Christmas Day, 2004
There are many paintings of the nativity. There are many statues, drawings, carvings, depictions in film, and all sorts of other media of the nativity. We even have our own nativity scene here, under the altar. My son Jacob and I saw some rather beautiful carvings of the nativity in mother of pearl at the South Australian museum last week, part of an exhibition called the treasures of Palestine. But all of these images, these artworks, are based on the nativity narratives as we find them in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
I have yet to see any piece of visual art representing in some way the Gospel reading we have for this morning. Now that’s not to say that there isn’t any. It’s just that I cant find any on the internet, whereas a search for art of the nativity from Matthew and Luke yields a plethora of examples. I think it’s because it’s a hard thing to paint.
Our reading, the prologue to John’s Gospel, sometimes called the Hymn to the Word, is very esoteric, very philosophical and very theological. It deals with concepts, not matter. It doesn’t present us with an instant picture of the birth of Jesus, the reason for the season. It actually requires a bit of work to get into it. Yet I think it is the most appropriate reading for the day.
I’ve known people object to this reading being used on Christmas day. They wanted the proper story – Joseph, Mary, the little baby Jesus, the angels, the shepherds and the wise men. But that is the part the humans saw with their eyes. What we have in this prologue to John’s Gospel is the real story, the real event, the underlying or rather over-arching reality of God’s interaction with the world. This is what really happened. And this is who and what Jesus really is.
You see, behind and beyond the traditional nativity scenes is the reality that God came to be with us and dwelt us. In Jesus, God took on and experienced the reality of our earthly existence, in all its glory, and in all its darkness. God experienced first hand the worst of human existence, as well as the best. In so doing, God threw out a lifeline to us.
This story, this the Hymn of the Word, connects us with the beginning of time. “In the beginning” is also the way the book of Genesis begins. This alerts us then to the fact that these events are both connected, and are very significant events in the history of creation. They are both accounts of beginnings, and of ends. Creation ended the void. Creation made a space for God’s love to be fulfilled, when God made a universe that could be filled with God’s being, a beginning to life as we know it. Human beings, having free will to reject or accept that love, are the culmination of God’s love, in that God loved us so much that God would not make it our nature to blindly follow. We are able to discern and to make choices, which is what we do. Often we choose badly, which brings us to God’s response in the birth of Jesus, where the end of a time of separation from God is ended, where God once again become intimately involved in and with creation, experiencing the highs and lows of human existence. Where the loving God reaches out to a world that has drifted away from God. It is the beginning of a new time of living with God.
Now why is this part of God, this part that reached out to us, that we know as Jesus, called the Word? And what does it mean?
Many have mistakenly identified the Word as the Bible. I even heard a very misguided TV evangelist preaching about this passage in a rather terrible example of what you can do to mis-interpret text when it is isolated from its surrounds. Word is the direct translation from the Greek word ‘Logos”. Logos was a term used in Ancient Greek philosophy. It is used to describe the expression of God, or the reason, or wisdom, or the logic, of God that permeates creation. It is used here in a way reminiscent of the way Wisdom is personified in the Old Testament book of Proverbs. And as with Wisdom, the Logos is present at creation, however here Logos is a part of God, not a separate entity, as in the Wisdom traditions.
Now there is some pretty heavy theology here, and a short sermon isn’t going to do it justice. In fact, a half year university subject didn’t really do it justice. But it is essential that we ponder this aspect of the Christmas story, so that we can begin to grasp what a truly wonderful, exciting and amazing event it was. Then it is plainly obvious that Christmas is more than the crass commercialism we that we all cringe at every year and do nothing about. It is more than nativity plays and pageants. It’s more than the good will, and the talk of peace, although these are very much a part of it. It is more than a church service at midnight on Christmas Eve, or on Christmas day. These are a part of it, even, sadly, the commercialism, but they are not the entirety. Christmas is about God pitching a tent here amongst us, living with us, in the form of Jesus. It is about the self-limiting God, who squeezes all that divine being into one human. It is about a love that is so great that it can only logically be expressed in the person of Jesus, a person who is God and human, a being who is not separated from God, but is God. Something we mortals have a lot of trouble understanding.
Now, I apologise that this sermon got a little heavy. But I felt it necessary, especially since a reading from John’s gospel demands it. John’s gospel is not wishy-washy, its not moderate, it is black and white. John demands choices be made, especially in relation to faith. A simple exposition is not possible. A flowery word picture of the baby Jesus just wont suffice.
But it is Christmas, and I’m going to reward you for sticking with me. Just have a bit of think about it all later, after lunch. Ponder the true meaning of Christmas. And give thanks that God so loved that world that he gave His only Son, so that we might all truly live.
That’s a great Christmas present.
