WHAT’S IT ALL
ABOUT?
GAL 3:23-25; 4:4-7
JOHN 1:1-18
The parties are
done, the gifts opened – the pieces of colorful wrappings gathered into
plastic
trash bags; the tree looks a little forlorn – like an old man past his
prime. Leaves us wondering, what was it
all about? Is that all there is? Yet there remain the bills to pay, the
disappointments to soften, the loneliness to face.
And the New Year’s parties are soon at hand.
But, what was it all about?
John Shea comments
through the eyes of a child in Sharon’s
Christmas Prayer:
"She was five, sure of the facts, and
recited them with slow solemnity, convinced every word was revelation.
She
said, “They were so poor they had only peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches to
eat and they went a long way from home without getting lost. The lady
rode a
donkey, the man walked, and the baby was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable with an ox and
an ass (hee-hee), but the Three Rich Men found them because a star
lighted the
roof. Shepherds came and you could pet
the sheep but not feed them. Then the
baby was borned. And do you know who he
was?” Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars.
“The baby was God.” And she
jumped in the air, whirled around,
dove into the sofa, and buried her head under the cushion, which is the
only proper
response to the Good News of the Incarnation."
-- John Shea, The Hour of the
Unexpected
In fact, our
Christmas Season is just beginning. We
come to church today to celebrate Christmas I. It
is as though we are living in a parallel
world – a kingdom that runs alongside but quite different from the
everyday
life of secular humanity. We are looking
forward while the world is looking back.
In the last week,
have heard the Christmas story as told by Luke; we have mixed the
Nativity
stories of Luke and Matthew as we attempt to create a meaningful image
of the
infancy of God Incarnate. These two
gospels record a genealogy that traces the human lineage of Jesus. But today we hear a rather different genealogy
– one that takes place in the spiritual realm.
Perhaps I read too
much as a child; perhaps it was my attraction to great imaginative
stories and
writers like George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis; perhaps my education in
mathematics – can’t really say what is responsible.
But the concept of parallel universes, of
realities that exist side-by-side and influence each other unbeknownst
to the
casual observer, intrigue and stimulate my imagination.
At any rate, while
all the Gospel writers share aspects of both, I tend to envision the
Lukan and
Matthean stories, beginning with their nativities, as earthbound, more
focused
on the natural realm, as compared to the cosmic view that shines forth
in John’s
Gospel. And it is in his prologue that
we see the deepest forces of the universe at work in the human
incarnation of
God. While Luke and Matthew speak of
Christ’s breaking into the earthly realm in human birth, John points to
his
eternal existence, his presence and participation in all creation, his
centrality as the source of all life, and his revelation as being a
gift from
God. He is the light that overcomes
darkness.
Incredible! Unfathomable! The
awesome mystery that “God so loved the
world that God gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
may not
perish but may have eternal life (Jn 3:16).” Infinite
Love that is difficult to wrap our minds around, much less our hearts!
On the human
level, God enters our condition; a condition not so clean and lovely,
so warm
and welcoming, as some Christmas cards would have us believe. We have sanitized the whole scene a little
too much. We soften the rough straw;
spray Febreeze to cover the smells of the animals; silence the cries of
Mary in
childbirth; and tranquilize Joseph’s fear as he cuts the umbilical cord
and
hears the first cries of his baby boy. Then
there are these shepherds who come from
the field: unkempt, dirty, and poor. Our
aesthetic sensibilities not with standing, this is a shabby if sacred
scene. Then comes word that Herod wants to
kill the
baby and this beleaguered little family must flee to another country.
Yet there is love
– the love of God; the love that is
God. When you love someone, you look for
ways to show it. In the ancient days,
Torah – the word of God to
his people, and tabernacle, the presence of God among
his people, revealed God’s love for his chosen. Through
the prophets, we have glimpses of an
unfolding mystery: the wonder of our being, the wonder of our God. But we need something more. We
need God to come closer. We need God to
understand and to grasp what it
means to be limited, to hunger and thirst, to know loneliness, to fear,
and to
suffer.
And it came to
pass in those days that God said: “I’ve tried to show you my love in so
many
ways. Now time and my actions will speak
its truth in a deeper way, one that perhaps you can understand.
“And the Word was
made flesh and lived (camped, tabernacled)
among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only
son, full
of grace and truth. ...From his fullness we have all received, grace
upon
grace... No one has ever seen God. It is God the only son, who is close to the
Father’s heart, who has made him know” (John 1:14-18).
John tells us that
Jesus is the living Torah, the eternal Word, and he is tabernacle, the
Shekhinah
Glory, the eternal Presence.
Sr. Joan Delaplane
in a talk on Chicago’s 30
Good Minutes titled “And the Words Were Made Flesh” said,
We can no longer say that our
God doesn’t
understand what it’s like to struggle, to have to flee to another
country, to
be betrayed by a friend, to grieve the loss of a loved one, to fear
suffering
and or death, to experience a seeming absence of Abba. No,
our God has truly walked our walk; God’s
Word of Love has truly taken flesh. And the words of Jesus took flesh as well. He didn’t just say, “I love you,” to Zaccheus,
but called him down from his tree top, offered friendship and sat at
dinner
with him. Jesus not only spoke of a God
of mercy and forgiveness, but extended that forgiveness to a
frightened, shamed
woman standing alone with a pile of stones left about her, and to his
friend
Peter at a second charcoal fire. Jesus
not only spoke of God’s Kingdom of justice, but he stood in solidarity
with the
poor and the outcasts. He not only spoke
of a God who longs for our wholeness, but he touched a leper to clean
skin, a
stooped woman to straightness. He not
only said, “I love you,” to the hungry crowd, but fed their hungers
with truth
and with bread. He didn’t just say, “I
love you,” to each of us, but picked up a cross, suffered, died our
deaths, and
rose that we might know life eternal.
God’s gift to us
means we, each one of us, must now decide what to do with it. Like little Sharon, we could jump in the air,
whirl round,
dive into the sofa, and bury our heads under the cushion. But we are called to try to be God’s loving
presence in the world today, to shine a light into the darkness. A prayer attributed to St. Theresa of Avila says it well:
Christ has no body now but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours.
Yours
are the eyes through which
Christ’s compassion must look out on the world.
Yours are the feet with which
He is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which
He is to bless us now.
So what’s it all
about?
Christmas
remains every
day, as we gift one another, not with another sweater, piece of
jewelry, or
computer game, but with gratitude for the Incarnation.
We can offer God’s saving love in visibly
expressed ways and, in return, discover God dwelling in the neediest of
the
needy. We embody God’s love by active
response: to the needs of the poor, the homeless, those without jobs or
health
insurance; with visits to the elderly, sick, and lonely.
We can sit with a grieving friend or check in
on an elderly neighbor. And certainly,
we can extend forgiveness to one another.
Christmas remains every
day: Two kingdoms meet; Word is made flesh; the love of Emmanuel,
God-with-us,
is made tangible for God’s people day after day in our little corner of
the God’s
world. Oh, come, let us adore him.
John Dryden Burton
December 27, 2009
St. James’
Eureka Springs, AR