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Dec 25, 1999 This message was given on Christmas Day, December 25, l999. The sermon preceded the baptisms of six youth of the congregation.
"God's Gift in Our Days" John l:l-l4
What is the message we believe and proclaim this Christmas? Is the Jesus of faith a religious equivalent to Santa Claus? If so, Jesus is running second in affections since Santa Claus clearly has a lock on popular sentiment and a near monopoly on commercial sales of the season. As a symbol which conveys both the spirit of giving and the probability of receiving, Santa Claus is nearly unbeatable. If Jesus is only a religious reflection of Old Saint Nick, he hasn't a chance except as a distant runner up.
In the opening chapter of John's Gospel we are told twice that Jesus was from the very beginning an also ran. Jesus was in the world yet THE WORLD DID NOT KNOW HIM. Followed by HE CAME TO WHAT WAS HIS OWN, AND HIS OWN PEOPLE DID NOT ACCEPT HIM.
In John's era HIS OWN was a reference to the Jewish people, the majority of whom rejected Jesus as the Messiah. But who are "his own" now, in this time, in this place? Are we not "his own?" If so, how do we receive Jesus now in these days?
Oh, we receive him but in our way, and part of our way is to blend and blur Jesus with Santa Claus. The result is a friendly, reassuring Christmas spirit in which the obligations of giving and the pleasure of receiving make the economy surge and cause everyone to feel good at least for the day. That Christmas we can package, unwrap, and then forget about. While Santa Claus is a potent symbol, the fact is that most Santa costumes remain forgotten for eleven months of the year. The fact that most Jews did not receive Jesus as the gift of God shows that God does not operate according to human expectations. If God had respected the messianic expectations of first century Judaism, more Jews would have received Jesus as God's appointed one. If God had acted according to the logic of Greek philosophy, many gentiles would have easily become Christians. And if today God would play by our secular rules about Christmas, God's Jesus would be a great deal more popular.
But God refused to play by the rules of first century spirituality as by the expectations of end of 20th century spirituality. Instead, God chose to create a new game and many did not understand or did not like God's approach. God sent his gift but many did not receive the gift.
The writer Madeleine L'Engle in her book, THE IRRATIONAL SEASON OF HOLY MYSTERIES, says: "The only God who seems to me to be worth believing in is impossible for mortal man to understand, and therefore he teaches us through this impossible. But we rebel against the impossible. I sense a wish in some professional religion-mongers to make God possible, to make him comprehensible to the naked intellect, domesticate him so that he's easy to believe in. Every century the Church makes a fresh attempt to make Christianity acceptable. But an acceptable Christianity is not Christian; a comprehensible God is no more than an idol."
It is the incomprehensible God whom the gospel writer John presents when he states: AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELLED AMONG US FULL OF TRUTH AND GRACE. BUT NEITHER THE WORLD NOR HIS OWN KNEW HIM.
The unfathomable mystery of Christmas is that God has embodied divinity in a particular person so that we may know God better and yet we do not understand God at all.
The human imagination can not dream up a God who becomes fully human; the human vision cannot project a Messiah who allows himself to be crucified. The mortal mind cannot comprehend a baby's crib as a symbol for a God who allowed himself to become caged, confined and crucified.
The incarnation is central to the Christian faith. And the incarnation is the stumbling block for faith. The religious thinkers of Jesus' day began to plot his death because he "called God his own father, making himself equal with God" (John 5:l8)
Jesus made matters difficult for the religious of his own time because God has, by the way he operates, made matters difficult for the religious of all times.
The fact is that many of Jesus' own do not know him as the Incarnate One. Many believers in Jesus can receive Jesus as a baby, sweet and innocent. And later many come to respect him as a wise teacher, a superb social witness, and a prophet to our spirituality. But the gospel states: Christ was with God at the beginning; Christ was active in creation. Jesus was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word came to be with us and we did not know he was the Word.
The God who acts in Jesus upsets all expectations, even our highest expectations because even our highest expectations operate on our human plane. We can readily embrace a love which fulfills us, but we do not want to empty ourselves to show love. We pay any price to have just a little taste of immortality, so how can we understand a God who willingly strips himself of immortality to become mortal.
We celebrate human success so how can we understand a God who embraces the divine failure of the cross.
At Christmas it's not Santa Claus, or blatant commercialism, or ourselves who give us problems, but it's God who gives us problems should we really think about the meaning of Christmas…the divine became flesh and dwelled among us full of grace and truth but we did not receive him.
Today a half dozen of our younger worshipers seek to receive Jesus as their Christ, as their Lord and Savior. We surely all hope that they know what they're doing because they are asking for trouble. We pray that God through the Holy Spirit will give them that humility and willingness to bow before the crucified one and acknowledge that God has come to us with a gift we can only begin to comprehend at Christmas. Amen.
Pastor Gene Preston
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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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