Sermon - John 1:1-18

Today, is not only the first Sunday of the new year and the first Sunday of a new decade.  Today is also the twelfth day of Christmas, and it is NOT about twelve drummers drumming!  No, today is all about newness!   And, as we enter a new year and a new decade with all that is going on in this world, including yet more war that seems to be looming on the horizon, we deeply need to hear the message of John’s gospel.  On this day, we need to hear John’s telling of the Jesus story because, in this gospel, we find a daring, audacious, bold message that tells of a whole new beginning for humankind, a whole new beginning for the world.

The writer of John’s gospel is a big picture person.  The gospel writer begins presenting the Jesus story in a very lofty, grand manner.  And, in doing so, he is so gutsy in his telling of this new beginning through the person of Jesus that his first words to us are “In the beginning….”  If we have any understanding of Biblical literature, we will recognize that these three words are also the beginning words in the book of Genesis.  You will remember that in that first book of the Hebrew Bible we read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  John’s use of these three words is very intentional.  John wants his readers to know that in Jesus, we live into the beginning of a whole new creation.  The writer of John’s gospel is intentionally connecting us to the book of Genesis because, in the person of Jesus, he sees a new beginning of history, of humanity and of God’s involvement in all of creation.  In John’s telling of the Jesus story, he wants us to understand that, through the incarnate Word, Jesus the Christ, the Word made flesh, we will find a very living, breathing promise of new life.  Theologian, David Lose, suggests that “John’s story about Jesus is designed from beginning to end not just to tell us, but to evoke for us, the living, breathing promise of a new beginning to all of human history in and through the incarnate Word, Jesus the Christ. That’s why he patterns his opening after Genesis. That’s why John’s gospel records seven signs – [remember seven days as articulated in the first Genesis account of creation]?  John records seven signs or miracles in his Gospel and then culminates with the eighth sign of resurrection as the eighth day, the start of a new week, chapter, and epoch. That’s why – only in John’s Gospel – the resurrection happens in a garden, to remind us of the Garden of Eden so that we might see the resurrection as the new creation.”

Yes, John wants us to know that a new creation is what God is up to and that new creation is happening through the enfleshed, living Word, in the person of Jesus Christ.  By connecting the Jesus story to Genesis, John is stipulating nothing less than this:  God poured God’s own self into human form.  “This eternal Word was God’s proactive agent in the creation of all things – even life itself – and in a paradoxical condescension took form as a baby of the most humble of origins.” (Stephen Bauman – Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1) 

For all of us, as much as we want and deeply desire to see God, we cannot literally do so.  And, our inability to literally see God seems much more apparent in times of great need, in times when the darkness of life seems to overwhelm life itself.  That darkness might come to us personally through experiences of illness, death, job loss, depression, loneliness, tragedy, and even war.  At times like these, we are keenly aware that we are simply unable to literally see God.  As our communities and the world experience horror through terrorist actions, violence in our city streets, racial injustice and the many forms of hatred espoused upon others, we collectively experience darkness and are keenly aware of our limitations when it comes to seeing God.  So, because of our limitations, God – the eternal, universal Christ who brought all of creation into being – becomes human in the person of Jesus.  God becomes human that we may see God.  In the person of Jesus, God becomes accessible to us.  In Jesus, the eternal God becomes finite and vulnerable, all for our sake so that we may see the very heart of God.  No longer is God a disembodied voice from some distant place.  The incarnation enables us to see that not only is Jesus like God, God is like Jesus, and has always been.  God loves us so deeply that God is lovingly and graciously present to us even in the darkest places and times of life.  And, all of the darkness that ever existed, that is present now, or that will exist in the future is unable to overcome the light of the universal Christ, the eternal Word, the Word made flesh, the very life force that continually animates and breathes into the entire created order – even into you and me. 

Oh yes, John wants us to fully understand that, in the person of Jesus, God is doing something very, very new.  In days of old, God gave the law and the prophets to speak for God, to express God’s will.  But through Jesus, God goes even a step further.  God is actually speaking to us directly and personally in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  God is not separate from our fleshly existence.  No, God is profoundly and intimately present to us.  We, each one of us, deeply matter to God and Jesus is God’s love letter to humanity, God’s love letter given in flesh and blood for the whole world, as God in Christ shares in our human experience.  God is as close to us as our next breath, bearing the pain we bear, enfleshed in our struggles, working with us for justice and peace, and celebrating in the joys we share.

And there is more.  The coming of the Word made flesh has enabled those who follow Jesus to embody God’s word as well.  Jesus is not alone in this word made flesh business.  The creative, living Word is still at work in and through us.  Because of God’s decision to come to us in a form we recognize, in Jesus the Christ, we are empowered to reach out to those around us.  In fact, God is at work putting skin on God’s Word through us.  By the grace of God and, through baptism and the work of the Spirit, we are called to bear God’s creative and redeeming Word in this world and carry God’s Word of life and love to others through all that we do and the way in which we live.  In the person of Jesus, God has invaded this broken, hurting, warring world and God is working through God’s people, shining the light of God’s presence even in the darkest places of this world.  The living Word, the God of love, the Word made flesh has moved into the neighborhood, and that is what we are called to live.

So, on this first Sunday of the new year and on this twelfth day of Christmas, we celebrate the universal Christ, the living Word of love that has taken on flesh and moved into the neighborhood so that we can be made new.  Theologian, Thomas Troeger, has written a poem about that Word and how it changes us.  He writes:

How do you spell the word?

Where do you search and look –

amidst the coos and cries you’ve heard

or in a well-thumbed book?

 

Hold back the swift reply,

the pious, worn cliché

that softens how the child will die

when violence has its way.

 

Instead, let all you do

embody truth and grace,

and you will spell the word anew

in every time and place.

(Feasting on the Word, p. 193)

 

         It is my prayer that, as we enter a new year and a new decade, we continually spell that living Word of love anew in all the times and places of our lives – wherever life takes us!