December 25, 2005

(Jimmie Johnson)

Psalm 98

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory. The Lord has made known his victory; he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

Isaiah 52:7-10

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Hebrews 1:1-4

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

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As far as I have been able to find out, it was St. Francis in the year 1223 who had the genius to set up, for the first time that we know of in history, an image of the baby in a manger and invite people in the neighborhood to come and see this representation of the Christmas story. So was born the Christmas crèche scene, the manger scene.

St. Francis had the genius to know intuitively that abstract, heavy theological or philosophical terms could never convey meaning as stories and images could. “Look upon the Baby Jesus,” Martin Luther once wrote. “Divinity may terrify us. Inexpressible majesty will crush us. That is why Christ took on our humanity, except for sin, that he should not terrify us but rather that with love and favor he should console and confirm.”

John doesn’t tell us anything about the baby Jesus, shepherds, angels, Mary or Joseph. Only Luke and Matthew do. That’s why when I read Matthew and Luke, I try to read them as much as poetry as history. They, like John’s prologue to his gospel, are trying to console us and confirm to us that in our human struggle, our human suffering, God has joined us. Jesus is the human face of God. This seems to be what John is saying in this first chapter of his gospel. Matthew and Luke tell us that this human face was at one time even tiny and required care from human beings.

Truly, it is a breathtaking story: the story of God turning Godself over to human hands, placing Godself into human hands. And, don’t forget, this would be done later, not in a crib but on the cross. The humanity of Jesus would be handed over to us.

And one of our core beliefs is that the humanity of Jesus is God’s divinity with us. The mystery cannot be explained. By mystery I do not mean the vast oceans of knowledge in which we have not yet swum or not yet mapped. By mystery I mean the infinite depths of being that we can never plumb, never know, never exhaust, given the limits of our mortality, our finitude, our creatureliness.

One of the earliest theologians of the church read this introduction to Johns’ gospel. He was so struck by its power that, writing in France in the second century, he said, “The Word, who existed in the beginning with God, by whom all things were made, who was also always present with humankind, was in these last days....united to His own workmanship, in as much as He became a human being liable to suffering.”

On this Christmas Day, 2005, I only need to believe the following to have a merry, merry Christmas. First, God is with us in the pain and pleasure of bodily life, not disconnected from us, but intimately united with us. Second, the Light of this connection still shines in the darkness, and the darkness simply cannot extinguish it. There isn’t enough darkness in all the world to snuff out the light of one little candle.

This is the meaning of Christmas for me this day: through the baby Jew named Jesus, God has taken a human body and dignifies then the total experience of being human and reassures us that all the darkness in the world can’t overcome even the tiniest of light. It is this belief that haunts me in the most pleasant way, beckoning me and calling me every day to stay close to the Babe of Bethlehem, for it is in his humanity that I believe God holds us as he was once held—only God’s holding of us will end not in our death but in eternal life and great joy.