The radical nature of the season
Christmas Day | John 1:1-14
Merry Christmas morning!
It is wonderful to gather with friends today to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Incarnate Word.
Each year, I like to remember that tradition once invited us into three different meditations for the Christmas cycle, gathering in the evening, the night, and the morning. And each offered a different opportunity.
At the first gathering, in the evening, we’d hear the genealogy from Matthew. Which you’d probably think is a stale recitation of begats, but it is actually a bonkers collection of people, some of whom have X-rated stories. It is also a giant middle finger to the patriarchy, as it reminds us that the family line wasn’t a story of great men, but of some real pieces of work and multiple women who saved the day. Including Mary, mother of Jesus. In a culture that saw children as a father’s possession, his property, that Jesus is Mary’s son is beyond transgressive. It is culture-shattering.
At the second gathering, in the night, we’d hear the familiar story of the birth, with the shepherds in the field (Luke 2:1-20). This story reminds us of the moment, the beauty, and the calling to participate in it. As much as we focus on the birth, it is the story of the shepherds going to see him that invites us in and helps us see the magic of the moment.
That story is our normal vision of Christmas, isn’t it? It resonates with us. And to the point that Linus can tell the story in A Charlie Brown Christmas and we feel things! Feeling is the deal with Christmas Eve, isn’t it? Images that cause us to feel things.
This reminds me, too, of a hilarious video made by a Lutheran that imagines Martin Luther trying to write a Christmas hymn with a couple of Anglicans. They try to come up with themes and lyrics and the Anglicans keep offering images of how snow is on the ground and puddings are to be served and Luther keeps saying that these things aren’t in the story and they don’t relate to the incarnate Word! It is riotous as the fictional Luther gets more and more frustrated at their attempts to make people feel things and he’s like, but this should be about Jesus! Of course, in the watching, the song Luther writes isn’t very catchy. It is beautiful, too, but it’s also a bit too spiritual, almost esoteric, separating.
The Luke story makes us feel things. Then we gather a third time, on Christmas morning, and read the prologue to John: a cosmic spectacle that isn’t ripe for pastoral images, but a spiritual vision of the holy relationship of Jesus with God with humanity.
There’s something to this, though. We treat it as esoteric because we don’t want to explore, engage with it, or we’re impatient and need an immediate answer, or perhaps we’re afraid that we’re not getting it. But we need to just try. Relax and try.
God came into the world. As a baby. Incarnate God. The Word of God. Jesus. Messiah.
Gods don’t lose power. By choice.
They don’t become vulnerable, dependent. By choice.
But this one did. Does.
Showing us a different way. A way that makes us rethink everything. Everything.
Because if God came into the world, that means God does this. This is what God does. Becomes vulnerable when others don’t. Gives when others only take. Loves when others only demand obedience.
God loves the world. Us. Me, you.
This is such a big deal we have to slow down to consider it. Because if we don’t, we’re assuming. Probably swinging from the impossible to the possible and being like, yeah, so? Of course it is. That’s tradition. Doctrine. Got that. Where’s the real stuff? Shouldn’t you make me feel something? Maybe sing a song about snow laying on the ground or how silent the night was.
How often we race past the most powerful images because they are too normal to us now. They don’t resonate the same way. And it isn’t that they just “should” or that we’re screw ups for doing it wrong or anything. It is that we’ve always needed to slow down, relax, listen, consider.
When other gods stay away, ours comes to us and risks everything. Invites us to join in. To love others as God loves.
Love, right? Love.
And then, remember, it begins in the eternal, in the beginning, before the eternal. It is both. The Word was with God and is God. Both. Present then and now and in the future. With. Among. Returning. Loving. Giving. All of it.
That’s the story. Don’t skip it. Don’t listen on 3x speed. Slow down and stay in it.
God intended for us to learn. To grow. Become. Creation. Create.
In the beginning was the Word. There at the beginning, when there was nothing, there was something—God. And God’s personas. All of them, one, there, present with each other. Creating and being present with more. Creating more. And then, present again. A baby, yes! Vulnerable, yes! So very small, to grow himself, become, yes! Human, divine, yes! All of it. Always. From the beginning. Then. Now. Always.
Stay with this, friends!
It will be difficult, certainly, to stay with it forever. For even the twelve days. For even the remainder of this year. To stay in the Christmas spirit, to wish each other Merry Christmas, of course. We’ve got a couple more days before we turn over to wishing each other a happy new year. Before the ball drops and we toast the new year and make resolutions and put our noses back to the grindstone and yet it’s still Christmas, at least technically. For a couple more days. Yes, it is always difficult, but please stay with this. Stay with Christmas as long as possible.
Not to impose the season on the people around you. But for you. So you don’t rush past it, out of it, eager to grow up and leave the childish things behind and you find you can’t see the magic of this moment, of God with us, Emmanuel. Of this simple idea that is so revolutionary, so improbable and culture-shattering.
Stay with this simple idea of presence, of love, of hope in the darkness. That the world, the future isn’t set to destruction. It isn’t certain that way. That transformation is here. Always. With us. In us. Between us. Before us. In the work of our hands. In our love.