Christmas 2
January 4, 2025
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.
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.
[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.”
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