The First Word - Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas

The First Word
Christmas 2B
January 3, 2021
Grace, Waseca, MN
John 1.1-5, 9-14, 16-18

As an undergraduate at Gustavus Adolphus College, I belonged to a fraternity, Epsilon Pi Alpha, also known as the “Eppies.” Although I might have thought twice about it once I learned what the initiation involved. But, that’s another story for another day. Perhaps because of that and my refusal to be involved in the hazing, I wasn’t taken seriously by the leadership. Fast forward to my senior year when a discussion arose about our yearly picture. The day scheduled by the yearbook folk was going to leave a lot of members out and this caused no small amount of consternation.

After a while, I calmly raised my hand and when finally acknowledged simply said, “Why don’t we take two pictures, one for the yearbook and one for us?” The stunned silence spoke volumes of my place in the frat. Apparently, my unwillingness to go along with their brutality marked me as incompetent, but this simple but elegant solution opened their eyes to see me in a new way.

Apparently, Jesus had a similar problem, which the Gospel writer John takes pains to correct. “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.”  Here we have John’s version of the Christmas story, stripped of all the familiar elements. Yet what John’s Gospel lacks in shepherds, mangers, swaddling cloths, wisemen, and angels he makes up for in poetic majesty. Boiled down he wants us to know something important: “You think Christmas came with Jesus’ birth? Guess again; it was long before that.”

We tend to think that Jesus was God’s answer to the problem of sin; there is truth in that thought. Because of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, we are reconciled to God and have life through him. But, as theologian Rob Bell reminds us, Jesus is so much more than a solution to sin. Jesus was the Logos that was present before creation and through whom God created everything there is. Another theologian, Richard Rohr, points out that all creation is infused with the divine presence.

My guess is most of you have packed up your Christmas things, not even waiting to the official end of the Christmas season, January 5, probably because you’ve had them up since Thanksgiving. I’m pretty sure you’re not alone; the stores have had Valentine’s Day stuff out since the day after. (By the way, did you know that the early church didn’t even start celebrating Christmas until 300 years after Jesus’ death, even though they celebrated the resurrection almost immediately?) (And why is it that Christmas gets just a lousy 12 days? Even Advent is longer.)

Both Bell and Rohr point to something John’s Gospel takes seriously: Christmas isn’t just about what happened 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem and even not just at the beginning of time. God takes an intimate relationship with us so seriously that God has baked relationships into creation. God is not the same as creation, but God is fully present to everything God has made. Richard Rohr again: “God loves things by becoming them” and “the problem [of sin] was solved from the beginning.” There arose a saying in the early church: “The finite is capable of bearing the infinite.” And so with Martin Luther, we know we can find God in the waters of baptism, the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the Word of Scripture, and Christ’s Body, the community of believers.

Yet there’s more, because God always gives more. Another, more recent poet, Elizabeth Barret Browning says it this way: “Earth is crammed with heaven, and every bush is aflame with the glory of God. But only those who see take off their shoes; the rest just pick the berries.” So, my brothers and sisters in Christ, can we daily take off our shoes and see God in, with and through all creation? Maybe, as a reminder, you can wake up each day and say, “Merry Christmas!” For the Word is in the world, full of grace and truth, bringing light and life to all, and creation sings the Father’s song. Amen.

For the worship service video, click here.