Sermon preached at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Bartlett NE and St. John’s Lutheran Church, Burwell NE on 12/27/2020.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our meditation this morning is taken from our Epistle lesson for today, Galatians 4:4 – 7. Merry Christmas! Yes, it’s still Christmas, all the way until January 6th. And so, in keeping with the Christmas spirit, “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town.” When you stop and think about it, Santa is full of Law and light on the Gospel. His gifts are all contingent on your behavior. If you make bad decisions, you end up on the naughty list and no gifts for you. Only if you manage to make good decisions year-round are you on the nice list, where you are showered with gifts for your good behavior. Thank God, salvation isn’t like that. What do you mean, Pastor? Our salvation isn’t about how naught or how nice we are; it’s all about what Jesus has done for us. And that’s a theme of the entire book of Galatians, where our Epistle lesson today is drawn from. So today we’re going to take a look at our Epistle lesson in view of the book and see what takeaways it has for us this Christmas season.
First, let’s get some context. Galatia is a region in Asia Minor that Paul most likely visited with Barnabas on his first missionary journey. So this letter isn’t sent to a particular congregation, but several different ones in the region. These congregations were made up of a mix of unlikely groups. One was Jews who heard the story of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection and believed that He was the long-awaited Messiah. The other were Gentiles who had likely never heard of David or Solomon, yet they heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and believed. Because of this mix, the early Church has some issues; how do you deal with circumcision, dietary laws, or ritual cleanliness laws? What exactly does it mean that Jesus has fulfilled the Law? They wrestled with this, and one of the places that this wrestling is most apparent is in the churches of Galatia. Because after Paul came and preached the Gospel, and then had to leave to continue his spread of that same Gospel, others followed behind. Paul called them the “super-apostles.” They came in and said, “Alright, now that you’ve heard the Gospel, it’s time to keep the Law.” And then proceeded to enforce all of the laws, even those that had been perfectly fulfilled by Jesus. And to preach that their salvation was tied to how well they kept those laws.
Well, Paul heard about this, and how the new churches had fallen for that hook, line, and sinker, and wasn’t happy. So since he’s unable to come to them in person at the time, he writes this letter, rebuking the false teachers and teaching the Galatians again the difference between the Law and Gospel. And so that’s where we jump in today. Paul opens with Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law. Of course, Paul is talking about Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, but it’s more than just that. Paul is getting at a hard truth of that birth, of the incarnation. That Jesus is born under the same law that we are born under, He is fully human. And He has to be. He has to be human to keep that law in our place. It doesn’t matter if God can keep the Law; that doesn’t help us humans one whit. But, if a man born under that Law can keep it, it’s a different ball game. And since He’s also God’s Son and God himself, his keeping of the Law can be shared with us.
And that leads us to the next verse, Galatians 4:5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Redemption is one of those big church words that sometimes we forget what it literally means. In confirmation, when we get to Paul’s letters, we take some time to just sit and define these church words, and redemption is one of them. It means to buyback. You pay the person who holds something of yours a price to return it to you. In a way, it’s very much related to ransom. And Jesus does buy us back, with nothing less than His precious blood, spilled for us on the cross. And through His sacrifice, we can receive adoption as sons. Yes, sons. Don’t worry, ladies, this isn’t some sort of sexual discrimination, rather the reality of the world that St. Paul lived in. Women didn’t inherit from their fathers; they were provided for by their husbands, or if they lacked them, the nearest kinsman-redeemer. But we receive adoptions as sons. So it doesn’t matter who we are; we are given a full share of the inheritance. So, as far as salvation is concerned, it doesn’t matter how much money you make, how big your house is, how well you keep the 10 commandments, how many kids you bring with you to church on Sunday morning. Everyone who calls upon the name of Christ receives a full inheritance in His kingdom.
And Paul starts talking about that inheritance right here in Galatians 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” We have all received a part of that inheritance already. We have all received the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that Jesus promised in John 14 – 16, the same Spirit that Jesus breathed out on His disciples in John 20, the same Spirit that descended in tongues of fire on Pentecost. That Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Helper, He is now living in us, and as we heard leading up to Christmas in our midweek services, He calls gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. And this faith allows us to address God, the creator of the universe, as something so intimate as, “Our Father.” Think about that. The God who created the entire universe, who formed the land and sea simply by speaking them into existence, He allows you to call Him Father. Could you imagine a brand new employee of Microsoft just swinging by Bill Gate’s office “for a chat” and saying, “Hey Billie boy, you wanna grab lunch from that new place across the street?” Yet the Almighty God invites you to call on Him whenever and invites you to call Him Father. All of this He does because of His love for Jesus. That same Jesus who loved us so much that He gave His life for us on the cross. And so now we can call the most powerful person in the entire creation “Father.”
This is exactly where Paul is driving to in our last verse of today, Galatians 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. We aren’t just some slave, some servant who is only as good as their work is; we are a son of God. And not just a son, but an heir, one who will inherit eternal life from God our heavenly Father. No matter how “naughty” we are or how “nice” we are, all who believe in Jesus Christ are given the same gift, freely from the hands of our loving heavenly Father. And that gift is eternal life. Now, this Gospel is not a license to sin; it’s not carte blanche to go about and be “naughty” for the heck of it. But man, it’s comforting to know that when I screw up again, I’m not taken off of the “saved” list and put on some other list. Instead, I rest confident in the blood of Jesus, firm in the foundation that was laid in my Baptism, and lay myself at Jesus cross, knowing that He has redeemed me. So I better watch out, not for Santa, but for Jesus when He comes again. I better not cry since Christ has wiped away all my tears. I better not pout since all my reasons for pouting have been nailed to the cross. I’m telling you why Jesus Christ has come and has made me a child and heir. That’s truly an amazing Christmas gift for us all, Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, Amen.
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