Christmas 1, Year B, 2023, All Saints, 12/31/23
Isaiah 61:10-62:3; I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
Psalm 147; sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
Galatians 3:23-25,4:4-7; now that faith has come, we are children of God;
John 1:1-18; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God;
If you were here for the Christmas Eve service, at 5:00 p.m., (Doug’s Mom called it “midnight mass at 5:00”), you heard Fr. Joseph read the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel, following the Post-communion Prayer, and before we sang Silent Night. This is an ancient custom from the Roman Mass, beginning in the Middle Ages. John’s Prologue was read as the “Last Gospel”, at the end of the Mass. It contains the core of the Christian faith in the shortest possible form. This reading was regarded, by the faithful, as possessing special power. This Christmas preface contributed to an understanding of the sacrament of the altar, not just at Christmas, but at every Mass. As a result, the believer became a witness of the events of faith.
The Gospel according to John was probably the last account to be written. John states his main goal clearly in 20:31: “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” He also wanted to make clear to his readers both that Jesus, the Word (capital W), was God and that Jesus had come in the flesh. John states that God and Jesus together created the universe. Jesus is incarnate, God made man. The Gospel according to John explains the mystery of the person of Jesus in a way which the other Gospel writers do not. John explains that Jesus was with God, Jesus was God, long before Mary and Joseph, and the manger and the angels.
“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.”
John speaks to readers who have gone beyond narratives about taxation, and a stable, and shepherds, and angels. Don’t get me wrong. I love to hear the story of Mary, Joseph, the manger, shepherds and angels. I have 3 manger scenes which I unpack at the beginning of Advent; and I don’t put them away until after Epiphany, on January 6 (because we know that the 3 kings visited the stable on January 6). John is on a different plane, a theological plane, a poetic plane. The writers of the Gospel message bring us a sense of who Jesus was, and what He was about. Each of them portray a unique individual, someone who is very different from us – and yet, in some ways, the same as us; someone who is truly of this world, and truly apart from this world.
We try to come up with language to describe the mystery which is beyond description. And perhaps that is where the poetry of John for example, has a place. It speaks to our hearts more than to our minds. It speaks to our spirit, our souls, where God lives.
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . . full of grace and truth.” God is grace and truth, and belief in God brings forth “grace upon grace”. This is the true meaning of Christmas and the human birth of the Word in Bethlehem. He lived among us, he literally “pitched his tent” among us, illustrating the grace and truth that is God’s true nature. As we receive Jesus as the self-revelation of God we become children of God. Paul wrote, in his letter to the Galatians: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”
We are able to see God as a dynamic and personal being, capable of self-communication; not as an impersonal and silent God, with whom communication not possible. Some cannot believe that the God of the Universe would become truly human. For us who believe, it is the greatest gift of all!
This beginning of John’s Gospel, is a witness to an actual event, namely the appearance of God in and through the person of Jesus. So it is a birth story, just not the same birth story with Mary and Joseph and the stable, shepherds and angels. And it is a real event within space and time within God’s creation. The opening words of the passage, “In the beginning” remind us of the same words in Genesis 1:1. John makes references to light and darkness throughout the passage, which also connects us to the story of creation.
“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. . . then God said let there be light, and there was light.” John’s echo of Genesis draws attention to the idea that the Word (capital W) belonged to God before the creation of the world.
John the Apostle also introduces John the Baptist as “a man sent from God”. He was sent to tell the world that Jesus is the true light who enlightens all. John’s presence in this passage ties Jesus to ancient Israel and to the tradition of the prophets. Jesus’ birth brings light to the world, but the light will be made more visible by the surrounding darkness. Light is defined by the shadows that surround it. You know that on a clear night in the mountains, the stars shine more brightly, more brightly than here in a valley with a lot of artificial light.
Author Sue Monk Kidd describes light this way: “The gift of light – enlightenment, delight, lightness – comes when we tap the places of hope and faith inside us.”
Darkness exists. It is real and at times scary. But God’s light of life will prevail. I received a Christmas card, which read: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. But not for lack of trying. In this holy season, and in the New Year, let us be friends of the light, those who bear the light and those who seek the light.” Amen.
The Rev. Robin Finch