John 1.1-14 — Andy James

a sermon on Luke 2:1-20, Isaiah 9:2-7, and John 1:1-14
preached on December 24, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Sometimes it is hard to see the light. Even on these shortest days of the year, we are surrounded with more lights than we can every imagine. The bright lights of our city shine even more brightly surrounded by the festive bulbs of this season which seem to get brighter with each passing year. It turns out that our nation uses more electricity on Christmas lights than El Salvador, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nepal, or Cambodia use in an entire year! Yet even with all these lights around us, the darkness of our world seems to prevail so easily.

As I look back over this year, I have seen so much of this pervasive darkness around us. In this darkness, we have been able to see refugees turned away in fear after putting their lives at risk to seek safety. In this darkness, we have been able to see war and strife escalate around the world as prayers and actions for peace seem to go unheard. In this darkness, we have been able to see people treated unfairly because of the color of their skin or the faith they choose to practice. In this darkness, we have been able to see countless people harmed by acts of terror, in startling acts of violence driven by perverted interpretations of faith, in the senseless and preventable tragedies of mass shootings, and in the deep hurt of violence perpetrated in the unseen recesses of homes far and near. And in this darkness, we have been able to see the politics of fear and hatred rise up with a new vengeance.

The darkness of our world is all too familiar, but there is plenty of darkness in our lives closer to home, too—maybe in the pain and hurt of divided families, perhaps in the midst of friendships challenged by change, maybe in distance of time or space that drives us apart from those we love, in illness and loneliness, in the search for meaningful work, in so many things that we can easily name, and in so many things that cannot so easily be named. Sometimes, oftentimes, it is hard to see the light.

When we look back to that first Christmas, it is easy to imagine that they had an easier time of seeing the light, but I think that the first Christmas had plenty of darkness, too. After all, the whole story began with an unexpected and unplanned child, conceived before the socially acceptable time. There was a special government edict that required a pregnant mother to put her health and life at risk to travel so close to her baby’s due date. There was a shortage of rooms in the inn that left this family with no place to stay other than in the manger out back. And a fear of the angel of the Lord left a bunch of shepherds cowering in the field.

Yet the events we celebrate tonight assure us that darkness is not the last word and that God is with us in all the darkness around us. “The glory of the Lord shone around them” when the shepherds were afraid, and they saw that there was light in their darkness. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined,” and they saw that there was light in their darkness. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”—and so we too can see that there is light in our darkness.

Even so, this good news of the birth of Jesus that we celebrate tonight does not mean that all the darkness of our world is suddenly flooded with light. Rather, the birth of Jesus at Christmas assures us that this light shines in the darkness, that there will be enough light from the glory of God in our midst to show us the way through to the new day that Christ will bring into being. I think author and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor puts it well:

Even when light fades and darkness falls—as it does every single day, in every single life—God does not turn the world over to some other deity. Even when you cannot see where you are going and no one answers when you call, this is not sufficient proof that you are alone. There is a divine presence that transcends all your ideas about it, along with all your language for calling it to your aid… But whether you decide to trust the witness of those who have gone before you, or you decide to do whatever it takes to become a witness yourself, here is the witness of faith: darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day. (Learning to Walk in the Dark, p. 15-16)

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” So in this world where it is so often hard to see the light, may we be people of the light—people working to shine God’s light into our weary world, people seeking to be a light shining in the darkness, people watching and waiting and working for a new and greater light to come into our world—so that we might see the glory of God in Jesus Christ this Christmas and every day until he comes in even greater glory to make all things new. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

a sermon on Luke 2:1-20 and John 1:1-14
preached on December 24, 2012, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

One of my most memorable Christmas gifts growing up was the wonderful series of Where’s Waldo? books. They featured a tall, lanky, strange, bespectacled man named Waldo who popped up in a variety of very interesting scenes. The goal of the books was to find him amidst these very busy scenes. He was best distinguished by his bright red striped shirt, but sometimes when he hid behind a tree or something he was a little more difficult to spot. For several years, each Christmas brought a new book in the series, and I remember spending many hours looking carefully for Waldo and the many other things hidden in these scenes. It was a fun game and a great way to spend those lazy Christmas days with family and friends—and even a welcome break from all the toys that seemed to get a lot of attention too!

Sometimes, I feel like we are playing a bit of a game of “Where’s Jesus?” in our world at Christmas nowadays. Signs of the holidays are everywhere, but Jesus is a bit more hidden. Our streets and homes are decorated with trees, garland, Santas, and even nativity scenes, but too often for me at least it just feels obligatory and not all that real and meaningful. Religious celebrations that talk about Jesus take a back seat to family gatherings that focus on gift-giving and eating. Many people are now even saying “Merry Christmas,” but do they even know what that means? Even one of our own parents in the church told me the other day that her child had never made the connection between Jesus and Christmas—to this youngster, Christmas was all about Santa Claus and giving and receiving presents, and, based on our celebrations, I for one am not really all that surprised. Some in the church go on and on about the “War on Christmas”—all the supposed places in our civic culture where the seemingly more generic “holidays” have replaced a proper celebration of Christmas—but I think we have to answer for our own actions and reclaim Christmas for ourselves before we can point to anyone or anything else.

You see, regardless of how we might act or behave in the church or elsewhere, Christmas is not about Santa Claus, giving or receiving gifts, or even the glorious music that shapes these days. When we focus on these things, the world can so easily close in around us. The very shallow joy of this view of Christmas becomes insincere when things get hard or tragedy strikes as it has so often in recent months and years. Between the destruction of Superstorm Sandy and the highly-visible gun violence around us that culminated in Newtown and continued even earlier today, we need something more than the traditional holidays has to offer, a deeper, more real, more transformative joy that brings us new life.

At its core, Christmas should be exactly that. This is the day when we celebrate God’s presence in our world, Immanuel, God-with-us, God’s coming to us in human form, in the birth of Jesus. This is the day when we remember that God doesn’t ever give up on us but shows the greatest possible love for us: love in a simple babe in a manger, love in a wise and challenging teacher, love in a miraculous and astounding healer, love in a life-giving death, love in an astounding resurrection. This is the day when we see that God can’t be pinned only to the powerful, only to the religious, only to Christians, only to the church, for on this day we celebrate how God in Christ was born to Mary, a poor, unmarried girl, in a dark, dank, messy manger, with only strange shepherds to greet him.

So when we look around in these days and wonder, “Where’s Jesus?” the answer may surprise us. We might like to try to get Jesus more fully into our holiday celebrations. We might want to confine the religious element of this season to life in the church or to something that we can do when there is time. And we might even recognize that Jesus is the reason for the season. But when we ask “Where’s Jesus?” the answer may be more like those Waldo books than we could ever imagine, for he is dwelling in our world, not so much hiding as hanging out. He is very much present with us, even when we don’t know it, even when we least expect it. He is ready for us to watch and look and search for him, waiting for us to discover him when and where we least expect it. Our reading tonight from John puts it beautifully:

The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.

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.

And so our call this Christmas and every day is simple. Live like this all this has actually happened. Act like Christmas is not about giving gifts or gathering with family and friends but about celebrating God’s life in our midst in Christ. Make Christ’s presence real in our world. And keep asking “Where’s Jesus?” as we look for him to be at work in the expected and unexpected places in our world, for we will certainly encounter this baby boy, this radical teacher and preacher, this astonishing healer, this self-giving servant, this resurrected Christ, in our world.

Sometimes it will be easy, with joyful music and easy signs to point the way. And sometimes it will be hard, when we are lonely, when the walls seem to be closing in around us, when violence and war seem to have the last word. Yet in joy and in sorrow, when we ask “Where’s Jesus?” we know that he is among us. In our songs, in our words, in our celebrations, in our sacrament, we trust that Jesus is among us. In our sorrow, in our sighing, in our living, in our dying, Christ walks with us all the way to show us God’s love each and every day.

So may we seek Jesus and find him this Christmas and throughout the year to come so that our joy might be complete, our hope restored, and our world renewed for these days and always.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all, this night, this Christmas, and always. Amen.