This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 5.30pm.
Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
After six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John
his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was
transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes
became white as light. (Matthew
17:1-2)
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our
hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Tonight we’re finishing our series of three midweek services
about Jesus. The first week, we were particularly looking at the fact that
Jesus is true God, his divinity, or his divine nature, together with the
Father and the Holy Spirit. Last week, we were looking at Jesus’ humanity, or
his human nature. Today, we’re going to talk about the fact that Christ
is one person, and how his divinity and humanity are united in one person.
Let’s read again the summary of this in Luther’s Small
Catechism: 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. The
first week, we were looking at the fact that Jesus is true God, begotten of
the Father from eternity. Last week, we focused on the fact that Jesus is true
man, born of the Virgin Mary. But this week, we’re looking at the fact that
Jesus is my Lord, or the fact that there are not two people who
are called Jesus, but one person who is called Jesus, who is both man
and God.
Often when people look at children, they often make comments
about how they have their father’s blue eyes, or their mother’s red hair. It’s
amazing when a mother and a father have a child how the child looks like both
of them, and yet is not a copy of either of them. I once heard a story about a
child who said, “I’ve got my dad’s face, my mum’s hair, but I have my own
teeth!” When an individual child is born, there are not two children, but only
one child, who has both their mother and the father’s features. In a similar
way, Jesus has a very special, particular Father. He has God the Father as his
true Father. And he also has a particular mother, the Virgin Mary. He has the
Virgin Mary as his true mother. Jesus’ divinity, or his divine nature,
comes from his Father. Jesus’ humanity, or his human nature,
comes from his mother. But how many people are there called Jesus? Is there a human
Jesus and a divine Jesus? No – there is only one Jesus.
Luther says in the Catechism: I
believe that Jesus Christ, true God…and true man…is my Lord. Not my Lords, but my Lord.
Now, it’s a wonderful mystery
when we think about who Jesus is, and just how it works that someone should be
true man and true God. He’s the only person who is like it! And so, it’s
important that we talk about it in the right way. For example, Jesus is not
some kind of God-and-man salad. There’s not bits of God and man all chopped up in
him all over the place. It’s not like his feet are human and his brain is God.
It’s not as if he has a human heart, but his eyes are from God. That’s not
right. Also, it’s not like he’s some kind of God-and-man sandwich, like two pieces of bread stuck
together, that you can just pull apart. Also, he’s not like some kind of
God-and-man mixture, like if someone mixed flour and water together to
make something new, like wallpaper-paste. Wallpaper paste isn’t flour and it
isn’t water—it’s a mixture of both.
One of the most helpful ways in
which Christians throughout the centuries have traditionally spoken about how
Christ is both true God and man in one person is the picture of iron which has
been put in the fire. Just imagine the old days in Maryborough or some other
place in Australia where you had blacksmiths. They had to put pieces of iron
into a red-hot fire, and then when they pulled it out, what did they get? They
got iron which glowed red hot from the fire. Now let’s say you want to brand a
cow. If you poke it with a metal rod, it would just jump. If you just got a
blowtorch and blew fire at it, you would end up with roast beef. But if you
want to brand a cow, you have to put the iron in the fire, so that the iron pokes
and burns
at the same time, and it burns in exactly the right place where you poke the iron. Or let’s take something
from your everyday household kitchen: Maybe you need to cut some butter, but
you forgot to pull it out of the fridge. The butter is too hard to cut with a
knife. But if you put the butter in the oven or the microwave, it would go all
sloppy or runny. What you need to do is turn the stove on and heat up your
knife, so that the knife gets hot. Then the knife will cut and melt at the same
time.
Now, let’s compare this to Jesus.
We might say that Jesus’ human nature is like the iron, and his divine nature is like the fire. Just as iron is put in the fire
and becomes red hot, and makes the iron burn, so also Jesus is like fiery
iron. Right from the moment of his conception, he is both man and God in one
person, just like iron and fire are united together. Everything that Jesus does
is a human act and an act of God, so that when Jesus touches a person and heals
a person, who touched them? Was it God, or man? It was both, just like a fiery
iron burns in the exact spot where it touches.
In Isaiah chapter 6, we also have the picture of a
fiery coal, which touches Isaiah’s lips. We read about how he saw a wonderful
vision of the Lord and the angels and we read: And I said: “Woe is me! For I
am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one
of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken
with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has
touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” Can
you see here what the flaming coal does? Isaiah confesses that he is a man
of unclean lips, and the angel touches him with a burning coal. God
wants to purify him with fire, but also he wants to touch him right on the
place where Isaiah confessed his sin: his lips. So the angel touches Isaiah
with a burning coal. The coal goes right to the spot, and the fire burns and
purifies at the same time. Jesus humanity is a bit like the coal, and his
divinity is like the fire. But Jesus is one person, who touches people with his
human hands, and heals them with all the power of God at the same time.
We see a wonderful picture of this in the
Transfiguration. When Jesus took Peter, James and John on the mountain, what do
we read? It says that Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone
like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. Do you see how Jesus
body shines with the light of God? He is still a human like us, and has a human
face like us, and is wearing normal human clothes. But the fact that Jesus is
true God means that his face and clothes shine with divine light. This gives us
a wonderful picture of how Jesus is both true God and true man in one person.
Now, let’s just compare Jesus for a moment with us.
We Christians also say that God dwells and lives in us. Peter says that we are partakers
of his divine nature. But also at the same time, as St Paul says in Romans
7, we say that sin dwells in us. In us we have a daily struggle between the
new person at
work in us, and our old person which is at work in us. But things are different
with Jesus, because he has no sin dwelling in him. Every thought, word and
action that he does is the thoughts, words and actions of God.
St Paul says on one hand that it is not I who
live, but Christ who lives in me. Also at the same time, he says: I do
not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now
if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells
within me. On one hand, we have Christ living in us, and sin dwelling in
us. We struggle with sin and Christ forgives our sin, and works in us despite
our sin.
But with Jesus, all of his actions are one: they are 100% God’s
works.
Everything that this iron touches, the fire also burns.
With us, we begin our lives separated from God. St
Paul says that we are by nature children of wrath. Sometime later in our
life, we are baptised and become Christians and children of God and are
converted. But with Jesus, he never needed to convert—right from the very first moment that his human
body existed in the womb of the Virgin Mary, right from when he was the tiniest
group of embryonic cells, he was always true God. The human body of Jesus
didn’t become God sometime later, for example, at his baptism, or earlier, when
he was born. The Virgin Mary had the one Jesus, true man and true God, in her
womb.
So let’s come back to this picture of Jesus as
being like fiery iron, and let’s think about a few examples about how this
works. What this means is that there are certain things that make people human.
On the other hand, there are certain things that make God God. But with Jesus,
we believe that this man is God. Also, we believe that even though he is God
that he is man. God is man, and man is God. This is an amazing thing. No other
human being is God. And the Father and the Holy Spirit are not man. Only both
come together in Jesus. This is so important, because in the bible, we see
people worship Jesus. In the book of Acts, we read about an event where Paul
and Barnabas turn up in a town called Lystra. And what happens? The people
begin to worship them. And we read that Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes,
and say: Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like
nature with you. Jesus is also a man, but when the people worship him,
there is no problem. Because the same Jesus who was nailed to a cross is called
My Lord and my God by Thomas. There’s no problem. This man is God, and
so he should be worshipped.
Now let me read a few very interesting passages. In
1 Corinthians 2:8, Paul says that the rules of this age crucified who? He says they
crucified the Lord of glory. Now calling Jesus “the Lord of glory” is
really a way of calling him God. But when Jesus died, did God die? Was the Lord
of glory crucified? Or was it just Jesus the man who was crucified? But you
see, who is the Lord of glory? The Lord of glory is this man Jesus Christ. Who
is your Lord and your God? This man. And so they didn’t just crucify any old
man, they crucified a man who was also true God. And so St Paul says: They
crucified the Lord of glory. It was our God they nailed to the cross.
Remember the iron and the fire—Jesus is both true man and true God.
Another passage is early on in the book of Acts
where Peter and John get in trouble for healing a man, and they say that the
people killed the Author of life. When they call Jesus the “Author of
life”, they are saying that he created the world, that he was truly God. And so
because Jesus was both true God and true man, Peter said that the Author of
life was killed. Peter is not confused here—he understands that this
was not just anyone who was killed, but the Author of life who became a human
being who was killed.
Later on in the book of Acts, in chapter 20, St
Paul says that God obtained the church with his own blood. Paul’s not
talking about God the Father or the Holy Spirit because they have never had any
blood. Even before Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb, he didn’t have any blood
either. To have a blood is a human thing—God doesn’t have blood. But you see,
Jesus is both true man and true God in one person. And so, Jesus’ blood is the
blood of God. The blood of Jesus, is like iron on fire, or it is like liquid
metal that is red with fire. Jesus didn’t bring his blood from heaven with
him—he got it from his mother’s womb. But because Jesus is not just human but
also God, St Paul calls his human blood “God’s blood.” Isn’t this an amazing
thing?
Now, let’s go through the Apostle’s Creed, and ask
the question: Who was it here? Was it Jesus the man, or Jesus who is God? It
says: he
was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Who was conceived? Man or God? Both. He was
born of the Virgin Mary. Man or God? Both. He suffered under Pontius
Pilate. Who
suffered? Man or God? Both. He was crucified, dead and buried. Man or God? Both. He
descended into hell. Man or God? Both. On the third day, he rose
again from the dead. Who rose? Man or God? Both. He
ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty,
from thence he will come to judge the living and the dead. Who ascended? Who sits at God’s
right hand? Who will come to judge? Man or God? Both. The answer is always
both, because there is only one Jesus who is your Saviour, your Redeemer, your
Mediator, your Advocate. There is only one Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world. But this Jesus is both man and God. He is always like the iron
and fire working together. The fire never switches off, so that the iron goes
cold, and never burns up the iron so that he is just like a naked flame. The
two are always together. He is always both true God and true man.
What this also means is that because he is true
God, Jesus human body is given particularly special gifts and qualities. Jesus’
human body does supernatural things and things that human bodies wouldn’t
normally do. We read before that at the transfiguration, Jesus’ face and body
and clothes shone with divine light. When Paul was travelling on the road to
Damascus, Jesus came and met him. We read a light shone around him, and this
light was so bright that Paul couldn’t see anything for three days. But it was
Jesus who spoke to him, saying: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
In John 6, Jesus teaches the people: I am the
bread of life. And he says: The bread that I will give for the life of
the world is my flesh. Normally, nobody’s flesh gives life to anything. But
Jesus’ flesh is empowered and glorified and transfigured by the fact that he is
also true God, and so his flesh gives life. His flesh is God’s flesh. When his
flesh touches someone, it is God who touches them.
This is also very important when we talk about the
Lord’s Supper, because Jesus says: This is my body. This is my blood. Many
people don’t believe that Jesus can give his body and blood in the Lord’s
Supper, because people think that it’s impossible that human flesh and human
blood can actually be in many different churches all around the world at the same
time. But Jesus’ body and blood is not the body and blood of simply just
anyone. Jesus is also true God, and so the fact that Jesus is also true God
means that he can enable his body and blood to be in places and to do things
that everyone else’s body and blood can’t be and can’t do. Remember this is the
same body that walked on water. This is the same body that walked through
closed doors to visit the disciples on Easter Sunday night. But at the end of
the day, we can explain things all we want: the reality is, that if Jesus is
God, and he says: This is my body and blood, he can cause his body and blood to
be wherever he wants it to be and to do whatever he wants it to do, just
because he said it. That’s the power of his word, and his word created the world.
So as we prepare for Christmas in a few years, and
as Advent draws to a close, let’s thank our Jesus for entering into the world
as one of us, and for living a life among sinners like us. And even though
Jesus died for us as our Saviour, and is our human brother, he also made the
most powerful sacrifice that could be sacrificed, because he is also true God.
And so at the end of your life and at the end of the world when you meet your
Saviour, a real human being just like you, and you see the wounds in his hands
and feet, you can say together with Thomas: You are my Lord and my God! Amen.
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