The
Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews
31
December 207
St.
Joseph-St. John, Lakewood
Christmas
1, B
John
1.1-18
“Wrap
our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Perfect
Son of God.”[1]
Amen.
This
passage from John’s Gospel
is always here.
It’s
always the text
for the first Sunday after
Christmas.
It’s
beautiful.
John
establishes that Jesus the Christ
existed before creation,
and yet as we say in the creed,
through
him all things were made.
“All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into
being.
What
has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.”
“He
was in the world,
and the world came into being through him.”
John
sets up his themes of light and dark,
light that darkness can’t defeat.
“[John
the Baptizer] came as a witness
to testify to the light…
The true light,
which enlightens everyone,
was coming into the world.”
I
love this passage,
but I’ve heard so many bad sermons
on it.
I’ve
heard so many bad sermons
because John is so philosophical.
John’s
prologue deals with
the Greek concept of λόγος
translated
as Word.
It’s
an important concept,
but it’s so easy
to get lost in the weeds
discussing
it in a sermon.
John’s
prologue is beautiful,
and it’s philosophical,
and it can be so
abstract!
This
week in Vancouver
Brandon and I went to an exhibit
called
“Emptiness”
at
the Vancouver Art Gallery.
It
followed two artists —
one Canadian, one Chinese —
as they moved
from traditional painting styles
to contemporary styles
in their own countries.
For
the Canadian artist,
Emily Carr
this was a move from
romanticism and realism
to more
abstract, more spiritual —
more conceptual.
After
being exposed to abstractionism
and the direction visual art in
Canada was going,
Carr said, “I was not
ready for abstraction
I clung to
earth and her dear shapes,
her
density, her herbage, her juice.
I wanted her volume,
and I wanted to hear her throb.”
On
the first Sunday after Christmas
when John says,
“In the beginning was
the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God,”
I don’t want abstraction.
I
want to cling to the earth and her dear shapes,
her density, her herbage, her juice.
I
want to cling to Jesus
taking our injured flesh on himself,
breathing our air,
walking our sod —
robbing our
sins and making us holy.
I
want the God born as an infant
to reflexively wrap his tiny, human,
Godly hand
around my pinky
John
gives me what I want
when he says about Jesus,
“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.”
The
Word became flesh
and lived among us.
Y’all.
I’m
going to say that again.
Again.
The
Word became flesh
and lived among us.
We
don’t have to dive into the abstractions,
into John’s philosophy
about the Word, the λόγος,
to
understand God becoming human
and living
with, like, and as one of us.
Christmas
is wonderful,
but we are tempted
to make it more sweet
than revolutionary.
Some
of our carols don’t help.
In
the busy-ness of the season
time spent with family, closing the
year,
scrambling for bills, three services in two days
we
aren’t conditioned to think about
Jesus
the Word becoming flesh
and
living among us.
The
Church celebrates this joyous event
for twelve days.
As
Chrysostom says,
“For it was to Him no lowering
to put on what He Himself had made.
Let that handiwork be forever glorified,
which became the cloak of its own Creator.
For as in the first creation of flesh,
man could not be made
before the clay had come into His hand,
so neither could this corruptible body be
glorified,
until it had first become the garment of its
Maker.”
In
the Word becoming flesh and living among us,
the flesh we have has bene elevated
to be like God.
All
of creation has been redeemed.
I
opened with lyrics
from the modern Christmas hymn
“Welcome
to Our World”:
Wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God.
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God.
Another
verse references
a tiny heart whose blood will save us,
which
I think belies the plea to
“Rob
our sins and make us holy.”
It
skips the birth,
the taking on flesh and living — living — among us
to Jesus’ death saving
us.
It
misses celebrating the Incarnation,
for which I render that lyrics
tiny heart whose beating
saves us.
To miss
the celebration of the Incarnation —
from busy-ness, or philosophy, or
rushing to the crucifixion
misses the tangible,
messy, fleshy reality
of Jesus the Word
becoming flesh
and living
among us.
In
Christmastide I am not ready for abstraction.
I cling to earth and her dear
shapes,
her density, her
herbage, her juice.
I want
her volume,
and I want to hear her throb.
I want
to hear, to feel, the throb
of the tiny heart whose beating
saves us.
