Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The word "and" is what your teachers in school called a conjunction. The "Con" part means "together." The "Junction" part means a point where two or more things join. Hence a "conjunction" is something that joins two or more things together. In this case, the word "and" is the glue that joins "the heavens" and "the earth" together.

Now, I don't suppose many of you have ever heard a sermon on the word "and" before. But that's OK. I've never preached a sermon on the word "and" either. But the word "and" shows us that God always had in mind to be close to his creatures. The earth was never meant to be separate from his presence. God walked with Adam every day in the cool of the evening. Even if Adam had not sinned, Paradise was only going to be the entrance into something even better. God always had in mind to get still closer to his rational creatures. Man came out of an inter-Trinitarian conversation when God said, "Let us make man in our image." We came out of the depths of God, and we were destined to return into the Trinitarian life of God. In essence, the heavens and the earth were created to be together. Man and God were meant to be together in one holy, intimate communion. United together in love, the two shall become as one. And marriage was later created as a reflection of this unity and love.

Life in Eden was a perpetual church service. The Creed would have been in the form of hymns of praise. There would have been no mention of crucifixion, Pontius Pilate, suffering and death. There would have been no mention of "one Baptism for the remission of sins," or of the "resurrection of the dead." Instead of a resurrection from the dead Adam and Eve would have looked forward to being translated into a greater glory in which God and man would have become one in every sense of the word. Paradise was perfection, but the greater perfection was still to come. God spent his evenings walking with Adam, but in a world beyond Eden, in heaven, God was going to be with his human creatures all the time; man would be wrapped up in God, joined to him and receive his life and existence directly from God. It was going to be an Emmanuel world—God with us. It would have been a world where heaven and earth were literally joined together.

But that is not the way things turned out. Adam and Eve did not want to stay on their side of the Creator-creature relationship. They wanted to be on the Creator side of the relationship. And looking for a road to heaven, they found a one-way street out of Paradise. By their fall into sin, they took out the word "and". The heavens and the earth become separate, disjointed, detached from each other. The unity between God and man was broken. Man was separated from God, cut off from the source of life. Man and God became enemies. Life would end in death. Life was no longer a continual worship service of praise, but became a litany of suffering, hardship and toil. Man was now separated from the source of all that is good; the source of love; the source of life. Paradise was changed into a world where weeds smother every good intention; where good deeds sown come up as thorns and thistles. The word "and" had been removed. And by your acts of selfishness, greed, and pride, you continually take out the word "and" from your lives every day. You continually separate yourself from God every day of your life.

But God's intention was that heaven and earth be joined. So the word "and" in our text now laid the foundation for Christmas. At Christmas, "the Word became flesh and dwelt 'in' us." (John 1:14). God took on human flesh! God and man were joined! The word "and" was put back! Jesus, conceived of the Holy Spirit in a the womb of a human virgin, born in Bethlehem as a human baby, united heaven and earth in himself. He put the "and" back. He is the joining together; the conjunction of man and God. Jesus is the cosmic-divine "and." God "and" man were now put back together.

Oh, yes, the Creed would have to be modified from its original praise and glory. It would have to add the words, "Who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate and was made man."

Jesus is God in human form. Made in the likeness of sinful men. Adam was created in the middle of heaven and earth, having a bit of both in himself, made in the image of God. But he took away the "and" between the words heaven and earth. But now Christ, true God became true man. He was man "and" God. On Christmas, Christ put the word "and" back. Christ, the true God "and" true man was caught suspended on a cross between heaven and earth. His hands stretched to grasp heaven, the earth opened to receive his body, and he took us with him.

He became the firstborn of all creation. He perfected the image in which Adam was made. He was the Creator through whom and in whom and for whom all things were created. He surpassed Adam. In Adam, all men sinned and were condemned to death. In Jesus, all men were found to be righteous in God's eyes and were raised from death.

In Adam was constituted humanity. In Jesus we are constituted as the Church. Here, in the word "and", is the mystery of Christmas. God "and" man reunited, joined together. Jesus is God and man. "He was made man, for us men and for our salvation." Christmas is not just that Christ was born, not just that God came into our world, it is that God was made man. That humanity was joined to divinity. And the two became one.

And that was a full and complete unity. The divine, who knew no sin, was made sin for us. God took our sin into his own human flesh. He shared so completely in our humanity that he absorbed all our sin and became sin for us, so that he could pay the ultimate price of sin and free us from the burden. Because Jesus is God "and" man, not only did God die on the cross, but we died also. His death on the cross is our death to sin. Because Jesus is God "and" man, his resurrection is also our resurrection to eternal life.

The birth of Jesus puts the "and" back into Genesis 1:1: "the heavens and the earth." They are joined in the person of Jesus. At Christmas, man and God are united.

In Jesus, God dwells in us, and we in God. God shares in our flesh and blood and we share in his divinity. "That...just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us...I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one." In Baptism you have put on Christ. Now you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. In Holy Communion you feast on the very body and blood of Christ and are joined to God as he comes to dwell in you and you in him.

Now God is incarnate in humans; the Jesus is the head and the church is the body. God has assumed a human existence and lives bodily on earth in the church. You are the dwelling place of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit. God is the head; you are the body. Wherever the head goes the body goes. Whatever the head does the body does. No head ever forsook his body; and God will never forsake you. For you and God have become one in Christ. He knows your sufferings. He knows your pain. What you suffer in this life God suffers. Your pains and afflictions and sorrows are God's pains and afflictions and sorrows. God is your head and you are his body. No one ever hated his own body. God will never leave you nor forsake you.

When the holy Trinity got together and had a meeting, they decided to make man in their image, and they spewed out Adam. Now, in Christ, the new Adam, mankind is absorbed back into the Trinity to share the Trinitarian life with God. In Christ, God and man became one. The birth of Jesus puts the "And" back between heaven and earth. So, what is the true meaning of Christmas? The word "and."

Amen.