Year A, Christmas Eve 2010

Year A, Christmas Eve 2010

John 1:1-14  (Click on the scripture to read it)

Neighborhood Christmas Theology

As Episcopalians we try really hard to pray what we believe and believe what we pray.  There is integrity to be found when the words we use to talk about God, or talk to God, match our actions.  For example, sometimes I hear people pray, Dear God, please be with Susan while she is going through this time of darkness in her life.  What the prayer has just said about God is that God was not already with Susan, and we needed to point her struggles out to God, so God would be with her.  Our actual belief is that God is with us all the time…, so for a prayer to be true to our belief system we should not ask God to be with someone, but rather we should ask God to help us and those in need to experience God’s presence in order to gain strength and hope from the reassurance of Emmanuel; the reassurance that God is with us.

As I’ve been driving around this holiday season I’ve been thinking a lot about Neighborhood Christmas Theology and wondering if what we use to display Christmas in our yards, and in our windows is what we actually believe Christmas to be.  Sometimes what I see makes me laugh and at other times I feel like pulling over and asking folks what their understanding and meaning is from the standpoint of their yard displays.

If you pay attention to the Neighborhood theology of Christmas you will find an interesting mix of what Christmas means to others.  I know that Christians attach special meanings to a lot of different things, so I’m not placing judgment on any of the yard displays, or at least that is not my intent. Within neighborhood theology I have seen Santa riding a Harley over the top of a fallen frosty the snowman.  I have seen Christmas depicted with an abundant spread of candy canes that would make any southern flamingo yard display feel inferior.  I have seen dueling neighbors, as if they were the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s.  Backed up against one side of their shared fence was a beautiful and simplistic nativity scene; a scene of the holy family adoring the new born baby Jesus. Pressed up against the other side of that same fence was a giant Grinch in a Santa suit towering up from behind the stable. To some, Christmas is like Clark Griswold’s house in the movie Christmas vacation, but for others there is the emptiness of nothing being displayed at all.

In the opening verses of John’s Gospel it says, “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….  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.”

What do John’s words say about his neighborhood theology of Christmas?  There is no mention of a virgin birth, no shepherds in the fields, no choir of Angels, no Wisemen bearing gifts, no star, no manger, and no baby Jesus.  What was John thinking… and why is the first Chapter of his Gospel a choice to be read on Christmas?  If it was a real choice, wouldn’t we hear Christmas carols on the radio being sung about how the Word became flesh?.., and wouldn’t his poetic words be used in the neighborhood contests for the best Christmas display?

Though I love the imagery and the story surrounding the birth of Christ as written in Luke’s Gospel, I think it paints such a vivid picture that we can’t get past the wonderment of a new born baby.  There is nothing more magnetic than a new born.  I think society’s theology of Christmas is stuck, staring at the gift of the Christ child, unable to look within and beyond this perfect baby, unable to fully embrace our theology that God became flesh and lived among us.

If John’s community is praying what they believe and if they fully believe what they are praying, then I think John’s theology of Christmas can’t be contained within the neighborhood.  I’ll even go a step farther and say that John’s understanding of Christmas can not be contained within a day or season in which we celebrate one child’s birthday.  I think John has it right.  He has written about the incarnation in such a way that forces us to look beyond one event and celebrate the gift of Christmas all year long.

The opening verses in the Gospel of John succinctly and eloquently tell us the Christian story. 

John may not include any details of the birth story, but he does know and share with us the heart and soul of the Incarnation:.. that because of  the embodiment of God's grace in the human Jesus, we are granted the chance to know the unknowable God and recognize ourselves as God’s children.  This is the gift of Christmas, a new identity, a new opportunity, a new humanity, all revealed from God through Christ. This is the gift of Christmas, and it deserves our full attention on this day and every other day throughout the year.

You are the Light of Christ…

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Shine brightly.  Amen.