The Second Sunday of Christmas ---- 5 January 2020

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.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us

·        When I lived in a monastery years ago, we prayed before we ate dinner. That’s not unusual I know. What we all prayed together wasn’t unusual for a monastic community. It was called the “Angelus” because it began with “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary…” It was a responsive prayer the honored the incarnation of Christ. When we came to the third response, “And the Word became flesh/and dwelt among us”, all the friars would bow during those words in whatever way was best considering their age and health. In that way, we worshiped at the dinner table and gave thanks for Jesus’ incarnation, that is, his taking on our humanity.

·        John’s Gospel starts with some incredibly poetic phrasing: In the beginning was the Word, showing the reader first the tremendous stature of Jesus as the Word of God and then, eventually, the humility of the Word in taking on flesh, not as a disguise or a costume, but as a way of being, with all that being human, being “flesh” means. One of the Communion prayers in our worship says Jesus took on “our nature and our lot” which can mean hunger, thirst, pain, loneliness, laughter, sadness, joy – all of it.

·        Sometimes when we think of Jesus as Messiah and our savior, we might forget or overlook his humanity. The 4^th Century theologian, Gregory of Nazianzus spoke of Jesus as fully human as well as divine savior by saying “What has not been assumed has not been healed.” Since Jesus “became flesh” with all that can mean, all that is “flesh” has been redeemed and is being healed, sometimes slowly from our point of view. This also includes all those things that make us weak or what we consider weak.

·        In the flesh, he gave us salvation, not of our “souls” but of the entire person, body, soul, and spirit. This is the Good News today. When the Word became flesh, all that was, is, and will be created is redeemed and blessed. Sins will be forgiven and the separation of God and creation, of the Kingdom of God and the world is healed and reconnected.

·        We can come to realize that Jesus does not save souls, but people. We can hear the Good News that grace saves us as we are, or as the old hymn puts it: Just as I am, without one plea
    But that Thy blood was shed for me
    And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee
    O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

·        This undeserved grace shows us what God originally intended for us and for all of creation. It permits us to be what we are supposed to be. It lets us hear what the Creator said of all creation in the book of Genesis: God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. (Gen. 1:31)

·        What God has declared ‘good’, we might not quickly condemn as evil. What Jesus has redeemed at the price of his own blood, we might not dismiss as worthless, whether that is a person or our own selves including our own physical bodies. After all we have been redeemed as a whole person. As has been said, Jesus doesn’t save souls, but people!

·        There are lots of things that grow out of this view of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus, and his role as savior and I don’t think we have the time to look into them all.  The one I’d like to say a few words about is our reverence for our bodies and reverence with our bodies.

·        No matter what we look like, no matter how we feel about ourselves, or even how we feel, God loves us and is no less our creator and Jesus no less our saviour. And this is not a grudging creator or saviour. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. We also hear the word at Communion – “The body and blood of Christ, given and shed for you.” Not someday soon, not when we get our act together, but right now, as we are. Are you amazed? I am!

·        When we pray, we may use words for our minds, and spirits have been redeemed. So have our bodies, so we CAN (although we don’t have to) fold our hands or kneel or stand or raise our hands or bow or make the sign of the cross as part of our prayer. We can pray in how we stand or move or even make motions. Of course, as good Lutherans, we can even smile as loud as we possibly can.

·        What we celebrate today is nothing less than the humanity of Jesus joined to the Divinity of Christ as John the Evangelist tells us. We celebrate that we are joined to Jesus by our common humanity AND by his saving grace. All of that is Good News.

·        I’d like to end by using the prayer that ends the Angelus, a prayer that celebrates the Incarnation and the presence of Christ among us:

Pour forth, we beseech You, O LORD, Your grace into our hearts; that, we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Your Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us