Christmas, John 1.1-14

One of the most common symbols associated with Christmas is chronologically, liturgically, and Scripturally out of order.

You will find this symbol on Christmas cards, in the majority of nativity scenes in homes and front yards, and in church pageants. And if you can find a copy of the Christmas issue of Life magazine, December 1955, you can see the advertisement for Hilton Hotels, with this symbol prominently displayed: Three men, mounted on camels, hurry westward across the desert. Above them, an enormous star not only dominates the desert night sky, but is the center and focus of the picture. The poetic caption calls out to us all: “Wise men still seek him.”

Biblical and liturgical purists protest, their fingers in the cultural dyke, that the Magi and the Christ Star appear not at the Nativity, but later. The Gospel of Matthew places their arrival after the Nativity. And, after carefully interviewing the Magi, King Herod knows that their arrival in Bethlehem may be as much as two years after the Nativity. And liturgically, we celebrate their arrival only after the Twelve Days of Christmas, on Epiphany.

Of course, sci-fi fans all know something that Biblical and liturgical purists will never learn: that resistance is futile. In the end, most likely, even the Magi will be assimilated.

But perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing to bring the Magi and the Christ Star into our Christmas celebration. For if you think about it, in one way, the Magi and their Star have as much to do with the meaning of Christmas as does the Nativity. In fact, one might make the case that the Magi and their Star have more to do with the meaning of Christmas than do other common symbols of the Nativity scene.

[Pick up the donkey from the crèche] How many of you have one of these in your Nativity scene at home? You won’t find this in Luke!

To be sure, no where in the Bible are the Magi and their Star associated with the Nativity scene. But that’s not saying much, as the Nativity scene appears only in the Gospel of Luke.

In Matthew, there is no description of the birth. No Nativity scene, no shepherds, no Angels singing “Glory to God in the Highest,” no angelic conversations with Mary. There is only the angelic message to Joseph to accept the pregnant Mary as his wife, to understand that the child to be born is conceived of the Holy Spirit, to think of the child as Emmanuel (God with us), and to name the child Jesus (savior). Later, after the child is born, the Magi appear.

In the Gospel of Mark, there is no mention of the birth of Jesus at all, and no Nativity scene.

Only in Luke is there a description of the Nativity scene. The child is laid in a manger, the shepherds show up, and so does an angelic choir. But there is no mention of donkeys, sheep, oxen, or the supposedly lowing cattle who somehow, miraculously, according to the nursery song, fail to wake the babe.

In the Gospel of John, there is no Nativity scene – but there is this brilliant theological reflection on the incarnation of God in Jesus, that we just heard read to us.

Nor is there any mention of the Nativity scene anywhere else in the Scriptures. For it is not so much the circumstances of the birth of Jesus that are to capture our minds, hearts and imaginations nearly so much as the meaning and purpose of his birth.

His birth is not primarily about a manger, a feeding trough, and certainly not about donkeys, sheep, oxen, or lowing cattle. Rather, his birth is primarily about light -- shining in darkness. The relentless, brightly-shining, darkness-illuminating, world-transforming light that comes into the darkness.

John writes:
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.

The Christ Star -- alerting the Magi to the birth of the Great King, leading them a great distance to find him in Bethlehem -- the Christ Star reminds us of what the birth of Jesus is primarily and essentially all about: The light, the true light, coming into the world, to shine into the darkness, the darkness of the world, the darkness in our own hearts.

There is no question about the darkness that covers our world, nor of our hunger for that light. The only question is whether we will turn to the light, whether we will follow the light, whether we enter fully into the light, whether we actually believe in the light. There is no question whether Wise men still seek him; the only real question is whether we ourselves will be found among the Wise.

John raises that very real question for us: He writes:
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 did not accept him.

We do not belong to ourselves, but to him who made us. We are not our own, but his own. Yet John warns of the sad, tragic, and pointless possibility that his own may not know him, even though we are lost in the darkness, hungering for the light. We may not accept him, even though he has come to us. How horribly sad and tragic to miss what God has so graciously and powerfully offered to us.

Even many Christians don’t quite get what God has offered to us in the birth of Jesus Christ.

Many Christians have the false impression that Jesus was not like the rest of us. That, conceived of the Holy Spirit, he wasn’t really a human being in the same sense that the rest of us are. Many Christians think the reason why Jesus lived the magnificent life he lived was because he had special abilities, divine powers, supernatural advantages that the rest of us can never have. They think of Jesus as some kind of Clark Kent -- pretending to be a human being, but not born of this earth. Pretending to be a human being, but not a real human being. Really, deep down, it turns out that Clark Kent is not one of us, he is Superman, disguised as a mild-mannered reporter working for the Daily Planet, but hiding his true identity -- and utterly different from the rest of us.

But that’s not Jesus. The Scriptures tell us that in Jesus, God emptied himself to become one of us. Born of the flesh. A real man. One of us.

Further, Scripture tells us that all our hopes reside in this reality, this man-ness, this fleshiness, this humanness of Jesus: Eg., “For since by a man came death, by a man came also the resurrection of the dead.”

Scripture insists that Jesus had no special abilities, no divine powers, no advantages beyond what any human being has to live a perfect life. Rather, the uniqueness of his life, what he did and how he lived, came from his faith and obedience in God our Father; He was empowered not by his secret origin, but by his dependence on the Holy Spirit.

He was God incarnate, yes, he was born of the virgin Mary, yes, he was the Son of God, yes. Nonetheless, Jesus was a faithful, but real human being. He wasn’t Clark Kent, pretending to be a human being, but the son of Mary – a real human being. And in this reality is our greatest hope.

John goes on to say:
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.
John boldly claims that God offers to human beings, people like us, the same light and life of Jesus. To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.

Jesus, the Son of God, never intended, and never was intended, to alone. The same Holy Spirit that was the source of life for Jesus can be the source of life for us. Jesus pointed to God his father, and boldly claims that we can point to God as our father too. Jesus lived by faith, and we too can live by faith. Jesus was the Son of God, and we too can become Sons and Daughters of God, born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

None of this is new to us: Anglican priest, Charles Wesley, wrote these familiar words, which we will sing every Christmas, and that we sing tonight as our closing hymn:

Christ by highest heav'n adored / Christ the everlasting Lord!Late in time behold Him come / Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see / Hail the incarnate DeityPleased as man with man to dwell / Jesus, our EmmanuelHail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace! /
Hail the Son of Righteousness!Light and life to all He brings / Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by / Born that man no more may dieBorn to raise the sons of earth / Born to give them second birth

“Light and life too all, He brings.” That is the meaning of Christmas. It’s not really about a baby born in a manger, no crib for a bed. It’s certainly not about the lowing cattle as witnesses, nor the ox and lamb keeping time, (pa-rum pum pum pum). The meaning of Christmas is about light coming into the darkness, our darkness. It’s about breaking down all barriers between the life of God and the life of human beings. It’s about the Creator becoming part of the Creation. It’s about God coming into the world to become one of us. It’s about a man who lived an entirely faithful life, one with our Father – and offering exactly that same kind of life to each and every one of us. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

What greater gift could God possibly give humanity than the gift of his own life and light, coming into the world, and available to every one of us?

If Christmas is about the true light -- which enlightens everyone --coming into the world, then what better symbol for Christmas than an enormous star, shining in and utterly dominating the desert night sky?

Biblical and liturgical purists may protest, but resistance is futile. Resistance is futile. For as Jesus said himself:
I am the light of the world. The one who follows me shall not walk in darkness… but shall have the light of life.