The pages of the calendar are torn off one by one and fly into the air, and the big hand of the clock goes around in a circle. It’s like those old newsreels from the 1950s and 60s to indicate the passage of time. How interesting that in this age of smartphones, computers, digital devices and such that everything can be measured down to the nanosecond. There’s really no element of time that can’t be measured, and yet things can be broken down to the tiniest, most infinitesimal degree, yet… Time still goes by so fast. It always amazes me.
Although I don’t want to preach the calendar today, I know I will end up talking about time, like it or not. We all know that the holiday season is winding down. People are tired. I know that can’t be the only one when I say that I feel fat and sluggish, and it may take us a couple of weeks to get back into our regular routines again.
What better time to hear about what we’re really talking about today, and that is the Word. That most wonderful passage from the first chapter of John, that just blows my mind and is probably one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. But this wasn’t always the case. This is the Prologue to the Book of John, the Fourth Gospel, written as hymn.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.” I don’t know about you, but I used to find it to be a bunch of confusing words. Sometimes I still do, but if you look and listen closely, it gives you a window into heaven and the seeds of God’s truth — a clearer vision of things we cannot ordinarily describe with words.
Words. The WORD — the logos, Greek for “Word, Spirit, Mind.” The Word is not only the Word of God — today we know it as the Bible, because that’s what we have in our hands today, something tangible. But the Word existed long before that. It is God’s identity. It makes me think of God’s spirit in the Genesis story of creation, “hovering over the face of the deep,” before anything was made.
“HE was in the beginning with God.” Jesus, the Holy Spirit. The Trinity.
“All things came into being through him” — through God — “and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being was life, and the life was the light of all people.”
What was the first word God said when he created the universe? “Let there be LIGHT!”
The LIGHT. My mother told me that the first word I ever spoke was a german word. My siblings and I grew up speaking German, and I didn’t really grasp how to speak proper English until I was about 5 or 6. I used the word “Lichtele,” which means “little light,” like “this little light of mine, I’m gonna LET it shine…”
There it is. I’ll ask you again. What was the FIRST WORD God said when He created the universe? I’m saying this because of the word “LET.” It’s not like you’re gonna “make” it shine — it’s THERE already! God has given it to us (Jesus gave it to me…) so I’m gonna LET it shine.
Although, LIGHT seems like the operative word here, we need to focus on the fact that he said LET there be light, implying that the light was always there, before and throughout eternity, before time even began for us. Let. Allow. “Let your light shine,” not MAKE the light. That was already done for us. The light has always been there. We need to allow it to continue.
“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Yet…
Have there NOT been times when it appears that the darkness has overcome it? Look at our world today. All you have to do is read one of the Year in Review articles in the news this week— to get the sense that there is much to FEAR - the refugee situation, not just in Europe but all over the world; gun violence in our cities and schools, natural disasters that seem to hit the most needy when they least expect it, vital funding being postponed or withheld by those in places of power…
We are living in a world of fear. That fear permeates our society right now. Right on the edge of our daily life looms the threat of terrorism and violence, strange things happening at things that are supposed to be happy, like the Mummer’s Day Parade, where certain groups of people, because of fear, cannot understand others that are not of the same racial, political, or belief system as they. It causes tension. It causes nervous laughter and strange versions of comedy that offend others.
These are just a few examples that make us think that maybe the darkness has overcome it.
But Jesus tells us “Be of good courage, for I have overcome the world.” So we know that we can go on, because the light is there. And it continues to shine. Because the darkness has not — and will not — overcome it.
- Are we willing to stand with the light of Christ as it continues to shine in the darkness?
- Are we willing to be children of God in response to God’s willingness to be born a child for us?
These are some of the questions that John’s Prologue asks each time it is read.
Just last week, after our 10 pm Christmas Eve service, a very tired and exhausted me plunked herself down on the couch after playing and singing three services that evening. As I’ve customarily done for the past 5 years or so, I turned on the Midnight Mass from the Vatican.
And so we went through the service, hearing familiar readings as well as songs, when all of a sudden a beautiful image popped up. I believe it was after the Gospel reading. They brought up this huge volume which was actually an ancient copy of the Book of John, filled with drawings and colorful lettering, presumably from the early centuries of Christendom. They raised the book as was done during the reading of the Gospel (John 1), and then carried it over to the statue of the Baby Jesus, opening the book and placing it behind him.
To see the WORD made FLESH in such a tangible way gave me goosebumps and made me want to shout “Glory to God!”
Pope Francis started reading in Italian, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.”
In the beginning - takes us back to Genesis, back to the time when God created the Earth. Here we’re talking Time again — God’s time. And I want to keep these pictures in your mind as we go along — that God’s time is quite a bit different from ours — We read in Psalms as well as 2 Peter - “a thousand ages in our sight” equal about a day in God’s time.
God’s time is outside of our own earthly perception. It’s constantly going back to the beginning, in the form of a circle. God’s grace, God renews us, is restoring us. God created the earth, yet he continues to create every day, so it’s always this circle. So we have us, and we have God, in this continuum.
And the great thing about this continuum, this circular pattern, is that we could jump out of our line into God’s circle anytime we want to, and He will accept us and take us right into that circle. There will not be a time we’ll have to wait. God is there for us, will meet us where we are, and take us on that ride like in a carousel, a merry-go-round, not skipping a beat.
Then we have the coming of Jesus, which breaks into our little time line rather suddenly and at a very distinctive point. God came down to us — vertical — came down! — into our line, and intersected it so that we may live in community with God forever.
God did that for us by sending His son, at the appointed time. There we have the cross — God’s coming down and intersects with our linear lives. And yet, surrounding all of that, is God’s grace, God’s circle.
Christ came down into our living history at a very decisive point. It was a time appointed by God. AS we experience over the past couple of weeks he came as a baby in a very unlikely way.
Because God came down into our history, to combat fear - the constant fear of being attacked and hurt, robbed of life as we know it, he came down that we might have LOVE.
Christ came down that we might have LIGHT. Light that shines in the darkness, light that lights up our world and makes US lights in the world to help others.
LOVE, LIGHT, PEACE. All those things together give us JOY. And I pray that the joy that came to the world that night in Bethlehem will stay with you throughout 2016 and the rest of your lives, because that is why God came down as Jesus, and those are the things that tell us that Jesus is here.
LOVE, LIGHT, PEACE and JOY. May it be yours, now and always. AMEN.
