{"id":668215,"date":"2024-12-03T17:10:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T22:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.episcopalchurch.org\/?post_type=sermon&#038;p=318215"},"modified":"2026-06-24T09:12:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T13:12:32","slug":"in-the-beginning-1-christmas-december-29-2024","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/sermons\/in-the-beginning-1-christmas-december-29-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Beginning&#8230;, Christmas 1 \u2013 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-yellow-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-yellow-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=DFMS4913911105&#038;light=true\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-yellow-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-yellow-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/lectionary\/christmas-1\/\">[RCL] Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/1C-2024-Cover-FB-1024x536.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-318219\" style=\"width:512px\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John are certainly well-known\u2014\u201cIn the beginning was the Word.\u201d But this passage can seem too floaty, too esoteric, too obscure, abstract, and idealized. It\u2019s poetry, yes, but it\u2019s not particularly helpful poetry, and when we read the Bible, most of us like to gather some sort of concrete idea of what to do in our lives on an everyday basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But if John thought poetry was the best way to introduce Jesus and encourage us to encounter Jesus, why was that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This text reveals that we need to think differently about who we are. It\u2019s very easy as we go about our daily lives making our daily mistakes to get very down on ourselves, to believe we are constantly disappointing God and everyone else. And while it\u2019s important to never lose sight of our feet of clay, the fact is that God created us but a little lower than the angels, and sometimes we need to rise into the stratosphere with John and live into that a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means being changed. We are born blessed by God, created in the image of God, but salvation makes us a new creation in Christ. Listen to how Isaiah talks about how God has changed him in our lesson today: \u201cI will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels\u2026You shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our trust and faith in God that we struggle so doggedly to maintain and renew makes us, who are already cherished by God, into souls who shine with new potential and the beauty of life immersed in God.&nbsp;<em>This is true even when we are sinning<\/em>&nbsp;because the underlying reality of our desire and hunger for God will always drive us to stand up again when we\u2019ve fallen, to reach out again when we\u2019ve lost contact with God, to open up again when we\u2019ve hardened our hearts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What can we learn about what&nbsp;<em>Jesus wants us to be<\/em>&nbsp;from what we learn about&nbsp;<em>who Jesus is<\/em>&nbsp;in John\u2019s prologue? John says, \u201cAll things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.\u201d You were part of a process much greater than your parents creating a biological exchange. Jesus Christ himself, the great and eternal Word, was the vehicle of your creation, was the medium and the messenger that spoke a unique word into the universe that never was before and never will be again. That\u2019s you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You might not believe little old you could be that special or important. But John says it himself: \u201cBut 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.\u201d You are a child of God born of the will of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, we were so important to God that Jesus chose to leave all his heavenly glory, emptying himself and taking on the form of a slave, as Philippians says. \u201cAnd the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory,\u201d John goes on. That\u2019s what we\u2019re celebrating today, on this first Sunday of Christmas. God chose to humble Godself to the level of a poor, limited, human creature. And more than that\u2014notice that John adds, \u201cAnd we have seen his glory.\u201d Jesus didn\u2019t just become human for a minute or an hour or a day and then go right back to heaven. He lived among us for thirty-three years, enduring the messiness, the heartbreak, the inconvenience, the joy, and the pain of human life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And he never walked out on that pain. He could have used his power at so many moments to ease his way. It would never have affected his healing or his teaching. There was no reason for him to suffer the pain he went through, from getting sick to getting in arguments to having clueless disciples, to having friends die, all the way up to the excruciating suffering he experienced on the cross. But he did it because he loves us, and he would never abandon us to suffer alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He entered the pain willingly because he wanted to go to the darkest depths of human suffering, because that is where all of us end up at some point in our lives, some of us more than once. That is what John means when he says \u201cand we have seen his glory.\u201d Not his glory in the sense of being powerful or mighty or wearing a robe that shines like the sun and ascending to heaven on a cloud. We have seen his glory as he dwelt among us because there never has been and there never will be any place of pain, lostness, suffering, or addiction that we can go and not find him there with us, bearing it with us and for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNo one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father\u2019s heart, who has made him known,\u201d John says. This can help us see the Incarnation and the Christmas season in a whole different way. If Jesus had not been born, that first sentence, \u201cNo one has ever seen God,\u201d would still be true. Mary and Joseph and Peter and John would not have seen God, and we would not have seen God. But because God made the choice to share Godself with us in human form, we have seen God in Jesus Christ, and it is amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that second sentence, \u201cIt is God the only Son, who is close to the Father\u2019s heart, who has made him known.\u201d This shows us once again what Jesus gave up and sacrificed to come to us, a completely different sacrifice from the giving of his life on the cross. He was close to the Father\u2019s heart. That was where he lived, in the perfect Trinity of love. And he left that peaceful, radiant and loving place, the place close to the Father\u2019s heart, for us. And why? To stay with us forever? Yes, but more than that. To bring us&nbsp;<em>to<\/em>&nbsp;that place. To bring&nbsp;<em>us<\/em>&nbsp;close to the Father\u2019s heart. He told us so himself: \u201cI go to prepare a place for you.\u201d He doesn\u2019t even take his special place back for himself. He gives it up for us. And this is the fundamental reordering of the universe that happened on Christmas that we celebrate today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s worth living in the poetry sometimes. We can get frustrated when we don\u2019t get concrete direction from a Bible passage. But the poetry is what explains the&nbsp;<em>why<\/em>&nbsp;of all the literal actions of discipleship we\u2019re trying to do. What takes tithing and studying and praying and worshipping and serving from being rote, mechanical duties to being our offering of our very selves to the living God, is the cosmic story of God and humanity of which John sings. The beauty of the words, and underneath that, the beauty of the truth that, \u201cIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God\u201d\u2014that poetry is what makes our souls catch fire for God and all God asks of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is why scripture matters so much. Because when real life comes crashing in, when the divorce papers are served, when the job loss happens, when the cancer or Alzheimer\u2019s diagnosis comes through, we have to have somewhere to anchor our souls. And we do, in a few simple words a man named John wrote a very long time ago. \u201cThe light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.\u201d The hard knocks of life plus the poetry of scripture give us the chance to build our lives so that we become a word of poetry ourselves, one little phrase expressed by the great Word that is God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-f3c958cf-c2ff-42d9-b296-b48698b80f1c\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Sermon-Christmas-1-English.docx\">Word \u2013 1 Christmas Sermon<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Sermon-Christmas-1-English.docx\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-f3c958cf-c2ff-42d9-b296-b48698b80f1c\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-36c47fab-d8a4-4f7d-a1e2-222b15005d46\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Sermon-Christmas-1-English.pdf\">PDF \u2013 1 Christmas Sermon<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Sermon-Christmas-1-English.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-36c47fab-d8a4-4f7d-a1e2-222b15005d46\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[RCL] Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7; John 1:1-18 The first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John are certainly well-known\u2014\u201cIn the beginning was the Word.\u201d But this passage can seem too floaty, too esoteric, too obscure, abstract, and idealized. It\u2019s poetry, yes, but it\u2019s not particularly helpful poetry, and when we&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"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":[16,43,52,3],"tags":[158],"class_list":["post-668215","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","category-christmas","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-christmas-1"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":16,"label":"Christmas"},{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":158,"label":"Christmas 1"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/668215","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\/668215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":953250,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/668215\/revisions\/953250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}