Sunday, December 27, 2009

1 Christmas



Dec. 27, 2009

John 1.1-18

As most of you know, I love to read biographies. I try to read at least one a month. I just enjoy reading about the lives of people. However, probably one of my least favorite parts of biographies are the beginnings. To be honest, I’m just not all the interested in childhood stories. Very rarely do we discover the essence of who people become in stories of their childhood. What makes a person interesting, for me anyway, is the kind of person they have become after being formed by the difficulties and joys of life.

But today, in our Gospel reading, we are given a glimpse of the very beginning. The beginning we experience today is a bit different than the beginning we read about in Genesis. The beginning we encounter today even harkens back further than the creation of Adam and Eve. It goes back to before those creation stories to who and what God was initially.

“In the beginning…” we hear at the beginning of St. John’s Gospel. And they are certainly the most appropriate words if ever there were any. Especially at this time of the year.

Although the Church year begun a month ago, the year 2010 is now upon us. As this year runs down and the new begins, our thoughts turn to beginnings. We think about that New Year and how important a new year is our lives. It heralds for us a sense of joy—and fear—of the future.

All of a sudden we are faced with the future. It lies there before us—a mystery. Will this coming year bring us joy or sadness? Will it be a good year or a bad year? And we step forward into the New Year without knowing what that year will hold for us.

I have a personal tradition of watching two movies on or around New Years Eve. The first is a movie called 200 Cigarettes—which is about a group of edgy, cool, New Wave New Yorkers on New Year’s Eve 1982 partying and thinking about their lives and all that the New Year entails. It’s not a great movie and I don’t recommend it to too many people. It’s just one of those kind of so-so movies that I occasionally like to watch just for he fun of it.


But another movie that I always like to watch around this time of the year is a movie I do recommend. It’s a Cohen Brothers film called The Hudsucker Proxy. It opens with a really powerful beginning. It begins with a panning shot through the snow of New York City from above. As the shot continues to pan, we hear the narrator. He says, as we travel along with him:


That's right.


New York.

It's 1958 .


Anyway, for a few more minutes it is.


Come midnight, it's going to be 1959.


A whole other feeling.


The New Year.


The future.


Old Daddy Earth [is] fixing to startone more trip around the sun.


Everybody [is] hoping this ride round[will] be a little more giddy...


...a little more gay.


All over town, champagne corks[are] popping.


Over in the Waldorf, the big shots [are]

dancing to the strains of Guy Lombardo.


In Times Square, the little folks [are] watching

and waiting for that big ball to drop.


They're all trying to catch hold

of one moment of time...


...to be able to say:

"Right now! This is it!


"I got it!"


Of course, by then it'll be past.

But they're all happy...


...everybody having a good time.

That’s what beginnings are all about, I guess. That one moment when we too can say: “Right now! This is it! I got it!” And we all know that just as soon as we do, just like the narrator said, “it’ll be past.”

In our reading from John this morning, it’s also one of those moments. In that moment, we get a glimpse of one of those “right now” moments. It seems as though, for that moment, it’s all clear. At least for John anyway. We encounter, the “Word.” And for a moment, we too might think we’ve got it too. We think, “Yes, I understand that Word. But do we? Just when we think we’ve got it, it’s past and we’re not so certain.

That word—“Word.” In the original Greek, it’s “Logos.” That word means more than just .what comes out of our moths. And it’s more than just the Word as Bible. “Word” isn’t even the really correct interpretation of that word Logos. Logos really means Knowledge of Logic. We find that word in many of the words we use. Psychology, which essentially means knowledge concerning the mind Biology, which means knowledge concerning life Theology, which means knowledge concerning God or religion.

But even knowledge doesn’t quite convey what John is trying to tell us in this glimpse of the beginning. Another way to translate the word “logos” is to say “essence.” It is the very essence of what it conveys. If we look at it in this way, then we can sat that the “Word” of God we encounter in today’s Gospel is, in a sense, the very essence of God.

This is a little different then what we sometimes encounter in the scriptures for our Sunday reading. This is deep, theological thinking that isn’t as easy to grasp on a first, quick reading.

But this is an appropriate way to begin the Gospel of John and to begin our new year as well. It is a great beginning. It sets the tone for all forms of Christian theology and a deeper understanding of what it means to believe as a Christian. When we think about what it is we are celebrating in this Christmas season, at least in the context of our Gospel reading for today, we are talking about the Incarnation. We are talking about this Word—this Logos—this knowledge and essence of God, actually taking flesh, coming to us as a human being. Our understanding of who and what Jesus was and is is encapsulated in this reading. Jesus is not just a very nice guy, a gloomy prophet, a rebel, a rabblerouser. We realize that he is the essence of God. When we look at Jesus, we see God. He is the conduit, the prism of God. And even before he took flesh on that Bethlehem night, he was. He existed without beginning. And he still continues to exist, without end.

In Jesus, we experience a beginning that doesn’t seem to end. In Jesus, God comes forward and becomes present among us in a way we could never possibly imagine. God appears to us in the Gospels not as God in the Old Testament, cloaked behind pillars of fire or thunderstorms or wind. Instead, in Jesus, God appears before us, as one of us in a whole new beginning.

God’s word, God’s wisdom, God’s essence became flesh. God’s voice was no longer a booming voice from the sky, demanding sacrifices. God instead spoke to us as one of us. And this voice was a familiar one. And the Word spoken to us is a word of Love. The commandment this Word tells us of is a commandment to love. Love God and love one another as you love yourselves.

While we might not be able to fully fathom what this means and what the Word is saying to us, we can embrace it and make it a part of our lives And that beginning that we find in John is a strange beginning, because it keeps on and on. It is as much of a beginning now, to us, as it was at the time John wrote it. We are refreshed and renewed by this new beginning. It strengthens us and motivates us to meet with joy and gladness our new beginning. This might be one of the few times when I actually enjoy the beginning of a story.

I enjoy this beginning because this is the true message of Jesus as the Word. Maybe the true message of Jesus is that, in God’s Kingdom, that beginning keeps on and on, without end. In God’s Kingdom there is constant renewal. In God’s Kingdom it is always like New Year’s Day—always fresh, always full of hope for a future that does not end or disappoint.

As we prepare to celebrate 2010, let us think about beginnings and how important they are for us personally and for our spiritual lives. And let us do what we can to be the bringers of new beginnings not only in our own lives, but in the lives of others. With this encounter with the Word, we, like John, are also saying in this moment, “ Right now! This is it! I got it!” John shows us that we really do “got it.” Unlike how we might feel at the New Year—full of both hope and apprehension—in this instance, in our grasping of it, it doesn’t wiggle away from it. It doesn’t fall through our fingers like sand. Or snow. It stays with us. Always new. Always fresh. Always being renewed.

We’re here.

It’s the future.

The Word, the Essence, of God has come to us as one of us. It’s incredible, really.

This moment is a glorious one.

Let us be joyful in it.

Amen.


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