Have you ever noticed that when you get together with your family and start telling stories about when you were growing up, or what happened years ago, the same events sound very different as different people tell the story? Depending on who\u2019s describing it, the guy who used to live across the street was a scrooge or a saint; or moving from one town to another was either a disaster, a wonderful escape, or a thing indifferent, hardly noticed: same event, different points of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Try thinking about this very human business of memory and story telling in light of the wonderful poetry of the first 14 verses of John\u2019s Gospel we have just heard. This is the Christmas Story, the third time the Bible tells it. It is the same story we heard last night; the story of the manger and the Shepherds and the Angels \u2014 and the same story Matthew tells in his Gospel, with Joseph\u2019s dreams and the wise men; but the point of view is different, and John\u2019s Gospel sounds strange to ears more accustomed to descriptions of crowded inns and Angel Choirs. That\u2019s because different folks in the family are telling the same story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You see, Luke, who wrote the familiar story we heard last night, was a bit of an historian. He was very concerned with getting the dates and rulers right, and locating everything in time and space. He was also likely a gentile, and was very concerned about the role of people who, like him, were considered outsiders. So he is more concerned with shepherds \u2014 who were social outcasts \u2014 than about kings. And Luke tells the story from the perspective of Mary \u2014 a radical move in itself, since women were even lower on the social ladder than shepherds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew is more traditional. He was certainly a Jew and may have been a scribe. He was very concerned with making it clear that Jesus fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies as Messiah, King of Jews. So shepherds didn\u2019t interest him as much as royal wise men; and he cared much about the flight to Egypt and parallels of the Exodus in Jesus\u2019 return from Egypt to Israel. Also, the more conservative Matthew told the story of Jesus\u2019 birth from Joseph\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there was John. John knew, in one way or another, about the stories in Matthew and Luke, and he assumes that we know about them, too. But John is a theologian, and a mystic. So, since he (and we) already know the \u201chistorical\u201d details of Jesus\u2019 birth, John writes of its meaning, and he writes from his theology, and from the holy imagination of his prayers. But it is the same story \u2014 all three are talking about the same birth \u2014 all three are saying the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John does begin the story earlier \u2014 he reminds us that Christmas really begins just before where Genesis begins \u2014 before the beginning with God in creation. So, using language evocative of Genesis, John begins by talking about the Word of God \u2014 the Word of God here is God in action, God creating, revealing, and redeeming. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Then he tells the Christmas story \u2014 in nine words (in Greek and in English). \u201cAnd the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.\u201d He who was with God in creation, the one who is God at work in history and human life, this one became a person, became flesh \u2014 as completely human as you and I. Not God with a \u201cpeople-suit\u201d disguise on; not a really good person who God rewarded and made special, not a super angel God created early and saved up for Bethlehem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a person, who was the Word \u2014 who was God\u2019s own self. Soaring words for the most down-to-earth thing that ever happened. But still the Christmas story, still the story Luke tells, and Matthew tells: the story of the birth of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to telling the same story, Matthew, Luke, and John share one special way of telling it \u2014 there is one image, one symbol, and only one, that they all use to talk about Christmas. (Can you think of what it is?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They all talk about light \u2014 the light of the star, the light that shone around the shepherds, the true light that enlightens every human person. They all continue Isaiah\u2019s vision of light shining on those who live in darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where Christ is, people who understand talk about light. They have to \u2014 there is no better image of what is going on. The light shines in the darkness \u2014 John proclaims. And somehow we understand this and we understand that this truth cannot be fully expressed in any other words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In large part, we probably understand because we know about darkness-we know what it is like to live in and with darkness. Remember what it is like to try to walk through an unfamiliar room that is in total darkness \u2014 or wake up confused in the middle of the night \u2014 trying to get somewhere? We know what it\u2019s like when we don\u2019t know where things are, and when we don\u2019t know what we have just bumped into, or whether we\u2019re going where we want to go, or if the next step will be OK or if it will break something and make a mess. We know how easy it is to go in circles in the dark, and to get turned around, and to stub a toe and get angry and hit whatever is handy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we know what it is like to live like that in broad daylight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What John, and Luke and Matthew all say about Christmas is that a light begins to shine: suddenly, quietly, but absolutely certainly. And by that light we can begin to see. By that light we can begin to see who we are and who we are created to be. For it is in the person of Jesus that what it means to be a human being is finally made clear. In him we see that our lives are made whole as we surrender them in love and service; in him we see that really being alive means risking everything for-and because of \u2014 the love of God and the Kingdom of God. In him we see that hope needs never be abandoned \u2014 never \u2014 and that we contain possibilities beyond our imagining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, by that light that has come into the world we begin to see God really clearly for the first time. \u201cNo one has ever seen God,\u201d John reminds us. But God is made known to us in Jesus. So all that we thought about God, all we had figured out, all that we were sure we knew about God \u2014 all of that is put to the test in Jesus. Who God is, in relationship to us, is fully revealed in Jesus. Not in one saying or one parable, or one miracle \u2014 but in all of him \u2014 in his life, death and resurrection \u2014 we finally have the light to see God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The light of Christ, the word made flesh, comes among us at Christmas \u2014 and we celebrate its coming into the world. God had revealed God\u2019s love to us in Christ. That first Christmas, the stable stank, and the light shone \u2014 and it continues to shine \u2014 and continues to allow us to see, and to show a world living in darkness what we have seen. For by that light we have been given power to become children of God \u2014 and to take our places with the light. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by the Rev. James Liggett<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever noticed that when you get together with your family and start telling stories about when you were growing up, or what happened years ago, the same events sound very different as different people tell the story? Depending on who\u2019s describing it, the guy who used to live across the street was a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,43,52,1953],"tags":[190],"class_list":["post-511248","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-christmas-day-iii"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":16,"label":"Christmas"},{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":1953,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":190,"label":"Christmas Day III"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3477286,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511248\/revisions\/3477286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}