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In the beginning was God. There was nothing except God.
In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. In the beginning, God spoke. He spoke a Word, and the Word was the means of creation. He said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. Light that shines and illumines, light that reveals and gives life. Light that defeats darkness, and confusion, and chaos. In the Word was light—not just the physical light, but true light that enlightens the heart and the mind and the soul as well. The light of God that illumines every dark corner of our souls and minds and hearts. The light of God shining on a world that chose darkness is what Christmas is all about. In the beginning, the first word of all creation was “be light.” And there was light. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. Throughout Scripture, God reveals himself through light. When God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush, it was in the light of the supernatural fire of God that burns but does not consume that God was present. God was present with the people of Israel in the desert, revealed in the fire that consumed and accepted their sacrifices; and in the pillar of fire that gave them light by night. When Moses returned from speaking with God face to face on the mountain, the reflected light of God left Moses’ face so bright that he had to cover his face with a veil so as not to terrify the Israelites. Moses’ face shone with the reflected glory of God’s light. When God gave the Israelites the blueprint of the tabernacle and the temple, which was a microcosm of God’s heavenly dwelling, he commanded that the light of the golden lamp stands never go out to show a glimpse of what the eternal, unchangeable, heavenly glory was like. When the prophets had visions of that heavenly temple, and they saw God seated on his heavenly throne in unimaginable and truly terrifying glory, they saw a figure of a man so bright that eyes could not behold him, like glowing molten metal, on a pavement of refracted rainbow light. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That glorious figure in the heavenly visions was the same that the disciples saw on the mountain of Transfiguration, when Jesus was revealed to them in his nature as truly God. When the disciples saw who Jesus truly was, he was illumined, transfigured, even his clothing was whiter and brighter than any bleach can ever get it. The glory of the one and only Son of the Father, the Godhead made human was revealed in the flesh of a mortal man. And unlike Moses, this was not the reflected light of having spoken with God, but the very source of all light revealing himself to them. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. On the day when Christ, the light of the world, took our sin upon himself and died upon the cross, darkness fell. He took our darkness on himself that by his power he might destroy our death, our darkness so that the people who walked in darkness might see a great light. On that day, the darkness pursued the light of the world to destroy it or chase it away. But on that day, when the darkness seemed to have won, the light of Christ set an ambush for the darkness. When darkness had killed the light of the world, the darkness itself was destroyed. In Christ’s resurrection, darkness is defeated. On the day of Pentecost, when the followers of Jesus were assembled, the Holy Spirit came on them in the form of the holy fire of God—not on the sacrifices of the temple anymore, but resting on the living people, transforming them into children of the light, boldly proclaiming the good news of Jesus. When Stephen, the first martyr and deacon of the church, was being stoned to death for his faith in Jesus, he looked and saw heaven opened, and the light of God shone reflected in his face as he beheld the glory of his beloved Savior. When the Apostle Paul, persecutor of the church, was on the road to Damascus, he saw a vision of the risen Christ—a vision that blinded him and transformed him into Christ’s most ardent witness. And the Apostle John saw visions of Jesus coming again in glory to rule the world and judge it and make it new; he saw it purified and made spotless by that same fire of God which consumes the dross but purifies the gold. And he saw the new heaven and the new earth in which there was no more need for lamps, for there was no more night, no more sin, no more darkness or hiding or shame or death or despair. He saw a city shining like gold, lit by the presence of the glory of God himself—the glory of the Lamb who was slain for us and rose again in glory. In the Beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. The true light that enlightens everything was coming into the world. That light shines into our darkened hearts and transforms us: it shows up the darkness in our hearts and, for all who believe in the Light of Christ, transforms us into children of God—children of the light who can see and hear and know the transcendent, glorious God. The true light, the Glory, the Word of God, the fullness of the God who encompasses all creation, became on Christmas one of the created. All the glory of God was encompassed in a tiny baby, fully human and fully God. And that is what we celebrate. Just as Moses and Stephen looked on the face of God and were themselves illumined with the glory, so we, who partake in his Spirit, his Body, his Blood, we who are members of his Body, we are illumined with the glory of God. And unlike Moses’ reflected glory which faded, we bear in ourselves the Spirit of the living God, the light of Christ and the glory of the Godhead. We have received into ourselves that light, which shines on our darkness—and our darkness cannot overcome it. It shines into every corner of our lives, purifying, cleansing, revealing, and redeeming. And someday, when our purification is made complete, we will look on his face, the burning brightness of our Lord and God, and we will witness the fullness of the glory of God which our mortal frames cannot now bear. We will be made like Him, the Word, who became mortal that we might become immortal, and who allowed darkness to overcome him in death that he might vanquish death for us forever. That is our goal, that is our purpose—to become glorified with the glory of the Son of God. So as we live in this world where there is much darkness, let us keep our eyes on Jesus, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God in glory. Because in him is the light of the world, and if we fix our eyes on him, we bear the light of his glory out into this dark and broken world. Therefore let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Because his light is in us, let us repent of the darkness in our hearts, imploring our God to burn it out of us with the fire of his love, making us pure and holy—making us worthy reflections of his most glorious light. And let us live in hope, awaiting the day when we shall see his glory face to face. Amen.
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For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us; and his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. For us, to us, with us. It’s hard, this time we’re living through. Everything is so different, and in some ways it just doesn’t feel like Christmas. Over the strange, painful, and challenging months of this past year, and perhaps especially recently as the days have grown shorter and the weather colder, we’re seeing more and more advice on what we should do to improve how we’re coping. And now that it’s Christmas, on what we should do to make this season merry and bright.
In pandemic days just as much as ordinary days, the human heart gravitates to the illusion that I make my Christmas, I make my comfort and joy, I make my meaning, I make my identity, I make my community. Theories on how to do all that are endless and self-contradictory, but they have one thing in common: the subject of the sentence is always me. Eugene Peterson in an old article in the Christian Century poins out, “Christian spirituality… is not about us. It is about God. The great weakness of American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential… expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition…. [But] Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person. It is not about developing a so-called [better] life. We are in on it, to be sure, but we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. We get included by means of a few prepositions.” For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; and his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. For us, to us, with us. Peterson goes on: “[These] are powerful, connecting, relation-forming words, but none of them makes us either the subject or the predicate. We are the tag-end of a prepositional phrase… The prepositions that join us to God and God’s action in us within the world” [the for, the to, the with]… “are very important, but they are essentially a matter of … participating in what God is doing.” Christmas – either this year amidst the sparse calendars of the pandemic or any year amidst the overstuffed calendars of family and social obligations – Christmas can sometimes seem like it’s about what we do, who we gather with, what decorations we put up, what celebrations we attend or host, whether we go to church and with whom, what gifts we buy, what foods we cook. If that’s what really makes Christmas for us, if without those things Christmas will just not come, then we are not yet fully inside what Christianity means by Christmas, and our comfort and joy are both at risk. If Christmas depends on us, Christmas can be lost. If we are sick, or completely alone, if we burn the cookies, if there’s a fight about which party to prioritize or we can’t even have a party this year. All that stuff is painful, of course, but Christmas doesn’t depend on it. But, if what really makes Christmas for us is what Christianity means by Christmas, nothing can take it away. Whatever happens, it will come just the same. If Christmas – either this year amidst the sparse calendars of the pandemic or any year amidst the overstuffed calendars of family and social obligations – if Christmas is about what God does for us, to us, with us, nobody can touch it. Nobody can take it away. We cannot do it wrong, or lose it, or improve it, or make it happen, or fail to make it happen. Nobody can do one thing to change Christmas in the sense of what Christianity means by Christmas, because God already did everything. God already came in Jesus Christ, for us, to us, and with us. In Jesus Christ, God already made another world possible. It’s a world we are invited into at every moment by his grace and truth, and a gift nobody can ever take away. Those are the tidings of comfort and joy that come and stay, when you are not the subject of the sentence, when your Christmas - when your life! - isn’t about what you do, but what God has done for you, to you, and with you. This gift, these tidings, God offers over and over for us, to us, with us. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; and his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. Thanks be to God for his glorious Gospel. Merry Christmas. Just a few days ago, I spent an entire afternoon singing to my daughter, Pepper, because she’s decided that she a) will be cheerful just long enough for me to finish dinner if I’m singing and b) absolutely won’t sleep unless I sing to her—which has essentially turned my life into a movie musical when Trent’s not home. I’ve cycled through my favorite hymns and sampled July Andrews’ repertoire and eventually just googled famous lullabies because I was tired of singing the Sound of Music. One of the first songs to pop up was Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
It’s a song I’ve always loved, if only for Judy Garland’s velvety voice and the memories I have watching The Wizard of Oz as a kid. But I had never really thought about the lyrics until I was singing it to my daughter in the late afternoon sunlight. What had once been simply a beautiful song sung by a beautiful woman unfolded into a moment where I realized—or admitted to myself—that I, too, wanted to escape, to fly away to a land where troubles melt away like a piece of candy on your tongue. Our world feels like too much sometimes. We go about our lives trying to make the best of things when an unexpected bill shows up in the mail or we hear from our loved ones that no, they can’t make it for Christmas. Yet just as we think we can’t take much more of this, just as we turn toward our various habits of denial or depression, that is when the Church tugs us in another direction entirely. Advent is a season to reorient ourselves, to take stock and change direction. It’s a bit of godly choreography that this in-between season happens at an in-between time of the year, when the days have grown short and the weather capricious, when we’re all exhausted from holiday preparations and end-of-the-year considerations—because the reality of the world’s brokenness can no longer hide. The summer isn’t here with sunshine and late-night barbecues to smooth away old regrets, and the hope of springtime is months away. We are stuck, perhaps to our dismay, in a time of unveiling, of reckoning, and of dealing with the consequences. Faced with that pressure, we get the itch to find some kind of deliverance at the end of our yellow-brick road, whether that’s a bottle of wine or the latest television hit. But Advent insists we look elsewhere. It dares us to look at our world and ask: Where is God in all this mess? Where is God in all this mess? We might first think to look around, to try and find the bright spots in our lives, the early morning snowfalls and surprise letters in the mail. Which wouldn’t be wrong—all good gifts do come from God. But if we want an answer that will counter the temptation to escape or deny reality, that will cut through the fog of depression or despair, we need something stronger than that, something that we are actually given in our Gospel lesson today. “Greetings, O favored one,” Gabriel tells a very surprised and fairly frightened Mary. “The Lord is with you.” And he begins to unfold the story of Jesus’ imminent arrival on earth. He wasn’t to leap fully formed from the sky, nor was he to be born into wealth or royalty. He was instead placed in the womb of a young and unmarried woman who could offer him no protection but her own body and her own love. Oddly enough, the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, decided to send the savior of Israel into the world in such a way that he was set up to experience the worst the world could give. And yet rather than cave under the weight of what could go wrong—the imagined terrors and the real fears—Mary bursts into song. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Mary sings with such jubilation because God’s entry into this world in just this way proves that he loves the least and even the lost. He has not forgotten his promise to David, that a son shall establish his throne forever; but he has gone about answering it in such a way that the Messiah will be one with the poor and with the powerless. By choosing to come as a baby, to come into this world as the son of a laborer, our Lord has chosen to identify himself with each and every one of us in our weakness and our poverty, chosen to bestow riches and goodness on us even though we doubt him, even though we sin. On this last Sunday of Advent, we remember how, in that one moment, everything changed for us and for our world. Where is God in the mess? He is with us. God himself has entered into the mess, into our mess. He knows what it’s like for family to disappoint us. He knows what it’s like to wonder if life will ever get better. He knows because he’s here with us in every moment of weakness and in every moment of strength. Life may not be the easiest in the coming weeks and months. We may feel as though we are powerless, as though there’s no hope for it but to escape to another place entirely. In those moments, may we remember Gabriel’s words: “Do not be afraid. The Lord is with you.” AMEN. As a part of a get-to-know-you event some years ago the question was asked to name our favorite day of the year. Some said the last day of the school year, others their birthday and so on. I was so intrigued by people’s answers that I began asking everyone I knew, “What is your favorite day?” I still remember my mother’s choice: Dec. 21. I was amazed because that is the darkest day of the year—the one with the least daylight. My mother loves the sun; I was not sure why that would be her answer and so she explained. That day is the shortest but it also means that the light will begin to return; it cannot get any darker. The light is returning!
Today is Gaudete Sunday, Rose Sunday. The third Sunday of Advent, when the color is a little lighter to remind us that the true light is coming into the world! Advent is a time of darkness and of waiting, waiting with expectation of the coming of the light of our Lord. Waiting is never easy, at least at first, until we settle into the rhythm that it holds. In a lot of ways this time of the pandemic is an extended advent. We are waiting: waiting for this time of separation, fear, and grief to be over, waiting with expectation for the development and distribution of a vaccine, waiting and expecting our lives to find some sense of normalcy. Waiting and expectation. At times the waiting is frustrating even painful and often we want to be distracted from it and that is ok. But, hopefully we can learn from the liturgical season of Advent and use some of this time of waiting to pray and seek God’s presence in our lives. The joy we can experience in this time is precious and comes directly from our relationship with God and the love he has for each of us. |
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