St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City
December 25, 2016
Christmas Day
Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98
Hebrews 1:1-12
John 1:1-14
No Finish Line for the Light of Christ
Merry
Christmas!
We
made it!
Merry
Christmas!
I
say we made it because this morning usually feels to me like we’ve reached the
finish line after running a marathon – and it definitely feels like that to me
this year - and I bet a lot of you feel the same way.
A
lot of hard work went into preparing for our beautiful services last night.
Gail
spent many hours rehearsing with the choirs and everybody in our Christmas
pageant.
Susan
had many more bulletins to prepare and Vanessa went into overdrive to make sure
that this place looked its best.
The
altar guild has had to work overtime polishing and refilling and ironing and
all the rest that goes into making our worship beautiful.
Last
Sunday a bunch of parishioners spent a couple of hours greening the church,
making this space even more attractive than usual.
It’s
a lot of work.
And,
so many people have spent so much time shopping and wrapping and cooking and
all the other stuff that goes into making a nice holiday for family and
friends.
In
fact, I’ve learned to not schedule special programs and events during Advent
because lots of people are pretty much overwhelmed, overwhelmed with holiday
preparations on top of all of our other everyday responsibilities and worries
and sorrows.
On
top of that, for some of us this is a particularly hard time, a time when we’re
aware of who and what we’ve lost: loved ones who have died, broken
relationships, our health, our employment and financial security, our sense of
meaning and purpose.
And,
as we’ve been preparing for Christmas, the world has also been reflecting on
the year that is almost finished, a year that many will be happy to see go, a
year when we learned just how bitterly divided we are, when we heard and saw
things in our national life that most of us never could have predicted or even
imagined, when we discovered that we don’t understand each other, don’t know
each other, don’t like each other and definitely don’t love each other.
So,
this morning it definitely feels to me at least like we’ve reached the finish
line.
We
made it!
Merry
Christmas!
As
we do every Christmas morning, this morning we heard the Christmas story
according to the Gospel of John.
John
doesn’t tell us anything about no room at the inn or angels appearing to
shepherds or about the newborn baby placed in a manger.
No,
John takes us back to…
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. 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. The light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Just
like the story of Mary and Joseph and shepherds and sheep and “wise ones” that
we saw retold in the pageant last night, John’s cosmic Christmas story never
loses its power and beauty, no matter how many times we hear it.
But,
this year in particular what I’ve been thinking about is how Mary and Joseph
and Jesus and the shepherds all of the other New Testament people lived during
a terrible, terrible time – lived in a blood-soaked land ruled by a brutal
empire.
I’ve
been thinking about how all four of the gospels were written during terrible
times, when the Jewish people were under attack and seemed to lose just about
everything, including the Temple itself, the center of their universe.
And,
you know, the opening of John’s Gospel that we heard this morning, what’s
called the Prologue, was probably one of the last parts of the gospel to be
written, most likely in the early Second Century.
By
that time, the Jewish people and the earliest Christians had endured so much
suffering, so much loss, so much bitter division, and so much fear, and yet
after all of that, the Evangelist can write the good news, the best news of all,
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
The
light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not – cannot -overcome it.
There
is no finish line for the Light of Christ.
The
world did its worst to Jesus, but on the first Easter God raised him from the
dead.
The
world did its worst to the people of Israel and to the early Christians and yet
they remembered and retold and passed on their stories, trusting in God and
being the light in a very dark world.
The
light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not – cannot -overcome it.
So,
after everything we’ve been through it may feel like we’re at the end of a
marathon, out of steam, barely crawling to the finish line.
It
may feel that way, but, of course, it’s not the finish line.
There
is a new year ahead, which, no doubt, will be filled with challenges and
opportunities, losses and blessings, sorrows and joys.
Our
marathon, our journey together, continues.
So,
it’s very good news that there’s no finish line for the Light of Christ.
There’s
no finish line for God’s love.
So,
my prayer is that, first, we’ll all get some rest, but then as we begin the
Twelve Days of Christmas, we will open our hearts even wider to God’s love.
My
prayer is that as we begin a new year, we will allow the Light of Christ to
shine in and through us, allow the Light to shine in and through us as we
welcome absolutely everybody, as we feed the hungry, as we stand up for those
who are being picked on, as we refuse to hate, as we give away more of
ourselves in loving service to those in need.
It’s
Christmas.
We
made it!
God
is with us.
The
light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not – cannot -overcome it.
There’s
no finish line for the Light of Christ.
There’s
no finish line for God’s love.
And,
that is something to celebrate.
Merry
Christmas to you all!
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