12.22.24 Hebrews 10:5–10 (EHV)
5 Therefore when he entered the world, Christ said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you prepared a body for me. 6 You were not pleased with burnt offerings and sin offerings. 7 Then I said, “Here I am. I have come to do your will, God. In the scroll of the book it is written about me.” 8 First he said: Sacrifices and offerings that were offered according to the law, both burnt offerings and sin offerings, you did not desire, and you were not pleased with them. 9 Then he said: Here I am. I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified once and for all, through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.
The God Bod
Presentation can go a long way in the sales world. Budweiser was well renowned for their commercials of horses and frogs in order to sell beer. But when they put their can in the hands of Dylan Mulvany, a trans-activist, they lost millions of dollars. A few years ago we purchased some home made dish scrubbers from a family friend, and I was amazed at how well they were presented. They had little cardboard wrappings and boxes, making them look really nice.
After we pulled the scrub pads out of the box, we still just ended up throwing the wrapping away. The wrapping did what it was supposed to do, to present the product as well as it could. After that, it had no use but to be thrown away. When we prepare for Christmas and we think about the “box” that God decided to present Himself in . . . well, it doesn’t work that way. Without the box, we can’t receive the present and He can’t give the present. Without the box there is no present. It would be like trying to give someone flour or sugar without a container. The box, as the writer to the Hebrews says, is a human body. The present is God in the flesh.
The body of Christ is more important than we can ever imagine. Without a human body, God can’t be seen. He can’t be held. Worst of all, He can’t be Savior. As we prepare for Christmas on this final Sunday of Advent, we focus on the wrapping of the gift, the importance of that wrapping, of that body. As Jesus is brought into the womb of Mary, it is like one of those Russian dolls. The gift is wrapped up in the womb of Mary. We await the birth of God’s son. She grows and grows for nine months. We eagerly await His birth. Yet even in the birth of God’s son, the gift is still wrapped in flesh. It’s the only way a holy God could come to us, in the wrapping of flesh. Were it not for that wrapping, we would instantly die from being in the presence of God’s holiness.
It’s impossible to imagine what this would have been like for Jesus, who had enjoyed full autonomy over the universe from eternity, full glory, to be placed into the womb of the virgin Mary through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t that He stopped being God. It was just that He stopped exercising His full powers as God. He chose to be placed into her womb and come into our world of flesh and bones. He wanted to do it, because that’s what the Father wanted Him to do.
I can’t imagine having such a willing spirit. I used to hate taking the dog for a walk when I was growing up. I did it, but I didn’t like it. I’m sure you have those chores you remember as well. The neat thing is that Jesus wanted to climb into the flesh of an infant. If I were to ask you, if you had a choice, knowing what you know now, how many of you would want to start life all over again as an infant right now? I know that I wouldn’t want to . . . to have to go to grade school and high school again, find a vocation again, get married again, have children again . . . I’m sure there would be some interesting things to do given a second go on life. But I’ve already lived one life. It’s been hard enough. Jesus wanted to do this, to come into a human body and live a human life. . . . to learn to eat and drink, to walk, to study the Bible, to take care of hundreds to thousands of people, to teach them on a daily basis. He knew exactly what He was going to do in the flesh. He had a plan.
Contrast that to what the devil does. When he enters human bodies, all he does is abuse them, throw them into fires, say disgusting things, do disgusting things. He doesn’t take care of them at all. And after he’s done abusing them, he goes on to another person to abuse him or her. Human bodies are nothing to him but a squatters paradise on the way to hell.
Contrast that to what WE do with our own bodies. We eat and drink too much. We are lazy. We don’t exercise like we could or we should. We don’t get proper sleep. We don’t think in the long term of how to get the most out of our bodies. We complain about how tall or short we are, if we have hair falling out. We sometimes abuse our bodies sexually and use them to take advantage of people. We are sometimes driven along by our own desires with no self control. But then when some of us do get control of our bodies, we end up admiring our bodies too much. Young adults take a thousand selfies, admiring their beauty. We let the shape of our bodies determine our mood and our self esteem. One way or another we earn hell with our bodies five times over.
God had a much higher purpose in taking on flesh. Why did He do it? Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but you prepared a body for me. . . . Then he said: Here I am. I have come to do your will. . . . By this will, we have been sanctified once and for all, through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ.
There’s some wonderful things to consider in the incarnation of Christ, in the humility of it all. God allowed Himself to be held and to be fed. God would personally and actually know what it is like to eat and to drink, to run and to talk with a human body. God would have eyes and ears and hair and nose like the rest of us. You think about looking at a little baby and seeing their little toes and fingers, God had those too.
But this isn’t just a cute story about baby Jesus. We aren’t stuck at Christmas. We don’t just pray to baby Jesus like Ricky Bobby. The writer to the Hebrews gets down to the nitty gritty of it. That baby has been set aside by God for damnation. That baby is going to grow into a man who would be crucified and abandoned on the cross. He is going to stand in the place of EVERY human and EVERY sinner. In God’s eyes He is going to be the ONLY sinner who committed every sin in the world, and He is going to be damned for it. You can’t crucify a spirit. You can’t stand in the place of humanity if you don’t BECOME truly human.
Jesus didn’t become an angel to save fallen angels. He went lower than that. He became a human to save fallen humans from God’s own wrath. Out of an unconditional love for humanity, this is what the Father wanted Jesus to do. This is also what Jesus wanted to do. That’s why God took on flesh and entered a human body.
Look again at how this is phrased. By this will, we have been sanctified once and for all, through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ. To be sanctified means to be set aside as something special, something holy. When Jesus was born, God basically, “Ok. I’m setting you aside to be sacrificed. Enough with the animals. You’re the end game of it.” In some senses you could say Jesus wasn’t sanctified as much as He was damnified. In doing so, He would then be able to set the world aside and look at it as different than before. He would now be able to regard the world of sinful humans as having been crucified, as if the world had paid for their sins, through the sacrifice of Jesus.
Jesus needed to take on a body to do this, and He only had to do it ONCE. That’s it. The sacrifice has been made. There are no more sacrifices necessary for Him or for us. It’s done. Once was all it needed to take. And He did it for ALL. You never have to wonder if your sin has been paid for. All means all. The good, the bad, and the ugly sins. The well known and the hidden. The mental, verbal, and physical sins - sins of omission and commission, they’ve ALL been paid for. That’s why Jesus took on flesh, to make that sacrifice with His body.
Now that the sacrifice is made you might think, “Well, I guess He doesn’t need His body any more. He sacrificed it. It’s good.” When Jesus died and said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” that should be good. Leave your body rot in the grave. Who cares? You used it, now be done with it. Throughout the ages there have been those who felt the body was nothing but a hindrance to the spiritual. That it gets in the way. So abuse your body. Neglect your body. It doesn’t matter. It’s just flesh, a part of this dying world.
But that’s not how God looks at it. This body is still a part of God’s creation, even though it is contaminated with sin. God says that we are special as humans, made in the image of God with body and soul. Humans are higher than the animals, who have no souls. He didn’t create us for destruction, to rot in the grave and become worm food. He created us for eternity. God never had temporary plans for us. So that’s why Jesus’ body didn’t rot in the grave. He came forth three days later, with the same body, brand new. He chose to keep His flesh and blood, but no longer limit Himself in it to be subject to getting tired or hungry. He would no longer limit Himself to time and space with His resurrected body. He still identifies with us as fully human and fully God still today.
The body of Jesus is still important to us even now. Why? He has chosen to use His body in a special way in the Lord’s Supper. He says, “Take and eat. This is my body. Given for you. Take and drink. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” He chooses to give us His body and blood in the Supper to give us the forgiveness of sins. He comes through time and space throughout the days and years to assure us of His presence and grace and mercy, and to help us look forward to the day that we all get to see Him face to face again at the resurrection of the dead. He also promises us that because He lives in His resurrected body, we also will live. The same God who created our bodies, which are now tarnished with sin, will raise our bodies again, free from sin. Because I live, you too will live.
As we prepare for Christmas on this last Sunday of Advent, we take a moment today to just think about the body and flesh of it all of what we’re seeing here. This isn’t just a spiritual story, something to make us feel good on the inside. This is a flesh and blood story about a real God who actually came into our world at this time and place. A real God who was born of a real virgin and placed in a real manger in Bethlehem to die on a real cross and rise from a real grave. A real God man who rules in the real heavens over the real earth.
It makes us think about our own bodies as well and cherish this gift as God meant it to be used. There was a woman who recently had sex with over a hundred men online in one day. But afterwards she was interviewed, and she was crying over what she had experienced and what had happened to her. Something wasn’t right inside. And the men who volunteered to do this to her were no better either. They’ve done something terrible with their bodies.
For those who focus on the flesh without any Spirit inside, it’s a sad thing to see. There is no self respect. No true concept of love. We too are affected by this attitude in our society. There are also so many people who absolutely hate themselves, sometimes because of their own bodies. They don’t like how their bodies are shaped or how their eyes look or their hair looks. We don’t feel attractive anymore. We feel lazy. We feel useless.
Now think about Christmas and the message of Hebrews. Why does God take on a body? To make Himself sexually attractive? No. Did He take on a body just so he could enjoy a nice wine and kabob and indulge Himself? No. Do we see Jesus working out and becoming a muscle man? That’s not the purpose behind the “God bod.” The Bible clearly prophesied that He would have “no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Is 53:2) He didn’t take on a body for sexual attraction, but sacrificial attraction. Here we find a God who would take on flesh in order to spend countless hours speaking to people, telling them of His love . . . .healing people by His touch . . . listening to people with utmost attention . . . feeding people . . . and ultimately dying for people. He took on a body for US, to give us salvation and forgiveness. And He STILL gives us that body in the Supper.
In 2001 Jack Black starred in a movie called Shallow Hal, where he looked at women only for their bodies, until he was shown how to look at them and see them for what is on the inside. Yet today the book of Hebrews specifically points us to the body of Jesus. In spite of all the problems we have with our sinful bodies, here’s a God who did the one thing that we needed with His perfect and holy body, by sacrificing Himself for us, and rising from the dead, for us. For a while there His body looks ugly and marred with blood and death, but then He rises brand new. We see Him lovingly take His body to sacrifice Himself for our sins, out of love.
It makes me realize that my self worth isn’t based on how my body looks or how healthy I am, whether I have a dad bod, a ripped bod, an old bod or a young. My self worth is based on what Jesus did with His body, for me, on the cross and in the resurrection. Through faith in Jesus, I am beautiful in God’s sight, regardless of the problems I have with my flesh. The body of Christ gives me comfort and peace. Without that God bod, I have no peace, no comfort, no joy this Christmas. But with this body and what Jesus did with it, I have the gift of forgiveness, life, hope, and salvation. What a blessing this divine gift of Jesus is, wrapped in the body of flesh, God’s gift to humanity. Amen.
