WORSHIP VIDEO LINK
WORSHIP AUDIO LINK
SERMON AUDIO LINK
BULLETIN
SERMON TEXT BELOW
Christmas Day
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Hamilton, Ohio
Vicar Daniel English
December 25, 2025
Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-12; John 1:1-18, Psalm 2
Sermons online:
Text and Audio: immanuelhamiltonchurch.com click “sermons”
Text: pastorjud.org
Audio: pastorjud.podbean.com
itunes: bit.ly/pastorjud
Full Service Audio: bit.ly/ImmanuelWorship
Jesus Christ - Our God and Savior
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ, the Savior is born! Merry Christmas! Almost everything we know about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth comes from the Gospel accounts written by Matthew and Luke. Luke records how the birth of our Lord was announced to Mary by the Angel Gabriel. Gabriel says, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. [...] The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy— the Son of God” (Luke 1:30-32a,35). Thanks to Luke, we know that Mary responds in faith… She has been called blessed among women by all generations ever since.
Matthew records how God turns Joseph’s doubt into faith by the power of His Word, how “[a]n angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’” (Matthew 1:20b-21).
Luke tells us that the decree of the first Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, drove Joseph and the Virgin Mary with Child to take a trip to the town of Bethlehem in order to be counted for a census. The trip was late in Mary’s pregnancy, and during their stay, Mary gives birth to the Christ Child. An angel of the Lord announces the birth of Jesus to shepherds in a nearby field watching over their flocks, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10).
Because of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of Matthew and Luke, we know all this and more about the birth of Christ. From these narratives it is made clear that the birth of Jesus is “good news.” It is something that causes the angels—and the faithful—to rejoice, and it is something that fulfills many prophecies made in the Old Testament. From Matthew and Mark we know that Jesus is “great,” “holy,” “the Son of the Most High God.” We know that Jesus is “going to save His people from their sins.” We know that Jesus is the Savior.
In our Epistle lesson for today, we read the introduction to the book of Hebrews, and it characterizes the birth of Christ as the beginning of the end of an era of great seers, prophets, and signs. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Hebrews 1:1-2). God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but now He has spoken to us by His Son, Jesus Christ. Throughout Advent we have considered various types of Christ: the angels, Moses, Aaron, Melchizedek. The “types” we have discussed: prophets, priests, kings… they find their fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christ is greater! In order to fulfill all these things, He has to be born as a human baby.
This is the great mystery that we celebrate on Christmas. Christ is of one substance with God the Father, and He came down from heaven, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and He was made man (Nicene Creed). God takes on a human frame and dwells with us. Christ is our faithful Prophet, Christ is our great High Priest, and Christ is our Heavenly King… Christ is our God. This Infant Child wrapped in swaddling cloths laying in a manger, by this time on the first Christmas less than half a day old, is our God.
It makes sense, then, that the Gospel according to John begins the way it does. He doesn’t begin with the human birth of Christ like Matthew and Luke… or with the beginning of His earthly ministry like Mark, but he begins much, much earlier. “In the beginning…” (John 1:1). This isn’t Luke’s beginning during the reign of Caesar, or Matthew’s beginning during the time of patriarch Abraham, but THE beginning. The beginning of everything.
“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 was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:1-5). In these five, relatively short verses, John gives us enough to think about for the whole year, or even the rest of our lives! It takes 17 verses to explicitly say so, but John is talking about Jesus Christ.
This word teaches us a few things about Jesus. First, Jesus is the eternal God. Second, the only way that we really know or see God is through Jesus. And finally, Jesus the eternal God took on flesh and came into the world in order to bring light and life and salvation… to you.
We are created beings, and all we have known is this finite earthly life. It can be overwhelming to think that there was never a time when Jesus did not exist. Think about how quickly 2025 came and went… how the first outbreak of COVID was nearly 6 years ago… or Disney’s Frozen—that had everyone playing Let It Go on repeat— 12 years ago… iPhones came out 18 years ago… 9/11 was 25 years ago, Y2K was 26… the assassination of John F. Kennedy was 62 years ago… and the first color TV was sold in 1954… 71 years ago. Our life is but a breath, but God has existed from eternity, God is without beginning or end. Jesus was not created. “Jesus is begotten of His Father before all worlds. God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made” (Nicene Creed). Jesus was with God (and was God) at the beginning of time, and the world was created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16).
“[Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3a). Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. John the Baptist will describe Jesus as a light that enlightens everyone. For millenia, God’s people were fumbling around in the darkness of their own hearts until Jesus came and turned on the lights. By the light of Christ, we see the fullness of God’s love for us. By the light of Christ, we see the end of the Law is not to condemn us to death and hell, but for Christ to fulfill the Law and offer us full forgiveness. It is Christ who has revealed the Father to us, and He has shown us a Heavenly Father who loves us and wants to hear our prayers and promises to answer them. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it (John 3:17). As our Priest, Jesus made purification for sins, and now He reigns at the right hand of God as our King (Hebrews 1:3).
This is the mission that Jesus has completed. He was willingly born of the Virgin Mary, He humiliated Himself to become an embryo. He subjected Himself to the need for His mother’s care. Jesus was swaddled, nursed, raised, and taught. Eventually, Jesus… younger than most of us in this sanctuary… willingly gave Himself up to die. And by His death He defeated death. From the very beginning of time, Jesus knew that one day “He [would come] down from heaven and be incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and be made man” (Nicene Creed). This is the great gift that we celebrate on Christmas. Our God has come to us with healing on his wings. He brings forgiveness and eternal life. From the fullness of Jesus “we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:16-17).
Our Lutheran Confessions speak about this mystery of Jesus Christ:
“[W]e believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not a mere man and no more, but the true Son of God; therefore she also is rightly called and truly is the mother of God.
8. Hence we also believe, teach, and confess that it was not a mere man who suffered, died, was buried, descended to hell, arose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and was raised to the majesty and almighty power of God for us, but a man whose human nature has such a profound [close], ineffable union and communion with the Son of God that it is [has become] one person with Him.
9. Therefore the Son of God truly suffered for us, however, according to the property of the human nature which He assumed into the unity of His divine person and made His own, so that He might be able to suffer and be our High Priest for our reconciliation with God, as it is written 1 Cor. 2:8: They have crucified the Lord of glory. And Acts 20:28: We are purchased with God’s blood” (Formula of Concord: Epitome, VIII.12-14).
Just as the angels spoke to Mary and Joseph and the Shepherds, “Fear Not”. The same can be said to you today. Fear not, Jesus has given to all who receive Him and believe in his name the right to become Children of God… and so you are.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Our God. Amen.