4th Sunday of Advent
John 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But, to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
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 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.’ ”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
A Child Was Born
When we think about Christmas and the circumstances around Jesus’ birth, I bet most of us have pretty similar stories that come to mind. An angel appears to Mary to tell her that she’s going to immaculately conceive. Mary and Joseph travel through the desert with a donkey, and have to spend the night in a stable because there wasn’t any room at the inn. An angel appears to some shepherds, tells them about the miracle of Jesus’ birth and how to find him. Some wise men follow a star, and bring Jesus gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
But, the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell the beginning of Jesus’ life in very different ways. Mark, the oldest of the four gospels, hardly says anything about it at all. The first time we see Jesus in the gospel of Mark, he’s already a full-grown adult, coming to get baptized by his cousin John in the wilderness. In Matthew, we do get a version of the story that we’re familiar with, but there aren’t a lot of details there. Matthew is, however, the only gospel that mentions the magi, following the Star of Bethlehem with their gifts for the Christ child, so we can be thankful for that contribution to our Christmas traditions. Luke, the longest origin story for Jesus by far, at almost 100 verses, is where we get the angel telling Mary that she is going to give birth to the Son of God. This is the gospel where we get Mary’s Magnificat, or the Song of Mary, which she sings when she goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who’s pregnant with John at the same time that Mary is pregnant with Jesus. Luke’s version is the one where we get Mary and Joseph staying in the stable, because there wasn’t any room at the inn, and the angel appearing to the shepherds.
Our gospel reading today, is Jesus’ origin story from the Gospel of John, which is very different from the other three. The story of Jesus’ origin here goes all the way back to the beginning of time: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”
I remember one time, I was talking to a co-worker who was new to the Christian faith, and I mentioned this part of the Bible. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about or why I brought this up, but his immediate response was, “That’s not in the Bible,” as if he was some kind of Bible expert and had memorized the whole thing. But, it makes sense to be incredulous about it; this doesn’t sound like any other part of the Bible. The author of John had a very specific purpose in writing the beginning of the story of Jesus’ life in this way. He was trying to get people to understand who Jesus was, and why he was so important. Jesus wasn’t just a man. Jesus wasn’t a prophet. Jesus was God. Jesus had existed since the beginning of time; he was with God and he was God. This is the foundation of John’s gospel. We need to know this at the beginning of the story, because of what comes at the end of the gospel: the crucifixion and the resurrection.
As it says later on in our reading, “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.” God decision to be born on earth wasn’t arbitrary. It was purposeful. Our relationship with God has been filled with a lot of ups and downs throughout history. There are five main covenants in the Bible, six if you count the covenant between God and Adam and Eve, even though the word covenant isn’t actually used for that one. In the book of Genesis, God asks Adam and Eve to take care of the Earth. They would enjoy the blessings of eternal life, as long as they didn’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Well, we all know what happens. There was a talking snake, Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and they got kicked out of the Garden.
Later, God makes a covenant with Noah. This is after the flood that God sent to cleanse the Earth because human beings had become so evil, and God made a covenant with humankind to never destroy the world again.
After that, God made a covenant with Abraham. Even though God had wiped out humanity with the flood, when the people repopulated, they continued doing terrible things. But, God was determined to save us, and promised to bless humanity through Abraham’s family.
The next covenant was with Moses. The Israelite people had been forced into slavery, and God sent Moses to rescue them. God promised to live with the people, and gave them ten commandments, the law which they were supposed to follow.
After that was the covenant with David. The Israelite people demanded a king, because they wanted to be like all the other nations around them. They got Saul, but Saul didn’t obey God’s laws, so he was eventually rejected. Then, God chose David to be king, and David was able to defeat Israel’s enemies and restore God’s presence in the city. And, things were good for a while. But, eventually, things started to change. The people forgot God, and they forgot the law. The Israelites were under Roman rule, and it was just easier to accept the relative comfort and safety that came with complying with their oppressors, rather than trying to fight back and live the way that God wanted them to. But, as we know, this Roman culture that they were living under was a culture that crucified people.
It is into this mess that Jesus was born, all of these broken covenants. Trust was broken, and God needed to do something to rebuild that trust. God was giving humanity a chance to prove itself. So, God sent a baby. A helpless, innocent baby that was entirely dependent on humanity to survive. Mary and Joseph were given a sacred charge, to take care of this child, as proof that God found them trustworthy. Jesus could have appeared as a warrior king, like the Israelites wanted and expected. Jesus could have come down with a huge flaming sword and wiped out the Romans, but God had tried destroying everything before. God had sent the flood and wiped everything away, a clean slate. God had even sent David as a warrior king, and that had worked for a while. But then, the Israelites were conquered, and they ended up living under Roman rule, and they were forced to worship Roman gods.
Jesus could have arrived fully formed, a full-grown man, and he still could have wandered the countryside, teaching us how to love each other and performing miracles and healings; that part would look exactly the same as the stories that we have, now. But, he didn’t come as an adult. He came as a baby.
John 1 sets up this cosmic, eternal, otherworldly scene, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We read it, and we think we understand it, but it’s kind of too big for us to understand. There are these two huge, immortal, timeless beings, just kind of hanging out for all of eternity, floating around in the warm soup of the universe. And, they’re separate, distinct, but also not. And, it seems nice…cozy…comfortable. But then, one of them decides to leave all of that behind, to give up all of that power and presence for the body of a tiny human baby, to enter our cold, dark world of planet earth, where things have gone so terribly, terribly wrong. But, he didn’t come here to conquer the world. He came here to love it.
God came into the world as a baby to show that we could be trusted. We had broken so many covenants, everything was in shambles, life was terrible. God was giving us a chance to believe in ourselves. God wanted us to know that we are worthy of being in a covenantal relationship with God. If God could trust us enough to come into the world as a tiny helpless baby, that meant that we could be trusted. We could love and be loved.
This was a new beginning, the start of a new covenant, one that we still celebrate to this day with bread and with wine…the covenant that Jesus brought to us, by teaching us how to love each other, and promising us eternal life. But, none of this would have happened if God hadn’t reached out to us first. If God hadn’t loved us first, and made the first move to rebuild the trust between us.
This is the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Love Sunday. Some people say that God is Love. I am inclined to agree. Everything that I have ever known and learned about God tells me that we are loved, and that God is Love. All that God ever asks of us is to love God, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
We celebrate Christmas to remember when God came into our world as a tiny human baby, not only to mend our relationship with God, but to help us mend our relationships with each other. We have to love each other. That’s the only way that any of this works. I know that it seems like so many people in the world have forgotten how to love. But we have to have faith in Jesus. We have to Hope in the Holy Spirit. We have to believe that God is at work in the world, to make things better. The last three weeks, we lit the candles of Hope, Peace, and Joy. Today, we lit the candle of Love, and on Christmas Eve, we will light the Christ Candle. Jesus is coming. Jesus is here now and forever. Jesus is alive in you. Remember that wherever you go, whoever you meet, that you are God’s love in the world. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
