Our reading this week will sound familiar to most of us. It will be very familiar to those of us who have attended multiple services during this twelve day season we call Christmas. I believe it has come up three times, which gives us an idea of its importance to our spiritual predecessors. The reading is known as the prologue to the Gospel of John. John’s purpose in writing the book is to share those things that Jesus did that will convince the reader or hearer to believe that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing the reader or hearer might have life in His name.
I know, it’s
weird to proclaim John an evangelist. We
think of others as evangelists, but many of us think of John as a poet and
theologian. His writing style soars, and
He explicitly teaches understandings that the other Gospel writers seem a bit
more covert in discussing. Case in
point: the Prologue. We all know it
pretty well. Some of us likely memorized
it for VBS or Sunday School or Nativity plays.
We say it every year at the conclusion of the Nativity of Christ
celebration as we light individual candles from the Christ candle and dim the
lights. Heck, that aspect of our liturgy
was the focus of my sermon Friday night, where I reminded us that we go out
into the world with that flickering light that cannot be quenched, though the
darkness and the world will do its best to snuff it out. For all its flowery language, for all its
prose and theologizing, the Prologue serves as both the beginning of the
re-creation of the world by God and as the Nativity story for John.
What do I
mean? In the beginning . . . We
see those words first in the book of Genesis, where God broods over the waters,
creates the world and all that is in it, and makes humankind in their [our]
image. John uses them here to tell us
that something new is beginning, something new and of God. To be sure, it is unexpected and it is
challenging to understand. The Word
was with God and the Word was God.
John is clearly articulating an understanding of the Trinity in an
unexpected way. Jesus was with God in
the beginning and was God.
Much more could
be written, and no doubt some of us wish John had, but he presses on teaching
us about that last creation, about how the world came into being through Him,
about how He was the Light of the world.
There is tons to unpack in those verses, and my focus is elsewhere, but
John clearly wants you and I to understand that the world came into being
through Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God.
That same Jesus is the Light of this world.
The Gospel
writer goes on to remind us that John the Baptist came into the world to
testify to the work and person of Jesus.
John the Baptist gave his testimony, but the world rejected it. In fact, for those of us who know the story,
Herod had John the Baptist put to death for teaching the wisdom of God. So John the Gospel writer reminds us that the
world rejected its Creator, that the world would rather choose darkness than
live in the Light.
It is beautiful
writing, is it not? Certainly, it is
glorious to hear and challenging to grasp fully. But then we get to my focus for the day, this
second Sunday after the Feast of Christmas.
I have remarked in a couple services how I am struck by the humility of
the tale. I know, thanks to some
conversations in the parish hall or in the office, that the humility of God was
a great place to be this season. We have
talked about how many of those in the world around us strive for their fifteen
minutes of fame. How many people now are
famous simply because they did a stunt that went viral on social media? Heck, how many people claim and like to
believe they are internet influencers?
How many people in the world act outrageously or over the top, thinking
there is no such thing as bad publicity?
How many people in the world around us find their value or self-worth in
the number of friends or number of followers that they have? And how many of those, who perceive
themselves as important, use that power to humiliate others? Bully others?
Shame others?
Yet another of
God’s vaccinations against our vain chasings after reputation and influence are
hidden in this Prologue of John. Whatever
we know about the Incarnation, we know thanks to Luke and Matthew. Mark is mostly concerned with the Crucifixion
and Resurrection of Jesus and begins his Gospel with the appearance of John the
Baptist making paths straight. But Luke
and Matthew are where we go to learn about the star, the manger and swaddling
clothes, the angel choir, and all those other details we know. Even John’s nativity telling is rather
lacking in detail. And the Word
became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a
father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
That’s it! That’s John’s nativity scene. That’s is John’s teaching that God has come
down and lived among us. This Word that
was with God and is God has become flesh and lived among us. There’s no visit by the magi. There’s no proclamation by the angelic
choir. John writes simply that God
became flesh and lived among us. John
would agree that the Incarnation of Jesus is one of the most stupendous events
in cosmic history, it rivals even the initial creation where Jesus and the
Father and the Holy Spirit brooded over the waters, and it gets a sing verse in
the Prologue! Can you imagine? We talk on Christmas Eve sometimes how the
shepherds are valued and blessed by God.
I mean. . . they get to hear the
angelic choir singing God’s praises.
Most of us think Jesus’ birth deserves an angelic choir that could be
heard by all flesh in the world; God just letting the shepherds hear the
announcement is humility enough. But
John takes it to another level. God
became flesh and lived among us.
If ever there
was a vaccination against pride and self-aggrandizement? If ever there was a vaccination against
self-loathing and not esteeming oneself, this is it! From John’s perspective, the Incarnation of
Christ should be sufficient wonder. Why
would God do salvation history this way?
Of course, the
humility sets the stage for the ultimate choice of humanity which John
announces in the preceding verse. I
always find it unique that John answers the why of the Incarnation before he announces
the Incarnation. Authorial intent
sometimes amazes me, and it certainly does with Scripture. We Episcopalians/Anglicans understand that
this Prologue of John was God-breathed.
That means to us that God inspired the writing, the editing, and the
collecting of this passage we call the Prologue of John. We might acknowledge the humility of the
Nativity as appropriate to God’s character.
Throughout the Scriptures, God reveals Himself always willing to stoop
to our level to reach us, to make Himself known. So when we read this one verse account of God’s
enfleshment among us, we might not be too surprised. Ah, but the why, the why is the source
of wonder for poets, for songwriters, and even for folks like you and me.
But to all
who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of
God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of
man, but of God. Before John tells
us that God was enfleshed, John tells us the very reason that this Incarnation
happened, why this event is so important in history! What glorious purpose is behind that story of
Jesus’ birth! He came so that we, like
the world, could begin to be re-created.
We get the freedom to chose God and to get the new heart and mind and
will promised with that choice, or we can reject God and embrace the darkness
and evil which surrounds us. Is there a
starker choice in history? Given the
stakes, the eternal stakes, I am certain there is not.
And oh how I
wish the references to God were capitalized.
I hope the Holy Spirit makes you hear it in your heart that way. One of my gripes about modern Bibles and
modern discussions with people in charge of our Prayer Book is the loss of capitalization
of pronouns and other words that refer to God.
Those in charge claim it’s MLA or Chicago Style’s fault, as if those organizations
hold some kind of power over us. As you
all know, we live in a world that is struggling with referent words. We fill out college and job applications
where we name our preferred pronouns. We
struggle with best how to acknowledge the struggles and identities of others,
rightly so. We want to respect their
struggles and their self-identification.
For centuries we rightly reminded ourselves and others that God was
above our understanding. Folks would
sometimes rightly remind us that God was Holy and wholly Other. Yet, so much of God’s character is revealed
in His humility. That capital letter
reminds us of His otherness. A few
moments ago, when I remarked about the humility of Matthew’s and Luke’s telling
of the Nativity, you may have come up with better ways to proclaim that great
news. Yet God is so wholly Other that he
went the route that He did. He entered
the world He created in ANE world equivalent of rural Alabama for us important
people of Tennessee. He entered the
world as far away from the center of pomp and circumstance that one could
get. Heck, He was not even born in the
Temple which was meant to be the place on earth for human beings to worship
Him!
All of this,
every bit it, everything about which the Psalmist wrote, everything about which
Moses wrote, everything that the prophets proclaimed pointed to this moment in
history! The single most important human’s
birth happened in an out of the way region in an out of the way province of the
world. And more crazily to marketers and
public relations people, He chose to let those with whom He lived and laughed
and cried and died tell the story.
Crazily, from our perspective, He entrusted men and women just like us,
men and women who struggle, who fight with families, who worry about the
threats in the world, who sometimes get so wrapped up in a tree of salvation that
we miss the forest of it significance, to become heralds of the Gospel. And here we sit, reminding ourselves of that
story, two thousand years later and nine thousand miles distant, all because of
three whole verses. Brothers and
sisters, what more proof do you need that He is wholly Other, that His ways are
not our ways?
Were that the
end of the story, you and I would rightfully stand or kneel in awe. But we gather today, as is our custom four
days during the year, to remind ourselves intentionally of the significance of
our choice. You see, brothers and
sisters, the darkness still has not given up; evil still fights tooth and nail
to keep human beings from recognizing their Creator, from recognizing their value,
from understanding the depths of love which God bore for each and every one of
us. The darkness fights to convince us
that the vanities of followers on social media is our true value, that our
political affiliation is our pre-eminent identifier, that we cannot ever truly
be loved.
And against that
diabolical lie on this day stands those three simple verses. God came down from heaven and lived among
us. We have seen His glory. More amazingly, He made this decision so that
we could make ours. Do we want Him to be
our Father, too? Make no mistake, the
same darkness that fought Jesus will fight all of us who choose to ask God to
be our Father and Christ to be our brother.
Pandemics rage to isolate and scare us; provisions are sometimes scarce,
families are almost always dysfunctional even when they are not “fun,” disease
and pain are always testifying against our choice—this list of darkness goes on
and on and on. But in choosing to be His
daughter or Son, God rewards us with a promise.
From that moment until the ages of ages, we are always His. Nothing, not even our deaths, can separate us
from Him and from His promise to redeem all things in our lives. All He asks of us, all He expects of us, is
that we do our best to do the work that He has given us to do, trusting that He
will provide whatever we need to glorify Him in our struggles and in our
lives. We call it cross-bearing, but as
John so eloquently notes later in this Gospel, we know that such work is the
path to eternal glory with our Father.
And so, we will
come to this rail and we will come to this Table. We will ask God to heal us and make us whole,
and we will ask, if it is His will that we continue to bear crosses, that He
give us eyes to see and ears to hear how our suffering glorifies Him in our
life. We will, because His Son so
instructed us, to ask for the benefits of His Death, Resurrection, and
Ascension, trusting that we one day will see the wholly and Holy Other face to
face. In the end, as John so succinctly
reminds us, that is the point of all God’s work, that we might know His love
for us and choose Him over the darkness.
In Christ’s Peace,
Brian†
