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Christmas Day And the Word became flesh and lived among us… One of my earliest childhood memories is of being an angel in the annual Christmas pageant at church. I couldn’t have been more than four or five, but I remember well the sense of wonder and awe I felt standing in the throng of little girls with fragile wings and glittery haloes, listening to the soaring phrases of the King James version of the gospel according to Luke, and singing along to carols whose tunes were familiar, even if the words didn’t always make sense. Christmas pageants were part of my childhood for a number of years, and the sense of awe never went away. I thought about that as I watched Saint Mary’s children rehearse for their pageant after church on Sunday. For adults, I’m afraid, Christmas pageants can be a bit of a hassle—in the busiest time of the year trying to assemble a cast of excited and sometimes over stimulated children and bring some order out of the chaos that ensues is quite a challenge. But when the dust settles and the familiar story begins to be told yet again, and the strains of the carols echo in our ears, it all comes back—the wonder, the awe, the joy. That is the power of the Christmas story. Of all the stories in the bible, the Christmas story is probably among the best known and loved. From the annunciation to Mary by the angel of her impending pregnancy to the journey Mary and Joseph made to Bethlehem where the babe was born in a lowly stable and laid in a manger, from the shepherds in the fields summoned by the angelic hosts to the coming of the magi from the east, following the star and bearing gifts, no matter how many times we hear it, it evokes in us a sense of the divine. But today, Christmas Day, we hear a different story; today we get not a birth story but rather the prologue to the gospel of John, a passage that, although it rivals none in its poetic beauty, might seem at first hearing to have little to do with Christmas. And yet, it does, and like the more familiar story, this one too can evoke in us that sense of wonder and awe, can put us in touch with the divine. And the Word became flesh and lived among us… The Word became flesh—in fact, that is what the Christmas story is all about, isn’t it? God who created humanity in God’s own image comes to dwell with us by taking on our form, our flesh. Matthew and Luke tell the tale in very human terms: Jesus, fully human and divine, is born of a human mother into the humblest of settings, where he is welcomed by humble shepherds and learned kings. But John tells the story on another level. Rather than being concerned with the more pragmatic human details, John explicitly places Jesus in the grand sweep of cosmic events: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was by the Word of God that creation was called into being and it was through the Word of God that God’s power and glory and majesty were revealed to the people of Israel. 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 proclaiming Jesus as the Word there at the dawn of time, and Jesus as the Word who is ushering in a new creation, present and active in a new way in our world and in the world beyond the bounds of time as we know it. And the Word became flesh and lived among us… The author Madeleine L’Engle calls the birth of the Christ Child “the glorious impossible” and no matter how the story is told—of a babe born in a stable and laid in a manger, or of the Word of God moving in creation to become incarnate—that is what we celebrate on this Christmas Day—the glorious impossible reality of God’s presence in the world, God in flesh, God among us, God with us. It really is preposterous, isn’t it? That God—God whose being, whose “is-ness” transcends all our human categories—should become human, take on our form, experience all that humanness entails—joy, pain, suffering, loss, and yes, even death—out of love for us. It’s preposterous that God would do that, but that’s exactly what happened. Jesus took on mortal human flesh so that God might be revealed yet again to a humanity that had difficulty embracing and living into the covenanted relationship God had already established for them, and in that new revelation, Jesus brought light to a world that sometimes floundered in darkness. 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. We have seen glory the glory of the Word—in the beauty of creation, in the wonder of a newborn child, in the eyes of the tiny angel chorus in the Christmas pageant. We have experienced the glory of the Word as we minister to others and as they minister to us. We have tasted the glory of the Word in the Eucharist we receive at this table—all because the Word became flesh and lived among us. The glory of the Word who became flesh and lived among us, the glory of the one whose birth is the reason for this day, that glory both is manifested in and transcends the ordinariness of our daily lives. But most of all, the glory of the Word is what empowers us to go back out into the world, to live out our ministry as Christ’s body in that world. As we go forth to celebrate Christmas, may we go with that sense of wonder and awe engendered by the Christmas story, however it is told, and may we go inspired and emboldened by the glory of the Word. And may Jesus, the Word of God who became flesh to live among us fill you with the glory of his presence today and always. AMEN
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