The Word is very Near You

1 Christmas C

26 Dec 2021

If a preacher is looking for a challenge, look no farther than the first words of the Gospel of John. How should we respond to the idea that the Word was made flesh? How does one try to explain the inexplainable?

We can only envision something through the lens of our own experience; none of us, myself included, are scholars in Biblical Greek or Neo-Platonism. Nor, in the end, do the big words and the Greek philosophy matter in the least.

What we are hearing is a birth narrative. I have heard it said by more than one person we all come from somewhere and it does not matter. But it does!! If Jesus were no more than a very enlightened and exemplary human, we would not be sitting in these pews; we would not confess that Jesus is God.

Have you ever had someone move into your neighborhood who impressed you with his or her abilities? Maybe you have had a neighbor who always watched out for your child; who would ask how you were doing, would perhaps bring you cookies or BBQ on occasion. Have you lived, or do you live, in a neighborhood where you actually talk to those near you and can count on them and they on you?

What if God moved into the neighborhood? That is exactly what John says. Well more like God pitched his tent next to yours, but if you were nomads it amounts to the same thing.

God came and dwelt among us as a singular human being, Jesus. God entered both time and space in a way that frankly blows me out of the water. It would be much easier, I think, to subscribe to a religion that reduces practice to a few simple rules. Do this, not that. Believe this, not that. John does not do that; John tells us that the Word, a manifestation of Godself, existed in all time and all space and then did the impossible.

There is no birth story, no shepherds; no wise men (or women). There is instead an ethereal poem, a hymn, telling of the glory of God.

The incredible claim of John is that the Word is Jesus and Jesus is the Word. You may look at me and say, “Well of course”. But what does that really mean? It is scandalous and, in some ways, seemingly impossible to accept. When we recite the Nicene Creed, we accept it, but do we really internalize it in our hearts and in our lives? God does not want us to accept things halfway or blindly or in ignorance. We can only see God in a way that fits with who we are. Yet with Jesus, we can see and hear and experience God in a way that was never possible before. God has pitched a tent with us, moved into the neighborhood. You have been given access to God in a way never seen before or since. God became human so that humans might become divine. This is the uniqueness of Christianity; not a moral code or a statement of belief, but rather the ability to experience the divine as one of us.

And what will, what does, it means that we can experience the Holy One as the Human One? Jesus taught us how to live with one another; he gave us a blueprint, if you will, for living in right relationship to other humans and to all of creation. But he also taught us how to live in right relationship to God.

Maybe this is a good time to dwell on how your life has changed when you heard the Word and let it dwell inside of you. I don’t mean just growing up within a household that practiced Christianity. I mean when it really hit home for you, personally. For some it was a gradual process; for others it was a alter call, for some it has never really hit them that Jesus is calling them!!

I would say that my acceptance of the Gospel has been a gradual one and that I feel most of the time I am still on the edges. Understanding the social Gospel, which is best explored in Luke, is easy, but the deeper personal call has come slowly for me.

I invite you to look around the neighborhood and see if you can figure out just where God has pitched his tent!! Maybe it your next door neighbor or somewhere across town. You find God when you serve others; but you also find God as you look for the universal Christ, the one that St. Francis saw dwelling everywhere and with every creature.

God says humanity matters and so Jesus became incarnate to show just how much it does matter!! Our own journey, then, is to see that we matter, that our lives matter, and that we are meant to be one with the Holy One. The more we set up barriers, the more we divide into us and them, the more creeds we devise, the farther we are from the Word.

It is not that hard; just start on the journey and follow the star. And the irony is that if you look closely, you are already there. The Word is very near you!! You will find the Word made flesh and then your very being will rest in the eternal.