The Second Sunday of Christmas ----- 4 January 2015

John 1:(1-9), 10-18

[1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.] 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 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.

15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, "He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' ") 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

• The Gospel of John is quite different from the other three Gospels of the New Testament canon. John has a different point of view and a different reason for writing. He uses different words than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. His Jesus acts differently than the Jesus of the other evangelists. It's just all together different.
• Matthew and Luke tell two versions of Jesus' birth. John goes far beyond that, placing the Word of God, who is with God and is God, at the beginning of all things, and all things came to be through him.
• Each of the evangelists originally wrote for a specific audience. Matthew wrote to Jewish Christians and Luke wrote to Gentiles. Mark wrote to the early Christian communities with the intent to uphold the identity of Jesus as the Messiah rather than a Greek-style wonder worker. John is believed to have written to a very singular, unique, and yet troubled and divided community, pulled apart by an early controvery over the identity of Jesus and his relation to the Father. Some of the poetic phrases of John's prologue – the reading we read today – reflects this conflict and John's stand in it.
• Even with this in mind, each Gospel holds meaning for later generations of Christians, most of whom have no concept of what the controverises and concerns of the evangelists had been. Each Gospel speaks to us now, telling us of the Good News of Jesus Christ, a meaning far beyond the original intent. That is the power of the Word of God conveyed in the word of human writers.
• So these words come to us here today. Any time these words are read in private, the Word of God is heard. When these words are proclaimed in the assembly, as they are today, they are even more powerful, because they are the Word of God to the Church, to the assembly of Christians.
• To us, on this winter's day, God is telling us and reminding us that the Word of God has become flesh and has lived among us, that that Word has power beyond what we may ever understand, and that that Word came with a purpose.
• This is not something any of us are unaware of. In fact, we have many names for this purpose – salvation, eternal life, the Kingdom of God – all of which are quite true. John speaks of another name for that mission when he wrote But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God...
• This is a repeated theme for John. In his first letter, John writes See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. In the same letter, a verse later, he also says Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.
• We know that God remains hidden from our sight and that the ways of God remain mysterious to us in so many ways. Despite this, one of the purposes of the Word of God is to show God to God's creation. We only know of God what God has revealed to us and that revelation comes through God's Word... specifically through the “Word made flesh.”
• The purpose of the Word becoming flesh is to show the hidden God to the world and so to make an experience of God possible. Because the Word became flesh and lived among us, we human beings are able to experience God. If this were not possible, it would make no sense for the Word to become flesh and enter creation.
• So it is that we can have experience of God. We believe that we experience God in nature, in joyful emotion, and similar situations. This can be true and it can be misleading. Our faith tells us that God is surely experienced in the ways in which he has promised to be present for us. As has been said before, we experience God in the Word proclaimed, in the sacraments celebrated, and in the church assembled. Jesus Christ has promised to be present where “two or three are gathered in my name.”
• These are the graced areas of our lives where God has said the God may be experienced... because the Word became flesh. The way to experience the mystery of God is to follow the direction of the prologue of John's Gospel: No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
• To know Christ is to know God and we know Christ in the Word, in the Supper, and in the community. Other ways are possible, of course, but these ways are sure, tried, and true. And through them, in Christ, we become far more than we ever thought we'd be – children of God.