Sermon for Second Sunday of Christmas – John 1:1-18

Have you ever been afraid of the dark? When I was a kid, I was terrified of the dark. I grew up way out in the country, a few miles outside of a small town. There was little traffic on our road, and no street lights. The bedrooms were all down a long hallway, and when you’re a little kid, don’t all hallways feel like they go on for miles? And this was off another hallway to the kitchen and living room. So, even if all the lights were on in the living room, you couldn’t see it. This means that when my parents told me to go to bed, I had to make this horrible walk all the way to my room in the dark, past other dark bedrooms. It was terrifying to me, and it didn’t help that my parents weren’t very sympathetic. They were a pretty stoic couple. I used to make them so mad. They’d just say, “Knock it off! There’s nothing to be afraid of!” But it never convinced me. I couldn’t trust them, no matter what they said.

But here’s the funny thing. I was talking about this with my sister a few days ago, and she reminded me that we had a hallway light. I didn’t remember that at all. But it occurs to me that it wasn’t so much about the dark. What I was really afraid of, was being alone at the far end of the house by myself. Because who knows what could happen? Monsters. Bandits. My imagination ran wild. Folks can tell you there’s nothing to be afraid of. Maybe you can turn on a light. But sometimes these aren’t enough to make the fear go away. We still feel alone and vulnerable.

Our relationship with God can be a little bit like this. We’ve got a lot of monsters be afraid of. Military buildup on the border between Ukraine and Russia and threats if we intervene. Our cold war with China. Global warming and this bizarre weather we’ve got. New Covid variants on the way. Militias and white supremacists. It’s a long list. It makes us wonder where God’s at in all of this. Maybe we even feel a little bit abandoned by God sometimes.

Now, I know we’re still celebrating the season of Christmas and Jesus’ birth. All this doomsday talk is a great way to kill the mood. But it also sheds a little light on what’s so Christmas-y about our gospel reading for today. John’s gospel doesn’t start out with Mary or Joseph or the Magi or a dirty manger. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” What John’s doing is that he’s giving us a different look at Jesus’ birth. He figures we already know what happened at the manger. So he wants to talk about WHY it matters. What difference does the birth of a little baby actually MAKE in the world.

Because the early Christians felt afraid like us. Wars. Persecution by the Roman Empire. Life under military occupation. Horror stories about the anger of King Herod. When you’ve got big problems like these, a baby in a manger might feel a little too fluffy or sentimental. You want to know that God didn’t just fall asleep at the wheel. That God’s still in control. That this is still the same God who created heaven and earth and everything with a word. So that’s where John’s Christmas story starts. It starts back at the beginning of everything. Like he’s saying, “hey, remember God’s almighty word that created all things? Well, guess what! That same Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory.” For John, that’s what Christmas is all about. All the power of Creation in God’s almighty Word, unleashed and made incarnate in Jesus for us. So why should we be afraid of anything?

But John knows we still have fears. So he reminds us, “Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him.” Jesus wasn’t what folks wanted. They wanted someone to lead an insurrection. Someone to call down fire and brimstone to crush the mighty and powerful. Someone political. But Jesus didn’t do any of that. What Jesus did was way more offensive, because his word was the light of truth, enlightening everyone, and what it revealed were hardened hearts full of corruption. Folks with God’s praises on their lips but backs turned against their neighbors. Jesus called for repentance and they crucified him for it. Not just to shut him up, but also to send a message to all of Jesus’ followers and friends. “All who received him and believed in his name.” Like saying, “Don’t rock the boat if you know what’s good for you.” And Jesus’ disciples were sore afraid. Like there wasn’t already more than enough to be afraid of, and look at what they did to Jesus. Who could blame the disciples for hiding behind locked doors in fear, feeling abandoned and vulnerable.

So John wants us to know that our fear will never have the last word. Because Jesus’ Word is eternal and no one can ever silence that. “But to all who received him, 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.” Jesus is the living Word of God. Jesus speaks a Word because it gets in our ears and he knows we can’t unhear it. We can’t shake it, no matter how much we might resist. Then, his Word goes straight to our hearts and there it sets up shop. It makes its dwelling there. And it gets to work on us by creating something new. A new heart, born within each of us. A heart that trusts Jesus’s promise to always abide with us. That he’ll never leave us alone or abandon us. And he proves that he’s telling the truth, because he draws us together as his resurrected body in the world and it’s called the body of Christ. He shapes us into the body of Christ that the world can see and hear and touch. The body of Christ that loves the world, because it loves the neighbors it finds in the world.

And here’s the funny thing about the body of Christ. When we’re serving our neighbors, caring for them, sharing fellowship with them – I’ll be darned if that doesn’t just totally distract us from all that stuff that worries us. I mean, the problems are still there. Jesus consoles us, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” But for a moment, we get a taste of the peace that passes all understanding. Sometimes that’s all we really need more than anything. So maybe that’s what Christmas is really all about. A different kind of nativity story. The story of the body of Christ borne this day in you and me, borne for our neighbor’s sake, and for our own sake too.

Merry Christmas!