Here’s my sermon for Christmas Day worship 2018. The text is John’s version of the Christmas story, found in John 1:1-14.
I have some mixed feelings about Christmas Day worship. I can’t imagine not having worship in church on Christmas Day, so I appreciate you getting up this morning and coming to church, because it’s much more fun to worship with other people here too. Today is the point of the whole season. As we sang, Christ is born today. Come and behold him, born this happy morning.
At the same time, Christmas Day service always feels just a little anti-climactic. Our family had our big holiday feast yesterday. We’ve even opened presents already. After church, we’ll go home and then eat some leftovers from last night.
Last night, with the sanctuary full and the candle-lit carols, we heard the familiar Christmas story, the one with Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem and Mary giving birth to little baby Jesus and laying him in a manger.
That’s a great version of the Christmas story. It’s vivid, easy to picture. It works well for dressing up kids in cute costumes, or putting up creche scenes in your yard.
There are elements that hint at how important this birth is, miraculous bits like the star the magi from the East follow, and the angels filling the heavens to proclaim the Savior’s birth to the shepherds, and of course, that virgin birth bit, but most of the story is concrete, easy to picture. The way Matthew and Luke tell the story, the miracle is that the Son of God comes in such an ordinary way.
That’s Matthew and Luke’s versions. As you may know, Mark doesn’t even bother to include a Christmas story. He starts his story with John the Baptist and Jesus as adults.
And then there’s John’s gospel, the version I just read. John tells the same story, but his scope is completely different. Instead of zooming in on a family scene in the little town of Bethlehem, John’s Christmas story zooms way out to cover all of creation, the entire cosmos.
If you were here last night, in my sermon I tried to answer the question “So what?” about Christmas. Who cares about a baby born about 2,021 years ago? It’s a nice story, but what difference does it make?
Well, John ponders that question, and he concludes that this Christ-child’s birth into the world is the most important event in all of history. He steps back from the physical details of the story to describe Jesus’ birth as the light of God coming into the darkness of the world.
John’s opening words intentionally echo the previous most important event in history, the creation of the world. With the same language as the first chapter of Genesis, John begins his gospel with the words, “In the beginning.” There’s a lot of poetic language here, but follow John’s logic.
We know from Genesis that in the beginning was God, but here John says in the beginning was the Word. We know there’s only one God, so alarm bells are already going off, for us and for John’s Jewish readers.
But it’s ok, he clarifies, because the Word was God. The Word was present at creation, and everything that exists, everything that has come into being, has come into being through the Word. And it’s because of the Word that we have life. Genesis describes creation as God speaking creation into being with words. The best way John can find to describe God’s being is as the Word. In Greek, the logos.
As John tries to figure out how to talk about the significance of Jesus, he treats this as a whole new creation. This child’s birth is a new beginning for the world. God the Creator, the one who made all things, comes into the world. This is perhaps the most challenging thing we as Christians believe, and it’s the centerpiece of our faith.
John talks about the Word, the creator, coming into the world as light, shining in darkness.
I don’t have to tell you where the darkness is in the world. We know about the political fighting, about family in hospital rooms fight for life, about natural disasters like a tsunami that killed 220 people this week. We know about children forced on dangerous journeys through deserts looking for a new chance at life, about people right here in Greene who can’t afford to buy Christmas presents for their family, about families for whom this Christmas is not the happiest time of the year but the hardest as they mourn the loss of loved ones and remember Christmas’s past. We can see the darkness around us.
But into this darkness, John claims, the light comes. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not, has not, will not ever overcome it.
God is not distant, somewhere else, looking down at the world wishing it would get better, or worse, giving up on it. God is not occasionally prodding parts of the world to see what happens. John’s claim, our claim as Christians, is that the light came into the world. The Word became flesh and lived among us.
The Word became flesh and lived among us. That’s one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible. Lived among us isn’t really strong enough. Literally, it’s, the Word came and pitched a tent among us. It’s what God did in the Old Testament in Israel, when God’s presence was in the Tabernacle. God has come to dwell with us, in our darkness, experiencing our reality.
Celebrating the birthday of a person who lived 2,000 years ago isn’t that difficult. But believing that person is God? That’s harder.
The Word became flesh. We call it the incarnation. God becoming incarnate, coming to live with us, in our darkness. God with skin on. And of course, the incarnation, God taking on flesh and being born as a real human person, is completed on the cross. God didn’t come just to experience life as a person; God came out of love.
We hear the beginning of the story today, but John’s gospel leads inescapably to the cross, to God’s plan to redeem us out of love. Love for you, for me, and for the world. This is so much deeper than just some baby in a manger, than shepherds in a field, even shepherds with angels. John tells us the cosmic reality of God entering the world.
This prologue to John’s gospel ends with the words, “We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
We have seen God’s light in the person of Jesus, the only Son of God, begotten of the Father’s love. We see God’s light lived out in each other, in the body of Christ.
In a world with plenty of darkness, God brings light. It can be hard to see, but we have faith that God is with us. We can catch glimpses of God’s light in others, and as Christ’s body, the church, we reflect that light into some of the darkness.
Light shines in the darkness, in the world’s darkness, in my darkness, in your darkness, and the darkness does not overcome the light.
Amen