The Knowing Word
John 1:18 (Christmas 2b15, January 4, 2015)
Sometimes we see beautiful, even amazing things. (Have them list some) I have seen people helping people: over Christmas at blood donor clinics. I have watched younger people assist older people across the street. I have seen you giving of your time and money to help others. I have watched puppies with their new owners – their excitement and joie de vivre. And I have seen older, arthritic dogs slowly moving as their patient, also older owners "walked" with them. As together they move ever so slowly down the street, I note their acceptance of each other, their care for one another. This Christmas I have observed nurses and doctors staffing hospitals; police officers, fire and rescue people leaving their friends and families at home as they go to work to protect and aid us. I have heard of and remembered the freshly fallen snow on the Coquihalla Summit. I have also listened and sensed new life and observed as rain again graces our earth. Sometimes we are richly blessed to see, to participate in beautiful, amazing things. When we behold such beautiful, amazing things as people of faith, we thank God!
At other times we see things that are far less than beautiful, that signal great difficulty, which evoke pain and compassion, that may even be horrific. Have you seen some of those "things"? We visit a hospital or hospice to be with friends or family who are struggling as the result of a stroke, cancer or ALS. We hear of another's misfortune. The daily news informs us of a traffic accident – of an older or younger person being seriously injured or killed. Just this week we heard about a Calgary man estranged from his wife, seeking out, then shooting and killing eight other people. In a final act of desperation, hopelessness and self loathing, that man then killed himself. Sometimes we also see things that are horrible and difficult.
We may then wonder – where is God? If we have the capacity to be honest with ourselves and enter into the reality of those peoples' situation, we may be moved to struggle with the possible presence or absence of God in the midst of such pain and horror. Why couldn't, or why wouldn't God stop that? ...
In the midst of all this, Christmas comes. In speaking of Christmas "coming", I am not necessarily speaking of families coming together or even of amazing presents or of a particular time that may or may not cause sentimentality to run wild in our beings. Those may be part and parcel of the Christmas I am speaking of coming to us.
To be precise, I am talking about God's Own Son, in the writer John's words, the Word become flesh, coming to our neighborhood, to live among us and with us. God's own self takes on our human flesh. In this person, God speaks to us personally and collectively. That is Christmas coming to us!
Do we hear this Word?
John tells us that this Word become flesh, this very Son of God, is near to God's heart. It is this Son, this Word become flesh WHO MAKES GOD KNOWN TO US.
On our own, although we can see many things, we can't see God. To be sure the things that we do see are many and varied. Some of them are amazing and wonderful. But even those things are not God! At times we may be distracted, perhaps even overwhelmed by such things – their beauty and joy. AT other times when the "things" are difficult, painful, life-sucking we may be moved to think or feel that there is no God or that God doesn`t care.
Whatever situation we are in amazingly and miraculously this Son of God, the Word become flesh speaks to us through his birth, life, death and resurrection. That Word holds God before us in our present allowing us to know and experience God. That, dear people is absolutely, beyond the shadow of a doubt, miraculous!
For the God that Jesus enfleshes is Emmanuel – God with us. God is with us in the beautiful, the wonderful, the joyous, all those life-bringing, inspiring people and events we have identified before. But God is also Emmanuel, with us, in the ucky, the ugly, the horrific, the gut wrenching, life-sucking events around us and within us. God comes to the manger at Bethlehem and all birthing places – pristine and primitive, desirable and undesirable – God is here. God comes to all dying places – the hospital room where the family is gathered or where the person has no friends or family; the prison where the person is about to be executed for crimes they have committed and all the dying places in between.
This God is beyond human sight. But through Jesus, God`s Word become flesh, we are allowed to know this God.
God, who becomes flesh in Jesus, dear people, loves you.
I realize that we don't always feel God`s love. We can`t always see God`s love. And, in the freedom God gives us, we sometimes question God`s love. When take an honest inventory of our thoughts and deeds, our courage and fear, we realize that we could never deserve God's love.
Nevertheless, God loves you. God loves me. Yes, loves! Not in the sense not of some warm, fuzzy feeling that can suddenly disappear. But loves - in the sense that a good mother or father will do anything for their child or children in order for them to live. Loves - in the sense that a brother gladly gives a part of his liver so that his brother who desperately needs a liver transplant to live, may do so. God loves us so much, that this God in becoming flesh allows other human beings to reject, blame and execute him when they (we) couldn't stand His love, His questioning our ways of exclusion, fear, blame, hatred, desire to ourselves be God. God loves you, me and this world. God wants communion with us and all of creation. For God so loved the world.
We can't see God, the amazing, Creator of the universe. But by God's acts of grace, by this very Word of God speaking to us through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, by God`s own Spirit wooing us right now to hear God speaking to us, even as you read this, we can realize that God loves us.
Let us pray - Oh God, help us to know you through your fleshly Word, Jesus, speaking to us. Help us to see your love for us and this world, so that we too can live with love and hope. We ask this in Your Word's name. Amen.