Knowing God

A Sermon preached on Christmas I, December 30, at St. Augustine’s Wiesbaden

Isaiah 62:10 – 62:3, Galatians 3:23-25, 4.4-7, John 1:1-18

In the Episcopal Lectionary, the Prologue from John’s Gospel is the set Gospel reading for Christmas I every year. It was also the reading we had at the late service on Christmas Eve, but I won’t simply recycle Douglas’ sermon. One reason why we have this reading now, on the Sunday either just before or just after New Year’s Day is because it is about new beginnings and is therefore a good reflection at the beginning of a new year.

In fact, unlike the other two nativity stories in Matthew and Luke (Mark doesn’t bother with a nativity story, his “beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” is Jesus’s Baptism), John’s beginning goes back before the beginning. Matthew’s Gospel starts with a “genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David” (Mt. 1:1) that goes back to Abraham, Israel’s first patriarch. Luke’s genealogy (Lk. 3:23-38) goes back further, all the way to Adam, the first human being created, and therefor called son of God. But John’s prologue goes back even further, to the beginning of time as it predates creation. John’s Gospel places Jesus in an eternal context: “He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him.” (Jn. 1:2-3)

One purpose of this passage is to make very clear, long before the Nicene Creed was written, that Jesus was much more than a descendant of Abraham or Adam, that he was “eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.” All those ideas come directly from the opening verses of John’s Gospel. The word with which God created in Genesis, “And God said, let there be light,” is not some abstract principle or a figure of speech, but a person, Jesus Christ. This Word (with a capital W) challenged and broke open the darkness at the beginning of creation and has come to do so again. This Word was the source of all life at the first creation and brings new life now. The climax of the first creation was when “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) The climax of the new creation that this prologue announces is the arrival in the world of a single human being, who is the creative Word made flesh.

The prologue also reminds us that God never gives up, God did not just set things in motion and then watch us struggle. We are not God’s entertainment, God’s Netflix. God made us to care for one another and to be cared for. While respecting the free will God created us with, which is the freedom to do right or wrong, to accept or reject, God has therefore intervened again and again: “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (Jn. 1:16) That repeated grace has included the “law …  given through Moses;” and many prophets and messengers, just as John is introduced as messenger sent to witness to the new light.

But fresh grace was needed, on top of the grace already given, and so the “Word became flesh and lived among us.” (1:14) That little phrase, lived among us, literally “set up his tent in our midst” harks back to God’s Old Covenant with Israel. Part of God’s promise was the presence of God’s glory, first in the Tabernacle, a special tent, and later in the Temple. These were visible signs of the Covenant, God’s intervention to liberate Israel from slavery so that they would in turn be a model people, a light or beacon showing the whole world the way to God and how to live.

Now, John tells us, all these signs are being repeated, but in a different, newer, more inclusive form. The New Covenant is no longer for or with a particular people, but made with “all who received him, who believed in his name.” (1:12) The divine dwelling is no longer a tent or temple, or a church for that matter, but a living human being. Rather than us having to go some special place or structure to find God, God’s Word comes to us, God is out among the people.

In Genesis, God says, let there be light. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says “I am the light of the world.” (8:12) The light that shines in and cuts through the darkness is a human being. Jesus is the place of connection between God and humanity and so in him, a human being, the glory of God became visible on earth, both when the Word became flesh and when the Word gave himself up for us. That is when Jesus says of himself: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” (13:31)

The basis of the New Covenant is not a law, it is grace and truth, and it comes through Jesus Christ. John’s Gospel is often divided into four sections: this prologue, the book of signs, the book of glory, and an epilogue with Jesus’ appearances after the resurrection. The signs of the book of that name are signs of grace and truth. People are fed, healed, and brought back to life as signs of grace or gift, and Jesus uses the signs to teach the truth of a God of love and relationship. When Jesus meets and accepts strangers like the Samaritan woman at the well, we see the heart of God lived out on earth. John’s Gospel is full of signs that point to Jesus being God among us. In his life, in his teaching, and in also his death and resurrection, the theme of the book of glory, Jesus reveals more about the truth of God than we could learn otherwise. As John writes, “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.” (1:18)

What do we do with this revelation, with this gift and this truth? That the light “was in the world, … yet the world did not know him” and that the word “came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” (1:10-11) is not just something that happened once long ago. It happens every day, not only when people do not accept Christ at all, but also when Christians who are supposed to have received him do not follow Christ’s example in their lives. For it is Christ’s human life, teaching, and sacrifice that make God known, according to John’s account of the new creation. And as we are made in God’s image according to the Genesis account of the first creation, it is God the only Son who makes us fully human. If we do not treat every human being as an image and revelation of God, then we have not really received the Word or truly believed in his name.

Thankfully it is never too late accept God’s grace and truth. As I said, John’s prologue tells us that God never gives up on us and is willing to begin again and again. And we can too, every new year and every new day, and every new hour, then the prayer of today’s Collect will be answered:

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  

Amen.