First Sunday After Christmas

John1: 1-18

What’s in a word? We all certainly know what words are, and we use them continually. Some of us talk more than others. In my house, I’m the chatterbox, to the point where, if my husband and I are arguing, he will sometimes say irritably, “You’re talking!” which is his polite way of telling me to “shut up”. Of course, we exchange many other gentler words. I love you. How are you feeling today? What’s up? Have you checked the cat box? Can I get you anything at the store?

From our youth, all of us are taught much about the power of the written word, that words can change history. Think about the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, the Civil Rights Bill. Words can also be used as weapons, in documents that order destruction, or as words spoken between individuals, words that cut and hurt. Words can help bolster our faith, as we read books and papers written by holy people, or as we sit and read our Bible. But when we are reading, what we use really isn’t just words. It’s language. When, in today’s Gospel we hear John speak of “the Word” he doesn’t mean the words we use to create speech, he means something entirely different.

In the beginning was the Word…

For the past few Sundays our readings have contained infancy narratives. Luke, who wrote the familiar story we hear every Christmas Eve, was a bit of an historian. He was very concerned with getting the dates and rulers right, and with locating everything in time and space. He also may have been a gentile, and he was clearly very concerned about people who, like the gentiles, were considered outsiders. So, Luke is more interested in shepherds – who were social outcasts – than in kings. And Luke tells the story from the perspective of Mary – a radical move since women were even lower on the social ladder than shepherds.

Matthew is more traditional. He was certainly a Jew and may have been a scribe. He was very concerned with making it clear that Jesus fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies as the Messiah, the King of the Jews. So, shepherds didn’t interest him as much as the royal wise men from the East. The child is surrounded by his peers. And Matthew paid a lot of attention to the flight to Egypt, because of the parallel between the Exodus and Jesus’ own return from Egypt to Israel. Also, the more conservative Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ birth from Joseph’s point of view.

Then there’s John. That’s our Gospel reading for this Sunday. John may have heard the stories in Matthew and Luke, but he’s not primarily an historian or a Jewish royalist. John is a theologian and a mystic. So he writes the meaning of Jesus’ birth, and he writes from his theology and from the holy inspiration of his prayers. But he’s still telling the same story – all three are talking about the same birth – all three are dealing with the same event.

While Matthew presented his proofs of the legitimacy of the claim that Jesus is the Messiah through tracing Jesus’ lineage back to King David, and Luke gives us shepherds and Mary the mother of Jesus, John’s Gospel is different. It isn’t by accident that today’s lesson begins with the same words that open our Bible in Genesis – “In the beginning…”. John is tracing Jesus back to where it all started, to before history, before time, to the very beginning.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

When we think about a word, we think about the sound it makes, but that isn’t what John means by “Word”. Before the sound comes the intangible thought, and the thought is put forth in the breath, in that life force that issues forth. John tells us that Jesus begins in this incomprehensible, intimate union with God. He was in the beginning with God. So God breathes that Life Force outward and All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

And then comes that glorious image that ties everything together, the Gospel stories, the Book of genesis, everything:

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.

The Gospel stories we’ve been hearing are filled with images of light – the light of the star, the light that shone around the shepherds, the true light. These stories all echo Isaiah’s vision of vindication shining out like the dawn, of salvation like a burning torch. Where Christ is, people who understand talk about light, live in the light, spread the light. This is our calling, to be children of the Light.

We know all about darkness, what it’s like to live in and with darkness, what it’s like to try to walk through an unfamiliar room that is completely dark, or to wake up confused in the middle of the night in someone else’s house, trying to get somewhere. We know what it’s like when we don’t know where things are, or what we’ve just bumped into, or whether we’re going where we want to go, or if our next step will be OK, or if we will break something and make a mess. We know what it’s like to live through a pandemic and not know where or who is safe.

And we know what it is like to live in broad daylight. What John, and Luke and Matthew all say about Christmas is that a new light begins to shine. Gradually, quietly, but with absolute certainty, and by that light we can begin to see. We can begin to see who we are and who we are created to be. For it is in the person of Jesus that what it means to be a human being is finally made clear. In Him we see that our lives are made whole only as we surrender in love and service; in Him we see that really being alive means risking everything for – and because of – the love of God and the Kingdom of God. In Him we see that hope needs never be abandoned – never – and that we contain possibilities beyond our imagining.

Also, by that light that has come into the world we begin to see God clearly for the first time. “No one has ever seen God,” John reminds us. But God is made known to us in Jesus. This means that everything we ever thought about God, everything we had figured out, everything that we were sure we knew about God – all of this is put to the test in Jesus. Who God is, in relationship to us, is fully revealed in Jesus. Not in one saying or one parable, or one miracle, but in all of Jesus – in His life, His ministry, His teaching, His death and resurrection; in these all together we finally have the light we need to see God.

The light of Christ, the Word made flesh, comes among us at Christmas, and we celebrate its coming into the world. God has revealed Himself and His love to us in Christ. That first Christmas, the light shone – and it continues to shine. By that light we have been given the power to become children of God and to take our places with the light. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. This is the Christmas story. This is our story.

All of those other lights – the ones on trees, shopping centers, houses and office buildings – these are, at best, a faint reminder of the light we celebrate during this holy season, the new light that shines from Bethlehem and from the very heart of God that is our gift, our legacy, our prize, and – always – our sacred calling to name and to share.

There are times when we feel the darkness encroaching, think that life is too much, burdens too great, cares too heavy. Certainly living through this continuing pandemic tries all out souls. But - that is when we remember that the Light that came into the world knows all our grief’s and cares.

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. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Through Him we receive the gift of being called children of God, that His light may shine through us and enlighten the world.

Let us pray:

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.