January 5, 2014 (Second Sunday of Christmas) John 1:1-18
John 1:1-18
John’s Christmas Story – Our Christmas Story – Ruby’s Christmas Story
Second Sunday of Christmas – January 5, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
John’s Gospel doesn’t know anything about Christmas.
Or rather, it doesn’t know about Bethlehem and the stable and
the angels and the shepherds and the wise men and the manger.
At least, if John does know about that, that’s not what John writes about.
I think he does have a Christmas story, though.
Does anybody know where?
Right! We just heard it! Nice going!
In case you missed it – and, okay, it is easy to miss – here it is again:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. To all who received him, he gave power to become children of God, who were born of God.
You can see that John doesn’t waste any time telling his version of the Christmas story.
In fact, the part about the incarnation – about God coming among us as a human being in
the person of Jesus – the part about the incarnation takes just two lines:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. And the word became flesh and lived among us.
Or, as I never tire of telling you, the Word pitched his tent among us.
Became one of us.
Took on our lot.
Bore our difficulties.
Got to know what it’s like to be a human being from the inside.
Anyway, that’s it: two lines. The story of Christmas according to John. End of sermon!
You’re all free to go! Extra long recess today!
Kidding. There’s a wind chill warning out there. May as well stay here.
The thing is, as the professor of preaching David Lose points out, the thing is is that
John actually spends more time talking about the significance of the Christmas story
for us than he does about the Christmas story itself.
(http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2980)
I mean, we all know that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, right?
John, though, shifts attention away from Jesus’ birth toward ours.
What John is really interested in is “the birth of you and I as children of God.”
To all who received him he gave power to become children of God, who were born of God.
When you hear of children being born you do think of Christmas, right?
You think of the birth in the stable and the baby in the manger, right?
But John seems to have something else in mind – he doesn’t speak of these things.
He doesn’t actually speak of Jesus being born – he speaks of us being born – of God!
He speaks of us being born as God’s beloved children – who are born of God.
Born of God’s love as God’s children.
As I also never tire of saying, children in the ancient world apprenticed to their parents’ work.
If you were a girl, you apprenticed to the tasks of domestic responsibility and child-rearing.
If you were a boy, you apprenticed to the work of your father: if you father was an ironsmith,
you apprenticed to that task and became an ironsmith.
If your father was a farmer, you apprenticed to that task and became a farmer.
And if your father’s task was loving, blessing and healing this whole world and
every person in it, well – then you apprenticed to the task of loving, blessing, and
healing this whole world and every person in it.
As the Son of God, that became Jesus’s task, Jesus’s work.
And as children born of God, that becomes our task too.
You can see now why John’s Christmas story shifts attention from Jesus’ birth to ours.
John’s Gospel is about the significance of the word becoming flesh for us.
John wants to impress upon us that we are children of God – and children of nothing else.
Baptism is our most significant rite because it impresses that upon us:
in the waters of baptism, we say, we are reborn as children of God,
set apart to be God’s beloved children,
apprentices to God’s task of loving blessing and healing this world.
Christmas can remind us that that is what we are born for – just as Jesus was.
As professor Lose also reminds us,
this identity as God’s beloved children becomes fundamental for us.
We are beloved children, in John’s estimation, who have been born of God,
and therefore nothing else gets to have the first or last word in our lives.
It’s the difference between being described by something, and being defined by something.
Sure, there are lots of things that describe us, and these things are important.
But we shouldn’t allow them to dominate or define us.
Things like our failures and our limitations.
Things like how much money we have or our lack of it.
Things like the current states of our relationships.
Things like how successful we are at work or school.
Things like our age, our difficulties, our health, our grief.
These things are obviously important and meaningful but they are only partial descriptions of us:
they don’t tell us the whole story about ourselves:
they don’t really or ultimately define us, no matter what we may think or feel.
What does define us, what does tell us the truth about ourselves, what is more important than
“all the good or bad things we carry within ourselves,” is that we have been born of God.
What is definitive about who we are is that we have been named God’s beloved children.
What is definitive is that we are of infinite worth in God’s eyes.
What is definitive is that God loves us unconditionally.
What is definitive is that we are useful to God as God’s children.
What is definitive is that we are of so much worth to God that God will use us as
God’s apprentices to love bless and heal this world and every person in it.
What is definitive is that that is what we have been born for.
When we look in the mirror each day, we should not see a person who is defined by
Success or failure in any area of life, but a person who is born of God and loved by God
and who is of value to God because
we can be used by God to care for a world God so loves.
That is what defines us.
That is why Jesus came.
That is why Jesus ministered.
That is why Jesus died and rose again.
That is why Jesus gave us his spirit.
That is the significance of Christmas for us.
Ruby Faith has this morning experienced her own Christmas story.
This is Christmas Day for her.
She has been born as a beloved child of God this morning.
From this day on she will know herself as being of infinite worth to a God who loves her
without limit and who will use her to care for this world God so loves.
When she looks in the mirror each day, she will be able to say:
“I am God’s beloved child, deserving of love and respect,
and God will use me to change the world. I am an apprentice to God’s work of
loving healing and blessing this world and every person in it. I am useful.
And while many other things may define me, nothing else gets to define me.
For I have been born of God.”
So may we all say when we look in the mirror.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
