John 1:1-14
Christmas Day
Year B
December 25, 2011

A Mystery To Be Lived

We have journeyed together through the four weeks of Advent until today, Christmas Day, the climax of our preparing. Today is the beginning of the season when we celebrate that Christ is born. But what is Christmas about? For some Christmas is about crisply wrapped presents with delicately tied bows. For others Christmas is about beautiful songs that are only sung once a year. The abundance of twinkling lights and evergreen may lead others to believe that is what Christ is about. Others may argue it is about keeping Christ in Christmas or avoiding the pitfalls of consumerism. For 18 years of my life to me Christmas was about a candlelight Christmas Eve service with my family at our home church. God’s presence on Christmas was made known to me each year through the lighting of the candles to Silent Night and recessing out to Joy to the World. In 10 years, I imagine if you ask the youth what Christmas is about to them many may share about their participation in Feast of Lights. The closing hymn of Children, Go Where I Send Thee will resound in their memories and stories of Christmas for years.

The gospel writers themselves do not completely agree about Christmas. For Matthew, Christmas is grounding Jesus in his Jewish roots through opening his account with a lengthy genealogy that Jesus connects as a continuation of the stories from the Old Testament. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ruth, Jesse, David, Bathsheba, Solomon, Joseph, Mary…Matthew is saying the coming of the Messiah is significant because of God’s covenantal relationship with the people of Israel.

Luke’s account is the story most familiar to many of us. Without Luke, we would be short quite a few Christmas carols. “Sing choirs of angels”… “Angels we have heard on high”… “Hark the herald angels sing” Here, Christmas centers on the angel Gabrielle visiting Mary to announce to her pregnancy and later an angel of the Lord makes an announcement of good news to shepherds in a field tending their flock. These angelic announcements make it known that even from Jesus’ birth he is the Son of God and will topple the empire’s systems of oppression.
For Mark, Jesus bursts onto the scene as an adult being baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. The dramatic scene of the heavens being torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove then God’s declaration of Jesus as God’s Beloved Son.  In this account the significance of Christ’s coming is directly linked to his baptism.

Then there is John, who also begins his account without any of the typical Christmas images you find in Matthew and Luke. Instead, John begins with a poetic hymn, a hymn filled with images and metaphors. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  The lack of a baby, a manger, some shepherds, and no mention of the Magi redirects our attention to what John believes Christmas is about. For John, it is about Christ coming, taking on flesh, and dwelling among us. The Christmas story is not a momentary, flash in the pan visit by the divine but the beginning of the story of how God, in the word’s of Wesley, “tabernacled among us on earth, displaying his glory in a more eminent manner, than even of old.” God making God’s home among us is as if God comes and puts up a tent in your yard and says I am here. God is with us! Emmanuel is here!
The opening verse begins with the familiar words “In the beginning.” It is here, we are immediately reminded of Genesis’s openings words. In repeating these words from Genesis, the gospel writer is intentionally framing this account around the opening chapters of Genesis.[explain more] Yet, John pushes us into a different direction. There is a building tension as John links together what should be contradictory announcements of light, life, and flesh. John introduces us to this perplexing character, the Word. Somehow the Word is identified with God, yet different from God but in communion with God. Even John’s use of the Word, which in the Greek is translated as logos, carries with it a multitude of meanings. The word logos evokes the image of God speaking life into creation, the later Old Testament concept of wisdom, and the Hellenistic thought of ordering the universe. Logos also carries with it a mean of personal action. God’s Word is not simply spoken but acted.

Past Belmont Senior Pastor and current District Superintendant John Collet shared at a recent Nashville District gathering that when Vanderbilt introduced Coach James Franklin last December the administration and Coach Franklin both used the phrase “all in.” “All in” was used to describe their commitment to each other, the university, and the football program. On gameday, Facebook statuses, restaurant signs, and tailgating posters all shared in this “all in” commitment to Vanderbilt football. God born in a manger, God the Word becoming fleshing and making his home among us is God saying God is “all in.” God is “all in” for all of humanity and all of creation. God is “all in” from the manger to the resurrection. Thanks be to God!

Over this past summer, I traveled with 13 of Belmont’s youth and 6 adults to participate in the Appalachia Service Project. Our center was based in Harlen, Kentucky. I was teamed with 5 youth and one other adult. We were assigned the home of Pat and Kelvin. The first day we arrived on site with the seemingly simple task of replacing the floor of a small porch. This task was supposed to take one day. The project seemed simple enough: we would lay some plywood and then tile the 4x5 space.

In no time at all Ryan Deising, Aren Edwards, and myself found ourselves over our heads. Each nail we drove in created an additional problem that we had to solve. Kelvin, the homeowner, rarely left our side as we worked. I do not mean he snooped over our shoulder to ensure we were finishing the job properly to his satisfaction. I do not mean he constantly offered suggestions. What I mean when I say Kelvin worked alongside us is he stood with us on the porch swinging a hammer harder and more vigorously than any of us. In no time at all he would be sweatier and dirtier than any of us. Needless to say, he was “all in.” That is what God tabernacling among us means.
So where does this lead us? Between “In the beginning” and the climaxic close to our reading where “the word became flesh and lived among us,” there is brief mention of John the Baptist, who “came as a witness to testify to the light.” God’s “all in” does not require a response from us but elicits us to respond. A response to be “all in” as well. John is an example to us who have seen the light and now by grace are called to witness to the light.

This Thursday, I received this quote in my email inbox. It reminded me of the fact that we first must stand in awesome wonder of the Christmas story, the incarnation, whether it is from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Here is the quote from Dietrich Bonheoffer: “No priest, no theologian stood at the cradle in Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origins in the wonder of all wonders that God became [human].” An incarnational faith is not something that has to be figured out and explained in a cohesive theology or a creed. The incarnation, God dwelling among us is just that, an action. The incarnation something understood by doing it. To experience the mystery of the incarnation is to live it. Paul Tillich says living the incarnation “does not mean being obedient to the commandments, accepting them and fulfilling them. Doing the truth means living out of the reality … True discipleship is participation.” We are to experience Christmas, God with us by participating in the incarnation, living out the reality of the God who has said I’m “all in” to us. The generosity expressed through the Christmas Miracle Offering and the Chrismon tree gifts cannot be packed up like ornaments when Advent is over. Christmas is about a lived reality. It is coming to the manger like the shepherds, seeing the New Born King for themselves like the Magi, experiencing the mystery of the Word becoming flesh, and going as witnesses to the light. Amen.