I dI did not notice much mention of it this year.  I know here in our church house we were focused on Thanksgiving, and our fine chancel choir presentation of Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise." But that was the date, Nov. 22, 46 years ago, that President Kennedy was assassinated. 

 

I  tI think maybe we don't want to bring much attention to it at this time with our current administration.  Still, it doesn't fade away, including the questions? What really happened? Who did it?  How? And, what does it mean, both historically speaking, and for us today?

 

Besides, there are two generations of people born since 1963, who did not experience this national tragedy, so we older folk, the boomers, feel it is our patriotic duty to inform the younger ones, the busters and beyond, about Kennedy, as well as Elvis, the Beatles and the other defining people of our generation.

 

After all, they were not alive and have no idea the impact the assassination had on us, but we all remember where we were and what we were doing that day in 1963, don't we?  Just as now we remember where we were the morning on of 9/11.  It ended one day in Dallas, and forty plus years later we still reflect and tell the story, and try to figure out how it happened, why, and what it means.

 

It  It occurs to me the first books written about Jesus were written forty plus years after his death.  First came Mark, about year 70, then the other gospels, addressing similar questions, who did it?  How did it happen?  And, more importantly, who was this man and what does he mean for us?

 

The gospels were an attempt to explain to a whole new generation who Jesus was.  They were written for those not present for the life and Resurrection of Christ, who understandably had their questions and doubts. The gospels were written to tell the story of Jesus as the Christ and with it to tell what the story means for us.

 

If Mark is the first of the gospels written, scholarship dates John as the last of the gospels, written circa 90 A.D., or some 60 years after the crucifixion of Christ.  John is the most developed of the gospels, Christologically speaking, presenting Jesus in a variety of metaphors, "Bread of  Life," Living Water," "Light of the World," "the gate," "the vine," "the Good Shepherd."  All for the purpose of explaining to us who Jesus is and what it means for our lives.

 

It is John's story of Christmas I would like us to turn to on this 2^nd Sunday of Advent.  And in so doing, right away, we can tell John's story is different from the other gospels.

 

The setting for Christmas in John, as you just heard read in the opening 18 verses of the book, is not the little town of Bethlehem.  Matthew and Luke cover this.  Not John.

 

For John, the backdrop of Christmas is the whole universe.  For John, Christmas is not an isolated event in a remote village in a backwater country.  For John, Christmas is cosmic, beginning with creation.

 

Jesus may have been a vulnerable baby lying in a manger, his life threatened by the insecurity of a tyrannical king.  But this is not the focus for John.  John's focus is the theology behind the story.  And the theology is, God determined to redeem God's world.  So God "upped and did it."

Once God decided now was the time, nothing could stop God.  Not Herod the Great nor Pontius Pilate, not Caesar Augustus nor Caesar Tiberius, nor anyone else.  No one or no thing could stop God the Creator from redeeming God's creation.  God is victorious over the forces of darkness which rule and ruin the world.  This is Christmas according to John.

 

ThThe wonderful irony of Christmas is that God is not victorious through power and might.  God is victorious through a baby and light.  Which is to say, God redeems the world through love, not force.  The same way God creates the world.   God enters the world as a baby because we enter the world as babies, and God is going to join us.  God is showing God's love by becoming one of us.  The way John tells this is God sends "His only begotten Son," (3:16) called Emmanuel, which means, "God with us."

 

This is the story John tells us in the opening verses of his gospel.  He tells it in a uniquely beautiful way.  In fact, in Greek, the language in which John writes, the story is more poetry than prose.

 

Furthermore, John picks out images of the Greek culture and ingeniously weaves them into his Hebrew story.  John is obviously telling the Christmas story to a Greek as well Jewish audience.  So if we are to understand John's message, we have to listen with one Greek ear and one Jewish ear.  Which might be a bit mind boggling, but hey, we're all in this together, so let's boggle.

 

John says if you think Christmas began at Bethlehem, you're wrong.  Christmas began with Creation.  The first words of John's Gospel are the same as the first words of the Bible, "In the beginning..." "In the beginning was the Word..." and already we have to tune in our Greek ear, for this is pretty heavy Greek thought.

Think of the Word as a person, that's what the Greeks did.  The Word was like God's general contractor in building this incredible cosmos. 

 

In John's words, "all things came into being through the Word, and without the Word not one thing came into being." Well, if you can successfully morph into a Greek for a minute, this is an amazing affirmation.

 

 

All things made through the Word.  You, made through the Word.  Your neighbor, made through the Word.  Your neighbor's barking dog, made through the Word.

 

And remember, "The Word was with God, and the Word was God."  So, ouch, this gets mind expanding, according to John's Christmas understanding, God can be seen everywhere in God's creation.  "Not one thing came into being without the Word."

 

That means God can be seen in you, in me, in every living being, including a baby - we can see the miracle, majesty and mightiness of God who creates us - the image of God is there.

 

Which reminds me of the old missionary story out of Africa.  Missionaries brought the Word of God to a tribe that had never heard God's name before.  They told the natives the stories of God, about creation and Christ and God's love in the world.  You know missionaries, they preached until the veins bulged in their necks.  Finally they collapsed from their Christian witness.

 

And the natives responded, "We have known your God all along.  We see him here in the jungle all around us.  We find him there in the high mountain.  We hear him in the flowing rivers.  We have known your God all along.  We just call him by another name."

 

All things made through God.  Meaning, creation must be good.  And then this powerful affirmation in John's birth story, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

 

Meaning, it is not all good.  There is evil.  We know this.  In the Gospel of John good is symbolized by light, evil by dark.  A very Greek concept.  John says good wins.  A very Hebrew conclusion!

 

Good wins because goodness is built into creation.  It is part of the essence of creation, God's imprint upon us. Evil tries to wipe it out, but "this little light of mine, God's gonna let it shine." Evil cannot destroy good.

 

We often lament, why is there so much evil in this world?  There is never a shortage of examples, Kennedy, 9/11, and now Fort Hood.  But we might just as well wonder, "Why is there so much good in the world?'  God knows.  And you should, too "...the darkness has not overcome it."

 

Then down to what might be called John's nativity scene, his Hebrew story in Greek,  summarized in one verse, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...full of grace and truth." (1:14).  I tell you, there is no more beautiful text in the Bible than this.  "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...full of grace and truth."  This is how we conclude our traditional Christmas Eve service.  With this text.

 

The Hebrew people had the Word.  They had it for centuries, in their Torah.  Now, with Christmas, the Word is revealed anew, in a new medium, a new way, a new beginning.  Revealed not in a book, but in a baby.

So if you want to know God, look at Jesus. Because in Jesus, God "became flesh and dwelt among us," Emmanuel.  Then John sums up his Christmas story in his final verse, "No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is in the heart of the Father, who has made God known."

 

This is John's Christmas account, which is really a telling of the theology behind the story.  You see, in John we have no angels, shepherds or magi.  Not even Joseph, Mary or a manger.  What we have is the meaning of Christmas, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...full of grace and truth."

 

A fellow named John Garvey captures what I think is the point of Christmas as presented in John's Gospel.  Garvey found it in a family he knew.  The parents had suffered a tragedy.   Their only son had a seizure and suffered severe brain damage, radically altering their lives as they spent it committed to the care of their son.  Rather than loud laments, they responded with quiet courage and love beyond their strength.

 

He writes of his observation, "I felt looking at him and at them, that there are depths here which are holy, and a mystery of love which cannot be spoken about very well.  A mystery of love and divine will lies in the fact this boy is.  It is the mystery which leads us to baptize infants, which tells us God's relationship with this person is not as limited as our own.  The moment this realization begins to be marginal among Christians, we will have begun to betray an essential part of what it is that we have been given as a vocation, the work of saying and living as if it were so, that Creation is holy, that what is good, even when it is terribly wounded, is holy, and maybe especially then."