From Question to Insight

John 1:19-34
January 11, 2026
William G. Carter

 

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.

 

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why, then, are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

 

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.”

 I don’t know if you noticed, but we got through December without any mention of John the Baptist. That was unusual. The normal of course of events is to make our way to Bethlehem by passing through the Jordan River. It is frequently a diversion from our Christmas preparations. We regard Jesus as gentle, gracious, and kind. John the Baptist is far more bracing.

Jesus says, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.” John bellows out, “You people are snakes, wiggling away from the fire that is to come.” Jesus looked at a woman who suffered from a debilitating illness and said, “She is a child of Abraham.” By contrast, John shouts, “Don’t ever presume to say Abraham is my father.” He is harsh. He is every bit as austere as the desert where he lives.

Today, he pops up in the first chapter of the fourth Gospel. It’s a brief encounter; one of the few times we hear from him in this book. But curiously, he’s not shouting at anybody. We don’t even see him splashing any water or dunking anybody in the river. What he is doing is testifying. He’s answering a series of questions.

            Who are you? “I am not the Messiah.”

            Are you Elijah? “No.”

            Are you the prophet? “No.”

            Well, who are you? “I am a voice in the wilderness.”

            So, why are you here? And he says, “Someone stands among you and you don’t even know it.”

It’s as if John is being cross-examined in a courtroom. That’s fascinating, for that is how the Fourth Gospel concludes – with a trial. After Jesus is arrested, the Roman governor asks him a series of questions.

            Are you the King? “Did someone tell you to ask that?”

            What have you done? “My kingdom is not from here.”

            So, you are a king? “Those are your words; I am here to testify to the truth.”

            Then, Pontius Pilate says, “What is truth?” The One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life stands in front of him, and he doesn’t even know it.

It is this “not knowing” that keeps coming up in the Gospel of John. The writer suggests this is the human condition, that we are congenitally clueless. As we heard last week in that magisterial introduction to the Gospel, “He came into the world that was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own people. and they did not receive him.” (John 1:10-11)

This is one of the key issues of the Gospel of John. Apparently, it is possible to stand in the presence of the Chosen One, the Messiah, the Lamb of God, and not even know it.

In this book, there’s one story after another like that. In the little village of Cana, there’s a wedding celebration. His own mother says, “They ran out of wine.” Jesus says, “Woman, what concern is that to you and me?” That’s what he says. Then he transforms huge jars of water into wine, and hardly anybody sees it. It’s a curious story, except it points out you can be in the presence of Jesus and not know it.

Or there’s that nighttime conversation with Nicodemus, the curious Pharisee. We’ll get to that one early in Lent. Nicodemus doesn’t understand who Jesus is. As a Pharisee, he is thoroughly trained in scripture. He thinks he understands the ways of God, but he can’t quite comprehend Jesus. In this Gospel, he’s in good company. There is a Samaritan woman, hampered by her own religious prejudice. There is a disabled man lying by a miracle pool in Jerusalem and it’s not doing him any good. There is an enormous crowd of people up in Galilee, chasing after Jesus because of their hungry stomachs; they want to elect him king. They don’t understand him.

Today, let’s just spend a little time with John the Baptist. He gets it, but not right away. That in itself is a lesson: comprehension does not come on demand.

If you have ever struggled with all this Bible stuff, all this faith stuff, you are in good company. The gospel of John understands you. Even the professionals who reflect on John’s book say there is something about Jesus that is revealed and concealed. We might see it and then it slips away.

It reminds me of that story Kathleen Norris tells. A Presbyterian elder and lay preacher, she began to stay in regional monasteries and worship with the monks. Her faith was nurtured by those visits, but she admits her Christianity often felt empty. It seemed like the center was missing. One day, she says, “I got up the courage to confess this one of the monks." 

He reassured me by saying, “Oh, most of us feel that way at one time or another. Jesus is the hardest part of the religion to grasp, to keep alive.” I told him that I probably felt Jesus’ hand in most things during worship, whether I was in church at home, or at the monastery. Just a look around at the motley crew assembled in his name, myself among them, lets me know how unlikely it all is. The whole lot of us, warts and all, just seems too improbable, so absurd, I figure that only Christ would be so foolish, or so powerful, as to have brought us all together.[1]

 Well, as I look around the room, amen to that!

 The monk said, “Jesus is the hardest part of the religion to grasp, to keep alive.” As if to imply, he keeps slipping away or stepping out of focus. Even John the Baptist, elsewhere described by Jesus as “the greatest who ever lived,”[2] declares “I myself did not know him.” Yet he kept doing his work faithfully. He baptized others to prepare for when Jesus would make himself known. He kept pointing ahead when Christ was revealed. And most of all, John kept testifying, “I am not him.”

 The authorities wanted to know, “Are you the Messiah?” “No, I am not; he is not me.” It’s a simple answer, yet it’s a profound answer. The Christ of God is not a projection of my life, my work, my wishes, my politics, or my aspirations. We don’t get to decide what kind of God we want. The Chosen One stands apart from us. And if we want him, truly want him, we must wait for him.

We belong to a faithful community. This community is full of field reports of when we’ve seen the Christ. We are the stewards of a big, thick book called the Bible, which is offers hints and stories of when others have seen him. Yet we still have to wait for him. Trouble brews up when we try to force the issue. Or fill the gap. Or if we let ourselves get bored or distracted while we wait.

This is true, even of the clergy. I can recount stories from inside the religion business of leaders who do terrible things – steal from the offering plate, make empty promises to their people, put their hands where they don’t belong. Why do they do this? We can chalk it up to sin or evil or whatever we wish. At heart, it’s because even the religious professionals can’t manage the kind of God that we actually have. So, they force themselves into territory where they don’t belong.

And when these prominent people go off the rails, others are so scandalized. They drop out of church. Give up on believing. Look for substitutes, all of this understandable. Yet does anybody ever pause to reflect on what might happen if they became bored or spiritually distracted? It’s easy to point at somebody else and not see the fingers pointing back at me.

There’s that ancient story of Moses going up on the mountain to talk with God. And while he’s up there, taking his time, the people get restless down below. Then they get bored, then they get distracted. And they melt down their jewelry to make a golden calf. They start dancing around it. Moses comes down and says, “What are you doing?” And they said, “We wanted a god we could touch and see.” That’s not the kind of God we have.

Even Jesus, the eternal Word of the Father, taking form in human flesh – he remains elusive. As Flannery O’Connor describes him in one of her stories, “Jesus moves from tree to tree… a wild ragged figure.” There’s something so spiritually correct about that. He has come into the world. He is alive. He cannot be managed. Yet he can be worshiped. We wait for him because otherwise we are stuck with ourselves.

Can you see where the Gospel of John is pointing? Pointing to Jesus, only to Jesus, because he is the Chosen One, the Messiah, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. There is no other way out. He is all that we need. And John the Baptist says, “I’m not him, and he is coming.”

And the very next day, John says, “There he is. He is here.” And does the Gospel writer ever explain this shift in perspective? Not really. John heard. He saw. He knew. His hopes became his convictions. All he could say was, “It was the Holy Spirit.”

It’s like C.S. Lewis. Brilliant scholar, classically trained, professional skeptic. He heard all the stories, read all the books, even wandered into a church once in a while. His believing friends were supportive, yet he remained unconvinced there was a God, much less a living Christ. Then one day, he hopped on a bus in Oxford town and had the sense he was “holding something at bay or shutting something out.”[3] By the time he stepped off the bus, the door to belief was open. Then it continued to open from the other side.

Belief is not a destination. It’s a journey. We can read the Gospel of John and quickly discover it’s very good at describing all the destinations. But take note: the writer says what he says as his invitation for us to take the trip. We may proceed, we may pause, we may turn this way or that. We begin by declaring with John the Baptist, “I am not the destination. I am not the end of all things.”

Then we can look with John to see what he sees. Light, life. The Holy Spirit. Jesus. And that is only the beginning.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998) 162.

[2] Paraphrased from Matthew 11:11.

[3] C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (New York:  Harper One, 2017)  274.

From Genesis to Revelation

John 1:1-18
Christmas 2
January 4, 2025

William G. Carter  

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

 

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

 

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But 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.

 

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

 

I don’t know if you have started yet, but soon it will be time to put Christmas away. The guests have gone home. If they took their gifts with them, one less item to store in the closet. If they didn’t, we have a decision to make. One of our adult kids left behind a new pair of socks. Not once, but twice – so I’m wearing them this morning.

 Christmas can be a grand festivity. Someone called it “a birthday party for the King.” I like that. We wrap the birthday presents. We sing the birthday songs. We share the joy. We light the candles. We eat the sweets. We celebrate one more year. It’s a worthy celebration.

The writer of the Gospel of John is grateful for Christmas. You can tell from the size and scope of the extensive way he begins his book. The first chapter begins with an immense reflection on what it means for Jesus to come into the world. It’s so big that if you had these eighteen verses, you wouldn’t need the rest of the book. The next twenty chapters of the Gospel of John are illustrations of what he lays out here. This is the summary – the whole thing in eighteen verses. Meditate on this text, and it’s all here.

But let me point out that John never says the Christmas is the birthday of Jesus. He does not say that. He would not say that. In fact, if he were to say anything about Christmas at all, he would say Christmas is the first time the world saw Jesus. Jesus was already here. Jesus was already alive. He was completely present in every way, but he was not visible. John says, “And then we saw him. We have seen his glory.”

Who is the “we”? It’s those, along with John, who can testify that God has been found as a little baby, a little baby that grew up and lived among us. He ate with people like us, talked with people like us, shared our life in every conceivable way. Christmas is the first time the world has seen the face of God. John sings it out, “He is close to the Father’s heart, and Jesus has made God known.” 

That is the theme of the entire Gospel of John. There’s an old African spiritual that sings, “Over my head, there is music in the air… There must be a God somewhere.” And we want to know, “What is this God like?” John has sifted through the evidence, reflected on the stories, and discerned the truth, and now he gives his answer. If you want to know what God is like, he says, look at Jesus.

That’s the point of this entire book. Jesus is the revelation of God. That’s the revelation in the title of the sermon, by the way. Some of you thought I was going to preach the whole way through the Bible. Not today. I’m going to give you the central truth, according to John: Jesus is the revelation of God. He shows us what God is like, what God cares about, what God wants for us and for the whole creation. God gives light and life.

And so, he begins his book with the same three words that the first book of the Bible uses: “In the beginning.” Did you notice that today? What begins on Christmas is what began when God said, “Let there be light! Let there be life!” And there was life and there was light – in the beginning. That is the “Genesis” in the title of the sermon. “From Genesis to Revelation.”

The Gospel writer is making the claim that what happened at Christmas is inextricably bound to what happened when God decided to make a world. The Jesus who became visible at Christmas was already hanging around with the Father. To score the point, John says, “All things were made through him. Nothing came into being without him.”

Every bird in the sky, every fish in the sea, every platypus and hippopotamus, and every everybody – it all came through the heart and mind and hands of the One who loved the world from before its beginning. And Jesus was there – the wisdom, the logic, the joy of the Lord Almighty. And together, they stepped back, took a look, and said, “It is good. It’s very, very good.” Genesis begins with the generosity and goodness of God.

But the world doesn't stay with generosity and goodness, does it! And it still doesn’t! That's the point at which the rabbis said, “The story gets very interesting.” In complete partnership with the Father, Jesus gives life; life provides the spark of light, and the light shines into the darkness, and the darkness cannot swallow all the light, although it really would like to try.

By page three of Genesis, there is darkness. Don’t know where it comes from, but it is there. The grasping, the lying, the cover-up, the jealousy, the hand raised in violence, more cover-up, and the terrible consequences. The rabbis are right. The story gets interesting – and it’s still going on. It was all there by page three in Genesis.

And yet, the light shines. Present Tense.

When Jesus came into the world, it was his world. Always was, always will be. He had a hand in fashioning it, yet the world doesn’t recognize him. He comes to his very own people, people who know about God and worship God, but they don’t recognize him either. Just because God comes into the world is no assurance that anybody will be able to tell. Because they are busy – grasping, lying, covering up what they’ve done, doing whatever they can to put a spin on it to make themselves look better.

The whole time they are missing the central revelation of it all, that God has been before all of them – and now is making himself known.

That’s the truth, the truth about us – and it usually misses the truth about God, that all things come as grace. John leans back his head to say the coming of Jesus into the world is the central act of grace. Remember that memory verse that some of us were taught? From chapter three of this book, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…” Just pause it there. That’s the grace. The One who gives life and light has come – and the systemic darkness of the world says, “Turn out the light!”[1]

And they tried. Yet “the darkness” (which is very real) – “the darkness did not overtake the light.” That is John’s shorthand of the death and resurrection of Jesus: darkness – and light. And John’s good news comes in the present tense, “the light shines.” Even if we are having a tough time seeing it. Even if darkness descends like a heavy cloud, somewhere the light is shining. And it’s going to keep shining because it is God’s light. It does not depend on any of us to make it shine. And should we see the light, we can reflect it for others to see as well.

This is God’s mission to the world, to send Jesus into it, to continue the holy generosity that John calls, “grace upon grace.” And it happens in spite of how the world treated the One through whom it was made. God is just that gracious, “abounding in steadfast love,” which is the ancient way of describing grace.

Now, do you have all that? It’s a lot to take in. Like a compressed diamond, the Gospel writer has pressed everything he has to say into eighteen verses. If some of that has gone by too quickly, well, we will hear John unpack it in the next couple of weeks and through most of the season of Lent. That’s right. Lent is not far away.

But wait, what about Christmas? Isn’t that the birthday of Jesus? Well, according to John, “the Word did become flesh” – even though Jesus was already “in the world” and he was with the Father before there was a world. It’s enough to make a smart head spin.

So let me say one thing more: there is a birth between Genesis and Revelation. It is the birth in us, what John calls “the power to become children of God.” This is the birth from above, the birth that comes from God just as Jesus comes from God. And let me make this birth as accessible as possible. We don’t have to mimic some magic words. We don’t have to memorize somebody else’s formula. We don’t have to recite the Nicene Creed in the original Latin while standing on one foot. We don’t even have to explain all the mystery of it.

No, the birth is a gift. It is grace, not obligation. Invitation, not duty. All we have to do is say as deeply as we can, “Lord Jesus, we are glad you are here.” We receive what God has given to the world. There is life, there is light, and the darkness will never prevail.

  

© William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] John 3:19 – “And this is the judgment (“the crisis”), that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” 

Dreaming of Providence

Matthew 2:13-23

Christmas 1

December 28, 2025

William G. Carter

 

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

 

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

 

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”

 

On this Sunday after Christmas, I am blessed to have the help of three friends. You have heard from one already. He is our liturgist. Back in college, he was an English major with a fondness for good words. Another is a retired pastor, also an English major once upon a time. He’s a fan of good words, too. A third is a friend who now lives in my hometown. Like the first he has been a radio host. Like the second, he’s a retired pastor. Another aficionado of words.

It’s that third friend, Jeff Kellam, who prompted the idea for today’s sermon, a sermon full of poetry. He sent me a poem three weeks ago. “There’s not a lot of material on Joseph,” he noted, “so I thought I’d write a poem.” He calls it “Novice Father Joseph.” Here it is:

 

Joseph, with calloused hands and quaking voice,

pushes a curious critter aside

to gaze at the manger with a father's pride;

his heart full, he must rejoice.

 

The mystery once far beyond reason

is now so clear in this stable scene:

cave, crib, straw, stark and mean,

and the infant, bundled, bound, his son.

 

The carpenter knows wood, tools, and measure;

but holding one so vulnerable, so fragile...

could his arms embrace a child so gentle?

Of course, yes! Joe's wide grin showed his pleasure.

 

In days and years to come, Joseph would learn

to listen for more angels through the noise

of hammers and saws, for a guiding voice,

with both warnings and deliverance to discern.

 

But for now on this silent night,

he cradles the infant, both teary,

while Mary rests, delivery-weary,

and overhead stars promise new Light.[1]

How do you learn to listen for an angel? According to the Gospel of Matthew, you could begin to pay attention to your dreams. That’s how Joseph decided to take Mary as his wife. He was a “righteous man,” a “zaddik,” a person who welcomed the guidance of God’s Torah for living his life. When he learned Mary was pregnant, and he knew it happened apart from him, he was well aware of what the old Bible teaching said: get rid of her.

But he took the letter of the Law with a measure of holy mercy. He decided to dismiss her “quietly.” Then he went to sleep. An angel spoke to him in a dream, somewhere between unconsciousness and waking. “Joseph,” said the angel, calling him by name, “don’t be afraid of how this child is coming into the world.” The dream – and the angel – shook him up. He decided to accept the marriage, to accept Mary’s child as his own.

He “went the extra mile,” something Mary’s child would grow up to teach the multitudes. Joseph did it first because of the angel, because of the dream. The child Jesus was as good as his. So, why not have a Sunday to dream about Joseph?

I asked my friend Jim, “Got any good material on Joseph?” He said, “Not yet. Then he sat down a wrote a poem of his own. We need to hear him read it: 

Living the Dreams

 

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“Living the dream,” he replied,

“but I’m not sure whose!”

 

No doubt Joseph knew whose dream

he found himself living

again and again and again and again.

 

Like the dreamer of old

with whom he shared a name

Joseph’s dreams foreshadowed lifesaving.

 

Pondering what to do about a fiancé

pregnant without his pleasurable contribution

he made a decision and slept on it.

 

Then came the first dream

directing the living of his days

and those of his wife and her Spirited child.

 

This righteous man, obedience personified

followed the plan the Creator

sketched on his carpenter’s bench.

 

A second dream brought a call to action—

the child’s life was threatened by a fragile king

desperate to snuff out a rival.

 

The dreamer packed up wife and child

crossed a border seeking sanctuary

in a land where ancestors once flourished, then suffered.

 

Twice more dreams in the night

instructed his heart and directed his steps

leading to a place to settle down and set up shop.

 

Entrusted with God’s Son

to train up in the way he should go

we trust the dreamer lived faithfully ever after.[2]

As we heard in today’s Gospel story, Joseph’s second dream saved Jesus’ life. After the wise men were warned in a dream to avoid King Herod, Joseph has a warning of his own. “Take the child and hide out in Egypt. Avoid his enemy by hiding among Israel’s ancient enemies.”

This prompts another verse, a hymn within our hymnal which we will hear the words without the distraction of a melody we’ve never sung. It’s titled “In Bethlehem a newborn boy.” Listen:

In Bethlehem a newborn boy was hailed with songs of praise and joy.
Then warning came of danger near: King Herod’s troops would soon appear.

The soldiers sought the child in vain: not yet was he to share our pain;
but down the ages rings the cry of those who saw their children die.

Still rage the fires of hate today, and innocents the price must pay,
while aching hearts in every land cry out, “We cannot understand!”

Lord Jesus, through our night of loss shines out the wonder of your cross,
the love that cannot cease to bear our human anguish everywhere.

May that great love our lives control and conquer hate in every soul,
till, pledged to build and not destroy, we share your pain and find your joy.[3]

This world has never been kind to all of its children. Matthew’s gospel story is teaching us about right and wrong, about good and evil. It draws a moral line, declaring in story form that Herod is preoccupied with his own superficial throne. He wants no threat to his power. He will go to any length possible. He forgets that his abusive life has an expiration date. God will outlive him. 

Jim got in touch the other day. “I found another poem that you can use,” he said. It’s in the December issue of The Christian Century, a periodical we both receive. Of course, I couldn’t find my copy, so he sent it to me – and I’d like him to read it. It’s called “Carpenter’s Lullabye,” written by a pastor in Hawaii. He prefaces it by a quote from Pope Francis: “I consider Saint Joseph the special patron of those forced to leave their native lands because of war, persecution and poverty.” Here is the poem. Listen:

      Sleep, child, in this manger rude and small

The world will quickly claim you

Soon you will grow tall

 

From my workshop I have saved

Adze, auger, awl, and blade

Beneath your pillow and your pall

 

Herod’s assassins will not find you

I vowed to guard you in this stall

Papa knows your future, but has Mary told me all?

 

Forget the madness

Chaos, sadness

In the city, in the wild

For this night you are my child

 

The road goes on from here

I cannot tell you where

Papa must know what’s best

But miles to go before you rest

 

Baby, close your eyes I pray

Please don’t look on me that way!

Is it you who’ll save the day?

 

Sleep, child, in this manger small;

The world will quickly claim you.

No assassin, no betrayal

Joseph guards you in this stall[4]

I will call out two lines: “Forget the madness, chaos, sadness…” And then, “Baby…is it you who’ll save the day?” That’s the truth of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Ascension. The baby Jesus grows up. God kept sending dreams to guard his life. Herod could not eliminate him.

And years later, when another brutal empire tried again – and succeeded – God did two further miracles. God grabbed all the hatred that put Jesus on the cross and took it away. The world did its absolute worst to God’s own Son, and God canceled that sin once and for all. Then God raised up Jesus, wounds and all – raised him back to life, raised him to his rightful position as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We live in the light of those two miracles.  And we are awakened into the dream that God has for all people, in every time and place. 

Who sees this dream? The saints and poets, maybe. They do some. And few have been as eloquent as Langstone Hughes, the poet of the Harlem Renaissance. He could dream a world where every child is safe, where all people live in peace and all are welcome. I’m going to ask Chris to read this. We will pause to let the words sink in, and then we will move along. “I Dream a World” by Langston Hughes

 

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind -
Of such I dream, my world! 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved, with previously copyrighted works owned by their composers.

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[1] “Novice Father Joseph,” Jeffrey S. Kellam, 2021.

[2] “Living the Dreams,” James E. Thyren, December 2025.

[3] “In Bethlehem a newborn boy,” Rosamund E. Herklots, in Glory to God (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016) 155. By permission of OneLicense.net.

[4] “Carpenter’s Lullabye,” Gary Percesepe. The Christian Century, December 2025, 53.

How Do You Follow a Song Like That?

Luke 2:8-14
December 24, 2025
William G. Carter

       In that region there were shepherds living in the fields,

keeping watch over their flock by night. 

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them,

and the glory of the Lord shone around them,

and they were terrified.

 

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—

I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 

unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,

who is the Messiah, the Lord. 

This will be a sign for you: you will find a child

wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. 

 

And suddenly

there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,

praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” 

After singing “Angels We Have Heard on High”: How do you follow a song like that?

Of the Christmas carols sung in church, that one rocks the hardest. The stanzas unfold the Christmas story. They move from angels on high to shepherds below. They shift from Bethlehem in general to the manger in particular. Yes, the stanzas are excellent. But it’s the refrain that knocks the socks off.

There are third graders who have lost their minds as they warbled the recurring words. The melody is memorable. The rhythm is strong. The harmony is perfect. It is expertly constructed for drawing voices into a resounding choir. But how many of those third graders have any clue what they’re singing? Gloria (stretch it out) in excelsis Deo.

For many, it’s just a sound, a sequence of syllables, until they look it up on Google. Gloria in excelsis Deo. That’s Latin for “glory to God in the highest heaven.” Luke, chapter two, verse fourteen. It sounds bigger in Latin. It sings when it’s the refrain for that Christmas carol.

The words may come from Rome. The melody may come from France. But according to the Gospel of Luke, the song comes from heaven. The warriors of God’s heavenly court sing praise to the One who sits on the eternal throne. I can’t prove it, but I believe what they’re singing is the song we’ve just sung. Gloria in excelsis Deo. How do you follow a song like that?

There’s something about Christmas that prompts a big song. Big songs are hard to follow – especially when they are done well.

Maybe you sang along with Handel’s Messiah this week. Or the Philharmonic’s Christmas concert. Just three weeks ago, my friend Mark scored us tickets to hear an electrified bluegrass band. They played “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in twelve different time signatures and twelve different keys. Fingers were flying. Feet were dancing. It was beyond joyful.

There’s something about Christmas that explodes in excess. Melodies stick with us. Verses lift our hearts toward heaven. It’s all because a child has been born to us. A Son is given. Love has come. Grace is here. It began with the angel choir, breaking into song just outside of Bethlehem.

It caught those shepherds by surprise. They were minding their own business – that is, their business was minding their sheep. An angel burst into billion-watt light. It just happened. The angel Gabriel gave his announcement. He had already spoken to the old priest Zechariah. He had whispered to the young girl Mary. Then he hollers to the nameless shepherds:

Unto you a child is born. Yes, to you. To people like you.

Just to prove it, you will find him snoozing in an animal’s feed trough.

 That’s big news. Especially for the likes of them! The shepherds in those hills were widely considered scallywags. Inconsiderate, uncouth, unbounded, and unreligious. That’s precisely where God sends his angel. Not to chide them, not to demean them, not to exclude them, certainly not to punish them, but to say, “You count too. You are part of my family. Unto you ... all of you.”

As one scholar notes, it’s an enormous contrast to Emperor Augustus.[1] Augustus makes his decree from across the sea and says, “Go home, be counted, and pay me tax money. That’s how I will fund the soldiers I’ve sent to overrun your dirty little town. He has no regard for them. It’s mutual. 

By contrast, the God above every emperor says to the shepherds, You are already home. Home free! And my child will make his home with you.” My goodness – holy goodness! The scallywags have a Savior. That’s big news, much bigger than anything the Emperor could ever decree. This would be enough. The news would be enough.

Yet notice one thing more: that’s when the choir appears above them, shining like a thousand suns. The sanctified symphony explodes above their heads. Gloria in excelsis Deo. The song amplified the good, good news. It’s extra, excess, an unexpected gift.

Now, we expect music for Christmas. The holy day has prompted a thousand songs. Here’s my suggestion for getting through this darkest month of the year:

• 
  
• Pay attention to the songs that stick to your soul.
• Hold onto those melodies that won’t let go of you.
• Hum along, sing, sway, even dance.
• When the big music finds you, lose yourself and let go.

Music is God’s gift to express what can’t be said any other way. After all, what does it mean to sing Gloria in excelsis Deo? I don’t know, and I’ve been singing along since I was a third grader. If it means anything at all, it means there is a power of holiness greater than anything we can imagine. It’s enormous. It’s literally above our heads. It’s beyond our ability to manage it, shrink it, or avoid it. And it announces God’s favor. That’s the gift.

This is why the angel army bursts into song. They came to sing us into unearned grace. Glory to God in the highest heaven – and shalom down here. Peace, that is - deep, deep peace.

Why the peace? Because God favors you.

Why does God favor us? The Bible doesn’t say. I guess it’s just the way it is.

God favors us. All of us. All. It’s astonishing, really. Didn’t order that on the internet. Didn’t wait for it on the big brown truck. Can’t even force it to come because it’s already here. The favor of God is with you.

Or as the angel announced, The Holy One has found you. You count. You are part of the family. Gloria in excelsis Deo. That’s the good news.

How do we follow a song like that? We sing along. 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Joseph Fitzmyer, Luke I-IX: The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday) 396-397.