Christmas Day, 2022

As John writes, this is the beginning.

This is the beginning of everything.

This is millions of years ago when the universe was a vast darkness and only God flew amongst that darkness.

Millions of years before God breathed life into being.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

And later, after the beginning was light.

Over eons things began to be transformed.

Life changed.

Some life became sentient and changed further.

And the light became unnoticed.

And creation, now with bipeds in human form began to walk away.

From the light.

From the Word.

From God.

And they continued to move away from the light, the word, God until a man appeared in the wilderness sent by God and he told the people about the light.

The true light that was to come and to be with us.

This was the light to enlighten all peoples.

This was the light of God entering into the world as one of us, as the Word in human form, fully human, fully God.

On this morning, in this chilly air and under bright skies, Jesus is born of Bethlehem.

In John’s version we do not hear of Jesus’ birth, his time as an infant.

Instead, we are given the gift of knowing Jesus has been with us all along.

From the beginning, Jesus has been with us.

Jesus has been the constant of the universe.

When light was created, Jesus was there as the Word.

When the stars began to shine, and moons started to reflect their light, so too was the Word.

When animals began to walk and hop and slither and crawl, Jesus was there amongst them.

And then the Word arrived and became one of us.

Jesus walked with us in all his human glory.

And we saw his glory, the glory of a father’s only son.

The glory of humanity, full of grace and truth.

This story we hear this morning, this prologue to John’s gospel is utter poetry.

Even though we skip over the romance of Christ’s nativity as read in Luke’s and Matthew’s gospels, we do not skip the romantic imagery of God and Jesus together as one throughout eternity.

And we are introduced to Jesus differently, not from the beginning but through John the Baptist who prepared the way for Christ.

John prepared the way for Jesus much as Isaiah announced the sentinels of his age.

John lifted up his voice and in plain sight announced the return of the Lord.

The Lord who always was.

The Lord who always is, said John, is arriving.

The Lord will comfort his peoples.

And there is John, announcing that God’s salvation shall arrive, testifying to the light.

Then Christ arrives.

He, in the world since the world came into being, was still unknown by the world perhaps even until John paved his path, made straight his highway for the Lord.

John the gospel writer notes the difficulty in recognizing Christ.

And Paul the letter writer notes the same.

God has spoken to us and has spoken to us through the prophets and finally through the son, Jesus our Lord, says Paul.

And to give evidence to this fact, Paul quotes multiple Psalms he claims point out scripture’s prophesying of Christ’s arrival.

Psalm 2, verse 7: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you"

Psalm 104, verse 4:

Of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire." But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."

And also, Psalm 45, verses 6 and 7:

"In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like clothing; like a cloak you will roll them up, and like clothing they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never end."

So, this morning we have this interplay of Isaiah and John the Baptist announcing the arrival of Christ, but then Paul and John the Evangelist noting that it was somewhat difficult to get folks to recognize that Christ was here and has been here all along.

And I wonder if this interplay is the question the lectionary wishes us to consider on this Christmas morning.

That we get to sit and dwell in the beauty of John the Evangelist’s prologue to his gospel, yet within that prologue, we hear of John the Baptist proclaiming the arrival of Jesus so that people might recognize that arrival.

We have Isaiah saying the Lord will come, yet there is Paul asking us to remember that Jesus was with us all along.

And I am left wondering, is Jesus all that hard to find?

I mean, we’re pretty much here every week where we can be found worshiping Jesus, proclaiming his name, but is he hard to find?

And we do have a pretty big banner out front proclaiming his arrival.

Is he though?

Hard to find?

I don’t think so.

But we do see throughout history people sharing the word of God.

Proclaiming that the Word is here.

Announcing that unto us a son is born.

And sometimes that miracle is met with crickets.

In silence our message is swallowed and lost to noise of other things, more temporal things, less important things, more human things.

God does not need our help to get God’s message across but we certainly need God’s help to proclaim Christ’s message.

From Abraham to Sarah to Jacob to Joseph.

From Moses to Aaron to Joshua.

From Saul to David to Solomon.

Isaiah to the other prophets.

Mark to John.

Peter to Paul.

To us.

We have all believed and we have all needed help in announcing God and God’s love for us to God’s people.

All of God’s people.

Because as human beings with our limited world view, our limited view of history, our sometimes self-serving view of our own place in that history, it can be difficult to perceive God in the midst of everything.

And yet our message need not change for it has always been the same.

Christ is with us.

Christ has been with us.

Christ will always be with us.

John’s gospel is so important to that end because it shows a continuity, an acknowledgement that nowhere in time have we ever been separate from Christ.

From the very beginning of time, Christ has been in the darkness and Christ has been the light.

From your very birth, through all your great heartbreaks and great victories, Christ has been there with you.

That is our message.

That is our proclamation.

God has always been with us.

From the start until now and afterwards, we are embraced by God.

For God is the Word.

And the Word is Christ.

And in the beginning was the Word.

And on this day, the Word came down to be with us.

To save us from our sins.

And to bring light to the darkness.

Amen.