Year B, Christmas Day, John 1:1-14
December 25, 2011
UNEDITED
A number of years ago, while in Seminary, I got a call from one of my buddies from high school inviting me to come over and visit him at his grandparents. I was in Alexandria at the time and his grandparents had a place just outside of St. Michael’s, Maryland.
I was familiar with St. Michael’s, a quaint fishing village out on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a place that Paula and I would go to periodically to escape the city and enjoy some fabulous blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay. It was an easy trip and I was excited to see my friend Kevin.
So I set out and followed the directions to his grandparents place and when I came to the address and entered the gates my first thought was wow. It was far grander than I expected. As you traveled along the path to the house there was so much to see. There were kennels, and stables, a boat basin, guest cottages, and then I arrived at the grand home to see my friend Kevin coming out to greet me.
I share that because in many ways the prologue to John’s gospel is like this. You are reading along and then suddenly you say wow as you try to take in all the marvelous things that are before you. The beginning of creation, the presence of the eternal Word, the light shining in the darkness, the eternal Word made flesh and dwelling among us. There are so many amazing things to take in, but above all we see Jesus, the friend above all friends, coming out to greet us.
The prologue gives us a view of what will come. The new creation made available in Jesus, the necessity of his coming because of the darkness within us, because of the darkness that so often envelops the world and our lives. We read that though the darkness will rail against the light the darkness cannot overcome it and we hear that those who believe will be born again and made children of God. Instead of enemies, we will be called friends.
Friend is a word that Jesus later uses to recognize his followers. In the 15th chapter Jesus says I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business, instead I have called you friends. He goes on to reveal the amazing news that we did not choose him, but in fact he has chosen us, appointed us to go and bear fruit that will last, to love one another as he has loved us. Once again, the amazing proclamation of the gospel is that based on no merit of our own, God first loves us and seeks us.
We marvel this day at the miracle of the incarnation, that God in his love and mercy has humbled himself to seek us, to call us to him, to give us light and life. It is touching, sweet in the best possible way, that the almighty God would make himself vulnerable for us, that though we do not deserve it, he would come to us, initially, gently and humbly. It is unique to Christianity, the amazing good news that God resolves to do away with the distance and separation that existed between us, as a result of our sin and rebellion, by giving himself for us. By his action on our behalf he is not distant and set apart from us, but he seeks us and has promised to be with us. The miracle and what is unique to our faith is that rather than our trying to get right and make our way to God, he has come to us to make us right and draw us to him.
As we reflect on this there is the danger around us, which is the tendency within our culture to attempt to turn the incarnation into a sweet scene. In reducing all of this to a sweet scene we miss the gravity of our human condition and the grandeur of the divine response. In trying to make it overly sweet we sentimentalize and miss the substance.
The incarnation tells about God and tells us about ourselves. There is the undeniable kindness and mercy of God present, but inherent in this is the necessity for this because of our human condition. The light shines in the darkness because there is so much darkness not simply around us, but within our hearts also.
I’m not sure about you, but back in the day I was a friend of the night-light. The darkness frightened me and with a simple flip of the switch the light would shine to allay my fears and drive out the darkness. The challenge though, with our human condition, is that there is no simple switch we can flip to drive out the darkness in our hearts and minds. We cannot simply resolve on our own to drive it out of our world or even out of our hearts.
John speaks to the reality of the darkness, but he also rejoices in and holds out the hope of the Gospel to us. He holds up the miracle of the incarnation and the glorious implications of God coming into the world. There is darkness, yes, and sadly there is our tendency to run to the darkness and there are those who reject the light, but the light has come and the darkness cannot overcome it and the darkness will not overcome it.
He shares that all who believe – not even big belief, even small mustard seed belief – have become God’s children. The amazing truth of the incarnation, what makes it so truly unique, is that Jesus, in taking on our flesh, is able to address the darkness around us as well as the darkness within us! Through his birth, his life, his death for us, and his resurrection, Jesus conquers the darkness of the world as well as the darkness of our hearts. He seeks us, reconciles us to the Father, and receives us as God’s very sons and daughters. The cause of our celebration is expressed beautifully in the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the final words of our worship today, the final word for us thanks to Jesus, the word made flesh:
“Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth. Risen with healing in his wings, light and life to all he brings, hail the Son of Righteousness! Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace, Hark the Heralds, Glory to the newborn King!”
Merry Christmas!
