Sermon from 12/26/21 at Grace and St Stephen's Episcopal Church

 

John 1:1-18

          Today’s Gospel reading is a creation story, one of divine origins and explanation. It is a birth narrative, but instead of a manger and donkeys and shepherd it is simply a light in the dark. It is a theological treatise telling us about God and how we are connected to God. It is a revelation, the beginning of a story about God incarnate through Jesus. It is a Christological statement about the power and position of Jesus Christ. It is a beautiful poem about humans and God.

          It is all of these things and yet, what strikes me most about it isn’t the bold proclamations, grandiose statements, eternal time frame or creation-sized wideness of it, but rather what strikes me most is the smallness of it. The closeness.  The distance between God and the Word is so small that it doesn’t actually exist.  What strikes me most is the intimacy. This is how we came to be, this is how the Word came into the world, this is how God chose to be in the world … through intimacy … closeness.

           As secular Christmas traditions come to a close, perhaps you like so many others are relieved to be done with it, relieved to set aside the consumerism and forced sentimentality. But for all of the negative associations and eye rolling that comes with some secular Christmas traditions, at their heart I do believe they are a kind of reaching out for intimacy. Twinkle lights strung along the frame of a home to say “we want to celebrate with our neighbors and even the strangers walking by, we want to add light and beauty to your darkness.” Gifts are exchanged in an effort to show appreciation, connection, thought and relationship. Pre made holiday cards with happy faces and corrected addresses to say “I still think of you.” Sugar and flour mixed together and baked into reindeer shapes to say “I want to be the source of something that brings you a little bit of happiness.” Old songs sung out of tune to connect us with our past traditions and unite our voices.  Maybe it all falls short, maybe it all just looks like consumerism, maybe it all becomes things that overwhelm us … but I would like to think that at the root of it all is an extended hand, reaching out for closeness … for intimacy.  The intimacy that brought us all into being. 

          “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.” Not one thing … this was how we came to be.  You can’t tell the Christmas story without intimacy. Whether it is a mother and her baby, the Word and God, or the Holy Spirit like a dove coming upon Jesus.

           Perhaps then this is what we look for at Christmas. When we are pushing our cart down aisles of scarves or earrings or coffee mugs, what we are searching for is that way to reach out to someone, to connect. When we remember with sometimes painful longing Christmases of our past, perhaps what we are craving is the closeness we felt in those moments with people we can no longer get close to.

          Many of you know that I ran for political office and it was a wild experience that stretched me and challenged me in ways I never expected.  I learned a lot in a relatively short period of time. But I can say that what I treasure the most about that experience is the intimacy I got to experience. Like from the woman who stood in her driveway in her bathrobe and told me all about the struggles of raising her two special needs children and the ups and downs of their journey. Or the man who let the tears fall as he told me about his struggles with depression and his son’s battle with addiction.  Maybe even the guy who made me so angry I was shaking because as we stood there talking, eye to eye with only the frame of his front door between us we were actually daring to come close enough to a world completely unlike our own that we could hear it … just a little.  I definitely experienced intimacy with the people who walked that journey with me, the ones who built me up when I deflated and laughed with me when the only other option was crying. I appreciate those experiences of closeness so much, perhaps even more than I would have in 2019 before we ever knew how isolated we could be.

           When I read about covid cases rising and vaccine effectiveness decreasing there is something in me that aches. It felt so good to make crafts together again at Advent Lessons and Carols, to see the kids dressed as shepherds and cows, to hug family, to meet up with friends, to sing together, to be in this space. To be physically present with each other, to be close … to be intimate. We know now that we can’t take it for granted.

          One of the reasons I enjoy working with teens so much is because they are good at connecting.  They haven’t yet learned to build up walls and take sides and put up defenses and pretend that they don’t need anyone.  So they are genuine, they ask questions, they laugh together, they share experiences, they cry without apologizing, they tell you when you say the wrong thing and they open up their heart. It is a reaching out for relationship that we learn to hide, to pretend isn’t there or to take for granted. It is that craving for connection that is part of who we are since creation.

          The Gospel tells us about that creation, that the world came into being through the Word.  The Word is the light that shines in the darkness, the light that the darkness cannot overcome. The light that enlightens everyone. This means that we have that light, that intimacy, that unextinguishable light, we have it within us. It is how the world came into being and it is a light that enlightens us all. It can’t be taken away. The intimacy that we crave is always with us, in us, shining on and through us. This is our creation story, our birth story, our history and future.

           In the beginning was the Word.  A Word means revelation, a word means something is said, something is communicated.  The purpose of a word is to say something.  And on this day after Christmas we have heard the Word.  It is Jesus.  It is light and love in our world.  It is a light that the darkness cannot overcome.  It is God drawing us into that relationship that has existed since the beginning and will exist long after our end.  It is an invitation into intimacy.

          We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We don’t know if we will find ourselves in quarantine or isolation either physically, mentally or spiritually. But we know that God has spoken.  The Word has come into being and brought us into being. It enlightens us, calls us and compels us to reach out to others. And no matter what happens, that light will never be overcome by darkness. So even as we take down the twinkle lights, put the presents on the shelf, recycle the cards and regret eating too many of the cookies- let us embrace the intimacy.  The connection we all have through the Light of the World. The light that we share, the light that is big enough to encompass creation and small enough to fit inside our hearts.