Eleven days ago, you sang this wonderful hymn about the heralding angels’ message to the shepherds in the field as Jesus was born:

Having closed the hymnal on that stanza, the Church now comes to the Fourth Day of Christmas, often observed as the feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs. As it turns out, the Gospel appointed for Holy Innocents is the same as the one appointed for the First Sunday after Christmas in Year A. In that text, you heard:

The Prince of Peace is “born that man no more may die,” and today is “celebrated” the deaths of the male children in Bethlehem two-years old and younger. Jesus’ birth and the celebration thereof is marked by slaughter, there is blood on His birth.

It should come as no surprise. Where Jesus is, there sinful man knows nothing but hate. Jesus comes that you may not die, and your Old Man wants to off Him, too, because He and the Life He comes to give are a threat to your way of life. So, there’s no use in thinking of yourself better or holier or more pious than Herod because you didn’t kill those innocents in Bethlehem, because you think you would welcome such a one as Jesus the infant where Herod did not. Would it be any different with adult Jesus? Maybe…maybe not.

And then, to make matters worse, God sent His Son and family into Egypt to escape the tyrant’s rage. Mary, Joseph, and the Christ-child uprooted from their home in Bethlehem, having just received the gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the sages, and high-tailed it off to the land of slavery. “Out of Egypt I called my Son,” was of little comfort for weeping Rachel who refused to be comforted because her son is no more. “God’s Son gets to live, but mine is killed in His stead. It just doesn’t seem fair; it isn’t right.” It’s little consolation, but it wasn’t Jesus’ time yet, even though He had just received burial spices from those sages.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...”

It’s so easy this time of year to get caught up in the Christmas story as told by St. Luke, even if, because of how things are done here, you only hear it at the Lessons and Carols service or in the candlelight portion of last night’s service. Nevertheless, it is a prominent thought, even here, at this time of year. Pregnant Mary, no room in the inn, finding room in a stable, giving birth, manger, swaddling cloths, angels singing, shepherds wondering. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” (Luke 2:14) These are all great things, things to marvel over, things to rejoice about. “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)

But John gives a different perspective. He fills in the blanks that, as you read Luke, you might not realize are there. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word of God is God; practically inexplicable and wholly incomprehensible beyond what John says. There is another person to this Godhead, the Word, and He is God. He was there in the beginning; of course He was, since He is God.

I suppose you had to have been there, but if you were, that would have been noteworthy, too.

There was no temple; in fact, there were no structures at all. There were a bunch of plants and animals. It was paradise.

There were two trees of note. Beyond that, there was a man and his wife. And there was God.

Like I said, I suppose you had to have been there, but can you imagine what it must have been like? You could walk around without shame in a manner that would be shameful today. You would have lived in complete harmony with everyone there, all the animals—all of them, whether they are today plant eaters, meat eaters, or blood suckers—and even the environment. Like I said, it was perfect: the temperatures were bearable night and day in that manner that would today be considered shameful, and the weather was amazing all the time. Nothing was there to harm you, but all of it was perfectly beautiful symbiosis.

And, like I said, God was there. This is a part that may be a little more difficult to imagine. Moses declared, “[T]hey heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” (Genesis 3:8) There is every indication that that was a regular occurrence, but it is never described. Scripture confesses that God is spirit (cf. John 4:24), so what does it mean, what did it look like, when that spirit walked in the garden, making sound indicative of that activity? Nevertheless, God was often with the man and his wife in Paradise. The fallen imagination of man can hardly comprehend the reality of God walking with the man and his wife in Paradise.

There he was in the wilderness, baptizing any and all who came to him with a baptism of repentance. This was his message, still proclaimed to this day by faithful preachers the world over: ”Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2) He was, after all, the voice in the wilderness preparing the way of the LORD, as prophesied by Isaiah. (cf. Isaiah 40:3) This was the preparation that was needed: repentance, a making of room in the heart for the forgiveness that the LORD would bring.

Repentance is described as a turning away; some describe it as “doing a 180,” and while that works to describe the turning away from sin, repentance isn’t that simple. Repentance is also seeing the sin with which you struggle, the sins that you commit, acknowledging that there is absolutely no hope in yourself to free yourself from this bondage, thereby recognizing your need for a Savior. A response of this repentance? It is as you heard two weeks ago: “Hosanna,” that is, “Lord, save now!”

This doesn’t come to you of your own will. Inasmuch as you are unable to free yourself from the bondage to sin, you cannot repent of it on your own. That’s why it must be preached into you, for in the proclamation of the Word of God, you are brought to faith, a faith that brings to you repentance—to all of that stuff I just mentioned.

Mary, the Mother of God, visits her relative, Elizabeth, already six months with child and greets her. John the Baptist, still in utero, leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth responds to the greeting: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” and she calls Mary the “mother of my Lord.”

Now, for as long as I can remember, Lutherans have had a difficult time calling Mary blessed, the result of an over-zealous piety that even Dr. Walther battled against in his day. Lutherans have, by way of this piety, typically balked at the phrase, “Blessed Virgin Mother.” They even get a bit antsy when they hear Mary referred to as the Mother of God, or even, as Elizabeth called her, Mother of Our Lord. In some places, people will get angry if her name is even mentioned outside of the reading of the Christmas story from Luke 2 (and an occasional nod in a Christmas sermon). It’s getting to the point (and in some places gotten to the point) where Mary is completely ignored.