First Sunday after Christmas – Bill Harkins
Isaiah 61:10; John 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 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. 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. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen.
I bid each of you good morning, Happy New Year come Wednesday, and a heartfelt welcome to Holy Family on this first Sunday after Christmas! Just a week ago we heard the lovely narrative from the Gospel of Luke, telling us of the earthly origins of Jesus in the form of the birth and infancy narratives of which we are all so fond. The Gospel of John, in contrast, does not include an account of the birth of Christ as do Luke and Matthew, who are ever the storytellers. They charm us with angels and shepherds, a virgin birth in a stable, a villain named Herod, and heroes in the form of peripatetic kings. In John, who is more of a theologian, we are given in these first 18 verses pure poetry in the form of a lovely Christological hymn and a dazzling, paradoxical conundrum: the light by which everyone sees came into the world, yet the world did not see it. Our culture sometimes bears this out. Last year a friend of mine made his way to a local store on Christmas Eve to get a couple of strings of new lights for an unexpectedly tall tree, and an extra stocking-stuffer or two. The employees were already pulling down the Christmas displays and decorations. My colleague asked one harried, soon-to-be former elf about it, and he said “When this place closes in an hour or two, Christmas is over.” My Methodist erstwhile next door neighbor, who delighted in what I called my Epiphany burning bush, teased me every year when I celebrate the 12 days of Christmas—beginning with Christmas Day—with additional lights lovingly placed on the humble boxwood in my front yard. I suspect even the Chickadees at my feeder thought I was bit nutty.
Is John right in saying that the light came into the world, and the world did not see it? Does that include us? John tells us that the Word became flesh in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, the Word that is the source of light and life for the world—and the innate goodness of creation is made manifest in this light…this life…this Word made flesh. So, John is not concerned with the birth narrative of Jesus so much as with the cosmic dimension of the always already there Word of God, made manifest in the birth of Christ. Indeed, in verse 14 we find the consummate expression of Johns Christology: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Logos—the Word—became part of human history and dwells—the literal translations is “pitches a tent”—among us, even now. From this fullness—this abundance—we have all received grace upon grace. It is important to remember that law, instruction, and guidance for living were given through Moses, but grace and truth have now become flesh in the form of Jesus. Through the Incarnation, Jesus became one of us so we could see, hear, and touch the living Word of God, and participate in that Divine fullness. Yet, John cautions us that this light came into the world unperceived. What are we to do with this paradox?
The theologian Ronald Goetz has suggested that trying to find a systematic consistency in the Gospel of John is ultimately not the point. Rather, he suggests, John is holding up a mirror which reflects the true nature of faith—and the gratitude for the fruitful tension that comes with it. Poets know this better than most of us, I suspect. Robert Frost once observed that “heaven gives its glimpses only to those not in position to look too close,” like seeing a flower from the window of a speeding train. One may not know the variety of the flower, but one understands the essence of its beauty. Like such fleeting glimpses, Goetz suggests, God’s revelation cannot be in-errantly recorded, processed, or made serviceable.” Yet, in faith, we “see” that it may be the most real and abiding thing we possess.
Each year, on the night after the winter solstice, my running buddies and I ventured into the darkness of the trail, with our headlamps lighting the way until we reached a place we affectionately called “Beech Cove.” Deep in the woods, alongside a lovely brook, we turned off our headlamps and let the darkness settle in around us. The water could be heard in a new way, and Orion became visible above us. Wendell Berry, our American treasure, wrote this about the dark: “To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet, and dark wings.” Anyone who has spent time in the woods at night will know the truth of this poem, and its paradoxical lesson that we know the light, in part, because we are willing to become familiar with the dark. And, sometimes we know the dark by virtue of the fact that we are human, and vulnerable, and in spite of this, amid our darkest moments, we see glimpses of light.
And this is where the Gospels of John and Luke speak to one another, in dialectic fashion perhaps. The incarnation we observe and celebrate in this season means nothing less than that God is no longer a God of the sky, relegated to Orion’s realm, but rather walks in the rhythm of humanity. Now, in Christ, we can gaze upon God, both human and divine, just as light—the Word—is both particle and wave, and in seeing Him we see who we were meant to be.
So there is more to the cry of the infant in that cold, dark stable than meets the eye, and sometimes, even if through a glass darkly, we glimpse that something more. John, in his paradoxical insistence that the world cannot see the light which supposedly enlightens it, would not deny that even our unknowing, at times uncaring world sees glimpses of the light, if only in our plastic, neon crèches. Despite the sometimes self-indulgent crassness of the season, are there not times when we can see glimpses of our own best selves reflected in the glimpses of light that we can barely make out? We are reminded of W.H. Auden’s similarly paradoxical Christmas Oratorio in which he wrote: “To those who have seen the child, however dimly, however incredulously, The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all…we look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit our self-reflection.” This being human can be so very hard, until we remember that we are held in the hands of a God who chose not to leave us alone. Grace. That’s the word. Sometimes, in the darkness, despite ourselves, we catch a glimpse of it…and of the light from which it comes.
Well, the Gospel of John presents us with quite a different view of Christmas than we find in Luke—different, yes, yet deeply, literally eloquent and equally full of promise, if only we are able to get it. John’s narrative is not so specific; no little town of Bethlehem, no humble manger, no cattle lowing, no shepherds or wise men. Yet we have this incredible, miraculous, life-giving statement that the Word became flesh. God became like us, so that we know God, and God might fully and completely know us…our experience, including our hesitant, uncertain efforts to bear that light into darkness. Jesus risked the vulnerability of becoming human, like us, and in so doing now takes on all the frailties and finitude of flesh-and-blood humanity. Each human soul, my sisters and brothers, is sacred and unique, and Christ dwells there, too. Christ has pitched a tent in each of us, in the particularity of our being, the sacred landscape of our souls. As our collect for today puts it, God has poured upon us the new light of God’s Incarnate Word. Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives. Amen