December 29, 2024, 10:30 Choral Eucharist, Rev. Richard Hogue Jr.
Merry fifth day of Christmas! Have you seen five gold rings lying around? If so, please report this to an usher so they may place these goods in the lost-and-found.
This is the third time in a week these opening lines of John’s gospel are read, the first was at the end of our Christmas Eve service, and then it was the gospel for Christmas day. It can seem a little boring, at least compared with the drama in Luke’s nativity scene, or the intrigue of Matthew’s star chasing Magi, and the murderous King Herod. Yet it mirrors the beginning of everything in a Biblical sense, taking its cue from the opening chapter of Genesis. To quote the opening lines of Genesis:
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”
John draws directly on the Hebrew creation narrative, weaving a universe around the logos—meaning the reason, or discourse, which is translated here as word. Jesus’ deeds and teachings are the purpose of the universe in John’s retelling of creation, being the source of light, life, and love. John’s opening is cosmic in proportion, but deeply specific in personality, being about Jesus the individual. Each of the four gospels scales go from personal to universal.
We, the church, often emphasize the triumphant Christ. But if you look only at the person, Jesus’ story is one of obscurity, impoverishment, and defeat, as a person born homeless to an unwed mother in a backwater town, then lived as an itinerant rabbi who dies powerless at the hands of the state. Jesus grows up among an oppressed people, and empire shaped his and his peoples’ lives. But the ultimate symbol of Roman power and cruelty, the crucifix, would be upended and become this person’s symbol.
God takes what we consider pathetic and lowly and thwarts all our worldly expectations. Jesus turns over the course of history and the cosmos. Yet we can’t overlook the fragile realities of his personhood. God becomes the same stuff as us, experiences loneliness, grief, pain, as well as joy and merry making. He lives a full life and then dies a full death. It is his humility and fierce compassion that illuminates a path everyone can follow if we choose. His life and light, his divine and deep humanity, were as raw and real and exuberant as anyone we know. And that’s what we celebrate, a life of total commitment to the human condition by our very Creator, Emmanuel, God among us.
We can also lose sight of Christmas’ present reality when we only celebrate as a one-time event. If we think of it merely as something that happened nearly two millennia ago, we miss the point. We must celebrate the possibility it represents for the world now: that Christ could be born again, anywhere, at any time. If every newborn is proof that God is not done with humanity, then Christmas is never confined to a single day in December, or merely a twelve-day season.
God blessed the world in its Creation, and God blessed every aspect of human experiences through the life of Jesus. I know this now this more than I ever would have wanted too. Every tear shed you or I have ever shed, every deeply painful and tender weakness, every aching wound we’ve experienced has been with God present. It’s true from the most shameful memory to our most glorious moment. It is good news for the poor and forgotten, for the dispossessed and depressed, for the humble and the lowly. It is good news which we can reflect on and reconsider our own priorities through the tapestry of Jesus’s life.
And, most importantly and bewilderingly to us, this blessing is completely out of our control. It is the unquenchable fire that John the Baptizer preached about, a fire of selfless love, realized in a human body. Jesus’ life of unquenchable compassion calls us all to unending harmony. Christ came into this world amid the lowliest, so the lowliest people and the most vulnerable parts of our lives can bear the Good News of God as a present reality. A child born in a parking lot, or a prisoner visited by an angel, or someone with a profound change of heart can alter the course of history and shape the cosmos to hold more love and joy. That’s what Christmas is about: The light comes from anywhere, from anyone, at any time. It can’t be bottled or bought, it can’t be restricted or patented, it cannot be copyrighted or consumed. It is simply faithfulness in the face of fear. That is the word, the reason, the discourse of the universe, a cosmic conversation between the sublime and the gritty, blessed in all our woes and highest hopes. It is the faithful exchange between the profane and the sacred, lived out in the kaleidoscope of life.
If there’s one thing John’s gospel grasps well it is this: A life lived with love changes the shape of the universe. That is indeed good news worth celebrating, so let’s celebrate it as much as we can, in this season or any other.
Merry Christmas!
ke0rjd