December 25, 2016
In the beginning--There are two stories in the Bible that begin with these three words. These words, I think, invite us to wonder: what happened in the beginning and why? In both stories, there is God, and then there is a birth, first the birth of an ordered creation, and second the birth of a God-infused human. Today, Christmas, we celebrate the birth of that human being, Jesus Christ. The opening words of the gospel of John draw us back to one of the three birth stories in the New Testament gospels. But, John’s story is very different. “The beginning of John’s gospel sings poetic music that will echo throughout” (Howard-Brook, 51) the rest of John’s gospel. The first eighteen verses of John are the prologue to the rest of the gospel, and they offer a “summary of the unsure dance between being and becoming, between What Is and What Has Come to Be. It offers a commentary on the poignant, ironic relationship between Creator and created, the Word and the world.” (Howard Brook, 52) “In telling his [gospel] story of Jesus, John, the author uses a number of terms drawn from common experience—bread, water, wine, light, life, word, children, shepherd, door, vine and branches—to make the significance of Jesus clear and gripping.” Jesus is the revelation of God and has been with and within God since the Creation.
Genesis 1: 1-5
“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. And God saw that it was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness, he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”
John 1:1-18
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 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. 15(John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”) 16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
This story with its cosmic beginning echoes the first creation story in Genesis. In John’s prologue there are no angels, shepherds, or animals; no astrologers bringing gifts; no repressive, tyrannical king; no impending infant massacre; and no urgent escape of Jesus’s family to Egypt. The birth stories in Matthew and Luke feature specific persons in historic time, but John holds before us a “timeless moment, before Israel, before the patriarchs and prophets, and before humanity.” (Howard-Brook, p 52) This timeless moment is a unique earthly event: God, the divine creator/energy becoming human, becoming one of us. John’s language is filled with references to light, life and darkness. God’s word is coupled with God’s action, pointing to Jesus who has pre-existed with God, and now will proclaim God’s word while living it out in the flesh, in his actions. The divine and the human unite. This is an amazing and bold statement of promise and challenge.
This morning I want to share some about the gospel of John and its context; about today’s lectionary scripture and its themes of promise and challenge. This passage can be daunting to understand and interpret so I am grateful for some help from our friend, Wes Howard-Brook. John’s gospel was written in Greek by an anonymous author probably in the last decade of the first century. About 60 years have passed since Jesus’s execution. The core of this community is likely a group of born and practicing Jews, joined possibly with some Samaritans and Gentiles. Prominent in the community’s theology is the belief that Jesus is the son and Word of God, and that this son has always existed with God. This belief caused tension and conflict with the Jewish authorities and some of the other early Christian communities and eventually led to a “rupture in [the early Judeo-Christian extended] family.” (O’Day, 294)
Because I find John’s prologue challenging and its structure matters, I created a summary to help us all better understand its structure and themes.
Relationship of the Logos/Word to God (vv 1-5)
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God.
The Word is God; has always been within God and co-creates with God.
3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
John now adds three elements of coming into being: life which is light for all people (life, light, humanity). All have come to be through this Logos; it is a “lofty unity.” (Howard-Brook, 53)
5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The unity is disrupted by a seemingly opposing force of darkness. What is this darkness? An ever present internal Shadow?A grave threat?A necessary reality?A great unknown?Evil?Chaos?Oblivion?A swamp of illusions or lies?Ceaseless violence?Or is it, a balancing force to the light?A necessary and critical place for growth and nurture? Does darkness as well as light have many faces? In his prologue, John tells us nothing. What he does give us is assurance that the light has not gone out. Ironically, the light has not overcome the darkness either.
Witness of John the Baptist (vv 6-8)
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
From the broad language of “all people,” we move to the existence of a particular, historical individual, John the Baptist. He was sent forth to witness, to lead others to faith, but he was not the light.
Journey (negative) of the light/Logos (vv 9-11)
9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
Coming after John “is the true light who offers the gift of enlightenment to everyone in ‘the world’.” (Howard-Brook, 54) But this gift of relational intimacy with the Creator and with the true light was rejected by many.
Journey (positive) of the light/Logos (vv 12-13); gift of empowerment
12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 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.
John doesn’t say what happened to those who did not accept the light, but those who have received it, that’s John’s community, are given a promise, the power to become children of God. There is a communal aspect to discipleship in this community (Howard-Brook). The Word became flesh, a human body, and lived among the children of God. In Hebrew scripture the term “children of God” denotes tribal status, then relationship with Yahweh. As John uses the term it “points to an equivalence between Jesus’ relationship with God and that of his disciples.” (Howard-Brook, 55) When we read through the later chapters of John’s gospel and the three letters of John, for sure the children of God are practitioners of love and justice and egalitarian leadership.
John’s (human) witness (v 15)
15(John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”)
We know from verse 8 that John was sent as a witness, but now he has witnessed and is witnessing.
Journey of and with the Logos/Word (vv 16-18)
16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Finally, at the end of this prologue John moves from the terms Logos/Word and light” to Jesus Christ “whose life creating story is being told.” (Howard-Brook, 60) Jesus is the bearer of grace and truth, the Messiah.
So what? How do I respond to this story?
On Wednesday, one of my literacy friends at the library was wishing me and my staff a Merry Christmas, but she added that folks in her neighborhood in Greenbelt hadn’t stepped up this year with the light displays, decorations and more joyous expressions of the holiday season. She, too, hasn’t been feeling very merry. I told her that many of us are feeling profound disappointment and heaviness. Many have expressed feeling fearful and uncertain and de-energized. The year has been deeply disturbing at many levels and in many ways. So, I have actually welcomed Advent this year because it has drawn me intentionally into darkness, not as a foreboding or negative space, but as a space to inhabit long enough to learn what it has to teach me at this time. The poet Theodore Roethke says, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.” And, so it is that darkness can invite us in, slow us down, and force us to examine our discomfort, face what is real, move toward the light and get clear.
As I’ve reflected on today’s scripture, I’ve realized that sometimes I tend to set up a false dichotomy between darkness and light, one not so good and destructive, and the other better and more liberating. And, in working with the scriptures from Genesis and John, I find that both are needed and generative and good. Darkness incubates, nurtures development until birth. When creatures are born, they move into a world with light. Light illuminates and makes things clear. Life must have both to survive.
So, one of the gifts I want to claim this Christmas is the gift of illumination, of bringing light and encouraging clarity. One of the ways Jesus did this was by asking honest and open questions, listening, speaking and living God’s truth, and being fiercely compassionate and being clear. I find clarity is important in teaching and learning. In teaching reading comprehension in particular, I can’t make assumptions, I have to find out, request evidence, encourage problem solving and critical thinking. As I’ve listened to Donald Trump this fall, I’ve imagined him taking the computerized GED test with its heavy emphasis on analyzing and evaluating arguments and supporting evidence. (Example: In your response to the I Have a Dream Speech & the quote from the Declaration of Independence, develop an argument about how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s position in his speech reflects the enduring issue in the quotation from the Declaration of Independence. Incorporate relevant and specific information from the speech, the document, and your own knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the Declaration of Independence and the civil rights movement.) I think he would fail.
We as individuals and a community can stand against the ill-formed words, positions, actions, feelings, opinions, and beliefs that degrade the importance of facts and mock wisdom, that ignore human rights, and that corrode the values and the virtues that support and sustain life on this planet. Also, I want to look for, support and acknowledge the illuminators, people who bear and bring light to our lives.
Light offers itself into the darkness and illuminates what has been hidden. Jesus, the man, as he lived on this earth, was fully and fiercely human, and later in John’s gospel (8:58; 17:5) he will claim his timeless belonging to God. There are multiple stories about him and images of him in the four gospels and the letters. In John’s gospel, Jesus is authoritative and speaks of himself as deeply connected to God. The “I am” sayings (e.g., I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the gate..) as well as Jesus’ teachings on love (13:34-35; 15:12-14, the vine imagery (15:1-11), the metaphor of Jesus as the good shepherd who calls and knows the sheep by name (10:1-18), and his language of friendship (15: 12-15) reflect an intimate and relational picture of Jesus.
Jesus lived in an occupied country, struggled with very real human limitations of space, time and understanding. As he made his human journey, he was a learner as well as a teacher; he grew in wisdom. He expanded his boundaries. Right up until his execution, he was asking questions, crying out and going deeper and deeper, modeling,what it meant to be truly human and at the same time a child of God.
One of Advent’s teachings is to grow in patience as we ponder darkness and position ourselves “so the eye begins to see” and we don’t miss what God is doing in the wider world. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, a human being who lived fully in the world and was the incarnation of Divine Love. The good news proclaimed by John’s community even under duress was the abiding presence of Jesus who spoke and lived God’s Word. I hope that we children of God here at 8th Day can commit to not just being God’s people but commit to becoming deeper, more mature, more compassionate and more luminous children of God. Let us begin.
In closing, I want to share a blessing I shared with you at the beginning of 2016. It is a blessing needed more than ever in these days and those to come.
Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light
Blessed are you who bear the light in unbearable times,
who testify to its endurance amid the unendurable,
who bear witness to its persistence when everything seems in
shadow and grief.
Blessed are you in whom the light lives,
in whom the brightness blazes—your heart a chapel, an altar
where in the deepest night can be seen the fire that shines forth
in you,
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines every broken thing it finds.
Jan Richardson
Resources
Becoming Children of God: John’s Gospel and Radical Discipleship (BCG) by Wes Howard-Brook, Orbis Books, 1994
New Interpreters Bible, Volume IX, John by Gail R. O’Day, Abingdon Press, 1995
Speaking of Faith by Krista Tippett
Creation Continues by Fritz Kunkel
The New Interpreter's Bible: Matthew by Eugene Boring
The Last Week by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan