December 30, 2007
(First Sunday after Christmas)
A Light in the Dark
by The Rev. Joe Behen, Clergy Assistant
Isaiah 61:10-62:3 • Psalm 147 or
147:13-21 • Galatians
3:23-25;4:4-7 • John 1:1-18
(From
The Lectionary Page)
The prologue to John’s gospel that we’ve just heard is all about the big picture. It serves to give the reader a context for the events that will follow it. It gives us a look at the stuff of our faith from a twenty thousand foot view, a perspective that will be important to keep in our thoughts as we move into the specific events of Christ’s life as described by the gospel writers. And for this reason, it bears going back to again and again.
The same holds true for our lives as well. You’ve no doubt heard Plato’s phrase, “A life not reflected upon is a life not worth living.” The wider perspective afforded by reflection on the events of one’s own life help us to “keep the main thing the main thing,” so to speak. If we are to be able to live lives that reflect faith in God, then we must understand all the various parts of our lives in the context of this big picture view.
It’s no accident that John begins with the same words that begin the first book of the Bible, “In the beginning…” A connection is being made between the creation of the world, and Christ’s coming into the world. Then we hear that, “What has come into being in him was life…” The Christ event, then, is placed along side creation in its importance for humanity. But the word “life” here also seems to be related to something more than simply creation. “…the life,” John tells us, “was the light of all people.” This phrase recalls what is distinctly human from the first creation account in Genesis. There we read that, “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.” Christ, then, is the image of God. Christ is what God is like. In Christ, we see the big picture of what God finds important in life. The life of Christ is not a blueprint that we are to conform our lives to like a connect-the-dot drawing. Rather, Christ simply points us in the general direction of the freedom that God intends for us. That, I think, is the first part of what John would have us take as the big picture, the twenty thousand foot view of life, and it is good news indeed.
But this also cannot be the end of the story. The difficulties of everyday living constantly challenge our faith, and often make us feel as though we simply fail to live out our faith. We occasionally lose track of the big picture. Eventually, we can even come to understand the gospel as being overly idealistic, as being unrelated to the life that we experience. Left unchecked, this kind of despair can make the gospel seem irrelevant. Our own experience of living an “un-Christ-like” life can seem to suck the life right out of us. And without our ever knowing it, Christ as our worldview is gradually replaced by more achievable and practical worldviews. We still hold up the gospel occasionally, but it simply reminds us that we are no longer really guided by it. “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.”
But once again, John tells us, the story is not over. We have all experienced, and will experience again times in which the power of God seems to be hidden from us. Anxiety and hopelessness can gnaw away at us, sucking the life from us and making distant and diminutive the hope that used to sustain us in darkness. What we learn from John, however, is that even in the face of this darkness, hope remains. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the character Galadriel is portrayed, as are all the wise in Tolkien’s work, as being able to see things that others are not. Frodo the Ringbearer comes to her, lost in an unbearable darkness and asking her for advice, something that will give him some hope. She affirms the existence of the darkness he feels, but then says to him, “But even now there is hope left. I will not give you counsel, saying do this or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only,” she says, “in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.” In other words, she knows the context of the story, the darkness and the light alike, and she knows wherein her hope lies, that the darkness will not overcome the light. This bigger perspective, she is telling Frodo, needs to inform him before all else. Details about his journey, about how he might follow his path, will not avail if his wider perception is lost. In the darkness that now surrounds him, only in this way can he see through the darkness to the light that continues to shine. It’s interesting that what she gives him for his journey is just that: a light that will shine even in the darkest of places. While this light is effectively a means by which she helps him, it is also a sign of the hope that remains.
And so may Christ be for us both a means of walking through this world in the midst of darkness, and also a sign: a sign that our hope does in fact remain. A sign that reminds us that we know what we need to know about the end of the story. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
God in the Flesh
by The Rev. Bruce Hall, Deacon
This is the first Sunday after Christmas and most of us, I believe, are glad of it. The holidays, like their name suggests, are Holy Days filled with the important tasks that face each of us this time of year. First and above all else, we must buy things, possibly for others, but not necessarily. We must plan and throw parties, attend parties, and bake cookies for both. Office parties, parish parties, and hot toddies multiply like so many Snowman Peeps as we process through another season of Christmas. If we could take a peek, hams from Costco are to be found in many refrigerators in late December and it seems to be the consensus on my block that they are a Godsend. Then there is the flurry of the actual day filled with countless expectations, regrets, burnished memories, and clutter of wrapping paper as children squeal and adults try to figure out if the turkey is done. In short—there is very little in all this hurry and flurry that can be found in the gospels that narrate the nativity of Christ, let alone in today’s selection from John.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God." He was in the beginning with God. No camels, no shepherds, no Santa or holiday music here, just the bold proclamation of who Christ is and his purpose for coming among us. This is what the Church is celebrating in this season, the incarnation of the divine, manifest in body of a child.
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” This is something altogether new for the world and as amazing—some would say unbelievable—as it was for our ancestors two thousand years ago. They were waiting for a messiah, a prophet, at least someone who would save them from the Romans. But in person of Jesus they were confronted with the very presence of God, who would, live, walk, and minister to them in love. God has become meat. God becomes toenails, nose hairs, and spittle. This is something new and somewhat unexpected. It’s one thing to be anticipating a prophet or at least a temporary political leader to rid you country of an occupying power, it is another to be presented with the Divine in the flesh. Most persons were not sure what to do with that kind of gift because the implication of God assuming human form was so incomprehensible. Yes, it was a time when Roman emperors could be deified and worshiped as Gods. One day you’re mortal and the next, by vote of the Senate, you’re divine. Hopefully our own Congress will continue its discretion in avoiding that form of questionable legislation. Still, I’m hard pressed to accept that ancient people who accomplished amazing feats of engineering, agriculture, art, music, poetry, and philosophy, were somehow more easily convinced of this incredible mystery simply because they lived before I did. Merely enjoying the fact that we live 2,000 years later does not make us more enlightened. We wrestle with the same questions and doubts as those who actually witnessed Jesus’ life and ministry and it is this mystery that I invite you to face in this moment.
Who is Jesus? Why has he come? The Gospel takes pains to remind the listener that while John the Baptist certainly announced Jesus’ coming, John remained a man, while Jesus is referred to as “light” and “the true light which enlightens everyone.” An important distinction is being made here that Jesus is more than simply another, wise, insightful, prophet with a large following. The “meta” language we find in John’s Gospel is pointing us to something more fantastic. It points to the divine nature of Jesus and, furthermore, that he has changed the world. And, he will change you and I as we open our hearts and minds to and listen to the unfolding story of Jesus of Nazareth.
In the months to come I invite you to forget some things. Forget you’ve heard many of these readings before. Forget that you’ve learned some things about the person and ministry of Jesus. Forget and listen with a new mind, a clear mind, a child’s mind. Hear the story again, for the first time. In the months to follow you will here from this pulpit the record of Jesus’ life and ministry. The writings of the early church and its Apostles will be read and the Gospel narratives proclaimed. Your Priests and Bishop will offer teaching on the meaning of this incredible, wondrous point in time where Jesus, the Christ, came and lived among us. In hearing about Jesus, we can miss things in assuming that we’ve heard all this before and, of course, we have. And, just as we can fall into holiday routines that have become mechanical and thoughtless, so too might our listening be rendered routine if not preoccupied.
So, in this new year, let us together add one more resolution to the list—to listen with a new mind, prepared to see something new and marvelous revealed the life of a small, squealing, newborn, named Jesus.
