This New Year’s sermon asks why Christ came into the world and what his incarnation means, and finds the answer reaching back to Eden. When God cursed the serpent, he promised that the seed of the woman would one day crush the serpent’s head, even as the serpent bruised his heel – the first announcement of the gospel. But the curse also fell on the woman, introducing a war within marriage itself between husband and wife.
That conflict does not stay contained between two people; it ripples into the next generation, distorting children’s view of family, authority, and morality. The old carol’s hope, “he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found,” is not sentimental. Christ’s coming answers the curse at every point it reaches, from the serpent’s rebellion to marriage’s brokenness to a household’s children.