December 28, 2008 Sermon
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Christmas I – B, 2008
December 28, 2008 Emmanuel, San Angelo
Allan Conkling
How do you describe the indescribable? How do you put into a word that which goes beyond feeling and thought? Ask my 12 year old grandson how he felt when he got his brand new BMX bike--the kind you can do tricks on--and he would say,
"This is awesome! Wow! This is so cool!"
Scholars believe that John wrote these words more than a century after the birth of Jesus, some 80 years after the Crucifixion. John probably borrowed the words from a Greek philosopher or a poet and changed them to make them fit the story of Jesus. By contrast, Matthew describes Jesus as fulfillment of the Old Testament. For him Jesus was a descendant of King David. Luke's genealogy traces Jesus' lineage back to Adam and Eve. He was, after all, God's son.
But John takes the family lineage stuff beyond any before. Jesus and God were one. The Word of God, the pre-existent Logos, was present from the time of creation. This man was more than human...He was God. Eternal, yet personal; divine yet human. For John the only way that the birth, life and death of the man born in a stable in Bethlehem could make any sense whatsoever was to place it in a grander context: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Good, and the Word was God." Or in the language of a 12 year old boy:
"This is awesome! Wow! This is so cool!" But why did the Almighty God choose to do things this way? Why is it important to us that God "became flesh and dwelt among us" at a particular place in a particular moment in history?
There is a tremendous irony in our faith, which is most apparent at Christmas. I am such a traditionalist when it comes to the holidays. I am an Episcopalian! We like things the way they have always been. We don't want Christmas to ever change. I want the tree put in the same place; I want the church to look just the same. I want to sing the same Christmas carols and hear the Christmas story; I want to see the image of the baby Jesus in the manger. What is ironic is the fact that at Christmas we are celebrating the greatest moment of change in human history. Incarnation means change.
Far from being a tame story, which we take out for a month or two, and then put back on a shelf until next year, the Incarnation challenges us to confront change and to be active in bringing change about. Change for the good. It calls us to recognize that Christ dwells among us. We are co-creators, and stewards with God in the world around us. At a time when we want absolutely nothing to change we are, in fact celebrating the greatest change ever.
The Incarnation tells us that God’s love for us was so intense, so powerful, that God was willing to break all the rules of time and space to come to be with us in person. Into our lives, into our comfort-zone God came and shook things up. It is almost as if God is saying to us,
"I took a risk, now you take a risk."
These days as we look around we see little evidence of the "grace upon grace" described in the prologue to Gospel of John. Life is bringing many people lemons right now. The optimist in me says that we will turn the corner soon, but who knows where any of us will be in a year from now?
On the other hand, the promise of our Christian faith is a beacon of light in difficult times. Who said life was easy? The word became flesh and dwelt among us precisely to identify with us in our humanness. He laughed as we laugh; he suffered and cried, and bled and died, as we do every day. Paul describes this relation with God in terms of endearment:
"And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are...a child...and also an heir, through God." (Galatians 4:7)
As folks head home at the end of the holidays and life gets back to normal time moves on. Remember however that we have moved from B.C. to A.D. From that stable rude and bare, once in Royal David's City has come a gift that is beyond description.
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