O Word of God Incarnate – What Does This Mean?

O Word of God incarnate,
O Wisdom from on high,
O Truth unchanged, unchanging,
O Light of our dark sky:
We praise You for the radiance
That from the hallowed page,
A lantern to our footsteps,
Shines on from age to age.

“The book becomes a boy” is the opening thought for this hymn today. We know that the Old Testament sought the Messiah in earnest for many centuries. But now, as Jesus is born, the Word of God becomes a person born into the world. What a blessing this is!

Proverbs especially speaks of the Messiah as Wisdom. Wisdom of the world offers no grace or mercy. But the Wisdom from on high is first and foremost the Lord Himself, who knows all things because He created all things. Wisdom for Christians is what we often call faith. This is wise, that we follow the Lord.

What is Truth? Pilate says to Jesus on the steps before His trial. And yet, the Truth was standing right in front of him. We live in a world full of lies and liars. But our Lord entered this world to show us the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This way is through His death on the cross. There is but one Truth, that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ, and that He died for the sins of all the world.

Jesus Christ is the Light of the World. We consider light these days to be an every day all day sort of thing. We do not understand the blessing of light. But in the time of Jesus, when there was no light at night, no electricity at all, there was only darkness and fear. Night was the time for sinfulness. But Jesus casts His Light over the world, exposing sin and bringing us to see Him clearly as the Savior for sin.

The Church from You, dear Master,
Received the gift divine;
And still that light is lifted
O’er all the earth to shine.
It is the chart and compass
That, all life’s voyage through,
Mid mists and rocks and quicksands
Still guides, O Christ, to You.

What is it that the Church believes and receives? We received the forgiveness of our sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. These are gifts, and we do not deserve them. But our Lord and Master gave them, gave them freely and completely. These we do not receive in merely some spiritual sense that plays with our emotions. These gifts divine we receive in certain ways, namely through the Word and Sacraments.

O make Your Church, dear Savior,
A lamp of burnished gold
To bear before the nations
Your true light as of old!
O teach Your wand’ring pilgrims
By this their path to trace
Till, clouds and darkness ended,
They see You face to face!

This final verse points us to the ongoing work in our congregation and to the future of the Church in this world. Like the book of Revelation says, the Church is a lamp in its various places to shine forth the love of Christ for the world. We bear before the nations the marks of the Lord upon us, both on our forehead and upon our heart, that we would shine the true light of the Gospel of Jesus into the darkest places on the earth.

The hymn ends with us considered as pilgrims, not living in the world as the final destination, but living for the sake of the Gospel in this world anticipating the world to come, where we shall see the Lord face to face forever and ever.

Rev. James Peterson
First Lutheran Church
Phillipsburg, Kansas