Worship Helps for Christmas 2

Artist: Scapegoat Studios

This is by WELS artist, Jonathan Mayer. Notice how the rail forms a cross above the Christ Child’s head and the discreetly nursing Madonna.

Worship Theme: The Incarnation reveals the unseen God to the eyes of the faithful. The light of Christ illuminates hearts and eyes once darkened by sin, and the whole world sees the salvation of our unseen God made visible in our flesh-and-blood Savior.

Old Testament: Genesis 16:1-16

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; ² so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³ So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. ⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me." ⁶ "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. ⁷ The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. ⁸ And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered. ⁹ Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." ¹⁰ The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." ¹¹ The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. ¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." ¹³ She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." ¹⁴ That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. ¹⁵ So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

1. When you see “the angel of the LORD” in the Old Testament, whom is the Bible talking about?

2. How did the angel of the LORD reveal the characteristics of God to Hagar and to us?

Epistle: Ephesians 1:3-14

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ⁵ he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ⁸ that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. ⁹ And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment-- to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. ¹¹ In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ¹² in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. ¹³ And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-- to the praise of his glory.

3. If “he predestined us to be adopted as his sons,” does that mean he predestined others to hell?

4. Does the word hope imply some uncertainty in our salvation?

5. What is the mystery of God’s will that Paul mentions here? (v5)

Gospel: John 1:14-18

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'" ¹⁶ From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

6. What is the “grace and truth” that the One and Only (Jesus) brings?

7. How has Christ made God known?

Answers:

1. The pre-incarnate Christ—the second person of the Trinity, before he became a man through his birth by the Virgin Mary.

2. Abram and Sarai believed in the promise of God, but ten years of waiting caused doubts to surface in their minds. Though their intentions might have been good, they did not act according to God’s wisdom and revelation. Hagar conceived, but was mistreated by Sarai and fled into the desert—pregnant, alone, helpless. Then the angel of the LORD, the pre-incarnate Messiah, appears for the first time in the Old Testament and makes the unseen God known by loving the unloved, caring for the abandoned, and helping the helpless. The angel of the LORD spoke words of prophecy and revelation to Hagar that revealed what God is like. He is a God who hears and a God who sees and cares for us. Like Hagar, in Christ we now have seen the One who sees us.

3. This is a message of comfort and assurance to believers.  Before we were even born, before we existed, God had his plan for us to be his.  It was by no decision or action of ours.  However, we must not blame God for those who choose to reject him.  Salvation was won for all; those who choose to reject him bring upon their own damnation.

4. “Hope” is used in the sense that we are looking forward to having the salvation God has made ours through his son.  The nature of God’s perfection makes his promises an absolute surety even as we await their fulfillment.

5. We hear Paul’s entire doxology on the spiritual blessings in Christ (verses 3-14 are one sentence in the original). The mystery is that with the blood of Christ God bought us back, forgave our sins and lavished on us wisdom and understanding. True wisdom is understanding the mystery of God’s will. That could not be discovered or uncovered; God’s will had to be revealed. This is the Gospel message which God purposed in Christ: we would be redeemed by the Son of God made flesh and be presented blameless in his sight.

6. God’s message of grace and truth is the message of the Gospel.  The law has condemned all to hell and all need a savior.  Jesus has been sent by God out of grace—nothing is deserved or earned.  Jesus is the truth that leads people to heaven.

7. The Incarnation reveals the unseen God to us. The sin-darkened eyes of mankind cannot see God in his glory; he must remain hidden in unapproachable light. God, however, wanted us to know him—to see him—and so God chose to reveal himself by hiding himself in flesh and blood. This is the great mystery of the Incarnation: Christ is the exegesis of God. Jesus Christ—himself God the one and Only—came to make the unapproachable God known to us; he came to make the unseen God seen.

A nice summary of key assertions on Christmas from the Lutheran Confessions:

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary –Apostles’ Creed

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. — Nicene Creed

But it is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is the right faith that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man. He is God, begotten of the substance of His Father before all ages; and He is man, born of the substance of His mother in this age: perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity. Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by the conversion of divinity into flesh but by the assumption of the humanity into God; one another, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. — Athanasian Creed

Our Churches teach that the Word, that is the Son of God, assumed the human nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So there are two natures – the divine and the human – inseparably joined in one person. There is one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the Virgin Mary… – Augsburg Confession

The human nature is assumed by the Word into the unity of His person. — Apology to the Augsburg Confession

The Son became man in this manner: He was conceived, without the cooperation of man, by the Holy Spirit, and was born of the pure, holy, [and ever] Virgin Mary. — Smalcald Articles

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord… – Small Catechism

We see how completely He has poured forth Himself and withheld nothing from us. – Large Catechism

So we believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not merely a man and no more, but God’s true Son. Therefore she is rightly called and truly is “the mother of God.” – Formula of Concord

On account of the personal union and communion of the natures, Mary, the most blessed Virgin, did not bear a mere man. But, as the angel Gabriel testifies, she bore a man who is truly the Son of the most high God. He showed His divine majesty even in His mother’s womb, because He was born of a virgin without violating her virginity. Therefore, she is truly the mother of God and yet has remained a virgin. – Formula of Concord

Consider this majesty, to which Christ has been exalted according to His humanity. He did not first receive it when He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He received it when He was conceived in His mother’s womb and became man, and the divine and human natures were personally united with each other. – Formula of Concord

He employed this mode of presence when He left the closed grave and came through the closed doors, in the bread and wine in the Supper, and as people believe, when He was born in His mother. – Formula of Concord