Sermon Video: "Son, your sins are forgiven." - Mark 2:1-12

 When crowds prevent access to Jesus, 4 faithful friends lower a paralyzed man into his presence so that he can be healed. Before he heals, Jesus says, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Religious leaders object that only God can forgive sins (true), so Jesus heals the man in front of them to demonstrate his claim as the Son of God. Forgiveness is a universal need, common to all of humanity, and only God can forgive. As Jesus demonstrated, he is the path to forgiveness.

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The Creator among Creation: Immanuel

Each year we celebrate Christmas in commemoration of the arrival of the promised Messiah at the village of Bethlehem in Judea.  Few things are commemorated even 100 years after they occur, as the generations that lived through them fade away, so does the living memory and thus the poignancy of memory.  "Remember the Maine" once evoked anger among Americans, much the same way that "Remember the Alamo" reverberated with a previous generation, and "Remember Pearl Harbor" would with a later generation.  Yet these now are a part of history to us, much the same way that "Remember 9/11" will be 100 years from now.  History moves on, the victories and defeats of the past, the joys and fears, don't linger much beyond those who lived through them.

The arrival of the Messiah is different.  It was not simply an event for the 1st Century, nor was it simply an event for the Jewish people.  It was an event for all of humanity, and for all of time.  How could it be?  How could the birth of a child, one among billions that have ever been born, be so noteworthy as to be relevant to us today two thousand years later?

Simply put, the child was not just a child.  He was indeed a human child, but he was also far more.  The term in Hebrew is transliterated into English as Immanuel.  As Hebrew names typically do, the name has a meaning: "God with us".  God had been "with" the descendants of Abraham for over two thousand years, had given them the Law, had sent angels and prophets to them to show them the way, and had even appeared in fire and cloud in the days of Moses.  How much more "with" his people could he get?  It turns out, a lot more.  The arrival of the Messiah was far more than that of just another prophet, more even than an angel who had stood in the presence of Almighty God.  The child of Bethlehem was the Son of Man, but he was also the Son of God.  The very essence of God, God himself, in the flesh, here on Earth.  

History was never the same after that day, a day that separated everything that came before from everything that was to follow.  God With Us.  A change worth celebrating, year after year, down through the ages.

Sermon Video: "The Word became flesh" - John 1:14

“The Word became flesh”, those words begin John 1:14 and themselves are filled to overflowing with meaning.  The incarnation of Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God now joined together with human flesh and blood in a Bethlehem manger, becomes the pivot point of history as divinity is combined with humanity in God’s all-out effort to restore humanity to fellowship with him.  This dual nature of Jesus, far from being just an interested fact, is an essential element in the Gospel message itself that cannot be watered-down because the essence of the Good News is that our faith is IN Jesus Christ, the God-man.  What he accomplished while here on earth is entirely connected with who he was.

                The phrase after that first one is equally full of implications, “and made his dwelling among us.”  To Jewish readers, this harkens back to the term used to describe God’s portable dwelling with his people, the Tabernacle.  God tabernacled with his people, dwelling among them, but in a very unapproachable way, within the Holy of Holies, only accessible once per year on the Day of Atonement, and only by the High Priest.  Now, with the incarnation, God through Jesus is reaching out, letting the children sit on his lap, talking with people, having lunch with “sinners”, and even reaching out his hand to touch the untouchable lepers.  God is “with us” in a far more dramatic way, a step that paves the way for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to dwell within those who follow Jesus.

                The last third of the verse speaks of the glory of Jesus, an example of the unique glory of God, and the grace and truth that he brought with him.  The glory revealed within Jesus is another reminder of how far short humanity has fallen from that of our Creator, the coming of the Christ was an act of grace designed to rectify that deficit, and the truth preached by Jesus is that he himself is the way through which we can be saved.  Thus Christmas is indeed a time for celebration, a time to commemorate the coming of the Way, the Truth, and the Life to dwell among us, to be one of us, and to save us.

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Sermon Video: Immanuel, "God with us" - Matthew 1:22-25

"God is with us", what does this mean?  When Isaiah declared that the virgin's child would be named Immanuel, it seemed most likely that God would be with his people in Spirit.  After all, God had gone to great lengths to convince his Covenant people that he was the only true God, that they need seek no other.  God could be "with" his people wherever they were.  And yet, more was needed, the Covenant people were unable to lift themselves up to the lofty standard of the Law of Moses, they needed help.  As Matthew recounts the story of Jesus, the term Immanuel takes on a whole new meaning.  Because Mary's conception was an act of the Holy Spirit, God himself would be entering into his creation in new way unlike anything that had happened before.  The God of the universe, not bound by time or space, would take upon himself human flesh and live as we do, bound by the laws that he himself had helped his father craft.  Immanuel would go from being a symbol of God's relationship with his people to being a literal truth; God would indeed be "with us" when the Christ was born.
How would this advent of Creator into his creation change our world?  One thing became crystal clear, if God is willing to condescend so much to save us, his love for us cannot be doubted.  Likewise, if God found it necessary to go to such an end to save humanity, our hope of ever fixing ourselves must have been false all along.  God came down to earth at Bethlehem because there was no other way, Immanuel was our only hope.
After his dream ends, Joseph proceeds to obey the word of God by bringing Mary home as his wife.  The Son of God will now have an adoptive father to raise him on behalf of his heavenly Father. 

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