Christmas III Year A 2007, John 1:1-14

The Rev. Kristen Dobyns

Good morning. Happy Christmas to you. Joyous Christmas to you. Today we celebrate the miracle of God’s incarnation as a human being. We celebrate God’s Word, becoming flesh as the infant son of Mary. Yet our story is strangely different from the gospel of Luke which we heard last night.

First, on Sunday we heard about Joseph, the dreamer, who listened to the angel. Joseph who chose to marry his young betrothed Mary, despite the scandal of her out of wedlock pregnancy.

On Christmas Eve, we heard the story from Luke’s gospel of Jesus’ birth. We heard how he was wrapped in linens and laid in a manger. We heard about the angels telling the shepherds of the wondrous birth, of angels and shepherds singing glory to God. We heard how Mary pondered all these things in her heart.

Today, we listen to another version of the story from the gospel of John. This reading is strikingly different.

Today we begin with echoes of Genesis chapter one, where God created the world by speaking it into existence: Light, sky, land, seed bearing plants, stars, the sun and moon, fish and all life in the oceans, land animals of all kinds, four legged, reptiles, bugs, and then humans in God’s own image.

Today, the fourth Evangelist connects Jesus the man, with the Word. That Word which spoke creation into being at the beginning of everything. In Judaism, the Word was Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew scripture).

Luke and Matthew have told the story of how Jesus was born into a human family. The gospel of John, expands the story to show us that Jesus, the infant child, is also the Word of God: The Word that was there from the beginning, the Word that was with God, the Word that was God.

Here we have the introduction of the idea of the cosmic Christ, the creator of the universe. ‘All things came in to being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.’ [Our language simply fails at understanding the infinite mystery of God. The Word is not a he or a she. The Greek for word was Logos, which was a masculine noun. But in the French translation it is La Parole. In that version it reads, ‘She was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through her and without her not one thing came into being. In her was life and that life was the light of men.’]

This is a mystery beyond our comprehension, beyond our vocabulary, beyond our imaginations. How do we wrap our minds around this idea. To me, it is like when I was around twelve years old. I would look at the stars in the sky, and try to imagine what it meant to have an infinite universe, a universe that went on and on and never stopped. Then I would wonder, if it isn’t infinite, what is beyond it. Wouldn’t that be universe too? My mind would go in circles as I tried to comprehend the mystery of existence.

In the same way, it is easy for my mind to go in circles on the ideas from today’s readings. So, how could God create everything through expression of the spoken word? So, if the Word was from the beginning with God, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, then how did that Word become flesh and live among us? It is unexplainable to me. It is a mystery.

In John’s gospel, the first eighteen verses are a prologue. They are an introduction to the story of Jesus’ life on earth. Many believe these words are echoes from an early Christian hymn of praise. Today we only hear the first fourteen verses of John’s prologue. Today our story ends with the miracle and mystery. This cosmic Christ, this Word who was from the beginning, ‘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.’

Today, we are brought from before time, before creation, through creation by God’s spoken Word, to the Incarnation, to Christmas day. Not in the story of how the baby Jesus was saved when Joseph took the pregnant Mary as his wife, not in the story of shepherd’s who watched their flocks by night, not in the story of the baby Jesus’ wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in the manger. Instead, we have a story which brings the divinity of Christ into the incarnation. We have a story with mystery, a story of cosmic proportions, the story of a God who called all creation into being through the Word.

And then, when the story had soured, through multiple failures, from the tower of Babel, the Flood, the exodus from Egypt, the Exile, through judges and kings, through sin and mistakes; a miracle from God. The Word became flesh and lived among us. And, the people who were there saw his glory, experienced his power, his love, and became children of God.

I can’t explain this mystery, but I will invite you into the mystery. Today we are invited into the mystery of God’s love. Listen to these verses again, ‘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.” Or in the translation by Eugene Petersen “But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of God-selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten.”

We are offered a choice, a choice we make anew each day. We can accept this wonderful relationship with God through the Word made flesh or we can choose not to accept it, to reject the light and life offered to us.

It is incomprehensible, it is a mystery, but it will transform our lives. As we receive Him, and believe in His name we are drawn into becoming our true selves, our child-of God-selves. Then we too can proclaim with the Evangelist, “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.”

Amen.