Christmas Day – B – John 1:1-5
Last night we heard the Christmas story told through the eyes of Matthew and Luke — with a touch of Isaiah added to the mix. We couldn’t include Mark because he has no birth narrative; seems that, for Mark, Jesus’ birth was really rather incidental. And, of course, it was. HOW he was born; to whom; under what circumstances — none of those things really matter. What matters is WHAT the child became; how he lived his life; if he had a vision that under girded the person he would become.
What the synoptic gospel writers — Matthew and Luke — tried to do with their birth narratives was compete with other birth narratives that were prevalent in the world of that time. Caesar was said to have been born of a virgin who was impregnated by God. Well, if that was what was necessary to make you a “god,” then nothing less would do for Jesus.John, however, had another tactic. He wasn’t going to bother with birth details; that would have undermined the rest of his narrative. So what John did was place Jesus back at the time of creation — as the WORD that spoke the world into being. John doesn’t bother with details about HOW Jesus and God could be one and the same: to him, they were, and he set up that belief at the very start of his gospel narrative.
The question is: does any of this really matter? Are Jesus’ birth stories — each one of them being so very different — the most significant part of his life? Well, they may be for some people, but they’re not for a great many folks.
Each of the gospel writers was trying to explain something he DIDN’T witness. They weren’t writing HISTORY but a statement of meaning. They wanted to share what Jesus’ life meant to them, what it meant to others and to the world. That being the case, what meaning can we take from these stories? What can we learn from them? I’m not talking about details, like Matthew including sages coming from the East or Luke mentioning angels proclaiming to shepherds in the fields. I’m talking about what underlies these narratives: what were the gospel writers attempting to convey when they wrote their stories as they did?
In some ways, the gospel writers weren’t really all that different than you or I. When we believe something — REALLY believe it — that “something” shapes and molds the way we live our lives and even the way we “see” things. Our beliefs impact our entire perspective. We know that from the way the dominant worldview impacted most of the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures and even some of the writers of the New Testament. If you believe, as they did, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people AND that God controls everything, then when something bad happens, it stands to “reason” that God must have caused it. Likewise, if something good happens, you must have been good enough to be rewarded by God. To a large degree, that mindset still exists here in the 21st century. We’ve witnessed a great many tragedies within the last 10-11 years, and after they occur, some supposedly religious person states that the tragedy was caused by God — for some obscure reason or other. They hypothesize these reasons based on their particular beliefs and mindset.
So, whether for good or bad, what we believe impacts how we perceive many things. For the gospel writer, John — the last gospel writer included in the Bible, though hardly the last one to pen a gospel — Jesus wasn’t simply God’s messiah, God’s “anointed one.” Jesus was God. Anyone who reads John’s gospel doesn’t encounter a human being who might or might not be “from God”; John is totally CONVINCED that Jesus IS God and he writes his story to stress that point. He believes it and he wants to convince everyone else of his belief. That’s why his gospel begins as it does. John doesn’t want even his introduction to detract from his primary thesis.
Needless to say, we can agree or disagree with any of the gospel writers. But what we need to understand is that their stories were told from a theological point of view, NOT from a factual point of view. If we believe their stories are “factual,” then we are confronted with the necessity of comparing one with the other and saying: “Well, who told the story MOST factually, Matthew, Mark — who didn’t tell it at all; Luke or John? But “facts” weren’t the basis of their writings: evangelism was. Their purpose was to convince others of what they believed.
Each of the gospel writers was “right” — at least from their unique point of view. Matthew and Luke were convinced that Jesus was the long-awaited one from God, God’s anointed child — and so they told their stories in such a way that that their audience might embrace the stories they told. Some embraced the idea that Jesus was the one about whom the prophets spoke; or some embraced the image that Jesus would turn the world on its head by lifting up the lowly and berating those who oppressed others. John, however, told his story differently: What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. I probably accept John’s statement somewhat differently than the way he meant it, but I accept it as being valid. Jesus introduced the world to a new and different kind of life, a life that was centered on others, a life that showed God’s compassion to the WORLD — not simply to those whom others thought should be blessed but to those whom others tended to bypass. I think “ALL” is the operable word in the description: Jesus was the light of all people. ALL isn’t a quantifiable word: it means everyone.
In the birth of Jesus, God was resetting creation, giving fresh purpose to humanity. God was creating a new people and new ways for people to understand and connect their lives. And Jesus became the center of that new creation, the personification of that new humanity. His forming of friendship circles; venturing beyond tradition; his embracing of enemies and outcast, Pharisee and fool; his light amid darkness; his healings and his call to justice and mercy — these were what God wanted for a new age.
God called into being a new people, not to fulfill ancient prophecies but to start a new day, shine a new light, speak a new word. That’s the message that all the gospel writers were trying to share.
While I was writing this sermon, I received a card from an inmate whom I’ve known longer than any other. It simply said: “God’s infinite love…What better gift than this?” That, to me, says it all: Jesus came to SHOW us God’s infinite love — in a way it had never been shown before.
That’s the message of Christmas. It’s not about who said what to whom. It’s not about Mary being a virgin or angels proclaiming to shepherds. It’s not about whether the townsfolk gossiped about Mary or what Joseph contemplated doing BEFORE he was visited by an angel. It’s about God’s infinite love — something that Jesus embodied with his very being. Jesus was the most egalitarian person who ever lived. He didn’t care if you were a well-educated Pharisee like Nicodemus or a leper living on the outskirts of town; to Jesus, you were a human being, a child of God. Regardless of WHO you were or your STATUS in life, you mattered to Jesus BECAUSE you mattered to God.
Jesus’ presence in the world must have impacted a great many people — though at first, they may have thought him a bit “weird.” Who treats everyone the same; who cares as much about the lowliest of people as about the most elevated? It wasn’t incidental that Luke wrote about angels proclaiming Jesus’ birth to shepherds; shepherds were lowly people — they had no land; they worked for others; because they worked with animals, they couldn’t even enter theTemple. Yet they mattered to God, and to Jesus — which is why Luke included them in his story — whether they were actually there or not.
And what about the magi who will show up some time from now; why did Matthew include them? Well, they were Gentiles; they were not from God’s CHOSEN people. Including them meant that God was widening the circle to make sure everyone was included — and Jesus would include them, too. No one was beyond his scope of concern, just as no one is beyond God’s scope of concern.
The question is: why is it so hard for us to understand this? We squabble about DETAILS when the details aren’t the point. The point is that Jesus came to show the world a NEW WAY, a way where love included everyone, where love and hope and peace and joy weren’t showered on a few but where they were lavished on everyone.
That’s the message of Christmas. It’s about a God whose arms spread wide enough to envelop the entire world. Love and Grace are what makes Christmas so special. And the wonderful thing is that neither Love nor Grace is limited to Christmas; they’re presents that keep giving year-round and into forever. Amen.
This sermon was written by the Rev. Janet Weiblen, Intentional Interim Minister at Weston Christian Church. It can only be used with permission of the author. revj@kc.rr.com.
