Merry Christmas. It is such a joy to be spending Christmas morning with you all, and I am so glad to see each and every one of you on this blessed Christmas morn. Christmas is about joy – the joy of God’s love coming to us in Jesus, the joy of gathering as beloved community to receive the gifts of God in music, Scripture, and Sacrament, and the joy of hearing the Good News of our salvation.
We
hear this joy in the regal opening to the Gospel according to John – “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In
this passage, John is giving us something like an overture to the Gospel; he is
training our hearts and ears to encounter the notes of grace that will sound
throughout the story of Jesus’ life, death, and Resurrection. There are many ways
to focus on this grace, and for this year, the Spirit led me the part that
reads that the Word becoming flesh gives us “power to become children of God.”
As
much as we talk about other people at Christmas, we don’t want to lose the tremendous
gift of grace that we are given on this day. Yes, the shepherds, Mary, and Jospeh
are all important characters in the story of Christmas. And talking about the
mighty acts of God is always a good topic for a sermon. But let us not forget
that, as the Creed professes, it was “for us and for our salvation” that Jesus
came down from heaven. Christmas is certainly about what God has done, and it
is also about what happens to us as a result – we are given power to become
children of God.
St.
Athanasius was the Bishop of Alexandria in the 300s and he said of God in Jesus
that “He became as we are so that we might become as he is.” It’s the same idea
we heard in John about becoming children of God. At Christmas, we hear a lot
about the change that happened with God when the unlimited took on the limits
of human flesh, but it is also just as true that, because of the birth of God
in human flesh, humanity has also been forever changed. Because God was born,
lived, breathed, bled, died, and rose in a human life, the fullness of humanity
has been expanded to be as deep and wide as is the fullness of God.
Jesus
became like us so that we might become as he is – a child of God. As John tells
us, being a child of God means that we are one with the Father. We do not worry
about whether God is on our side, whether God has abandoned us, whether God
cares about it – for Jesus is the promise of God with us made good in the
flesh. To those who have never been opened to the peace that passes all understanding,
this can all sound like superstitious wishful thinking – but if you’ve ever
found hope after receiving bad news, if you’ve ever found forgiveness after a
disagreement, if you’ve ever had joy amid a struggle, if you’ve ever been caught
off guard by love then you know that power of God with us, and that power makes
all the difference. In Jesus, the gap between humanity and divinity is bridged
as we are made children of God, just as Jesus is the Son of the Father.
John
also writes that Jesus is full of grace and truth, meaning that we also are
filled with grace and truth by him. Grace is the Church’s way of describing the
gift of God’s love in Jesus. There is nothing we did or have to do to deserve,
earn, or keep God’s love. God loves us because God has chosen to love us, and
nothing, not our failings, not our imperfections, not our doubts, not our sins,
not even our deaths will diminish that love. As John says, the darkness does
not overcome the light of life that is Jesus. We are made children of God not
because we said the right prayer or thought the right thoughts, but because, by
grace, the Word became human and lifted humanity to the divine.
Perhaps
you received one of these gifts this morning – something you open, and you can
tell it is a good gift, but you have no idea how to use it. Grace can sometimes
be like that. All of this sounds quite nice that God loves us no matter what,
but what do we do with that? Well, it means that we can stop: stop trying to
become the most optimized version of ourselves because there’s no improving upon
being God’s beloved child; stop worrying about our reputation, because the
Creator of the Universe has chosen us and loved us, and that is an everlasting
reputation; stop competing with one another because grace, love, and mercy are
abundant and will never run out; stop trying to justify ourselves because we have
already been justified and declared worthy by God’s mercy. What grace enables
is a totally different way of being in this world, a way of enjoying the gift
of life instead of muddling through, a way of participating in the fullness of
divine glory just as Jesus participated in the fullness of humanity. Grace
means that we can live as if love is all that matters, because it is.
This
is what is meant by the truth that Jesus was full of, and which now infuses
humanity. I’ve quoted theologians before who talk about the “grain of the universe”
as a way of talking about going with the flow of grace, harmonizing with the notes
of peace, being aligned with the way of love. In Jesus, we see this truth not
only as something that he exhibited, but as the pattern for our own lives as
well. It is a pattern of descent and ascent. Jesus comes down to us and then ascends
into heaven, yes, but so much more than that happens. In Jesus, God descends
into the depths and brokenness of humanity, and then lifts us out of Sin and
Death into the fullness and eternity of God’s love.
CS
Lewis once spoke of this using the metaphor of a person aboard a ship. Imagine
the person realizes that something extremely valuable has been dropped into the
ocean and is at risk of being forever lost. So our diver immediately strips down
and jumps into the cold and dark waters. The diver keeps swimming downward,
even as the pressure and the danger grow until the object of great price is
within reach. The diver then begins the long trek back to the surface and is
almost to the point of having their lungs burst. Upon climbing back into the
boat, this savior then cleans the muck off of this treasure and holds it
dearly.
Dear
friends, we are that treasure that had been lost and redeemed. Jesus came to us
and dove down as far as the cross, the grave, and hell in order to save us. And
each of us and all of us together are held as the precious and treasured child of
God. So that we would know that we are held and cherished by God, God became
little enough to be held in Mary’s arms, vulnerable enough to be subjected to
our rejection, insults, and violence. God became small enough to fit in a womb
and in a tomb so that we could come and see this great love for us and find
room in our hearts, our lives, and our society for this truth of God’s love to
make all things new.
The
way this truth works is the pattern of descent and ascent. This means that when
it feels like things are going downhill, we can have hope that Jesus has also trod
that road. When we are doing well, it is not because of dumb luck or our skills,
but because love is drawing us up.
When
John spoke of Jesus as the Word of God, he uses a word that means a lot more
than it does for us. For us, a word is a linguistic symbol – a word is a
collection of letters that represents a thing or idea. For John though, the
word “word” meant so much more. It means the overarching design, logic, and
order of all things. John is telling us that the truth that tells the stars to
shimmer, the planets to orbit, the birds to sing, the trees to grow, our cells
to function, atoms to make things, sound waves to move - this truth lived a human life in Jesus. The pattern
of all things became human so that humans might be made children of God who can
now know and be transformed by this pattern of descent and ascent.
The
difficulty is that we don’t always recognize the truth of this pattern. John
notes that that the Word came to the world, but the world did not accept him.
We don’t necessarily like the descent part of this pattern, and so we reject it
and fight against the grain. We insist on climbing when sometimes falling is
the direction of grace and love. And when we find ourselves on the rise, we so often
take the credit for it. We are not good at recognizing or accepting difficult
truths. This is why the truth was born in the corner of an empire and laid in a
manger. It’s why the truth was rejected by the authorities of his day and
crucified as a criminal. It’s why the truth is something that so many
Christians use for their own agendas instead of following the truth’s pattern.
It’s why the truth is something we try to fit into 5 minutes of mindfulness
practices and an hour on a Sunday morning, as long as nothing more interesting
is going on.
As
a great hymn of the faith puts it, this truth is “love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.” This love is what “came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, love divine. Love was born at Christmas.” This love transforms
what it means to be human because this love makes us children of God. We are
forever and always united to God. We are full of God’s grace, meaning life can
be enjoyed instead of endured. We are shown the fullness of God’s love, as
Jesus dives into the depths of our lives to restore us to the goodness that God
intended for us in Creation. The pattern of love has been given to us and the truth
of God’s love makes all the difference.
Love came down at Christmas in such a form that we could hold onto so that we might, in turn, know that we are held in God’s love and are lifted to the joys of heaven. Love came down at Christmas to make God’s saving grace known as far as the curse is found.
Alleluia. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us: Come let us adore him. Alleluia.
