Sermons
December 28, 2025 (1st Sunday of Christmas)
The Tabernacle in the Wilderness
John 1:1-18
The Israelites danced and cheered in celebration when God brought them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, into the land beyond the sea, and let the sea swallow up Pharaoh’s pursuing army.
They had been slaves for over four hundred years, so the book of Exodus tells us. The people who had finally escaped slavery had never, up until now, had to make a decision for themselves. They always had a master or overseer to tell them when to get up, what to do, when and what to eat—and to provide their food for them—when to lie down at night and where. Now, suddenly, they were cut loose and sent out into the wilderness, with an ocean or a swamp—depending on which scholar you believe—between them and their former lives.
And after their initial happiness at this turn of events died down, reality set in. They didn’t have any idea whatsoever how to take care of themselves, so they had no idea what to do, where to go, whom to listen to, when to go to bed, where to find food or water, you name it. And so they began to complain.
We’re hungry! What is there to eat? At least in Egypt we had food!
We’re thirsty. This is the desert, no water in sight. We’ll die here!
It would be better to go back and be slaves.
We don’t know what to do! Moses, tell us what to do! How can we live without someone telling us when to sleep, when to work, where to go?
There is a reason the Israelites had to spend 40 years in the wilderness. It took them that long to get over the way being slaves had warped their personalities. It took them that long to figure out that God was their master now, not an earthly king or overseer. Actually, many of that first generation never did get there, so it was their children and grandchildren who went into the promised land. It was a bumpy 40 years.
They settled down for quite awhile at the foot of Mount Sinai. They waited there while Moses went to the top of the mountain to receive the Law. But they didn’t exactly wait patiently. These folks seemed to have a problem with trust. Every time things got difficult, they complained.
Not once did it occur to them that if God could get them out of slavery, surely he could, for example, make sure they had something to eat and drink every day.
So while Moses was up on the mountain—and he was up there a lot longer than the people thought he should have been—they grew anxious. “Moses is gone! Maybe God has gone with him! We’re out here in the desert and we don’t know what to do!”
So they formed a mob and went to Aaron, gave him all their jewelry, and had him make them a golden calf, a god of sorts that they could see.
When God saw it, and Moses saw it, they had to talk one another out of destroying the people altogether. Finally, they decided they’d let the people live—but Moses went down and told them exactly what he and God thought about their complete inability to trust God.
Then Moses went back up the mountain to get new copies of the Law to replace the ones he’d thrown at the people when he had come down the first time. At that point Moses said to God, look, these people do sort of have a point. You had me bring them out of slavery, but you still haven’t even told me your name. Are you going to go with us wherever we go? Even after what the people have done? Because if you’re not, I don’t think we can bear it.
And the Lord says to Moses, you can assure them that I will be with them. My presence will go with you even to the promised land.
Then Moses asks for one more thing. He says, “Show me your glory.” All of it, all the radiance and presence and power you have; so I can go back and tell the people what kind of God is going with them.
But the Lord says, you really can’t handle it all; but I’ll tell you my name and show you my goodness, and you can see my backside after I’ve made my glory pass by you.
So the next day it happened. The Lord came and passed before Moses, and told him his Name, and something more. God told him a little bit about himself—about what his Name means. He said, I am a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
I want to focus on those last two terms, and I would argue a preacher could be successful if they made them the main point of every sermon they ever preached in any church anywhere.
Steadfast love is the English translation—pitifully inadequate—of the Hebrew word dsx (hesed), which means a lot more than just “steadfast love.” It means covenant commitment—God’s complete determination to honor the covenant God has made with the people of Israel, no matter what, even though the people over and over fail to keep their end of the bargain, which is to obey God’s commandments. It means God’s profound fidelity at all times, in all circumstances.
The New Testament word for it is grace.
Faithfulness translates the Hebrew word tma (’emet), whose simple meaning is truth. Applied to God it means God’s utter reliability. It means God can be totally counted on.
Put those two words together—and they show up together all over the Old Testament—and what you have, to quote the late Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, is the complete dependability of God that is evident in all of creation. You have a God who is always there with outstretched hand whenever people cry out in need.
I’ve mentioned before one of my Iowa church ladies, who had plenty of times in her life when she was in need, and often said, “We’ve been taken care of before; and we’ll be taken care of again.” That’s what God’s tmaw dsx (hesed ve-emet, steadfast love and faithfulness) is.
But yet, like the Israelites with the golden calf, sometimes we need a God we can see—a God with skin on. We are creatures of sensation: we don’t trust things we can’t see, or hear, or touch. And so, the Fourth Gospel tells us, into our fearful, unfaithful, mistrusting lives bursts the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth.
Full of grace and truth is the New Testament version of abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The bedrock of our existence—God’s profound fidelity and utter reliability—embodied. tmaw dsx with skin on.
No wonder John spoke in such awestruck poetry!
And so, once again, I submit for your consideration that steadfast love and faithfulness, full of grace and truth, are the only things the church ever needs to preach about. And lest you think this will lead to abstract theological discussions that have no relevance to live today, I would argue that these are perhaps the most difficult, the most controversial, the most countercultural subjects a church has ever heard preached.
When society says, if keeping a promise is too difficult, when the responsibility of those who have for the well-being of those who have not becomes inconvenient, just walk away, steadfast love and faithfulness say that we who follow the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth must show the world a better way.
When the world says, there’s no one you can trust but yourself, there is no one you should trust but yourself, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and too bad if you don’t have any boots because no one else is going to help you, steadfast love and faithfulness say that the existence of all people, strong and weak, rich and poor, young and old, male and female, abled and disabled, is absolutely dependent on God.
When the world turns on revenge and violence, on lies and deception, when humanity divides itself into us and them, the church’s word of grace and truth might not be welcome, but it is essential.
Remember what the world did to Jesus Christ, tmaw dsx made flesh. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it—that’s one way to read verse 5 of John’s prologue. Taken one step further: the darkness did not comprehend the light, and so it tried to destroy the light, tried to put it out. But Easter morning showed us that steadfast love and faithfulness will always prevail: the more common way to read that verse is, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
There is plenty of darkness in our world. The church has a choice: We can either join the darkness, or we can ally ourselves with the light. We can either live the world’s way—a way of mistrust, of scarcity, of selfishness, of violence and fear—or we can be the body of Christ, the embodiment of steadfast love and faithfulness—a beloved community of justice, of abundance, of joy, of peace.
But keep this in mind: It is a difficult path, a difficult way of life, to place ourselves under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth. It is the way of the cross. But it is the only way that leads to life.
The way of the world is a way that has no roots. It will not stand. But when we say, with believers everywhere through all time, “Jesus is Lord,” we are making God’s tmaw dsx, God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, God’s grace and truth made flesh in Jesus Christ, God’s profound fidelity and utter reliability the foundation of our existence, of all we are and all we do.
And we need nothing else.