The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ- Christmas Day
Thursday, December 25, 2025
The Very Rev. David Wilcox
Last night, on Christmas Eve, we gathered in the glow of candlelight and told the story again, the story we know by heart. A child. A manger. Angels and shepherds. God coming quietly into the world.
Christmas Day invites us to linger a little longer. To sit with the mystery, to look more closely, not just at the child in the manger, but at who this child truly is, and to do that the Church always gives us this passage from the Gospel according to St. John. John doesn’t begin with Bethlehem. He begins before time itself.
“In the beginning was the Word.”
Before there was light or land or life. Before there were stars in the sky or dust beneath our feet. Before history, before memory, before anything that can be measured or named—the Word already was.
And the Word was with God.
And the Word was God.
Hebrews proclaims the same. Long ago, God spoke in many times and many ways, through prophets, and sages. But now, God has spoken fully and finally in a Son. The one who is the radiance of God’s glory. The exact imprint of God’s very being. The one through whom God created the worlds and through whom God sustains all things.
This is who lies in the manger.
Not simply a holy child.
Not merely a sign of hope.
But the eternal Word: God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God. The one through whom all things were made.
And that should leave us in awe.
Because creation itself depends on this Word. Every breath we take, every moment, every corner of the universe…Hebrews tells us it is upheld by him. And, it is this Word who carries creation forward even now. And this same Word does not remain distant from the world he made.
“The Word became flesh and lived among us.”
John’s language here is richer than it first appears. When he says the Word “lived” among us, the word he uses literally means to pitch a tent, to dwell, to tabernacle. John is deliberately echoing Israel’s story. In the wilderness, God did not remain far off. God pitched a tent among the people. God’s glory filled the tabernacle, and God went with them through uncertainty, danger, and forty years of wandering.
Now John says, that same God has pitched his tent again.
Not in canvas and poles.
Not in a holy enclosure set apart from daily life.
But in human flesh.
The presence that once filled the tabernacle now dwells with us in bodily form. The glory that rested over the mercy seat now shines in a human life. God does not merely visit creation; God makes his home within it. God chooses proximity. God chooses to dwell where life is fragile and ordinary and real. This means that God’s holiness is no longer confined to a place. It is encountered in a person. To look at Jesus is to see the glory of God dwelling among us, as grace. And this dwelling is not temporary or tentative. God does not pitch his tent in order to observe from a safe distance. God pitches his tent in order to stay. To share life. To walk with us through hunger and weariness, joy and sorrow, faithfulness and failure.
This is the heart of the incarnation. The Word does not remain above human life; the Word enters it fully.
The Word became flesh. Not an appearance. Not a disguise. Not God pretending to be human.
But God truly became human, taking on our nature in its fullness. A human body, a human mind, a human will. Everything that belongs to our humanity, except sin. The Church has always insisted on this because everything about salvation depends on it.
What God does not assume, God cannot heal.
What God does not enter, God cannot redeem.
If Christ were only divine, our humanity would remain unhealed. If Christ were only human, salvation would remain beyond our reach. But the Word becomes flesh so that humanity itself might be restored from within. God does not save us from a distance. God saves us by coming close.
For us. And for our salvation.
This means Jesus knows the full weight of human life. Birth and growth. Hunger and weariness. Joy and grief. Friendship and betrayal. Suffering and death. Hebrews tells us that the one who saves us is not ashamed to share our condition or to call us brothers and sisters. There is no part of your life that lies outside this dwelling. No place God refuses to go. No suffering God avoids. God has pitched his tent in the middle of human life, and he does not pack it up when things become difficult.
And yet when the Word comes, the world does not recognize him. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it, but it does resist it. The Word comes to what is his own, and his own do not receive him. Still, he comes. This is the grace of Christmas. God does not wait until we are ready. God does not require that we make room or prove ourselves worthy. God chooses humility. God chooses vulnerability. God chooses love.
And to those who do receive him, to those who trust this Word made flesh, he gives power to become children of God. Not by human effort or striving, but by grace. The incarnation does not merely reveal who God is; it re-creates who we are. Christmas is not only about God becoming human. It is about humanity being drawn back into the life of God.
This is why Christmas already carries the shape of the cross and the promise of the resurrection. The flesh the Word assumes is the flesh he will offer. The life he receives is the life he will give back renewed. The child laid in a manger is already the one who will be laid in a tomb, and who will rise, carrying our humanity into God’s own life.
The eternal Word does not enter the world to visit it. He enters to redeem it. And that story of redemption isn’t over yet.
In a few moments, we will come to the altar. We will receive bread and wine, ordinary elements of this created world, and we will dare to believe that the same Word who pitched his tent among us still comes to dwell with us in this spiritual food and drink, The God who once filled the tabernacle now meets us in these holy gifts.
This is the wonder of Christmas Day.
The eternal Word has not remained distant.
The light has not gone out.
The glory of God has been revealed to save us.
For us. And for our salvation.
The Word became flesh and lived among us.
And we have seen his glory, and this is good news indeed. Amen.
