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| The Light of the World (John 1:1-14) |
| Written by Pastor Fausel | |
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In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Grace, mercy and peace be to you … on this day of our Lord and Savior’s Birth. This is a day, probably like no other, that’s ordered by tradition. Like … first having your breakfast, and then going to church, then later, sitting down to an almost Thanksgiving Day dinner. And so, being here today is a pretty positive sign that attending a Christmas Day service is a tradition that you not only hold, but honor. It may not have always been that way in your house, especially when there were young children at home. The Christmas Eve services, at least in my remembrance, were the ones that most often contained the Christmas Pageant. But even so …a Christmas Day service may still have been part of your tradition even back then, as well. Christmas Day in the Lutheran tradition has always seemed to be a day for what’s been called a “High Church.” Formal liturgy …choral offerings … Holy Communion … things we are seeing today. However, our readings for this day move us from the familiar Christmas Gospel Account of Luke, Chapter 2, to something much different. Gone today are those familiar words which describe the events surrounding Jesus’ birth that we commonly associate with Christmas Pageants … … His birth, the angelic visitation, the announcement to the shepherds, the shepherds visiting Jesus’ birth place, and then, the shepherds telling all that they had seen and heard. Today, we have some different readings, some rather deep ones. An Epistle reading that comes from the Book of Hebrews, and our Gospel reading for today which comes from John’s first chapter. Both readings reflect on the fact of the Nativity … the reality of Jesus’ birth … rather than giving us a blow-by-blow account of how it all happened. Mining all the gold in the first 18 verses of John’s Gospel would keep us busy for many moons … so this morning we’re going to just concentrate our efforts on a single verse … Verse 9, where we read: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” Now, a week ago, we had all the children down here in front of the chancel for the Children’s message … and we talked about the idea that our Christmas lights, the lights we have on our trees and wreaths and maybe even outside our houses … all remind us of Jesus, who is the light of the world … that true light that John is talking about here. And that metaphor … of Christmas lights helping us keep our eyes on Jesus … may give us some pause today. It seems, these days, that the tradition of lighting things up in honor of Christmas has waned a bit since I was younger. In particular, as I walk the streets of this neighborhood, it seems that in some places there were more decorations out in honor of Halloween, than are now out in honor of Christmas. As many of you know, there’s a whole street, a couple of blocks, here in Louisville, that everyone goes to see at Halloween, including the TV News cameras. Every Halloween, each house on that street tries to outdo its neighbor with things like animated graveyards … to big screen projectors showing movie clips from “The Shining”. That’s Halloween. But when it comes to Christmas … that tradition of taking a ride in the car to see all the Christmas lights is one that seems to be on the decline. Why is that? Well, for one, Halloween is universal, everyone can identify with it … while Christmas is by definition … Christian. That likewise is a tradition we could argue is on the decline. Why again? Well, there are lots of reasons. But the issues that were of paramount importance to the early church fathers, the issues that were so important that they led to the reformation … issues like sin and how God deals with it … are not common topics of discussion today on television, in the magazines, or even in many “Christian” churches. Sin today is a subject no one wants to hear about. But why then did Jesus come? Why do we really celebrate Christmas? Do we have Jesus coming into the world, just to be abused by it? That’s not what we heard in our readings for this morning … we were assured that the True Light, that light which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. Jesus was coming into the world. Yes, but not to teach us about world peace, or social action … He was coming to enlighten people about God and His love … and in that love, He was coming to be God’s once-and-for-all sacrifice and atonement for mankind’s … sin. We talked about Halloween being universal … Well, there is nothing more universal than God’s grace. That’s what Jesus being the light that enlightens everyone means. God’s saving activity is not restricted to any one people, or people group … “Go and baptize all Nations” … Jesus said. “Let my light come into every heart.” No exclusions. There are no predestinations to damnation … there are no sinners too far beyond redemption. Grace is just like light. Light shines on everyone and everything … But to understand mankind’s need for grace … to understand my own need for grace … you have to understand why Jesus was coming into the world. He came because of our sin … our sinful and broken human nature …the reason why there is pain and suffering and death in this world. Jesus came to conquer sin and death for all people. The Cross and the Empty tomb are not things we should relegate to the warmer days of spring … while keeping our attention only on the manger during these short days of winter. No, the manger has no meaning apart from the Cross. And the Light which enlightens everyone has no power, were it not for the empty tomb. The virgin birth, the manger, were necessary means to an end … not ends in and of them selves. Is it any wonder then, that two of the Gospels God has given us don’t even describe the Christmas event … Or might it be a surprise to learn that the celebration of Christmas in the church was not kept like Easter, from the beginning. In fact Epiphany was observed long before there was any observation of Christmas. Yes, it’s appropriate to give honor to God for what He did on Christmas … It is a demonstration of His faithfulness, His keeping of His promises … and His Love for us demonstrated in the incarnation … of God Himself taking on Human flesh. However, all of that was for a purpose. And that purpose is something often lost in celebration of this feast today. Let’s go back to that, why we are celebrating Christmas. John tells us that Jesus is the true light. What does that mean? Think about it … we often think of the sun when we think of light. In fact, the in Book of Genesis, the words Sun and Moon are not used when they are called into being … the Sun and the Moon are referred to as the greater light and the lesser light. The truth is, the moon makes no light of its own, and the light we do see from the moon is only reflected light from the Sun. But even the Sun, as important as it is to us on earth …is not a true light, in the sense that John is using this word. “True” means of God, in essence: therefore eternal, everlasting, not made. The Sun is a creation …and as such, it is temporal. God existed long before the Sun was formed … and the rather exciting truth is … that you and I will be around long after the sun has expired. And that’s true for any other source of created light we might have. The true light was coming into the world. Why? Because the true light had come to overcome the darkness that our race has been plunged into ever since sin came into the world. You know that darkness … that place the sinful side of us seeks out when we secretly decide to rebel against God. Which we do … sinners that we are. But our works, as dark as they may be at times, don’t put out the Light. The True light still shines. That true light is still ours … in spite of our failures to always live in it. In fact … the true light that has conquered the darkness, now, by God’s Spirit, shines in us. And THAT is something that we can cheer about at Christmas. The True Light, that enlightens everyone … was coming into the world. The truth is … before Christmas that True Light was not a part of this world. God had promised its coming, but there in the manger … it finally came. And it’s been here ever since. The truth is: It is in each of us this morning. And as we said before … it will be in each of us long after the Sun no longer shines. The True light, the eternal light, has come to live in our hearts. So, there may not be as many electric lights outside, at least in my neighborhood this Christmas … but as God is at work and inviting us to join Him in building up His Kingdom … there are and there will be more enlightened hearts … Hearts glowing with the true light. Light no darkness can ever overcome. We give Him our praise this day, as He invites us to His altar … to have that True light enter in. In Him. Amen. |