Christmas Day
Isaiah 52:7-10 • Psalm 98 • Hebrews 1:1-12 • John 1:1-14
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. 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, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and 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 and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
One of my favorite things to do growing up in Oak Park on Christmas Eve was to take a longer than usual car ride home late at night after going to church. By that time everyone who was going to put lights and decorations up on their homes had done so, and they were always so wonderful and beautiful to look at. We would usually take an extra ten or fifteen minutes and drive up and down some of the side streets, rather than taking the usual Oak Park Ave. or Harlem thoroughfares. As the years went by, the lights and decorations became more and more diverse. Some homes stuck with just simple white lights on the rim of their front porch. Some homes had towering trees in their front yard all done up with lights. And in terms of decorations, it always seemed like there was either one theme to the decorations, or another: One theme was all about Santa and his reindeer, the elves and the north pole. These homes had blow-up life-size Santas, illuminated from the inside; reindeer figures stapled to roofs—of course with Rudolph’s nose all lit up—and candy canes standing on lawns that were so big they almost functioned as streetlights. Then there was another group of homes that focused on various representations of Jesus’ nativity scene. Some just had Jesus, Mary and Joseph figures; some had the whole cast of characters including angels stapled to roof tops; some even had halogen lamps pouring lights down onto what was probably a very toasty warm baby Jesus as Christmas night grew later and later.
As I’ve seen these decorations go up these last several weeks and days in the neighborhood, I’ve noticed again this tendency towards either one theme or the other…and as I see these I ask myself: “Whose birthday is Christmas really celebrating?” It’s a question I also find many of us asking too, as we hear a “holiday classic” on the radio for the umpteenth time, as we drop dead from the stress of finding just the right gift at an affordable price, and as we look at the nighttime Chicago skyline lit up like a Christmas tree with abundant shades of green, red and white. “What is this season about, really?”
The answer of course that we were all taught when we were kids is that as much as we think Christmas is about Santa, the “reason for the season” is Jesus’ birthday—something I talked about with the kids at last night’s four o’clock service children’s sermon. And that is right, to a certain extent…we couldn’t have Christmas if it weren’t for Jesus. But when we look at the first chapter of John’s Gospel, the appointed text every year for Christmas Day, there is no mention of the kind of details about the manger scene that dots Oak Park lawns: no virgin Mary, no Joseph, no shepherds or angels or magi. There’s nothing in John’s first chapter that has inspired any kind of lawn decoration that I have ever seen on those late night drives! Those details and pictures of the story of Jesus’ birth come from the Gospel of Luke, which is always the lectionary text on Christmas Eve, and functions more as the descriptive narrative of Jesus’ arrival on Earth. But today, with John, if there’s no nativity, then, whose birthday is it? What does John have to say to us about Christmas?
John writes: “[Jesus] was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and 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 humanity, but of God.” (1:10-12) Did you catch that? Whose birthday is it? “To all who receive him, he gave power to become children of God.” It’s us! Christmas, it turns out, is our birthday. John’s hymn to the Word incarnate testifies that Jesus comes so we might be children of God…children of God that God gives birth to once again this Christmas Day. God incarnates Jesus, gives birth to him, and in so doing affirms and restores our place in creation—as ones who belong to no one else but the love of God for all the world.
But I can hear one of our very bright confirmation students asking me, “But Pastor Jon, how could we be born again? Aren’t we already born once? Aren’t we only children once? How could that be possible?” It’s a question many parents talk about with their small children who ask, “how can Jesus be born again this Christmas if he was already born last Christmas and the Christmas before that?” These questions about our being birthed again by Jesus echoes the questions of a man who appears a few chapters later in John’s Gospel: Nicodemus. Jesus tells him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” To which Nicodemus replies, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus replies, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” (3:2-6)
The truth is regardless of how young, or how old we are, no matter how good life is going for us this Christmas or how terrible, we all need to be reborn, and today God gives that birth to the world once again freely and lovingly. Jesus comes to give us the power to be God’s children so that we will not be defined or held captive completely to our past. Jesus comes to give us the power to be God’s children so that we will not remain confined to the pain of a mortal life that is altogether so fragile. Jesus comes to give us the power to be God’s children so that we can belong complete to God and not to others who dominate and control and manipulate us. As The Message Bible of translated by Eugene Peterson translates John 1:12 so well, Jesus comes so God can re-make us again to be our true selves, our child-of-God selves, begotten of God and not of blood, or flesh or domination, but of God’s desire to regard us as nothing but God’s beloved children.
In fact we have already rehearsed this day of rebirth at our baptism, the day we were granted that life which knows no ending; when we were promised God’s eternal commitment and we were created anew in the very likeness of God. As water washed and spirit born people of God, we have already experienced the “second birth” that the hymn “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” speaks about.
So as we go about our Christmas traditions today, as we look at lawn lights and decorations, as we sing carols and put on our favorite festive music, at the heart of all of it all stands this promise: that because Jesus comes to dwell among us, God is not a God of hate, or fear or animosity. God is a God of love, whose Son forever claims us as God’s own beloved children. As Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (3:17)
When we may say to one another today “Merry Christmas” or “Blessed Christmas”, we’ll perhaps be thinking of Bing Crosby, or Santa, or maybe if we’re really focused…the baby Jesus. But today we can also say to each other and to the world, “Happy birthday!” and remember that we have been re-birthed as a God’s children, children to whom Jesus comes to give life, and give it abundantly for the sake of the whole world. (John 10:10) “Happy birthday!” Amen.
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