The Mystery of God -- Word, Light, Flesh
John 1:1-18 Christmas 1 December 26, 2021
St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Williamsburg,
Virginia
In
the beginning was the Word.
I
love these verses from the gospel of John – which take us deeply into the
mystery that is God. We cannot fully
understand mystery. We can only enter in
to what we can only begin to conceive of.
In the beginning was
the Word. Can you even conceive of that – “in the
beginning” – before there was anything? When
there was only God?
In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Another
element of the mystery: that God is a communication event! “The Word was God.”
In the first chapter Genesis,
God creates by speaking. Do you
remember? Then God said “Let there be
light”; and there was light….And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of
the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”; and this
continues: six times, for the six days of creation, each creative event begins with:
“And God said.”
To create, God speaks,
as Word.
In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. [The Word] was in the beginning
with God. All things came into being
through [the Word], and without him not one thing came into being.
Then we read this: What
has come into being in [the Word] was life, and the life was the light of all
people. The light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
Since
that time of creation, there have been periods of deep darkness. Are we in such a period, on this morning? It sure feels that way, doesn’t it: with millions
grieving their loved ones who have died of the COVID virus, and the second
variant and the fourth wave of the virus that is upon us; and a significant
percentage of Americans deluded into thinking that the vaccine against the
virus is more dangerous than the virus itself; and burnt out health care
workers caring for unvaccinated patients who are sick; and burnt out school
teachers who have had to teach through computer screens as well as to rooms full
of physically-present kids who constantly need to be reminded to wear their
masks properly; and burnt out clergy and church leaders for whom nothing is
routine anymore because of ebbing and flowing virus dangers; and the darkness
of authoritarian dictators around the world; and dangerous signs of
authoritarianism in the United States as well, arguably, at the level of local
school board elections and county supervisor elections and changes in state
voting laws and in who is appointed to oversee elections, and the darkness of
gun violence, and …
It
is no accident that the 7th century Church chose the date of
Christmas to be at the time of the winter solstice. This is the time of the deepest darkness of
the solar year.
A theme of Christmas, of
course, is light!
In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. [The Word] was in the beginning
with God. All things came into being
through [the Word], and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in [the Word] was
life, and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome 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.
I
love living in the liturgical world, in a liturgical church! The context for the Christ mass is set every
Advent in the gospel readings featuring John the Baptizer, the “man sent from
God, whose name was John.” “He came to
testify to the light,” to call his
listeners to turn or return to the light.
Isn’t that the fundamental
daily practice of your life of faith? The
Spirit calls us, in our prayer, day after day, to return to the light in the
darkness; to pay attention to the light that the darkness has not overcome. This is the true light, which enlightens
everyone, which has come into the world in the flesh and blood of Jesus the
Christ. Through that daily practice of
return, God creates and sustains our hope: in our prayerful watching for that
light; in our paying attention to where we see it in other people; in being
that light of Christ that others will see in us. Is the alternative anything other than despair?
This
morning’s gospel passage leads us deep into the mystery of God and of God’s
appearing. God, the Word, who creates by
speaking, is now light in our darkness. 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.
For
the first time in these verses, the gospel writer of John is turning us towards
the embodiment of the Word and of the light: Jesus the Christ.
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.
The parable of the
gospel stories is in these words: He came to what was his own, and his own
people did not accept him. Those who
should have known who Jesus was, didn’t!
Those who were schooled in the holy law from God – the Pharisees, and
Sadducees, and the Scribes – did not know that Jesus was, in his flesh and
blood, the Word that was in the beginning with God, and was with God, and was
God! The parable of the gospel stories
is that those who are excluded by the holy law from God do recognize
who Jesus is! (And, of course, we tell
each other the stories about Jesus, over and over again, so that we recognize
Jesus. We tell each other the stories
about Jesus, over and over again, so that we will not allow any religious rules
to keep us from recognizing what God is doing in the world – because what God
is doing usually overturns any rules that we have thought are set in
stone. What God is doing is bringing
salvation, which is liberation, which is joy!)
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 now we are at Christmas!
Think of this: in all
of pre-history and all of history, the Word that was in the beginning with God,
the Word that is God, for less than 35 years, became the flesh and blood of
Jesus, who was born the Christ, born to bring salvation and renewal to all of
creation. As Athanasius of Alexandria puts
it, “the renewal of creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made
it in the beginning.”[1]
And the Word became
flesh … This is why I am a Christian.
I don’t know about you,
but for me, the word, “spirituality” has become so amorphous that it doesn’t
mean anything. When even a pretty sunset
is now called a “spiritual” experience, “spirituality” seems to be any occurrence
that takes us out of ourselves; anything that lifts us away from what is reality,
which is messy, and complex and, often, tragic.
But Christianity is not so much a “spiritual” religion as a physical
one! We are gathered in this room
worshiping God become our human flesh, bringing the supernatural into our
natural, human lives!
“‘Emanuel,’ which
means, ‘God is with us.’” (To quote the
gospel writer of Matthew; Mt. 1:23) And
where do we find God in flesh and blood, in our human lives? Well, when we read the stories of Jesus, the
Word become flesh, we find that he spent all of his time with those who were
weak, those who were suffering, those who were impoverished. The Word become flesh – in our weakness, in
our suffering, in our poverty. The Word
become flesh, who even suffered death.
The Word become flesh who was raised to destroy the power of death!
All of this is what we
celebrate during this time of the Christ mass!
In our own flesh and blood, we are included in salvation. We are renewed in the renewal of all creation. Our nature is elevated into the supernatural,
by what God has done in Jesus. In this
community of salvation, that happens every time we gather and eat and drink the
body and blood of the risen Christ.
All of this is what
Christmas means! (And, of course, we’ve
only pricked the surface of the depths of the mystery that is God.)
In the name of God who
is Father, Word, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Pastor Andy Ballentine
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