December 30, 2007
The First Sunday after Christmas (Year A, B, and C)
Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18
This reading from John moves me to tears sometimes. I look forward to Lessons and Carols each year so that I can read it. I love that I get to ponder it and preach on it, but most of all it makes me want to weep for the pure truth and beauty of it.
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God!”
It is as if the author of John were writing a hymn, in creedal form, that says all we need or can know or can say of the mystery and majesty of an incarnate God!
No angels or shepherds, no Mary or Joseph, only God and the Word made flesh, for “he was in the world and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.”
How true this is, without mentioning Pilate or virgin births or the eternal church, the truth of God made human is in this sentence. “He came into what was his own but they knew him not.”
Unlike any other creed we say, Apostles’ or Nicene, and certainly the ancient Athanasian Creed found in the back of the prayer book, unlike any of these, I hear symphonic music playing as we recite or read these magnificent words: full orchestra, crescendos and harmonies and brass and strings and organ and the singing of a boy choir, “What came into being through him was life and the life was the light of all people.” Wow! The author of John could write poetry, and the attempts of musicians have only touched the surface of the mystery and majesty of this hymn that sings our faith.
For is it not a mystery how God became incarnate? Do we care what the biological realties were? Do we need to have the image of shepherds and/or the countless throngs of angels to make it real to us? Is not this simple hymn ever so much more able to point out the profound love God had for us, for all of creation, when God included us and made God’s self human, one of us, that the Word might be flesh and those of us who knew him not, might finally know of that profound love God has for us?
Was it not always the love between God and the Word that allowed creation to come into being? Was it not always the profound love of God for all of creation that was revealed in Jesus?
And the gift of having John [the Baptist] mentioned in this incredible passage instead of Herod or Mary or Pilate is that John pointed to the mystery. John accepted that the love of God was real and alive in Jesus, and John was willing to serve not himself but the divine mystery, the divine majesty, by pointing not to himself but beyond himself. John was perhaps as much the first to love Jesus selflessly, certainly more selflessly than Mary or Joseph or the shepherds or any of the other major players we hear of at this time of year.
John [the gospeler], however, like all of the others, places Jesus in a specific time and place, and makes the incarnation mystery also a pragmatic reality.
And so on this sixth day of Christmas we hear this hymn that sings the truth of our faith. The coming of Jesus was a reality in a specific time and place in the history of earth, but that specific point in time was irrelevant to the ongoing truth and majesty of God’s infinite love, a love that was in the beginning between Word and God, was with and was God. Note the Spirit is not specifically mentioned in John’s hymn, but I think it is inferred and certainly in other gospels spoken of by Jesus. But what is certain is that there was the un-seeable, untouchable, unknowable God, “no one has ever seen God. It is only the Son who is close to the Father’s heart who has made him known.” God was made visible and touchable and knowable and seeable in Jesus the Word, and I would venture to say further made known by the heart of Jesus, the heart of God turned from abstraction to the flesh of human reality.
Today we celebrate this sixth day of Christmas, of God made human, by having breakfast together, breakfast that the youth and their families have prepared for us. The purpose of this breakfast, which we hope will become an annual one, is to raise money for the youth and young adults of El Ocotillo to be able to continue their education. Their costs are minimal, at least by our way of thinking, far less per year than most of us spent on Christmas presents and Christmas dinner, yet the scholarships we can be part of providing can change a lifetime more than a Wii game or webkin ever could. I ask that you be generous with your donation.
We do this kind of outreach because in the Word made flesh, we learned that the heart of God desires all of us to care for and about each other. Since before “the beginning,” God and Word, have been in relationship one to the other, and with the incarnation we were formally brought into the relationship forever. As the Word became flesh, our hardened hearts were given the opportunity to be flesh also and to care for others as profoundly and selflessly as Jesus scared for us. Our action on behalf of El Ocotillo is truly action on God’s behalf. We become an extension of God’s ongoing work in the world. By the power of the Holy Spirit we are propelled into caring beyond ourselves. All of us together can make the difference for these young people to whom we are now connected, heart to heart, because of Jesus.
To remind us of that connection, to remind us that our hearts are flesh but our souls are the same mysterious, mystical material, the same love, that bonds God and Word together, I have a heart for each of you, young and old, and when you hold it, I hope you hear magnificent symphonies, profound and faithful words, and that you feel the mystery of God’s eternal love surrounding you.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd