While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped Him in cloths and placed Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

A very tired and discouraged father sighs… a very sick and disheartened young woman says… a family torn apart by addiction cries out…. a grandmother on the way home from the doctor weeps… the masses of those set upon by unfairness, hurt, loneliness, and indifference cry out, “I’m tired of all this talk of Christmas and peace on earth. I’m sick of people just talking about love. What I really need right now is to see some “love with skin on it.”

Love with skin on it – that’s what Christmas is all about.

We live in a time when too many people have tried to rewrite the definition of Christmas, to make it Happy Holidays or Season’s greetings. Too many people are trying to take the Christ out of Christmas; too many people have replaced God’s love with a temporary feeling, and as for peace on the earth, they are just looking for a temporary ceasefire.

The love with skin on it that people really need to see is Christ. On Christmas we celebrate that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (Jn 1.14) When people who are poor or rich, discouraged or sick, overlooked or depressed, run ragged or overrun when they cry out, “Doesn’t anybody care about me?” Christmas says, “YES! Yes! Yes, God cares; He cares very much.” He cared soooo much that He sent His only Son.” Christmas is God’s love in flesh appearing.

We are called to share the story of that Love, yet many of us don’t fully grasp what happened in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. To far too many Christians and even some of us it is just a story, but it is much more than that. To understand it we need to go back to the sixth day of creation: The first book of the Bible records that at the end of the sixth day, God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. (Gn 1.31) God was at peace with man and man with God, but that peace was short lived. The last book of the Bible records that there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray and his angels with him. (Rev 12.7-9) War! And the devil brought the war right into the middle of paradise. He tempted Adam and Eve, if you eat this fruit, you shall be like god. Sadly, Adam and Eve listened; they questioned whether God was really providing all they needed, and so they ate of the forbidden fruit.

From that moment on Adam and Eve and all their descendents- you, me, all of us - have been at war with God. We want to overthrow God, dethrone God, or at the very least sit on thrones equal to His. God will not give nor share with anyone - angel or person - the glory rightfully due Him. This sin and rebellion had to be put down or all of mankind would perish.

In the midst of this war the angels on the fields of Bethlehem sing of peace on earth. They sing of the peace this baby will achieve between God and man. Rather than coming to put an end to us, to overpower us, to destroy us, Jesus came to forgive and restore us, to win the peace for us.

This baby, this Jesus, will rebuild the road to God and to eternal life that had been destroyed by the rebellion of sin. By the cross He will construct a unique one of a kind, once for all time bridge that will span the abyss between earth and heaven. He came to do this for He was as Isaiah writes, He is The Prince of Peace. (Is 9.6) His mission was to make peace between God and man. To do this the Lord of Heaven, who was rich, for our sake became poor, taking on the very nature of a servant. (2 Cor 2.8,9 & Matt 20.28) It would be by His wounds that we would be healed.

But how would this little Baby accomplish such a monumental task? It was not by the art of negotiations, no this was a fight to the death. This baby was the second Adam, the One who had to do for us what the first Adam had failed to do. He had to live a perfect life even in the face of overwhelming temptations and hostile rejection from the very ones He was trying to save. To re-establish peace with God, to rebuild the road to heaven, this Baby would take up the sins of all mankind, your sins and mine. To do this, God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5.21)

Instead of bringing Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh imagine presenting the Babe of Bethlehem with the bucket that is the sewage of our sins. What a disgusting picture, yet this and more our God in flesh appearing, our Babe of Bethlehem, willingly took from us that we would know to what incredible lengths that God would go to save us - to win the war for us. Jesus loved us so much that He endured suffering, humiliation and rejection that we would know the depth of God’s love for us.

Fully God yet fully man, Jesus who is love with skin on, took our placed and suffered our punishment under the Father’s wrath to remove from us the condemnation of our sin, to win the peace for us. Jesus loved us enough to suffer and die for us. Look to the scourging post; look to the cross and see Love with skin on it; listen to His dying words, “It is finished.” By His death Jesus won for all of us the forgiveness of our sins and peace again with God.

This is the peace that the world needs to hear about, know about, to be brought to rejoice over- God so loved each of us that He made peace with the Father for us. His love did not stop there. He gave us His Word that we might hear Him and be comforted and encouraged in the most difficult of times. By and through that Word He gives us real hope, direction in life, and a peace that surpasses understanding. He gives us His promise of forgiveness by and though His Words of absolution. In baptism He, also, gives us the Holy Spirit to be with us and abide with us, declaring our bodies to be a place where the Holy Spirit dwells. Through the means of the Lord’s Supper, within the bread and wine of communion, this Baby of Bethlehem, this God in flesh appearing, comes to us in full measure. Truly, under and the bread and wine of communion is Love appearing, Love coming to us.

God’s love is much more than a fuzzy feeling; it is an objective reality- look to the manger to see that. Peace with God is much more than a 24 hour ceasefire; it is peace today and tomorrow - look to the cross and the empty tomb to see that. When many will ask to see Love with skin on, show them Jesus….show them Jesus.

Tell them how on Christmas God moved in with us and lived with us day in and day out. Our corrupted existence became his corrupted existence. Our fallen world became His world. He lived much of the ups and downs of life that we go through, including the pain and troubles. He knows what it’s like, because He’s been here. He loved us enough to bring us back into a right relationship with our heavenly Father and to do this He had to die for us. He rose again to life for that we would have the solid assurance that our sins are truly forgiven and in that forgiveness is a wholeness of life now even amidst our struggles.

Truly, He was Love in flesh appearing. He is the Love with skin on that so many people need to see and hear about, now and in the days to come. We have so much hope and love that we can tell them about.

Amen