The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day, 2025
Text: John 1:1-18
Title: Questions
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Is there a God?
Is there more than one God?
What is God’s character is like?
What is God’s relationship to the world?
What is God’s relationship with me?
How do you even begin to answer these basic, fundamental questions of human existence.
Some folks just don’t even try. They choose not to answer and call themselves agnostic, unknowing about God. Perhaps there’s a God, perhaps there’s not, but in the end, they don’t know enough to come to a definite conclusion.
Some folks start with a “No.” They call themselves atheists. They cannot believe in a God whom they cannot see or comprehend, and they reject the concept out of hand.
The atheists are a vocal minority, but they are still that, a minority. Although their numbers are on the rise, about ¾ of Americans still believe in God, in some form or another.
And that’s true around the world. Most every culture as far back as we can go, believes in some sort of spiritual dimension that is beyond the physical. Sometimes this meant worshipping the forces of nature: Sun, Moon, Storms, Ocean, and the like. Sometimes this meant worshipping various ideals like love and knowledge and strength.
So how do we answer these very basic questions about God?
Is there any way to know what is true or false? Or is everything equally true? Can all religions be right?
If we start with ourselves, with our ability to observe and comprehend and wrap our minds around God, we would be hopeless. Part of the nature of humanity is the fact that we are limited in our capabilities. Part of the nature of God is the fact that He is beyond our capacity to understand. As soon as you have a God who makes sense to you, you no longer have a God.
The only way that you can know anything about God is if He chooses to reveal himself to you. It must come from Him to you. It cannot go from you to Him.
“In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old by the prophets.”
God inspired men to bring His message to His people. God wanted them to know and understand who He was and who they were.
Often that was a message of law. God told His people how they were to live. “Do this.” “Don’t do that.”
It was for their good, of course. God knew that if they lived their lives His way, they would be happy and healthy and full of life.
But over and over again the people rejected the prophets and thereby rejected God, who had sent them.
In the end, God took a different approach.
Have you ever tried to explain something to someone, and they’re just not getting it. It’s so simple to you. You say it over and over again in different ways, but they just don’t get it. Finally, what do you do? You show them. You demonstrate it for them. You do it yourself so that they can see and comprehend.
In the end, God took a different approach.
Rather than send His word to be delivered and explained by prophet after prophet after prophet, He decided to show them, to come in person and demonstrate for them what He was trying to tell them.
But there’s a problem with God coming in person.
God is holy. God is glorious. No one can see God and live. He is so full of life you would be destroyed if you experienced God directly. It would be like stepping into the core of a nuclear reactor.
For those folks who demand that God would show Himself to them, that He would give a demonstration of His presence and power, they can be thankful that God does not give them what they ask for. If He did show up in His glory, it would destroy them.
And so, instead, God took His message, His Word and covered it in human flesh so that his presence would not destroy us.
God had done something similar in the past. During the Exodus, God hid His glory in a cloud. At night it looked like a pillar of fire. He hid Himself in a way that He could be present with His people, leading and guiding them, but that wouldn’t be safe for them.
In Jesus Christ, God covered His divine majesty with flesh and blood, and became like you. You could see Jesus. You could talk to Him. You could touch Him.
When you talk about God to your friends and neighbors, especially to those who might place themselves in the agnostic or atheist camp, don’t talk about a generic God. Don’t talk about some sort of spirit in the sky that is out there somewhere.
Talk about Jesus Christ. The only way that you can know God the Father is through Jesus Christ.
And what does Jesus reveal to you about God?
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
God is a God of love. The only way to know that is through Jesus Christ. You can see the power and glory of God out in nature. You can look at our marvelous world with all its intricate details and recognize, “That must have been made by someone. There’s no way that could ever appear by random chance.”
And yet, you will never come to know God’s love by looking at the world He made. You will only know God’s love by looking at the baby in the manger, and ultimately at the man on the cross.
Jesus came into the world knowing that, even though it had been made by Him, it would not receive Him.
Jesus came into the world knowing that He was bringing light, but that the darkness would resist Him
There’s no sure fire way to prove God’s existence. There’s no sure-fire way to convince someone of the truth about Him.
The people of Jesus’ day rejected Him, and the people of our day continue to reject Him. This may include your own family and friends.
I wish I could tell you a way to convince them, to prove God’s love for them, but it just does not exist.
Knowledge of God comes only by faith, only by believing what you can’t see or understand logically.
And the only way to have faith is to be born again.
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
You are a child of God in Holy Baptism. He gives you His Spirit. He creates faith in you. When you hear His voice, you trust and believe in Him.
God did not leave you wondering about Him. In the incarnation, God gave you the fullest explanation of Himself that He could possibly give.
If you want to know about who God is and who you are in relation to God, look to Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
No, you won’t be able to know and understand God completely. But you’ll know everything about Him that He chooses to show you. And that is more than enough to ponder for a lifetime.