A Sermon for Christmas Eve 2005

Have you ever been asked to read a story to a child and found that the child opened the book to his or her favorite picture even though it meant skipping several pages at the beginning of the story? The child wanted to start in the middle – perhaps at his or her favorite picture – and not at the beginning of the story. Or have you ever entered a room and been welcomed into a conversation that had been going for some time and found it difficult to pick up all the threads of what had been said?

Christmas is like this because many people begin the story of Christmas not at the beginning but in the middle, and so much of the narrative, much of the rich picture, is lost. If we begin with Bethlehem we have begun too late. That is why I just read John’s gospel. That is why we have four gospels not just one, although we have one Gospel with a capital ‘G’ and one Jesus.

Where were the angels and the Shepherds in that reading from John’s gospel? Where was the stable, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus? We of course associate Christmas with these things, but John wants to tell us that the Christmas story began long before all that - ‘In the beginning…’ now we know we are at the start. ‘In the beginning….’

This is a beginning before all beginnings. It is a beginning before any human beginnings, before the world was made, before the hundred million galaxies, before anything, before time existed. ‘In the beginning was the Word’, God’s own speech, God’s active expression, personal and unique. And those of you who know the story… ‘In the beginning, God said, let there be light’. God spoke his Word, and that Word is and was Jesus, through whom everything came to be as we say in the Creed ‘through him all things were made’, or as the Psalmist writes, ‘by the word of the Lord the heavens were made’ (Ps. 33:6). He is the mediator of all of God’s activity, and there is no knowledge of God without him being present.

If the Christmas story were only about a baby and an inn with no room then it would be merely an important birth among many, another inspired messenger perhaps, another great teacher come among us to tell us much the same thing other great teachers had told us.

But the story begins in the beginning, before the world existed. Jesus, who created the world because he is God’s Word was eternally with the Father, and God created the world through his word, through Jesus, as a gift for him.

Suddenly Christmas is placed on a much larger canvas than the baby in the manger. The story is one in which the whole life of the world is judged. This is an utterly unique birth. The light has come - the meaning of every grain of matter, of every breath of life, of every age and time, is now born. The one who upholds the universe has now entered into that universe’s temporal existence. We can never say that God does not care, or that there is no understanding, or that God is distant.

Nevertheless the baby and his parents are crucial to the story, ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us…’ the story. Luke’s gospel emphasizes this. God does not deal in generalities, God acts in particular times and places with particular people and what this reveals then becomes normative for all time and all people. That the baby is the very Word of God, God’ own Son, yet at the same time also the son of his mother means that God does not communicate to us abstract eternal truths but his very life in a particular time and place. The deeds and words of Jesus are the very words and deeds of God his Father

Beginning in the beginning tells us:

Jesus, God’s own Word, is near us, has come among us and is seeking us. Long before the angel appeared to Mary, or the wise men set out on their journey, or the shepherds made their way to Bethlehem, the eternal journey of love between the Father and the Son existed and God created a world out of this love to share the love.

Long before we had ever thought of God, and certainly long before the world had rejected God, God had thought of us and sought us out. In my last parish I remember talking to a woman at coffee hour about this. She had recently started coming to church. She wasn’t quite sure why she was this was so, and I asked her if she was seeking Christ, and she said no. So I said that nevertheless Christ was looking for her.

A few months later she told me that what I had said had played on her mind and she had come to realize the truth of Christ - he is looking us even when we are not always seeking him. In the story of the creation the human beings reject God’s good creation and reject God and God comes looking for them and says, ‘where are you’? And at Christmas God’s word, Jesus Christ, comes into the world seeking the lost. Tonight each of us needs to know that this is the case for each of us.

Beginning in the beginning tells us:

That we cannot say the Christmas story is one among many other stories; that it is only to be told to Christians. This is God’s Word become flesh, the God of all creation seeking his creation. This message is for all people, and that is why we must tell the message. The only God has spoken to us by his only Word who is his only Son, and so we must use words and speak about Jesus and tell the good news. Jesus has told us, ‘if you are ashamed of me and my words, I will be ashamed of you.’ When have you told someone else of the good news of Christ? The Church lives by passing on the good news, to your children, to your neighbors to anyone who would listen. Because this word made flesh is the meaning of life, every life, for he is the life of life.

And by beginning at the beginning we recall that there is meaning and purpose for each and every life both yours and mine. This vast and great love of the Father for his Word and Son by the Holy Spirit is one that can be spoken into your life and my life. We can live in it and by it in loving obedience and trust. ‘To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.’ May each of us this Christmas return to the beginning and ponder and receive again this joyful and radiant light - the Word made flesh - our Savior Jesus Christ.

The Rev. Mark Ainsworth