Spiritual Growth :: Sermons
Christmas Day and Christmas I 2003
The Rev. Tricia de Beer
John 1:1-18
In one of the most magnificent pieces of religious literature ever written, I think, the opening of John’s Gospel explains the meaning of Christmas. Jesus is introduced not in terms of human ancestry or birth stories, but in terms of a cosmic picture. John tells us that Jesus existed in the beginning of everything, before even the world was made. John does not name Jesus in the beginning of the passage, instead he calls him the Word, which refers to a core concept in Greek philosophy. Later he tells us the shocking news that the Word dwells among us, in the person of Jesus.
It was shocking because The "Word" was a concept which pointed to the logical rationality behind the universe—it was the force or principle that gave meaning to everything. It stood above everything and apart from the creation. The Greeks separated the spiritual world from the material world, but John says that this Word came into the world and caused all things to come into being. The eternal Word infused everything with its life. At the heart of all that has life is the light of God. And that is good news. It means that imprinted in all creation, is the presence of God, no matter how different we are, no matter how tattered, no matter how separated we are, we were all created out of the one life and that life is the light of the world. It dapples through the whole of creation. It is within the brilliance of the morning sun and the whiteness of the moon at night. It issues forth in all that grows from the ground and in the life that shines from the eyes of every living creature. Creation is good. This is not to pretend that there are not also terrible darknesses, deep with in us and in the whole of creation. Rather it is to say, that the light is deeper still, and that it emanates from the love of God. John tells us that the light shines in the deepest darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. This is the story of all humankind—our story and it shows us the stuff of which we are made.
It is the same picture shown in the creation story in Genesis. We are told that everything that was made was blessed with God’s response, "This is good". But when God came to the human being, the blessing was a resounding "This is very good", because we are created in God’s own image and likeness. In the core of our being, there is woven through us a fibre which is a royal, God-like nature. To say that we are made in the image of the divine, is to say that what is deepest in us, is of God. At the heart of what we are, is the love of God, the wisdom of God, the creativity, imagination and wildness of God. What is most human is the most divine. Here is a picture of what I mean.
On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall, at the Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an unforgettable sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap -it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.
People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one." But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes remembered who he was and and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. He played with such passion and such power, and such purity, as they had never heard before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head.
At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them--ones that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. They were all on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they could to show how much they appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet them, and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone, "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."
That is a picture of the glory of humankind. Not just for artists but for all of us-- Living with our limits. Living way beyond the limits. So claiming our gifts and our calling that God comes through us and we call others to a new possibility.
The Redemption Christ brings as the Human One is to fully reveal the grace and truth of who we are. In him we can see what it is to be fully human and what is possible. Because of his mercy we can see the truth. As we see Christ’s glory, it reveals the indelible image of God in us and we are given power to recover that image. The person of Jesus Christ, in His life of self giving and even of self emptying, restores our memory of what is truly natural.
It is true that the divine likeness within us is often hidden and may even be forgotten. Forgetful of who we are, we live out of ignorance instead of wisdom, fear instead of love, and fantasy instead of reality. The more we forget that the image of God is the deepest reality within us, the less we delve into those inner depths for the gifts of God. And the less we believe that such riches are within us, the more we treat ourselves and one another with a lack of respect. We have distorted the image, but we cannot erase it. The failures of our lives and the falseness of what we have become, do not have the power to undo what God has woven into the very fabric of our nature.
In order to break free from the falseness with which we have clothed ourselves, or the failing with which we have defined ourselves, we need to see what the true face of our soul is. And so in Christ, we are shown, that we are born of God, bearers of the eternal wisdom and beauty and nobility that were conceived with us in our mother’s womb. We who know the meaning of the Incarnation, have been given the gospel not to tell us that there are flaws and spots in our humanity, for we more or less know that. Rather, we have been given the good news of Christ coming to dwell among us, to tell us what we do not know about ourselves, or what our souls have forgotten—that Love is what is deepest in us, and that we will not rest until we allow the divine artist to finish his creation.
John’s gospel tells us that God is to be found not by stepping aside from the flow of daily life into religious moments and environments or by looking away from creation to a spiritual realm beyond, but rather by entering the depths of the present moment. There we will find God, wherever we may be, and whatever we may be doing. Our times of religious observation and prayer are not an alternative to encountering God in the ever-flowing stream of life. Rather they are moments of preparing ourselves to be alert to the One who is always and everywhere present, closer to us than we are to ourselves.
Too often we look at life from a mechanistic world view and we see creation somehow existing independently of God,-- that God only periodically chooses to express himself through it. That would be to say that God is like an artist who, having made a violin, only very occasionally plays it. This prologue of John’s gospel invites us to look with the inner eye for the God who never stops playing--. In all people, in all places, in every created thing God’s music can be heard.
Now you may be objecting under your breath, "in every living thing?" In Saddam Hussein, in Osama bin Laden, in my family member who works division in our family, in myself when I fail to live up to my potential as a child of God? The answer is yes, and yes, and yes, and yes. However hidden and distorted, the image of God is still there. John’s gospel proclaims, The light shines in the deepest darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it… And later says " …To all who received the Word, who believed in the name of the Word, power was given to become children of God".
Perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world, is to listen for the music God is forever making all around us-- To remember who we really are, as we entrust ourselves to God with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to find out how much music God can make with what we have left.
The Incarnation shows us that wherever we may be, whatever we may be doing, God is always and everywhere present, closer to us that we are to ourselves. Life itself, and we ourselves, are a miracle just waiting to happen. Praise be to the God who dwells among us!
