A Word In a Manger

 December 19 2021

John 1:1-18

         Today we will be transitioning from the season of Advent to the season of Christmas. This is why today, there will be two separate messages based off of two different scriptures, separate by some of our favorite Christmas carols. So, this first message, from the first part of John’s gospel, is, as we will see, a great scripture to help us move from the end of Advent so that we then might celebrate the beginning of the Christmas season. This first part of the first chapter of John could be said to be John’s version of the Christmas story but since it is so abstract it is hard to get all that emotional about this story as we do with the stories of the birth of Jesus that we find in Matthew and Luke’s accounts. I mean its just hard to come up with a Christmas carol using what John has given to us; I mean “A Word in a Manger”, just seems a bit strange. Yet, despite its difficulty for us to make sense of what is written by John, what I find is that it is really worth our while to work and figure out just what he is attempting to tell us about the birth of Jesus.

         John begins by telling us that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Now, what is interesting is that the people who originally translated what John wrote from the original Greek is that they had trouble figuring out just what he was trying to say because if they would have just translated it as it should have been it should read that the Word was toward God as if the Word was spoken to God which is interesting. The Word then is what is spoken from each member of the Trinity to each other. Once we understand this then we should be curious what is the content of the conversation that is been going on in the heavens from the beginning. We are helped in our search to understand just what is this Word that is spoken eternal in the heavens from the seventh verse of the second chapter of the first letter of John. There, John writes, “Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.” So, here John is clearly stating that the word that is the old commandment, this is the same word spoken of in the gospel of John. This word, John tells us is the old commandment that we have had from the beginning which again is the same beginning that John writes about in his gospel account. The Word spoken in heaven is the same as the commandment that God has always spoke to his people, the old commandment that we find in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy that we are to love our God with all of our heart, with all of our life and with all of our resources. We can say then, that the Word is none other than love.

           This love of God that was required of the people of Israel was to find its expression in the bearing of God’s name out into the world. The name that God was to be known by is that he is a God of compassion and faithfulness, this is how the world was to know God, through the actions of his people. However, in spite of all that God commanded of his people they utterly failed to be people who demonstrated to the world that their God was and is a God of compassion and faithfulness. They ended up being people of injustice and violence and therefore God had no choice but to send his people into exile. This is where we entered the story during Advent. The first week of Advent we heard how God told his people that during their seventy years in Babylon they were to seek the peace of their captors, the Babylonians, and only then would they themselves discover the peace they desired. This peace would be the outgrowth of their obedience to the commandment of God, to love him by doing what he had commanded them to do which was that they should be people of peace.

         The second week of Advent we caught up with the people of Israel in Babylon. There through the prophet of Ezekiel the people were to come to know God as their Creator, the one who had fearfully and wonderfully created them and gave them life. They were to understand that when God created them his creative act had made a bond with them. It was because of this bond, God’s people were to understand that no matter where they went they could always have the assurance that their God was with them. It is the faithfulness of God that would be the source of their faith. 

         Last week, we heard of God’s plan to raise up one from the house of David, the one called the Servant, who would bear the iniquities of God’s people. God would do this because his thoughts and his ways are higher than our own. You see, it is because God has compassion on us, a compassion that comes from his creation of us, this is why he is willing to pay an infinite price to overcome the pain and the grief that we bring into our relationship with him. This pain and grief is a result of us refusing to see each person as being fearfully and wonderfully made by God, as someone who is of infinite worth to God. It is precisely that we are of such infinite worth to God that he is willing to pay an infinite amount to forgive us and it is in our forgiveness that we are to become people who forgive others.  Who a person is, that they are a masterpiece of God, this is to be of far greater of importance to us than the harm and pain that we might have endured from them. When we seek to be reconciled to those we have harmed and to those who have harmed us, this is the greatest gift we can give to God because this is when we are most like him.

         So with all this we come today, with the gospel of John, and the Word that is spoken of in the Trinity, the Word that is the commandment of God to love, a commandment which God’s own people failed miserably to be obedient to. This Word, we are told made all things and in this Word was life and this life was the light of men. Once again, we are not exactly sure what John means when he writes these words.  And once again, his first letter proves to be the help we need. In the first chapter of John’s letter, we read that which “was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life-this life was made manifest, we have seen this life…” The life that comes out of this Word this is the life that Jesus came and lived among us. It was a life that they could listen to, a life that they could watch move and interact with the people in this world and a life that they could feel as they lived life with him. So, just what was this light that this life of Jesus had that was as John tells us is the light of all of us? Well, if we go back to the second chapter of the first letter of John we read that, yes, the Word was the old commandment but at the same time it is a new commandment because it was true in Jesus. The word translated as “true” here is a word that means an undeniable reality that cannot be hidden. In the life of Jesus was seen a love of God and people, a love which could not be hidden; it was a love in plain sight. This is why John goes on to say because this reality was seen in the life of Jesus and also in those who also live life in that reality, the darkness is passing away, the true light is already shining. So, whoever loves their brothers and their sisters, these are the ones who are walking in the light, these are the ones whose lives speak forth the Word, the Word who became flesh and lived among us. To understand what it means for us to say that Jesus is the new commandment we have to realize that the intention of the commandment is that we might never stop seeking to fulfill God’s purpose for us which is that we might love one another as he has first loved us. Jesus, in his life, was that fulfillment , the very purpose for our own creation and now because he came in our flesh, his life can now be our life. The light of his life, this love which he was from the beginning can now live in us without end. This is what John wants us to hold onto as we once again are filled with the wonder of Christmas, so that we don’t lose sight that this event of history is not so much about feelings but rather, it is about faith, faith that now because of Jesus every person is at last able to fulfill their God intended purpose. So, this Christmas let us remember that this season is about Jesus coming to us to be for us the true undeniable reality that calls forth faith in us, a faith that works itself out in love.

 

December 19 2021, Part 2

Luke 2:1-14

The Peace of Jesus

         So, at last we come to the traditional story of Christmas from the gospel of Luke. It is an old familiar story that we seem to know so well. I mean, it’s even heard every year when you watch the “Charlie Brown Christmas Special”. We know of the decree of Caesar Augustus that everyone had to go to their hometown to be registered. We know how Joseph took Mary, who was pregnant,  to Bethlehem in order to be registered. We know of how it was there in Bethlehem that the time came for Mary to have the baby and how she laid him in a manger for there was no room in the inn. Yes, we know the story but do we know just what happened there when Jesus was born as one of us? Just what is the significance of this very familiar story that we sing about in our beloved Carols? I believe that Luke doesn’t want us to miss the point of the moment because he alone gives us the most unbelievable account of the appearance of the angels to the shepherds who were watching their flocks by night. At first, there was just one angel which in and of itself had to be quite terrifying. It was easy enough for said angel to tell them to not be afraid but I’m sure that these words went unheeded. The reason that these shepherds were to not be afraid was that the most wondrous event had happened. There in Bethlehem, the city of David, this is where the Savior, the Messiah, the Lord, there this one had been born. These shepherds were to go and find him, there, in a barn of all places. Yet, if that were not strange enough, suddenly, alongside the angel there was the whole angel army who were praising God, singing out, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace among those with whom God is well pleased! It is this coming of the angels that the truth of what had happened in Bethlehem was laid bare. The long awaited king from the house of David, this one had finally been born. This is the one God had promised to send to his people to rescue them, the one God himself would anoint, not with oil but with his very Spirit, this one had at last been born. This one, the angel states, this is the one who is the Lord, a title these shepherds well knew was a title reserved only for God. This title recalled what was spoken of in the One-hundredth and tenth Psalm where we hear the words, The Lord says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” This then must be the one the angel speaks of, the one who would conquer their enemies. Yet, in spite of such imagery swirling in their minds, the shepherds then heard the very army of heaven shout out to them that peace had at last come on earth. The word “peace” means to join together into a whole and this is what their sudden appearance was stating that where once earth and heaven were once separated now, heaven was pouring out upon the earth, the two which had been separated now had been bound together. There was no longer to be any doubt about how God felt about people, he indeed intended only good for them. This is what was at last a certainty because of this one who had been born in Bethlehem. There, heaven and earth had at last become united in the life of the one called Jesus. Now, because heaven had become forever joined with those of earth, this one would indeed be the long awaited Savior, the Lord who would put the enemy under his feet. This baby is the very one Paul would write about in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians who will reign until he has put all enemies under his feet and the last enemy is death. This is the power of life when earth is at last joined together with heaven. This baby would be the one who would usher in the age of the Messiah, the age of the resurrection, that age we live in right now.  This child as the angels tell us is the one who has come to rescue us, to lift us out of the dominion of darkness so that we might live in the kingdom of light. We can live in the light of the love of Jesus because now heaven has been united with earth and God is bound to us to will and to work for his good pleasure. So, this is why we now join the praises of the angels for we know that the will of God is for our good. Let us then knowing the truth of what happened in Bethlehem, be like the shepherds who heard the good news and sought after Jesus. May we go and seek after Jesus. Let us find him and be united by faith with the one who has forever joined us, the people of earth, with the glory and power of heaven so that his life and his light be found in us today and forever. Amen!