Christmas, 2018

John 1:1-5, 9-14

You've just heard the beginning of the Gospel of John. It used to be the last part of the old Tridentine Mass, and it was said at every Mass. No shepherds, no wise men, no angel choirs or manger. The Gospel of John begins at the beginning of everything. So what does this have to do with Christmas?

Well, lets go back to the beginning, to the Book of Genesis. It introduces God the Creator. And God creates with his word. He says, “let there be. … and there is. And he creates by drawing lines. Lines define. GK Chesterton once said, “every beautiful painting begins with a line”. We remember how god separated light from darkness, the waters of the heaves from the waters of the earth, the land from the sea. He then assigned the fish to the sea, the birds to the air, and the animals to the land. He finally created man in his image and likeness. He formed man out the earth and breathed his own spirit into him. Then he drew another line; he made eve from the side of the man. Sometimes we interpret this to mean that the woman was created as an afterthought; but the old rabbis said that what God created out of the earth was neither male nor female, and when God created Eve the woman, what was left was the man. Man and woman came into existence as such at the same time. First there was Word, then flesh, then community. And God assigned them to the Garden of Eden. This was the place made for them; a place of abundance, of every good thing to eat and drink; a place where there was no death or suffering. Having completed all this, God rested; because what he had created was perfect and needed nothing else.

And then we have the story of the Fall. The couple were not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the serpent begins to undo God's work. He tells Eve a lie – that if they eat the fruit, they will be like gods. The words of creatures begins to undo God's perfect creation. The man hides from God; he says it is because he is naked, but the truth is that he knows he disobeyed God. He blames the woman even though he made the decision to eat the fruit, and the woman blames the serpent. And the beautiful order God created becomes disorder when mankind leaves the Garden prepared for him. Death and suffering are the result.

Now we know the story in Genesis is theology, not history. But the theme continues. Abraham, the friend of God, lies about his relationship with his wife Sarah. Jacob and his mother Rebekah conspire to lie to Isaac about who Jacob is. Jacob's father in law lies to Jacob to marry off his daughter Leah and so forth. Lies are always about words that no longer describe a reality. Lies always put disorder into creation. And today we can see that still. When we lie about gender, when we lie about the nature of marriage, when we lie about who is and who isn't a human being we get farther and farther from the creator's intentions.

And that's where John comes in. In the beginning was the Word, he says. The Word through which all things were made. And the Word became flesh. In the beginning God created humans; now the Word that is God becomes human. And the Word, now flesh, dwells among us. Again, first Word, then flesh, then community. The vision of John is that what God did in the beginning, which mankind destroyed, God is doing again. This time the Word itself comes forth to create a new community, a community formed through light shining in the darkness.

It's good to think about that image. If you have a light shining in the darkness, there is still darkness. And if you are in darkness, you can move toward the light or away from it. So we have learned that The Word came to repair God's creation, but through those that receive him, who would receive the power to become Children of God. It is through the children of God that the Word will repair creation. The Word of God, unlike the words of mankind, can never be false.

I once talked with a Unitarian minister. In the course of our conversation, he said something that I knew already – Unitarians aren't big on dogma. Dogma, by the way, simply describes statements about God and man's relationship to God which we know to be true. Many of our friends in other denominations and other religions no longer hold to dogma of any kind. But when people no longer believe in something, they eventually believe anything.

John ends his introduction to the story of Jesus' life by proclaiming that “we saw his glory, glory as of the Father's only son, full of grace and of truth.” He goes on to say that the law came through Moses, but through Jesus Christ, grace and truth. And this Word, who is God, has revealed God to us.

Grace we understand – God's favor, God's gifts, God's unmerited mercy. But truth? Truth represents reality. And as we approach the light shining in the darkness, not only do we receive grace upon grace, but we also receive that for which our whole beings desire – ultimate truth.

So I think you can see why this gospel is so appropriate to read and reflect upon on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. God became flesh, became man, to form a new community. Moses' community was formed by laws. God gave the law and it provided a fence around the people. When you broke the law, you were outside the fence, you were no longer part of the people. But in the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, we become children of God, we are part of God's family, we are partners in making a new world, a kingdom in which God will reign as he does in heaven.

The incarnation is about God giving us power, power which we may accept or reject, power which has something to do with whether we turn toward the light or away from it, whether we embrace the truth He has revealed, truth which creates – or whether we reject it. No angels, no shepherds, no manger for John – but John celebrates something much more powerful – the Word which creates dwells among us.