“New Creation, New Beginnings”
John 1:1-18
12/25/07 - Christmas Day
“In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) “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 anything 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) “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and
there was light.” (Gen. 1:3)
The parallels between John chapter one and Genesis
chapter one are remarkable. With words like “in the
beginning” and “the Word” and “all things were
made through Him” and “light,” John reminds us of the
creation account given to us by Moses in Genesis. He does this,
so that he might show us that in Jesus (the One through whom everything
was created in the first place) there is a new creation being brought
about, a new beginning for those who believe in Him.
Usually, when people talk about new beginnings this
time of the year they’re talking about New Year’s
resolutions and “turning over a new leaf.” In the new
year things are going to be different: they’re going to be
nicer people, they’re going to quit smoking, they’re going
to go on a diet, or they’re going to exercise more. And for
the first couple of weeks or so they might do pretty well in keeping
their resolutions. But inevitably, it seems, most resolutions end
up being broken. Yes, there are a few resolutions that we might
be able to keep, but for the most part, we just don’t seem to
have the willpower to overcome bad habits, change character flaws in
ourselves, or discipline our bodies to do what we’d like them to
do.
And even if we could change all these things, there
is one thing that we cannot change about ourselves, and that is the
fact that we are fallen creatures by nature, creatures who don’t
know their Creator and who have rebelled against Him by not living like
the beings we were created to be in the beginning. We don’t
walk in the light, but in the darkness. We don’t fear,
love, and trust in God above all things, and we don’t love one
another as we ought to. We have failed at God’s
commandments in our thoughts, words, and deeds, both by what we have
done and by what we have left undone. And no amount of resolve on
our part (no matter how sincere, no matter how hard we try) will ever
reverse the damage that we have done to ourselves. We cannot
recreate ourselves or give ourselves a new beginning. As
powerless as we were to give ourselves birth in the beginning, so
powerless are we to give ourselves a new birth now. As John
writes, God’s children are not born of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man. That’s the bad news...
But the good news that we are rejoicing in this
Christmas Day is that God gives us a new birth, a new beginning, as He
recreates us in His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the Word of God in
the flesh, who came to give Himself into death on the cross for us, so
that we might have life. Just as God created you in the first
place without your help, so now He recreates you also without your help
by leading you to faith in Jesus Christ. Just as He spoke
everything into existence with His Word in the beginning, so He speaks
faith in your hearts into existence with His Word about your
Savior. And just as the earth was under darkness until God spoke
and there was light, so He shines the Light of Christ upon you who
dwelt in the darkness of sin and death, and brings you to life.
The Apostle Paul writes the same things when he says, “For God,
who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One
who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Christ.”
By God’s doing you are a new creation with a
new beginning in Jesus. He recreated you and gave you this new
beginning as He washed you in Baptism - the washing of rebirth and
renewal by the Holy Spirit, as Paul calls it. And though every
day since that bath you have sinned and will continue to sin, that
washing continues to cleanse you from all sins, so that every day for
you in Christ is a new beginning. Every day you start off with a
clean slate, which continues to be cleansed with the blood of Christ,
so that you continually stand before God holy, righteous, pure, and
blameless.
We have all of this because of Christ’s new
beginning as a creature of God at His conception when He took on our
human flesh and then when He was born of the virgin Mary.
Christmas is the day we celebrate the fact that the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us as one of us. We might ask why He did
this? Why did God become man? It was in order to make us
new creatures and give us a new beginning in Him. To give sort of
a crass example of this, suppose you worked for a company which was
being taken over by another company. That company now wants to do
things like rename your company, remodel the building you work in,
reorganize the internal structure and operation of the corporation, as
well as revise the responsibilities of certain positions within the
company. Well, you would still be a part of this new company, but
you would now work under a new name, you would have a new title, a new
job description, and possibly even new benefits. You would have a
new beginning. You and your fellow employees would be a new
creation (so to speak) because you would all be connected to and
participate in the company’s new creation and new beginning.
And this, I think, can be used as an illustration of
what happens to us when Jesus takes possession of us in our
Baptism. In Baptism Jesus connects you to Himself, thereby giving
you a new Name, a new title, and new benefits as He makes you a new
creature and gives you a new beginning in Him. The Apostle Paul
talks the same way when he writes that we are united with Christ in our
Baptism. Being united with Christ means that what’s His
becomes yours and what’s yours becomes His. So, all of
Jesus perfect righteousness, holiness, and obedience becomes yours,
while all your sins become His. Jesus became man so that He could
accomplish all that you couldn’t as far as perfectly obeying
God’s commandments was concerned, yet He suffered the punishment
for your disobedience in your place. It’s like the CEO of a
company doing all your work for you, yet paying you as if you’d
done it yourself, and then taking the blame for all the things you did
wrong. Depending on how bad you messed up at work, your boss
might fire you. But while we deserve God’s wrath ourselves
on account of our rebellion against Him, He put the blame on Christ,
and Jesus took the fall for you on the cross. He was crucified in
your place, as if He Himself were the sinner.
By being connected with Him through your Baptism
now, God clothes you with Christ, and His payment for your sins becomes
yours, so that when God looks at you in Jesus He sees that your sins
have been paid for in full with His blood. It’s like being
given a new uniform at work, which shows that you belong to this
company; you are under new management. The old way of doing
things under the previous management doesn’t work anymore in the
new company. Once you were slaves of sin under the devil; but now
you are slaves of righteousness under a gracious Lord, who motivates by
His love, not by threats of punishment. And so not only do you
die to sin daily, but you live in obedience to God’s commandments
with the help of the Holy Spirit. It’s like having someone
next to you at work helping you do the work you’ve been given to
do. The work we’ve been given to do as new creatures in
Christ is to love another as He loves us - forgiving one another,
providing for one another’s needs, helping them when they need
our help, treating others as more important than ourselves. This
we can’t do on our own; we fail at it all the time. But we
live under our Lord’s forgiveness, and with the help of the Holy
Spirit given us through His Word we are instructed and enabled to love
as we serve one another in our various vocations (as father, mother,
son, daughter, employer/employee). And unlike a corporation, we
don’t do what we do because we’re afraid we’re going
to be “fired” or punished or because we’re trying to
earn some sort of reward or wages, but we do our work out of thanks and
praise to God for all He’s done for us in Jesus.
Finally, by becoming man for us, Jesus has not only
connected us with His perfect obedience and His perfect sacrifice on
the cross, but also with His bodily resurrection from the dead.
It’s like what happens when a company is failing and about to go
under, and a new company comes along and rescues it, giving it new
life. By connecting you to Himself through Baptism Jesus gives
you new life, His new life, so that you not only live here and now as a
new creature with a new beginning, but you can also look forward to the
new life to come at your own resurrection from the dead, when these old
bodies of ours will be transformed and changed into the likeness of
Christ’s new resurrected body, a body that never grows old, never
suffers, and never dies, a body fit for eternity. Those are some
benefits, aren’t they?
So, then, today is a day for rejoicing in our
Savior’s new beginning as a creature of God at His birth, order
that He might make us new creatures and give us new beginnings in
Him. Just as God spoke us into being in the first place with His
Word and breathed life into us by His Spirit, so He speaks us new by
way of the Word about Christ and breathes new life in us by His
Spirit. And just as He gave us our first birth through our
earthly parents, so He gives us new birth through the waters of our
Baptism, connecting us with Jesus and making us sons of God with
Him. These are not our resolutions, but God’s resolutions
which are sure and firm in Jesus. By His doing you are new
creatures with new beginnings in Christ, our Savior. He is the
Word of God enfleshed, the Light of the world, the Life of men, come
into this world to give His life for us, so that the right to become
children of God might be given to all who believe in Him. Enjoy
the Gift! Merry Christmas! Amen.