Second Sunday of Christmas
The first time a parent hears it, one’s heart seems to flutter just a bit. And it’s only one word.
“Why?” It’s exciting because it means that this child, who up until now has only absorbed the world around her or him, is now seeking to understand. It’s the next step in the development of a child. It’s the first sign of a burgeoning intellect. The world is beginning to take on a new depth for this young child, this young mind, this young, curious, expanding intellect.
That’s the first time. And you try, you really try to explain in a way that a child can understand. Because curiosity is good, it’s healthy, it’s necessary. You’re careful and thorough in your explanations. You’re indulgent, maybe even to a fault. But the novelty quickly wears off. And before long, you’re reduced to the universal answer to the question “why”? Because.
The gospel readings for Christmastime so far have focused on stories from Luke about the infancy and youth of Jesus. But with this final gospel before Epiphany, the focus changes to a more theological reflection with the prologue to John’s gospel. The earlier readings retell what happened. This reading begins to answer the question as to why. The earlier readings celebrate the joy of the Nativity. Today’s reading explores the Mystery of the Incarnation.
When we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, we are not just celebrating the birth of a child, although that’s certainly something worth celebrating. We’re celebrating God’s power to draw people together and forge community. It’s not any different from The Beginning, when God drew together the elements of creation and forged the earth, the stars, the animals, the oceans, and the first human family. We’re celebrating how all these apparently disparate bits of humanity are drawn together by the Word in Jesus so that we can see the human face of God. We celebrate how Jesus, in his birth, draws together Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the wise men and the angels, to show how God’s Word draws all sorts of people together to make new beginnings possible. We celebrate how Jesus, in his ministry, draws together sinners and outcasts and the proud and the weak and the humble and the lost and the faithful, to show how God’s Word transcends all sorts of barriers and causes new communities and new communion to emerge. We celebrate how Jesus, in his death and resurrection. draws together the shreds and tatters and broken pieces of a life that had been torn apart by fear and jealousy and anger and violence, and how Jesus made them live again, to show how God’s Word can create anew when by human standards everything else seems lost.
At Christmas, in celebrating the Mystery of the Incarnation, we celebrate how in Jesus all the bits of humanity are drawn together in the Word to show us the human face of God. And the mystery of the Incarnation doesn’t end there. John says: “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.” The mystery of the Incarnation that began in Jesus, the work of the Word in drawing together the bits of humanity in order to reveal God’s creating love that began in Jesus, doesn’t just end there. It draws us in, as well, so that we too become part of the enfleshing of the Word. The Word of God draws us in to make more and more complex and intricate communions in the growing Body of Christ on Earth. The mystery of the Incarnation is not just that Jesus was born; It’s also that we are born. We are born and re-born. We’re called to come together in new relationships with new possibilities. We’re called to form among ourselves relationships reflective of God’s Word for peace and justice and right relationships and well-being and compassion and love.
With regard to this reading from John, theologian Barbara Brown Taylor said, “Until someone acts upon these words— [compassion, justice, generosity, patience, or love]— they remain abstract concepts – very good ideas that few people have ever seen. The moment someone acts on them, the words become flesh. They live among us, so we can see their glory.” That is incarnation! John’s prologue invites us to see the Incarnation as something not solely tied to the Nativity of Jesus. The Nativity of Jesus is something to be lived out in our lives of faith, as well. When this happens we human beings become conscious and intentional agents of God’s mission to forge community and to proclaim through action God’s mercy, grace, justice, compassion, peace, generosity, and love.
Jesus shows us who God is. And we have received from God’s fullness, "grace upon grace." This phrase sets the tone for this New Year, especially when we're struggling on our way out of an emotionally and physically devastating pandemic.
It’s a kind of secular heresy to see plenty right now, to see abundance, to see fullness even in a time like this. But, if we can claim that there is more than enough of everything we need most: forgiveness and reconciliation, grace, life, truth, joy, generosity, healing, justice; How can we fail to believe that there is more than enough of what our bodies need to live on: food, water, land, clothing, and shelter?
We’re not the only ones blessed by the light of God. The Rev. Dr. Beverly Gaventa notes: “All of us, whether we believe it or not, live in a world illuminated by the light just as we live in a world created by the Word. What we are called to do is to trust the light, to walk in the light. We are called to become children of light.”
The challenge for us is to live our lives “discovering divine benevolence and reliability”. What does it mean to you that, "from his fullness, we have all received, grace upon grace"? What is grace? God's grace has brought us light, has brought us truth, has brought us out of exile, has brought us home. Coming home is a profound human experience.
Who are the members of our community who are in exile in our midst? What difference should it make to them that God took on human flesh and shared our own experiences of suffering and death? The difference that it makes in the lives of others is entirely in our hands, as God calls us to act and to speak as the Body of Christ. God is still speaking to us today, calling us to seek out in our own time and place the lost, the alienated, the excluded, the exiles. We are called to reach out and bring home the alienated, the excluded and the exiles in our neighborhoods, and in the world. We are called to be a light to the world, a light which the darkness cannot overcome.
Sooner or later, all of us have the experience of walking "in the darkness." But we also know how powerful it can be to return from exile. No longer alienated or separated from God, we walk with God as God gathers us together and accompanies us back to where we belong. “See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble…” We shall not stumble, because we walk in the very light to which we are called to testify.
How would this church be transformed if we all thought of ourselves as witnesses who testify to the Light? The transformation of this congregation and, more importantly, the world around us would be breathtaking. But this isn’t merely a hypothetical. The fact of the matter is that God is calling you today, to let your light shine, individually and as a community of faith! God's incredible gift of Jesus is one we can never repay, but there is a response we can give: the praise and thanks that we lift in prayer and song, especially in community.
And we do that not only by gathering together to worship, but by offering the praise and worship of our service. We do that by seeing to it that we live out generous, grace-filled, peaceable lives, rooted in the love and mercy of God as revealed to us through Christ.
Despite what the world around us may say, Christmas is not over: Because Christ continues still to be born and reborn in our hearts and in the hearts and lives of those around us; In the hearts and lives of those whom we serve; In the hearts and lives of those with whom we share the joy of life lived in the light of Christ. Christ continues still to be born in the hearts and lives of those, who for the first time hear the Good News of the gospel. Christ continues still to be born in our hearts and lives, when we are moved to new depths of understanding and faith.
What good news are you waiting to hear? What vision are you waiting to see fulfilled? Many of us are waiting for a messenger who will tell us that the tide has turned, that the day of vindication and hope has arrived, that God is still with us. Some of us have secretly, privately, in the deepest places of our hearts, given up hope. Or, worse, we may assume that it's all up to us, or that we can somehow make everything right, all by our own efforts, without a God who has chosen to be right here, right in the midst of everything that we face.
The season of Christmas does more than remind us of what God has done. It proclaims that God is active in the world today, in this setting of history. God is active in and through us, the Church. We are the word made flesh, when we embody God’s word and carry it out to those who need desperately to hear it. In this new day, in this brand new year, God is revealing God's own self in the life of this community and this congregation.
Maybe Christmas morning is unlike any other morning. But in another sense it’s just like every other morning of our lives, too, because Jesus Christ is alive and God is at work in our lives, here and now.
In his diary from his time at the Genesee Abby in Upstate New York, Fr. Henry Nouwen describes the Nativity set under the altar there, with "three small, featureless wooden figures representing the holy family. Although smaller than a human hand, a bright light shining upon them projected their large shadows upon the wall of the sanctuary." Nouwen observes: "Without the radiant beam of light shining into the darkness there is little to be seen. I might just pass by these three simple people and continue to walk in darkness. But everything changes with the light" (New Proclamation 2000).
What difference has the light shining on your life made in the life of the world?
AMEN