Christmas Poetry

John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with God, & the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, & without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, & the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, & the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, & the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, & his own people did not accept him. But 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. And the Word became flesh & lived among us, & we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace & truth. (John testified to him & cried out, "This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace & truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

It seems to me that Christmas Eve is a time to wonder. Wonder at the love of God, who has come to save us. Wonder at the angles. Wonder at the shepherds. Wonder at the child.  It is not a time to speak of big concepts like the incarnation. 

Maybe this Sunday, though, we can plumb some of the depths of Christmas, and perhaps John chapter one gives us the chance to do this.

In a sermon a few years ago . . . I said this:

If you think about it, while we love the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke best. . . with Mary and; Joseph and; the babe in the manger, with the shepherds and; the angels, and; Mary pondering in her heart - what we imagine Mary pondering, is the first chapter of John. These words give us the framework we use to understand the birth of Jesus. 

I saw that the other day and thought, "that is SUCH a good line! Man, I'm good!"
Then I looked to see if I lifted that line from someone else.
Alas, I did.
As Al Rogness told me, “We all have to steal from somebody. You might as well steal from someone good.” 

I think that, at times, I have been tempted by the beauty of these words, to wax poetic about the Word. 

But the interesting thing is that these lofty words tell of the quite startingly down to earth, frightneningly humble, condescension of God.
PNT had a nice sermon last year, he began by talking about a kid who liked to take everything apart, to see how it worked. He suggested that John (now this is a very terse summation) is taking apart the incarnation here, and that the Logos is the building block of the universe. And that Jesus is the one through whom all is made. He makes all things tick. PNT then takes the hearers through the whole story - to the cross - (I like this line) "the embodied logos will also be the embattled logos. - and ends up suggesting that this one is the one who makes us all tick.
Nice.

Frederick Buechner, in his definition of incarnation in “Wishful Thinking” begins this way:

“The Word became flesh” wrote John, “and; dwelt among us, full of grace and; truth.” That is what incarnation means. It is untheological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified. But according to Christianity, it is the way things are.

 He concludes his short definition with this great line: 

. . One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.

That gets at the crux of the matter, doesn't it?

Sign Sign Everywhere a Sign

Luke 2

And this will be a sign for you; You shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 

Here’s the question that comes to mind for me: 

What kind of sign is this? 

This question might well give rise to some other questions.
Like: Do you expect us to understand this sign?
Were we to expect this sign?
Did we ask for a sign?
and there might be some other questions we might ask. . . 

Like: What does this sign say?

What does it say about God? 

What does it say about you? 

What does it say about me? 

What does this sign say about this whole story we gather to celebrate on Christmas eve?

So often - thinking a bit about the richness of Christmas - the place I go is Emmanuel. What a wonder that God has chosen to be with us in the person of Jesus Christ. . . 

This sign, I suspect, speaks of the sort of God who has sent those angels to sing to the shepherds. The sort of God who would find Godself in a manger, as an infant, amongst refugees.

I saw this last week (I think) and set it aside for this post. It is from an article about the book, “An Agnostic’s Quest” by Michael Krasny. The article suggested that the agnostic writer, might perhaps have “spiritual envy” of a believer. In the excerpt from the book he had quite a quote:

I was struck by a memorable line from the British writer Julian Barnes, who said, "I don't believe in God but I miss him." That statement resonated for me, not so much the part about not believing, but the part about missing. As a boy I was certain God was with me, watching over me, a friend and confidant I could rely on. Excerpted from Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic's Quest by Michael Krasny 

“I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”

I wonder if that doesn’t name the experience of countless people. People who don’t believe, and deeply miss God. Or their believing is a belief in such a God, that they don't really feel like THAT God could possibly have anything to do with them and with their lives.  And, so, they too, as believers, miss God, as much or more as anyone.
And I also wonder, if part of the missing of God, has to do with a looking for God in all the wrong places. 

God will not be found “somewhere over the rainbow.” (to sort of keep the odd, alluding to song lyrics theme going here.)

This will be a sign for you.

This is from the opening paragraph of Luther on the Magnificat

When the holy virgin experienced what great things God was working in her despite her insignificance, lowliness, poverty, and inferiority, the Holy Spirit taught her this deep insight and wisdom, that God is the kind of Lord who does nothing but exalt those of low degree and put down the mighty from their thrones, in short, break what is whole and make whole what is broken. LW 21 p. 299

Not only does God exalt those of low degree, and put down the mighty. God chooses to dwell with those of low degree. God chooses to be found among the refugees, with those who are broken, those who are lost and considered of no account. God chooses to come to us, not with power, not inspiring fear, but bearing burdens, bringing healing,proclaiming forgiveness, offering peace, entering death itself, so that you might have life.

This will be a sign for you.

I Dreamed a Dream

Matthew 1:18–25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, "God is with us." When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Not preaching this Sunday.

I wonder if I would even mention Joseph’s dreaming. . . 

Maybe I’d work with that - there might be some fun with that. You could have video of Susan Boyle singing “I Dreamed a Dream”

Or not.

There are a lot of things I like about this text. 

I consider Joseph the patron saint of adoptive fathers - heck adoptive parents. There is a certain strangeness to adoption - (and a certain dreaming as well. Dreams fulfilled in ways you wouldn’t suspect (or ways you wouldn’t dream, I guess).) And so, I like to think about Jesus as an adopted child, and this holy family coming together as gift of God. 

What I find most compelling with this text is that Joseph has - in his righteousness - decided to act totally contrary to God’s plan for the salvation of the world.

Daniel Patte, in his commentary “The Gospel According to Matthew A Structural Commentary on Matthew’s Faith” makes this insight quite well. 

He says that Joseph needed the angel to appear to him in order for him to have a correct understanding of who Jesus is. . . .

...he had an incorrect evaluatoin as long as he, the righteous Joseph, the husband of Mary, was on his own. ...Joseph’s righteousness was of no help to him to gain the proper perspective of the situation. In fact, the opposition makes it clare that it is as “righteous” that Joseph makes an incorrect evaluation of the situation, and this even though his righteousness is the better righteousness (5:20) of a person who has mercy and compassion (5:38-48; 7:12) for someone else. This is indicated by wanting to divorce Mary quietly so as not to expose her to shame. (1:19) Yet such a righteousness is not enough. Something is missing or incoreect in it. pg 26

People say, "If only we could keep the Christmas Spirit year round." I say we can't even maintain it for Christmas. Sounds kinda curmudgeonly, I guess. But sadly. Its true.  Our best isn't good enough.

We look ahead to a salvation that will save us from even our own righteousness. 

I Never Expected That

Matthew 11:2-11

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and; said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus answered them, "Go and; tell John what you hear and; see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and; the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and; more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,

`See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 

Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

Expect the unexpected. . . 

Google that and you’ll get over 700,000 hits.

hmmmm

Like this quote from Oscar Wilde: “To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” How marvelously modern of you Oscar. It also seems a tad - I don’t know - ironic? gnostic? arrogant?

Whatever. 

This story of John the Baptist and his question for Jesus - is perhaps most of all - sort of sad. At least, I gained that sense reading the reflections of Russell Rathbun on thehadestquestion.org. Of course, that might have been just me. . . 

The question of expectations comes to mind with John this week, and I wonder how to get at this.

I think of two illustrations:

First: Years ago, I read a wacky story in the Minneapolis paper. Apparently, somewhere in rural Minnesota, a guy was sitting in his living room, when a car crashed into his house and came to rest a few feet away. The brief story had a marvelous picture of the car sticking out of the house. What I remember is the quote from the man - where he said - essentially - “Its hard to believe this happened HERE. You expect something like this to happen in the Cities, but not here.”

That kind of made me nervous, sitting in my living room in the Cities. . . 

Expectations

Second: My mom would set her expectations for family Christmas gatherings so high - that she couldn’t help but be disappointed. I have been known to suggest that she did this on purpose. (I’m better now.) 

This is an intriguing reality, that, to one extent or another is repeated in many many households each year. Christmas expectations not being met. Disappointment where the greatest joy should be found. . .

Maybe John’s expectations of the Christ - and the sadness of his question - speak to a universal experience. Maybe this is a question each of us must ask at some point. “Are you the one, or are we to wait for another?” Notice, he doesn’t say “should we LOOK for another?” He knows there’s no other out there. He asks if we should WAIT for another. 
I think of a strangely marvelous quote from Walker Percy: 

Walker Percy, around 1991 or so: in an interview shortly before he died, mentioned that he was a Catholic who worshiped regularly, read the bible and studied theologians. 

The interviewer, surprised at this, asked "How is such belief possible in this day and age?"

"What else is there?" Percy responded. The interviewer responded by listing all sorts of alternatives, such as atheism, humanism, agnosticism, materialism, Marxism, astrology, theosophy, metaphysics and on and on. 

Percy simply replied, "That is what I mean. What else is there?"- in Martin Marty’s Context (and quoted in my unpublished tome “10 Seconds with God: A reader for folks with a short attention span (and some of their friends))

Jesus may not meet expectations, but we also know there’s nothing else out there.

That can be a sad commentary, I guess, if we must somehow “lower” our expectations. But perhaps Matthew tells us this story so that we might face our own unmet expectations, and find that Jesus invites us to look, not at what Jesus is not doing, but to look at what Jesus is doing.

I’m not sure what that means, but Pay No Toll said something like that in a sermon a few years ago and I liked it. . .

Well - I expect that the Good News lies in here somewhere, and that we are getting to the part of the December rush that folks are quite ready to hear it. Good News that must be spoken in the face of the sad news of our realities. 

In this Officially Merry Month of the Officially Optimistic Society - perhaps the Good News can best be heard when we admit to, and face our disappointment. 

Seeing that the disappointment Jesus causes leads to the cross. A fitting end for such a disappointing Messiah, we might well, also see that while the disappointment is quite shocking in its depth, it is not the end of the story.