Here and Now

John 1:1-14 (NRSV)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 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. 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.

I’m not going to make it a habit of talking about my children in sermons. I really don’t think that’s fair. After all parents get to see their children at all sorts of moments - when they’re at their best and when they’re at their worst. So if I get to pick and choose the moments I’m going to tell about, well, you see where the problem is.

But…I have to tell you this story. I have to tell you because it’s just the sort of thing you need to hear to really hear what John is saying to us today.

When Joel was young, probably no more than three years old, he had a birthday. And we had family over and we celebrated with cake and ice cream and balloons. We had a piñ ata and streamers and a lot of presents. Joel was very happy with all of the arrangements and really enjoyed the party, but when it came time to open the presents, he didn’t want to. We tried several times to get him to open just one or two, but he wasn’t ready. So those presents sat there for two days until the time was right. Then he ripped into them and ended up really enjoying them. But the time had to be right.

Now by this time on Christmas morning, I’m guessing that most of you have opened at least one present. Maybe you left a living room floor strewn with wrapping paper when you came to church. Opening presents is one of the best parts of Christmas. We’ve been looking forward to it.

But what if we never opened them? What if we left those presents under the tree for two days…four days…a week…a month? If we never got around to opening the presents, what would that say? That we didn’t care about getting gifts? That we didn’t think much of the person who gave us the gifts? That we had all that we need and didn’t believe that it would be pleasurable or meaningful to open another gift?

Getting to Christmas was all about waiting for the gift to arrive. Today…now it’s up to us. We’ve been busy trying to be good gift-givers up to this point. Now we need to be good gift-receivers.

This is important because of what we read in these famous opening words of the gospel of John. Last night we read from Luke who gives us the rough and gritty details of Jesus’ birth in a manger in Bethlehem. When we read Luke we can hear the angel’s singing but we can also smell the sheep and feel Mary’s weariness and even hear the baby’s cry. Luke gives us the narrow focus.

John wants us to see something else. John wants us to know that this story that we are celebrating today doesn’t just begin with an angel visiting a young girl in Palestine to tell her that she would be giving birth to a Messiah. John knows that the story is greater than that. It is not just a baby like any other being born in that stable; it’s God. The creator of the universe has condescended to be found in human form. This Christ we know in Jesus was there at the beginning of all things. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” This Word is Christ.

John doesn’t want you to forget the big picture. It is absolutely important that you know who this Jesus is. This is not just a great man who rose from humble birth to be a leader of his people. This is not a traditional hero’s narrative. This is not just a Jewish leader or a great teacher. This is not just a prophet or even just a king. This is the one who was present at the creation - the one through whom all things have their being. Without this one not one thing was made, John wants us to know. The whole universe has its origins in this one who is not only human but divine. The God who stretched the starry heavens, sleeps beneath them on this night. Amazing!

Huston Smith, who is an author and scholar of religion, says, in his new book, The Soul of Christianity, that he has always thought of the incarnation as a painful thing. It must be very painful, he says, for God, who knows no limits of time and space, to be constrained to the form and time of a single human life. He recalls a time when he went to a Christmas Eve service after a hernia operation and heard the minister talking about God straining against the limitations of human existence, ready to burst out. Suddenly, Smith says, his hernia operation was put into a new light.

It is amazing that we should know God in this way. It is astounding that God would choose to come in this way. It didn’t have to be this way. God did not have to take human form. God could have left us to our own devices and our own sins. We could have gone astray like abandoned children. It didn’t have to be this way.

But God chose to come. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. How silently, how silently the wondrous gift was given! And because God chose to come in this way, we almost missed it. Maybe we still do. John is fascinated by this. He says, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own and his own people did not accept him.” What if you gave a gift and no one knew it? What if people had the most amazing gift they could ever dream of right in front of them and they were absolutely blind to it?

You know how fascinated I am with The Wizard of Oz. This to me is the greatest insight I have gotten from that movie. At its heart it is a movie about deluded people. The main characters are all deluded about who they are and what gifts they have been given.

Think about it. The scarecrow thinks he has no brain even though he manages to figure out the plans to save the day. The tin woodsman thinks he doesn’t have a heart even though he’s the most sentimental one of the bunch. The lion thinks he has no courage but even he musters up enough to confront the Wicked Witch of the West. And Dorothy? She thinks she can’t get home to Auntie Em and Uncle Henry even though she’s wearing the very slippers that can take her back in an instant. They are characters who deny the gifts they have and set off to see a wizard who isn’t really a wizard whose greatest gift to them is to help them see what they already have.

What if God’s gift to us is like that? What if the miracle of the incarnation was so close to us that we can’t even see it? To paraphrase St. Augustine, what if God is closer to us than we are to ourselves?

So there’s this gift that God has given to us. There is this amazing incomparable gift that promises us life and salvation. All that’s missing is someone to open it up. All that’s missing is us!
This is the easy part. God has done the hard work. God has done the painful work of taking on human form and entering our time and space though God knows no such limitations. God has done the impossible in entering the world. All that is left is for us to open the present.

You know how easy that is! You’ve been ripping the paper off of presents since you were a baby! We can get through the trappings to find the I-pod beneath the tissue paper. Can we get through the trappings to find God?

John starts out his gospel this way because he knew what the most important thing was. John didn’t want us to be content with hearing what God did - he wanted to move us to do something about it. It’s not enough for us to know the details of the story of Jesus’ birth. It’s not enough to be awed at the angels and humbled by the shepherds. It’s not enough to see the magi kneeling at Jesus’ feet. It’s not enough to feel for Mary and for Joseph and the trials they went through. It’s not even enough to know that the manger of Bethlehem cradles a king.

What John wants is for us to believe. John tells us right up front - the universe was made through this one. YOU were made through this one. Christ is the center point, the hinge on which the universe turns. And some will miss how important he is. Some will misunderstand. Some will have the gift right in front of them and not see what they have been given.
But to those who believe…to those who believe, John says…to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to be children of God. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been before or who you thought you were before. It doesn’t matter if you’re poor as a shepherd or rich as a king. It doesn’t matter if you’ve walked the straight and narrow or fallen off the wagon. Where you’ve been before doesn’t matter. If we had to earn this gift, none of us would have done it.

But if you receive this gift…if you accept that it is a gift for you…if you accept that you are accepted…then you can become what you were always meant to be - God’s own child.

There really ought to be an extra figure in the nativity sets we put up in our homes. Alongside the angels and shepherds. Right there with the magi and the donkeys. Right in there with the father and mother and baby Jesus there ought to be a figure of you. Because if you’re not part of this scene…if you don’t see a place for you in God’s family…then the Christmas story really is just a nice old legend. But it’s so much more. It’s about how God loves us in the here and now. It’s about how God loves you and me. And that’s a gift worth opening. Thanks be to God.

Being the Christmas We're Waiting For

John 1:6-8, 19-28 (NRSV)
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light...This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, "I am not the Messiah."

And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?"

He said, "I am not."

"Are you the prophet?"

He answered, "No."

Then they said to him, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' " as the prophet Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, "Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?"

John answered them, "I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal." This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

O.K. I don't want anyone to panic or to get overly excited by what I'm about to say. There is no need for hysteria or undue anxiety. You should not need to seek medication. But here is what I have to say to you this morning:

If you notice there is only one unlit candle on the Advent Wreath. That means that there is only one Sunday left in the Advent season. Do I need to translate that into shopping days? That seems to be the way it is expressed everywhere else in our culture. 13 shopping days. And what happens at the end of those days? (This is where I say the thing that should not cause panic and distress.) Christmas is coming.There, I've said it. Christmas is coming! And despite the fact that we have been living out our Advent disciplines...despite the fact that we have been talking about waiting and watching and expectation and preparation...despite the fact that we have been reading the wonderful devotions in our Franktown Advent devotional...despite the fact that we knew, because I said it in this pulpit two weeks ago, we knew that we needed to be counter-cultural to combat the ways our society distorts our holiday...despite the fact that Isaiah has foretold it...despite the fact that John the Baptist has proclaimed it...despite the candles and the blue and the purple and the children's program rehearsals and the youth party yesterday and the choir cantata rehearsals...despite silent nights and round yon virgins...you are still not ready for Christmas! Gulp! You're still not ready.

So even though Faye and Judi took us to the wilderness last week to speak with the wild man who lives on a diet of locusts and wild honey, we're going back today. We're going back to John the Baptist, back to the desert, back to listen once again and to let God speak to us unprepared folks once more. Because we need a word that's going to get us through this mess that we are in. We need a word that that's going to make it clear to us how God is among us. We need a word that's going to make sense of the god-forsaken places we have run into this week. We need a word that's going to help us confront the forces of evil and the powers and principalities of this world. We need a word from God and the word is this. It's the only thing I've got to say to you today. This is it: God needs you to be the Christmas you are waiting for. God needs you to be the Christmas you are waiting for.

Now I can say that because I'm trusting in several things. I'm trusting that you are here because you sense that God is present in the world. I'm trusting that you know that God is here already. Now that may not be true for everybody here. It may not be the case that you have been convinced that the world is full of the glory of God. It may not be the case that you have had your world turned upside down by an encounter with the Living God. It may not be so that you believe that God was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to God's own self.

But even if that is not so I'm trusting that you believe enough and hope enough that the world is not just a place full of dead end roads. I'm trusting that you want to believe that life is more than a collection of biological processes, that there are things that transcend our understanding, that all the mystery has not been sucked out of the world. I'm trusting that you are dissatisfied with definitions of the world that make it less than a miracle. At Christmas time especially you want to believe that transformation is possible and that redemption is not beyond us. When I say that we must become the Christmas we are waiting for I am trusting that you want more for the place of holiness in this world than a wish and prayer. You want a God who is living, vibrant, and incarnate - a God who is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. For Christmas to make any sense at all, it has to have at least that much - a desire for God.

But I'm also trusting that those of you who have experienced the mind-blowing, heart-transforming, world-altering presence of God in your life are discontented enough with the way the world talks about Christmas that you want to do something about it. Is it enough to buy gifts and trim trees? Is it enough to watch the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge? Is it enough to look forward to a break in routine and a week off of school or work? Or is there something more to say about what Christmas is? Is there something more lurking on the edges waiting for us to discover about Christmas?

Let's go back to the wilderness with John. Last week we heard about John's ministry and the way he looked and where he lived. In the gospel of John we hear about who John is. Or maybe it's better to say that we hear about who John is not. There was a lot of contention over John and who he was. We think he looked strange, but a lot of people thought that John looked like a prophet from God was supposed to look. Even the camel's hair and the locusts and wild honey bit were not too unusual because, let's face it, prophets are supposed to be a little bit weird. They live on the fringes of the world. They yell and scream and try to get our attention to tell us that God is not happy with the way things are. They don't want to accepted and embraced by the world because their message, their burden is to critique the world, to hold it up to the harsh light of God's judgment and to say, "God expects more from you." So, from that perspective John looks like the classic prophet. Jesus is the one who looks different.

There were many people who began to believe that John was not only a prophet; they suspected he might be the prophet. Maybe John was the one Israel had been waiting on. Maybe John was the Messiah or a second Elijah, the greatest of the prophets of old. So the Jewish leaders from Jerusalem sent representatives to the wilderness to interrogate John. They say, "Who are you?"

John answers in a very mysterious way. He says, "Well, I'm not the Christ." That would be like you asking me, "Who are you?" and me responding, "Well, I'm not Russell Crowe." It might be helpful to you in distinguishing between Russell, and me (because I have to admit that there are some similarities), but it doesn't really give you any clue to who I am.

So the representatives of the Jerusalem leaders keep questioning John and all he says is that he is not any of the people they suspect him of being. When the questioners begin to get a little perturbed with this exchange they say, "Well, O.K., then, just give us something that we can tell those who sent us for an answer."

John says, "I'm the voice crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare they way.' I'm the precursor, the advance agent, the herald. But you really shouldn't worry about me. I'm not the main event." Then he says something that really gets my attention. "In the midst of you stands one whom you do not know." In the midst of you. You can't even perceive it. You're so preoccupied with people you think are threats that you can't even see the one who is the real threat to the way things are and to your way of life. You don't even know what's coming. And the one in your midst - the one who is coming after me - that one is so powerful I'm not even fit to adjust the thong on his sandal."

That's the real problem with our world today. We are so preoccupied with things we think are the big problems that we can't even begin to address the things that really are problems. We don't know ourselves well enough to know what is a threat. We don't have the language to talk about what is really going on. Among is one whom we do not know.

I read once about an experiment that was done in which people were set in front of a researcher and shown a deck of cards one by one. It was an ordinary deck of cards except that a couple of the cards had been altered so that there was a black heart or a red spade. The researcher told the test subjects to stop them if they saw something wrong but the people being tested could not recognize what was wrong. They were so used to what a deck of cards was supposed to be that they assumed that nothing was wrong even when the evidence of error was right in front of them. A black heart and a red spade could not shake their confidence in what the deck ought to look like.

But the researchers also discovered something else that was interesting. Even though the test subjects couldn't point out the error, their anxiety level rose. On a deeper level they were aware that something was wrong even if they couldn't put their finger on it.Advent comes like that deep sense that things are not all as they should be. I think that's why Jesus used the image of a thief in the night to describe his coming again. Jesus slips up on us when we are unaware to interrupt the comfortable ways we conspire with the world to forget about the radical message of transformation that God has for us. When we lose the language and the capacity to talk about what God expects of us and how God can change us, the holy, living God has to interrupt the world as we know it.

That's the message for us. For people who know how forgetful we are of God's presence, who know that we have to remind ourselves every day of what our baptisms mean and of the ways we have to cling to Christ...for we who get run down by the world or run over by the world...for we who give service to Jesus with our lips but deny him with our actions...for we who think that bills or boyfriends or girlfriends or job disappointments or even grief are the most serious threats to our lives...for we whose minds wander and our focus fades, we need an interruption from the God who gives us life. We need a message that tells us God isn't through with us yet.

But there's also a message here for the world and this is where we need to repeat again the one thing I wanted to say in this sermon today. Do you remember what that is? We need to be the Christmas we are waiting for. Why? Because the world will try to take Christmas from us. The world will try to co-opt this holy day and make it merely a holiday. The world will try to take away its threatening character and repackage Christmas solely as sweetness and light. The world will domesticate Christmas and it needs to hear something more from the people who know what it's all about.

Now I know that there are debates out there about how the culture is at war with the Church and about how seldom the true meaning of Christmas is expressed in the things we see in the shopping malls and on our television screens. It is true that the culture, for whatever reasons, some of them noble, has downplayed Christmas and made it into merely a secular winter festival. But if there really is a cultural war on Christmas I say that we refuse to fight it. Because what it is that the culture needs to hear from us this Christmas? It doesn't need to hear an assertion of our rights as Christians, but it needs to hear and see and experience a witness to who this baby in a manger really is. There may have been a time when the church could rely on the other elements of the society as allies in promoting a Christian message, but if they are not now we can't make them Christians by changing the language on the shopping bags. Wal-mart and Target and city governments who put up displays cannot be surrogates for the work that we need to be doing as Christians. If Target decides to drop references to Christmas in their advertising perhaps that's for the best because Target is not a community intent on living out the good news of Christ. The Church is that community. Target and all of the other stores will sell the world the trappings of a holiday that it cannot faithfully proclaim. Only we can do that. Only the Church can do that. Only people who have had their lives turned upside down by that baby in a manger can faithfully proclaim and live out this message.

So we must be the incarnate presence of Jesus in this Christmas season. If we are part of Christ's body, we can live out a message of good news in the concrete realities of this world. We can show the world that there is good news in the midst of its tragedies and wounds and sin. The world may know war, but we know the Prince of Peace. The world may know darkness, but we know the light coming into the darkness. The world may know death, but we know resurrection. The world may know how powerless we feel in the face of addictions and despair, but we know how powerful God is in to overcome even these woes. The world may know nothing better to say to the birth of Christ than "Happy Holidays," but we know how radical it is to sing, "Emmanuel - God is with us." The world may be enticed by the lights of a Christmas tree but we see in that same tree the cross of Calvary. The world may be intrigued by Christmas, but God will not be satisfied until the world is redeemed by Christ.

But how will the world know? Who will tell the story? Who will share the word? Us? We seem an unlikely lot. We're no better than the next, we say. But we're exactly the sort that Jesus chose to follow him. And we are not only disciples charged to go and make disciples, we have been given a name that was made possible by our brother in the manger - "See what love God has shown us, that we should be called the children of God." Amazing. We not only need to be the Christmas we are waiting for - we get to be the Christmas we are waiting for. Amazing. Thanks be to God.