YPH Christmas Sermon “Glory of Christ Incarnates”

Ministry of the Word in the Yayasan Pelita Harapan (YPH) Christmas celebration was delivered by Rev. Antonius Un., M.Div. With the theme ?Glory of Christ Incarnates?, he explained the love of God which incarnated in human likeness, an unspeakable boon, as it is written in 2 Corinthians 9:15. God incarnated in the name of Jesus, a common name. But there was only one Jesus of Nazareth, who was mentioned in Isaiah 9:6 as the Magical Advisory, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the King of Peace.

There were three core messages conveyed in the Christmas celebration?s sermon. The first message was the calling to glorify God. He quoted John Piper, God loves His Glory more than He loves people. “That is the basis on why He loves people,” he said. He further said that the struggle we are currently facing in the middle of a sinful world is how to glorify God. As Paul had said: I do not want to know anything except the Crucified Christ. That is our true calling: to glorify Jesus.

The second message was how we came to know the glorious love of God. The Incarnation of God showed the glorious love of God. He took the first chapter of the book of Matthew which wrote the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Through Matthew, we know that God loves not only great men like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also people who are not known. Matthew even mentioned four names of ordinary women who were even denied: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Matthew wanted to declare that God loves those who are rejected by people. Again, Rev. Antonius asserted that God loves not only great men but also those who are not well known, who are even rejected by society.

The third message was the glory of Jesus’ suffering. Jesus experienced suffering since His early arrival into the world in Bethlehem until his death on Golgota. Despite the small geographical distance from Bethlehem to Golgota, the spiritual distance was terrible. 

Rev. Antonius Un., M.Div. with Dr. (HC) James T. Riady, Founder of UPH and Jonathan L. Parapak, Rector of UPH

Therefore, Rev. Antonius quoted the new testament expert, Martin Kahler, who explained what the Gospel is, which is the passion narrative with an extended introduction. The gospel is the story of suffering with an added explanation. Jesus did not only experience suffering but also rejection, even from His place of origin.   At the end of his homily, he invited all attendees to put their lives to be used by God. “As teachers, we certainly face difficult children. We are facing a generation. But let us learn from the suffering of Christ. If there is nothing in our lives that can glorify God anymore, let us glorify God through the struggles in our service for education, by becoming loving teachers for the students who have been entrusted to us,” he said to motivate the entire audience. (rh)

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