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Christmas Day Two years ago I was living in New York City, and as a seminarian, it was my great privilege to be invited to be part of the altar party at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for the midnight mass on Christmas Eve. I don’t know how many of you have visited St. John the Divine, but it is a stunning place; although unfinished, it is the largest cathedral in the world, with high arches and mysterious nooks and crannies, and the lingering fragrance of incense. It is a place where I feel the presence of the “holy”, where I am filled with awe whenever I step through its massive doors. The cathedral is meant to be a “house of prayer for all people” and it hosts a wide array of services—regular Sunday services as you might find at any Episcopal church around the country, and special services on a grand scale that you will not experience many other places. Such is their midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Imagine if you can a congregation of thousands, a diverse congregation ethnically, racially, by age and socioeconomic status. Some are regular church-goers, others may never have darkened a church door before and are there for the “show”. Now imagine a procession that almost fills the long aisles in this grand cathedral and imagine the voices raised in song, imagine Eucharist celebrated with thousands. It was an almost indescribable experience for me to be part of this service, and I know that God was present in the throngs. That Christmas Eve, as we do every Christmas Eve, we heard the Christmas story as it is told in the Gospel of Luke—the wondrous story of the Mary and Joseph taking shelter in the stable, of the babe laid in the manger, of the shepherds keeping watch in their fields, and of the choir of angels who brought them glad tidings. This is the story that most of us most closely associate with Christmas, and if you, like me, grew up watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, you may even still hear it being recited in the voice of Linus as he seeks to convey the “real meaning of Christmas.” At the conclusion of that service, however, I was introduced to an ancient tradition that I had never before experienced. As we processed out of the church, we paused as the bishop stopped to read the “Second Gospel”—the prologue to the Gospel of John, which is our gospel reading for today. I’ve heard this passage from John many times; and we heard it last night as part of our lessons and carols service: it’s mysterious and beautiful—some consider it to be one of the most beautiful passages in the new testament, but it’s not a passage I had ever really associated with Christmas. But hearing it read this way, as a conclusion to the service, echoing in the depths of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, in the majesty of that huge Christmas celebration, it was a dramatic end to the Christmas Eve service and somehow in hearing it that context, this reading began to take on new meaning for me. The Christmas story is the story of the coming of God incarnate, of God taking on human form in the person of Jesus, fully human and divine, so fully human that Jesus is born of a human mother into the humblest of settings. This is the Christmas story we know. But in fact, the prologue to the Gospel of John that I heard as the “second gospel” on Christmas Eve in New York City and that we heard here today, also tells the Christmas story; it tells it not by narrating the birth story as Matthew and Luke do, but instead by linking Jesus all the way back to the beginning of creation and beyond. The author of this passage makes this linkage deliberate by beginning with the same words that open the book of Genesis: “In the beginning” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. For me, the meaning and the mystery of this passage—and its relation to Christmas come together in four words—images that are woven in the threads of John’s gospel, but more importantly, images, icons, that work to break open the meaning of Jesus for us and to break open the meaning of Christmas: These are word, flesh, light, and glory. Jesus was the logos, the word, and the word was with God and the word was God—from before the beginning of time and beyond the bounds of time as we know it. The Israelites understood that it was by the word of God that creation came into being and it was through the word of God that God was revealed to them. When John writes: 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. he is making explicit the connection between the God of the Israelites and Jesus. The word—Jesus—became flesh, became incarnate as one of us. And that is the second metaphor and theme of this passage, and the essence of the Christmas story as well: that God loves us so much that God became incarnate---took on mortal human flesh—to reveal Godself to a humanity that had difficulty embracing and living into the covented relationship God had already established for them. Jesus became incarnate and came into the world to bring light—our third icon—into a world that was shrouded in darkness. This contrast of light and dark was first made in Genesis 1 when light and dark were separated during creation. Light and dark were often used symbolically in the OT to represent good and evil, and light frequently represented guidance or salvation (e.g., Ps. 118:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path). Light also has connections with the Hebrew Wisdom literature where Wisdom mirrors the light of God In the Hebrew scripture as in Jesus’ time, the coming of the word as light, meant that humanity was freed from living in darkness and evil. This is a metaphor that reoccurs throughout the Gospel of John, for example 12.35, While you have the light believe in the light, so that you may become children of light; 12.46,I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness Light was something reassuring, something linked with life in a world without artificial illumination, but even for us light is an image that is comforting and in John’s gospel light becomes another vehicle used to indicate the divinity and salvific nature of Jesus. And how appropriate it is (at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere) to celebrate the coming of light into the world, the light of salvation, when we have just turned the corner from the shortest darkest day of the year to the gradual lengthening of the days stretching before us. Finally, this passage highlights the glory of God. In the more familiar Christmas stories from Matthew and Luke, we hear the angels praising the glory of God in their song, we see the shepherds coming to worship the glory manifest in the infant Jesus, we hear of the magi, the wise kings who come to adore the child whose birth was heralded by the brightness of a new star. In John we hear 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. It is that glory, that grace and truth that we both praise and take respite in . It is that glory that shines in the faces of the children in the Christmas pageant and that rises as we join in familiar carols. It is a glory that both is manifested in and transcends the ordinariness of our daily lives. But most of all it is the grace and glory of God that surrounds and lifts us up, that empowers us to go out into the world, that helps us to live out our ministry as Christ’s body in the world As we go forth to celebrate Christmas, as we go forth into the world where often there is darkness—the darkness of poverty, of warfare, of hostility—rather than light, may the light that is Christmas, Jesus, the word of God who became flesh to live among us fill you with the glory of his presence today and always. Merry Christmas
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