January 4, 2015 – John 1:1-18
John 1:1-18
Journeys with God
Second Sunday of Christmas – January 4, 2015
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
On Christmas Eve we heard about the long journey on foot Mary and Joseph made from
Nazareth to Bethlehem.
In a couple of days, Christmas will be over,
and that last day of Christmas will fall on the festival of the Epiphany,
the day we remember Wise Men from the East made
a long, dangerous journey on foot to worship the child Jesus;
and right after we hear of Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus making
another journey on foot to Egypt where they must flee for safety and refuge
because King Herod seeks the child to destroy him.
This morning we hear God announcing to the people that they will make a long journey –
again on foot! – back home, and that they will be accompanied by God.
The Christmas texts are filled with images of people journeying.
Journeying and feeling unjust, unsafe situations in order to find peace and well-being and life.
The peace and well-being and life intended for us by a good and gracious and loving God.
We like to think of Christmas as a time to hunker down and stay put and stay home.
But in the Christmas texts I was surprised this year to find they are full of movement,
Full of journeying.
And I think there is lots of Good news in that.
Last week I did a funeral at Church of the Cross for a dear woman who lived a long life.
When I met with her family and heard her story
I was amazed at the journeys she had to take in life.
She was born in the Ukraine to German parents in 1927.
When she was 16, because of being displaced by war, she and her family had to leave home,
Leave their land, and leave their house and flee to Poland on foot!!!
With all their possessions in a wagon!
A few months later they made another journey on foot when they left for East Germany,
Where this young woman worked for a few years on a farm.
Then, in 1948, under the cover of darkness, they yet another danger-filled journey,
When they escaped over the East German border into West Germany.
They stayed in West Germany for 8 years until finally, in 1956, they took another journey,
This time by boat and train,
when they emigrated to Canada in 1956 and settled in Winnipeg.
It is an amazing story, like something out of a movie, right?
The Gospel this morning also tells of a journey.
The journey of God to be with us.
In the beginning, we read, the Word was with God.
But, as John will tell us a few chapters on, God so loved the world that
God made a long journey in Jesus to be with us and to love us.
The Word became flesh, writes John, and lived among us.
The true light was coming into the world.
He came to what was his own.
Christ leaves the safety of life in the triune God to journey to us, to be with us,
To be what we celebrate at Christmas as Emmanuel, God with us.
When John writes that the Word lived among us, he actually uses in Greek a wonderful image:
Literally he writes the Word pitched his tent among us, God in Christ tents with us.
Well, a tent is portable, right?
God in Christ continues to journey with us.
God in Christ journeyed with a dear sister who made many dangerous hard journeys,
But whose story turned out well in the end.
It was a very hard life in the beginning, right?
Full of vulnerability and danger.
But the thing is, is that she had the assurance that God was journeying with her.
She knew from having heard all these Christmas stories that our God is a God who risks everything – even life – to journey to us and with us.
Jesus made a first long journey from the heart of a safe and loving God to a world that
Did not accept him, a dangerous journey that ended in death.
Jesus made a journey as a child with his family to flee an unjust ruler and
find safety and well-being.
In his ministry Jesus journeyed tirelessly, journeying far from home,
To take the love of God expressed in healing and feeding and forgiving and loving to
Wherever people needed so they would know that God would go to
Whatever lengths are needed to be with us and bring us to
safety and well-being.
Like our sister’s life, Jesus’ life was hard too.
But in her journeying she had the assurance that Jesus had gone ahead of her and
Indeed was journeying with her.
For he is no stranger to making hard journeys.
The texts of Christmas are hard and fraught with danger and difficulty.
They are filled with dangerous journeys.
And yet there is the promise of homecoming:
I will bring them home, God announces through Jeremiah to a people in exile.
They shall return. I will lead them. I will water them and feed them.
And they will rejoice.
The writer of Ephesians this morning foresees a day when everything in all creation will
Be at home in the love of God,
When all things – all things! – will be gathered up and
Finally bound together in loving communion the love of Christ.
John knows Jesus’ long journey, from safety to danger – to death.
But Jesus takes that journey too, and goes on ahead of us, into resurrection.
The significance of all that journeying into danger, into death, and beyond,
Is that there is nowhere now we can go that God in Christ has not been.
And that is finally the Good News of Christmas: that God in Christ is our Emmanuel,
Is God with us, because God in Christ has journeyed everywhere we might go,
As a measure of God’s love for us.
There is nowhere, now, you can go where God in Christ will not be with you.
In the exile of mental illness, God in Christ is God with us.
In the exile of relationship difficulties, God in Christ is God with us.
In the exile of unemployment, meaninglessness and despair, God in Christ is God with us.
In the exile of death, God in Christ is God with us.
And will accompany into resurrection.
This morning God again waters and feeds us at the Table of Holy Communion.
This morning God in Christ again makes the journey to be with us in water, bread and wine.
As a measure of God’s love for us, God in Christ becomes what we need:
Food for the journey, and strength in loving.
So come to the table, for God has come to be with you, to tent with you,
And to pack up that tent and journey with you wherever you go.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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