, our homes, and our hearts.

Those are all good gifts, “come down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1) But those gifts, and gifts they are, change from year to year. Do one year’s gifts even make it to the next? The proper presents of one age are not the proper presents of another. The meals fade into a distant memory. The same chairs may remain empty come next year.

The world would say that this calls for mindfulness and gratitude. That the presentness and fleetingness of the gifts must be grasped onto all the more, kept all the more in memory. Yet, such festivities fail to last. The sands of time bury them forever. Even still the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

When the Christmas celebration seems less glorious because of these things, the gift has been swapped out for the Giver of the gift. Or more pointedly this Christmas day: the gift has been swapped for the Giver who is Himself the true Gift! Our flesh struggles against Him, would want anything else but Him. Even as Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and thrust all mankind into darkness. “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.”

The gloriousness of Christmas is not determined by any of these things. They can be received as gift and not something that we deserve or a right or entitlement or whatever way you want to put it. Anything deserved, anything that’s a right, anything that we are entitled to runs in the way of Law and demand. If it is missing, then something is amiss with Christmas.

But such a thing is not so! The gloriousness of Christmas is not in any of the tinsel and trappings of Christmas. There is only one place where the gloriousness of Christmas is located. There is only one Person who is Himself the gloriousness of Christmas. The glory of Christmas is seen in the face of Christ. As we just sang,

Oh, that birth forever blessed, When the virgin, full of grace, By the Holy Ghost conceiving, For the Savior of our race, And the babe, the world’s Redeemer, first revealed His sacred face Evermore and evermore.(LSB-483, 2)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” And “the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of [God’s glory] in the face of *ΙΗϹ* Christ.” (2-Cor 4) “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,” because Christ is “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.” (Heb 1)

The glory of the first Christmas was the babe, the Son of God, the eternal Word of God, lying swaddled, sleeping in a manger. He was there for one reason—you and your salvation. He was conceived, born, swaddled to save you. And when you see Him born and swaddled you are seeing the glory of God “full of grace and truth.”

He is there for grace and truth’s sake, that you would be saved, that you would have a glorious Christmas, in fact, that every day would be glorious, because of His grace and truth that He gives unto you. His grace caused not only to fill the Virgin’s womb, not only to lie in a manger, but also to be affixed to a cross, swaddled with a burial shroud and placed into the bosom of the earth, into a grave. From there He rose again—for your salvation’s sake. Christ in a manger, on the cross, and out of a tomb is the Christ who is full of grace and truth for you.

The glory of Christmas is seen whenever the “face of Christ” is revealed for you. He reveals His face, His grace and truth, when you were baptized, whenever you hear and received His Word, when you receive His virgin-born flesh and blood for your eternal purity and innocence.

He pours out these blessings for you in spite of your unworthiness, even though our flesh finds its fulfillment in other fleeting things. Nevertheless, from Him you have received “from His fullness, grace for grace,” that is “grace upon grace,” more grace and forgiveness than you have a flesh and sins. He really does work this in you, that you might received Him, “as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

That really is you. Christ has done this. He has worked this through His Word and Sacraments, received in faith-filled hearts, souls, and minds. For Christ alone is the glory of Christmas—His grace for you is. For “the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of [God’s glory] in the face of *ΙΗϹ* Christ.” (2-Cor 4) Even, His face shining forth from the manger, from the cross, from the paten and chalice. Grace for grace for you, from His holy sacred face, Evermore and evermore.

Merry Christmas!

᛭ INI ᛭